“Disgusting” and “bullsh*t” were two responses to Tucker Carlson's claim that the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, was “mostly peaceful.”
From prominent Republicans.
Carlson showed selected clips from the thousands of hours of CCTV footage that day on his top-rated cable news program last night. They included officers escorting Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, who went to prison for his role in obstructing the 2020 Electoral College certification.
Carlson claimed that the actions of the mob of Trump supporters weren't particularly violent and that lawmakers and journalists who claimed otherwise lied.
Several GOP senators, who were at the Capitol that day, vehemently disagreed with Carlson's description.
Per Mediaite:
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made clear at a press conference Tuesday that he stood with the Capitol Police chief, who vehemently condemned Carlson. “So, that's my reaction to it. It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that is completely at variance with what our Chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks,” McConnell said.
CNN's Manu Raju spoke to various GOP Senate leaders who shot down Carlon's attempts to downplay attacks on law enforcement that day. “To somehow put that in the same category as a permitted peaceful protest is just a lie,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Raju.
Cramer also weighed in on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) decision to exclusively give the footage to Carlson, who in the past has spun conspiracy theories claiming the Jan. 6th attack served to weaponize the federal government against Trump supporters in a controversial series called Patriot Purge.
Cramer opined that it would've been better for McCarthy to give the footage to every major media outlet and encourage the footage be played in its entirety “and then avoid the political opinions versus just looking at the facts.”
North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis was less nuanced.
“I was here. I was down there and I saw maybe a few tourists, a few people who got caught up in things. But when you see police barricades breached, when you see police officers assaulted, all of that … if you were just a tourist you should've probably lined up at the visitors' center and came in on an orderly basis,” Tillis added.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy echoed that sentiment. The conservative senator told reporters, “I was here. It was not peaceful. It was an abomination. You're entitled to believe what you want in America, but you can't resort to violence to try to convince others of your point of view.”
South Dakota's Mike Rounds (R) added, “I thought it was an insurrection at that time. I still think it was an insurrection today.”
That day, a Capitol Police officer fatally shot Ashli Babbitt; one participant died of a drug overdose. Two others died of natural causes, including Officer Brian D. Sicknick who passed away one day after being assaulted with chemical spray.
More than 100 police officers were injured. Four who responded to the attack committed suicide within seven months.
When confronted by CNN, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate, said, “The point is, what happened that day shouldn't have happened.”
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