Senate GOP rejects Carlson’s narrative

Senate Republicans blasted Fox News on Tuesday for airing a show that twisted details of the January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol into a conspiracyfueled narrative, breaking ranks with House GOP colleagues who cheered on the show.

From SenateMinority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to rank-and-file lawmakers, Republican senators largely rejected Fox personality Tucker Carlson’s vision of the deadly insurrection as a mostly peaceful protest that involved little violence.

Appearing at his weekly news conference, McConnell denounced the leadership of the conservative cable network for airing the entertainer’s vision of the assault on the Capitol, holding up a letter from U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger that accused Carlson’s showof being “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions.”

“Itwas amistake, inmy view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance withwhat our chief lawenforcement official here in the Capitol thinks,” McConnell told reporters.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), once a vocal supporter of Donald Trump who has consistently denounced the attack, was blunt in his assessment of Carlson’s narrative: “To somehow put ( Jan. 6) in the same category as a permitted peaceful protest is just a lie.”

The sharp criticism from his own party left House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on the defensive following his decision last month to grant Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of mostly never-before-seen video from Capitol Police security cameras that day. The speaker gave that access after Carlson, who has aired conspiracy theories related to Jan. 6 on cable’s highest-rated prime time show, publicly stated it as a condition of support during McCarthy’smarathon effort to win enough votes in early January to claim the speaker’s gavel.

When asked Tuesday if he had any regrets about allowing Carlson’s access to the footage, after Monday night’s depiction of Jan. 6, McCarthy said: “No.”

“I said from the very beginning: transparency,” he continued. “Each person [can] come up with their own conclusion.” He claimed he did not watch Carlson’s show and didn’t answer questions related to the depiction.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) agreed that a wide distribution of the video would have been better and echoed his colleagues, saying: “I was there on Jan. 6. I saw what happened. It clearlywas violent. Itwas an insurrection.”

In his letter to officers, Manger cited two specific accusations made on Carlson show, which aired its first segments based on the videos Monday and planned to air more footage Tuesday.

“The most disturbing accusation from last nightwas that our late friend and colleague Brian D. Sicknick’s death had nothing to do with his heroic actions on Jan. 6,” Manger wrote. “TheDepartment maintains, as anyone with common sensewould, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day.”

On Monday, Carlson showed video of Sicknick returning to the fray on Jan. 6 after being sprayed with a chemical irritant, noting he was walking around, wearing a helmet, and suggesting the attack on the Capitol had no connection to his death the next day.