“‘I don’t think I have ever seen a prime-time cable news anchor manipulate his viewers the way Mr. Carlson did last night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anchor treat the American people, and American democracy, with such disdain.’”
That was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling out Fox News host Tucker Carlson over a segment that falsely suggested the mob of Donald Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol complex on Jan. 6, 2021, were actually peaceful sightseers.
“He tried to argue it was nothing more than a peaceful sightseeing tour. Can you imagine?” Schumer, a New York Democrat, asked. “A nonviolent demonstration, a perfectly fine and appropriate instance of people expressing their opinion.” He added that he and the other people who were working in the Capitol that day “are just furious” with Carlson — as well as GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who gave the Fox host exclusive access to the footage.
And Senate Republican Leader Mitch Connell also told reporters on Tuesday that, “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict [the Jan. 6 attack] in a way that is completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official at the Capitol thinks.”
The controversial segment which aired on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Monday included clips from among 44,000 hours of security footage of the insurrection that was provided to Carlson’s show by McCarthy.
Carlson had accused Democrats and the bipartisan House select committee investigating the events surrounding the Capitol attack of having access to these tens of thousands of hours of video but lying about what they showed. “The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” Carlson said during his Monday broadcast. “Instead it shows police escorting people through the building.”
But critics including Schumer have accused Carlson of “cherry-picking” the footage to misrepresent what actually happened on Jan. 6, 2021, when then-President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” and march on the Capitol as Congress was meeting to confirm Joe Biden’s win over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Five people died in the Jan. 6 attack and its aftermath, and the siege on the Capitol cost $2,734,783 in losses, according to the Department of Justice, including damage to the Capitol building and grounds, plus certain costs borne by the U.S. Capitol Police.
And in the two years since the attack, more than 284 defendants have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees on that January day, according to the DOJ, including approximately 99 charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. Some 140 police officers were reportedly assaulted at the Capitol complex. And approximately 484 people have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges from joining in the siege, many of whom face jail time.
“To say Jan. 6 was not violent is a lie — a lie pure and simple,” Schumer said while speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
“Millions of Americans tuned into one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on cable television,” he said. “With contempt for the facts, disregard of the risks, and knowing full well he was lying — lying — to his audience, Fox News host Tucker Carlson ran a lengthy segment last night arguing the Jan. 6 Capitol attack was not a violent insurrection.”
Watch Schumer’s remarks in full:
Schumer recalled his and his staffers’ experience inside the Capitol as it was besieged. “At one point, I was within 30 feet of the rioters. One of them, I was told, shouted out, ‘Let’s get him,’ before my detail pulled me away and we ran in the other direction,” Schumer said.
Several lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer from North Dakota, also pushed back on the popular Fox News personality’s calling Jan. 6 “peaceful,” as well as characterizing the mob as mere tourists.
“To somehow put that in the same category as a permitted peaceful protest is just a lie,” Cramer told CNN.
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, another Republican, called Carlson’s claims “bullshit.” While he told CNN’s Manu Raju that “maybe a few tourists” were involved on Jan. 6, he added, “When you see police barricades breached, when you see police officers assaulted, all of that … if you were just a tourist you should have probably lined up at the Visitor Center and came in on an orderly basis.”
And Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, said that all media outlets should get the same access to the footage that Carlson got. “I thought it was an insurrection at that time,” he said. “I still think it was an insurrection today.”
Schumer and some other Democratic leaders, including Rep. Joe Morelle from New York, also criticized McCarthy for giving this footage exclusively to Carlson in the first place. “Speaker McCarthy has played a treacherous — a treacherous — game by catering to the hard right. He’s enabled the Big Lie and has further eroded away at our precious democracy,” Schumer said. “Speaker McCarthy was here that day. He knows what actually happened. His staff and members suffered like everyone else. But he chose cheap political expediency over truth and preservation of democracy.”
Representatives for Fox News and Carlson were not immediately available for comment.
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Carlson’s segment also suggested that the narrative surrounding the death of U.S. Capitol officer Brian Sicknick has been a lie. “To this day, media accounts describe Sicknick as someone who was ‘slain’ on Jan. 6. The video we reviewed proves that is a lie,” Carlson said, showing footage of Sicknick walking in the Capitol afterward. “They knew he was not murdered by the mob, but they claimed it anyway.”
Sicknick’s family has responded in a statement saying that they are “outraged at the ongoing attack on our family by the unscrupulous and outright sleazy so-called news network of Fox News.”
Sicknick, 42, collapsed at 10 p.m. on Jan. 6, and died of natural causes the next day. An autopsy determined that he died of a stroke at the base of the brain stem caused by a blood clot. His family has argued that fighting with rioters is what caused his stroke. Two men have been arrested for assaulting Sicknick, with one admitting to spraying him and another officer with a chemical irritant — bear spray, specifically.
The Sicknick family said, “On video, Officer Sicknick looks like he managed to shake off the chemical irritants and resume his duties. That he did, but his sense of duty and incredible work ethic were the driving force which sent him back in spite of his injuries and no doubt contributed to his succumbing to his injuries the following day.”
They added, “Leave us the hell alone,” and called on Carlson and Fox to “focus on real news.”
