As of: 03/08/2023 3:06 p.m
Ex-US President Trump repeatedly falsely claims that only peaceful demonstrators were involved in the storming of the Capitol. Now Fox News moderator Carlson is causing outrage with a video compilation.
The release of surveillance footage of the Capitol attack and statements by a Fox News talk show host have caused outrage in the United States. The background is a much-criticized decision by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He had exclusively given tens of thousands of hours of video footage of the storming of the Capitol to moderator Tucker Carlson, who was well-disposed towards his party.
“A grave betrayal of American democracy”
The talk show host showed a few selected pictures on Monday and Tuesday evening and commented on them in the spirit of ex-President Donald Trump, who repeatedly falsely claimed that only peaceful demonstrators were out and about at the time.
“In retrospect, it is clear that the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy. Given the facts that have since emerged, no honest person can dispute that,” the star host claimed on his Fox News show .
Carlson is the far-right opinion leader and ratings king on US television. The moderator is known for spreading conspiracy theories and obvious false reports and for inciting against minorities. The 53-year-old has a daily evening show on Fox News, which averages around 2.5 million viewers.
Demonstrators would have made happy selfies
Three weeks ago, Carlson had received the select committee’s video footage – exclusively from Kevin McCarthy, the new Speaker of the House. Carlson has now published his findings. The select committee members lied to the public about what they saw and then hid the evidence, Carlson claims. The material as a whole dismantles the claim that there was an uprising. The majority of the demonstrators were peaceful.
They lined up in pretty little lines, taking happy selfies and smiling, Carlson said. The protesters would not have wanted to destroy the Capitol, but worshiped it. Federal agents probably incited the violence, he claimed, without being able to prove it.
Senator Romney calls show “absurd” and “nonsense”
Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger called Carlson’s edit of the video footage misleading. “The show appropriately chose the quieter moments from our 41,000 hours of video footage,” he said in an internal memo seen by US media. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called Carlson’s show “one of the most shameful hours we’ve ever watched television.”
But Republicans were also critical. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called it a “mistake” that Fox News portrayed the storming of the US Capitol in this way: “In my opinion, the chief of the Capitol Police is correctly describing what most of us felt on January 6th Republican Senator Mitt Romney called Carlson’s show “absurd” and “nonsense.”
Other Republicans in the House of Representatives, however, praised the show. McCarthy had sabotaged his party’s cooperation with the House inquiry into the Capitol attack and again defended the release of the video footage to Carlson on Tuesday.
Criminal action recommended against Trump
The committee had processed the attack and presented its final report shortly before Christmas, in which Trump was given significant responsibility for the storming of the Capitol. The panel also recommended criminal prosecution of the former president on several counts. It is unclear whether the Justice Department will actually take criminal action against Trump because the recommendation is not legally binding.
Trump supporters violently stormed the seat of parliament in Washington on January 6, 2021. Congress met there to formally confirm Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. Trump had incited his supporters in a speech with the often refuted claim that he had been deprived of a victory by massive election fraud. Five people died as a result of the riots.
Deliberately spreading lies about the presidential election
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch recently admitted that some of his network’s moderators deliberately spread lies about the 2020 presidential election. That’s according to court documents showing affidavits by the 91-year-old media mogul in early February.
The documents also show that Carlson and other Fox hosts feared losing viewers’ favor if they didn’t support Trump’s narrative of voter fraud. The statement is part of a defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by voting machine manufacturer Dominion.
With information from Katrin Brand, ARD-Studio Washington