Offensive and misleading.
That's how the chief of the U.S.
Capitol
Police is describing Fox News host
Tucker Carlson's attempt
to, in effect, rewrite history o
the January six insurrection,
describing it as a peaceful
gathering speaker.
Kevin McCarthy,
you may remember,
gave Carlson access
to tens of thousands of hours
of footage from the Capitol atta
Well, a number of his fellow
Republican lawmakers
are specifically
not too happy with Fox's decisio
to play that
with Tucker Carlson downplaying
downplaying the insurrection.
It was a mistake, in my view, fo
Fox News to depict this
in a way that's completely at va
with what
our chief
law enforcement
official here couple thinks.
I was there on January 6th
and I saw what happened.
I saw the aftermath.
Look, there was violence on Janu
I think the footage that's avail
should be made available to all
and everybody should be able
to see for themselves
just what kind of chaos we had
on that day.
I think it's bullshit. I was her
I was down there,
and I saw maybe a few tourists,
a few people who got caught up i
But when you see police barricad
breached, when you see
police officers assaulted,
I just don't think it's helpful.
He's not the only one.
CNN chief
congressional correspondent Mont
Roger joining us now from Capito
Some of you also spoke to McCart
last night.
What is he saying?
Yeah, he defended the decision.
In fact,
he did
not agree with the criticism
from Senator McConnell.
And also the criticism from the
Capitol Police chief
who said that this portrayal on
News of January six was offensiv
it was misleading.
It was cherry
picked Mitch McConnell
saying he aligned himself
squarely with that.
And when I asked the speaker
whether or not he regretted
providing this footage to Tucker
who attempted to whitewash, whit
the events.
The speaker defended his decisio
The footage that you gave Tucker
last night, he went on to.
So this is a mostly peaceful
chaos, as he said, he downplayed
Brian Sicknick's
death, said
it was not related to January 6t
This was not an insurrection.
Do you regret giving him this cl
so he could
whitewash the events on that day
No,
I said the very beginning transp
And so what I want to produce
for everybody is exactly that,
so that people could actually lo
and see what's coming on that. W
this horrible
portrayal of what happened
and that each person came
come up with their own conclusio
But I want
I just want to make sure
that I had transparency
so he continued to say
that he wanted
to provide for transparency,
but would not explain
why he provided to Carlson,
who has long
had a history
of downplaying the events of tha
that McCarthy himself
condemned immediately
after that happened on the House
four days later.
But really
exposing the divide here
between the House Republicans an
Republicans
in particular
over January six,
a follower of that
in the role of Donald Trump
in the party going forward.
McCarthy,
of course, aligning him squarely
with Trump.
Mitch McConnell on the other sid
taking a much different approach
to how that party
should handle these issues
going forward, all being exposed
and over McCarthy's
handling of the security footage
and this attempt
to provide a different light
about what happened from January
by Fox News
and by some House Republicans as
Yeah, I mean, Thom Tillis
not mincing words.
They're calling it B.S..
Manu Raju, thanks so much.
Well, today, newly disclosed mes
from some of the biggest stars
and executives at Fox News show
that what they said
and communicated in private cont
what they told their viewers
and repeatedly
a trove of texts, emails, other
made public
Tuesday as part of Dominion
Voting Systems, $1.6 billion,
defamation lawsuits,
lawsuit against the right wing c
Fox News staff privately critici
dismissed Trump's election fraud
even though the network continue
to promote them on the air.
Take a look at these messages
from November 20th between Fox h
Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraha
Carlson writes, Former
Trump attorney
Sidney Powell,
who was sharing
many of these lies, quote,
is a nut to which Ingraham appli
No serious lawyer
could believe what they were say
But just one night later,
this is what Ingraham
was saying on the air.
Now, legal challenges
continue in a number of states.
Serious questions about vote
counting,
poll watcher access are outstand
But unless the legal situation
changes in a dramatic
and frankly and unlikely manner,
Joe Biden will be inaugurated
on January 20th.
Now, to say this does not mean
I don't think that this election
was rife
with problems and potential frau
Despite what Tucker Carlson has
behind the scenes.
He is still to this day
sowing doubts on air.
This is from a show on Monday
In retrospect, it is clear
the 2020
election was a grave
betrayal of American democracy.
It is galling to be lectured
about democracy
by a man who took power in an el
so sketchy
that many Americans don't
believe it was even real.
Joining me now to discuss, NPR
media correspondent David Folken
David, good to have you on today
Great to join again.
So, David,
based on what we're seeing from
Tucker Carlson,
despite the fact that now
we know
he was lying to his viewers
around the election,
saying one thing in private.
One thing on the air,
he is still calling
the election into question.
Are any Murdoch owned publicatio
whether it be Fox,
Fox Business New York Post,
Wall Street Journal,
or are the viewers or readers
of any of those publications
seeing what we're seeing here,
the revelations
from these court documents
Oh, I think if you read The Wall
Street Journal,
we are getting a fairly straight
news report in its pages, often
prominently displayed
of what actually transpired.
And I think you're seeing
folks from The Wall Street
Journal's news side
trying to ensure that its readin
public believes in its brand pro
that of telling the news straigh
without fear or favor.
It's like it's a game that Murdo
He sort of separates in his mind
how he treats his upscale
broadsheet newspapers,
like The Times of London
and The Wall Street
Journal from the tabloids,
like The New York Post,
which he treats more like Fox Ne
which is you're going
to see the political influence
throughout the entire report.
Understood. Now, we should note.
Is it correct
Fox News
has banned any discussion of thi
given it is
Fox News,
where where the majority of thes
lies were shared with viewers
Yeah, you saw Fox News's own chief
media correspondent and anchor
Howie Kurtz
come forward about ten days ago
and say that he was barred
from discussing on his show
that he disagreed with it.
But that was the corporate edict
That's an extraordinary admissio
because for Fox News to smother
the coverage
of the biggest story in media
and one of the biggest stories
in politics right
now is a concession
that they're not putting news
values first.
Yeah. And listen,
it allows the lie to continue.
And it's why we see in polls
why many Republican voters
still believe to this day
that the election was stolen.
The lawsuit goes right to the to
It reveals that Fox News chairma
rather, Fox Corp.
and NewsCorp chairman Rupert Mur
he repeatedly himself
rejected the election conspiracy
reading now Dominion lawyer aske
do you believe that Dominion
was engaged in a massive
and coordinated effort to steal
presidential election? No.
Have you ever seen any credible
to suggest
Dominion was engaged
in a massive and coordinated eff
to steal the 2020 presidential e
No. So.
So the boss knew it.
And by the way, the questions we
and he continued to answer No.
The boss knew it.
Let his outlets continue
to spread those lies.
What are the consequences?
What are the most likely consequ
here in this case?
Well, right at the
moment, this is barreling
towards a court date, a trial da
I should say,
in the middle of next month.
It's a $1.6 billion
defamation case
brought by Dominion Voting Syste
whose machines were described in
and described on Fox's airwaves
at times
seemingly endorsed
by a number of Fox's top stars
as having thrown votes
from Donald Trump
than the sitting president to Jo
You know, it seems likely
that if they lose in court,
they'll have to pay a lot.
They'll appeal it.
And then at that point,
one might see something,
some sort of settlement.
You know, the key thing for Murdoch
is he made clear in that same de
he would never apologize.
He didn't think they did anythin
or at least that's his position.
It certainly dovetails
with their legal defense.
All they were doing
was relaying the claims of the p
in the United States, a newswort
and his attorneys.
But what really is happening
is that they don't want
to acknowledge their own viewers
that they presented information
they knew was false.
They're willing to pay
money to kind of avoid that.