Fox News
- Tucker Carlson said the Capitol riot “barely rates as a footnote” on his show Thursday.
- It was a stark contrast to the solemn commemorations taking place in DC that day.
- Carlson himself made a three-part documentary on the riot, suggesting he grants it some meaning.
On the anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, Fox News host Tucker Carlson downplayed the event, which he said “barely rates as a footnote.”
Speaking on his primetime show, he said that he was wearing his “official, network-approved ‘solemn anchor outfit'” for the show. “Message: reverence,” he added.
“But actually if you take three steps back as historical events go, if we are being honest now, January 6 barely rates as a footnote.”
“Really not a lot happened that day if you think about it.”
Carlson went on to describe the actions of the accused rioters in muted terms to ask why, a year on from the events, they are still in the news.
The Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona tweeted a partial clip of the segment:
—Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 7, 2022
Much remains unknown about the origins of the attack. A congressional investigation is still under way — including into some GOP lawmakers — about the circumstances that led hundreds of people to attempt to stop by force the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Hundreds of people accused of rioting that day are making their way through the justice system, with some given long prison sentences and many hundreds still awaiting trial.
On Thursday’s show, Carlson suggested that the attempt to overturn the election was no longer newsworthy because “the presidential election was not overturned.”
“The Capitol was not destroyed, the government was not toppled, no matter what you may have heard, not a single elected official was injured, thank god,” he continued.
He also played down the violence. “Police got shoved, unfortunately, punches were thrown,” he said, noting that the “only” person who died from violence was the protester Ashli Babbitt.
Other counts have put the death toll from the riot as high as seven. And, according to The New York Times, around 140 police officers were injured in the events.
Carlson also said: “None of the so-called insurrectionists had guns,” omitting to mention that at least 80 people charged in the events are accused of being armed. According to Politifact, at least two of them had guns.
Despite this, Carlson said it was “maybe just barely” a riot, and if so “an embarrassingly tepid effort.”
Carlson has repeatedly criticized the January 6 riot, saying in December he “hated” what happened that day. But he has devoted considerable airtime to minimizing or re-casting the events.
On Wednesday, he scolded Sen. Ted Cruz on his show for calling the riot “a violent terrorist attack,” an exchange that prompted the senator to walk that characterization back in a Twitter thread:
—Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 7, 2022
In November, Carlson himself also covered the fallout of January 6 a three-part docuseries titled “Patriot Purge,” which advanced the theory that the events were being used to deprive conservative Americans of their rights.
Insider’s Jake Lahut described the series as laden with inaccuracies and innuendo rather than based in fact.
Fox News did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
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