Conservative media try to shift fault for attack

Conservative radio host Mark Levin lambasted the Trump supporters who breached the U.S. Capitol building and shut downthe electoral certification process Wednesday afternoon as “fools” and “idiots” who should be prosecuted. But, he reassured his listeners, “None of you had anything to do with it. ... You, we, are the lawabiding citizens of this country.”

Greg Kelly, the top-rated host on conservative upstart Newsmax, said “we condemn it unambiguously.” But, he told viewers during his prime-time show, “These people don’t look like Trump supporters. Trump supporters don’t do these things.”

Across conservative media platforms Wednesday, the most popular figures in the pro-trump media movement sought to draw a bright line between the Trump supporters who incited violence and Trump himself — even going so far as to cast doubt on the rioters’ true identities or sympathies.

“I’d like to know who the agitators were,” Fox News host Sean Hannity told viewers, referring to the people seen marching on the Capitol after Trump urged them to in a speech outside the White House. Hannity maintained that “those who truly support President Trump ... do not support those that commit acts of violence.”

“I do not know Trump supporters that have ever demonstrated violence that I know of in a big situation,” “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said during a Wednesday night appearance.

A common refrain was a claim that the protesters were “infiltrated” by outside “agitators” in an effort to embarrass the president and his supporters — a claim for which no evidence was presented.

“They were likely not all Trump supporters,” Laura Ingraham said during her 10 p.m. show on Fox, going on to allude to unspecified “reports” of involvement by Antifa, a loosely organized far-left network whose practice of physically confronting white supremacists has made them an object of fear and fascination on the right. “I have never seen Trump rally attendees wearing helmets, black helmets, brown helmets, black backpacks — the uniforms you saw in some of these crowd shots.”

“We may never know the truth here,” said her fellow Fox host Tucker Carlson earlier in the evening. “I keep seeing all kinds of accounts of who they were and what their motives might have been.”

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or operates local stations in over 100 markets, sent its affiliates a news report from correspondent James Rosen suggesting that “farleft infiltrators” helped perpetrate the riot. He cited no sources but stated it as if it were a fact.

Carlson defended the rioters as “solid Americans” who are “deeply frustrated.” An hour later, fellow Fox host Hannity maintained “the majority of them were peaceful.”

Both hosts, though, bristled at the property destruction they saw at the Capitol.

“You’re not allowed to break windows or encourage people to break windows,” Carlson said.

“I don’t want to ever see our Capitol building breached like this ever again,” Hannity said.