Senate Republicans Slam Tucker Carlson for Downplaying January 6: ‘It’s Bullsh**’

Top Senate Republicans are taking Tucker Carlson to task for characterizing the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as “mostly peaceful chaos,” with Senator Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) going so far as to call the Fox host’s remarks “bullsh**.”

On his primetime program Monday, Carlson aired never-before-seen surveillance footage of the January 6 attack and argued that the new evidence disproves the predominant narrative about the scale of the violence perpetrated on January 6. Although Carlson admitted a few of the Trump supporters who gathered that day were bad apples, he called most of them “sightseers” and claimed police were escorting them through the building.

Tillis explained that the depiction was inexcusable in comments reported by NBC News. He also compared Carlson’s comments to those who downplayed the “devastation” caused by the 2020 riots in Kenosha, Wis.

In comments to reporters, Senator Kevin Cramer (R.,Nd.) firmly rejected the portrayal of the attack as “some rowdy peaceful protest of Boy Scouts.”

“I think that breaking through glass windows and doors to get into the United States Capitol against the borders of police is a crime. I think particularly when you come into the chambers, when you start opening the members’ desks, when you stand up in their balcony — to somehow put that in the same category as, you know, permitted peaceful protest is just a lie,” Cramer said.

Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) said it’s “really sad to see Tucker Carlson go off the rails like that,” adding that he’s joined “a range of shock jocks that are disappointing America and feeding falsehoods.”

“The American people saw what happened on Jan. 6,” Romney told reporters. “They’ve seen the people that got injured, they saw the damage to the building. You can’t hide the truth by selectively picking a few minutes out of tapes and saying this is what went on. It’s so absurd. It’s nonsense.”

U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Thomas Manger wrote in a inner memo to his staff that Carlson’s show did not reach out to the department for accurate context, instead cherry-picking footage and misleading viewers.

“The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments,” Manger said.

Manger specifically refuted the idea that police officers had acted as tour guides, explaining that the force was terribly outnumbered and used every de-escalation tactic at its disposal.

The chief also honed in on Carlson’s “disturbing” accusation about Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the day after the attack. Carlson argued in his Monday night segment that video footage of Sicknick walking around the Capitol after clashing outside with rioters proved that he didn’t die as a result of those clashes.

“Finally, the most disturbing accusation from last night was that our late friend and colleague Brian Sicknick’s death had nothing to do with his heroic actions on January 6,” wrote Manger. “The Department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, 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.”

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) held up the letter from Manger as an exemplary response to Carlson.

“With regard to the presentation on Fox News last night, I want to associate myself entirely with the opinion of the chief of the Capitol police about what happened on January 6,” McConnell told reporters.

The New York Times was forced to retract its initial report on Sicknick’s death, which incorrectly claimed he died as a result of blunt-force trauma to the head caused by a fire extinguisher. A medical examiner later found that Sicknick died after suffering a series of strokes. A man caught on camera pepper spraying Sicknick was sentenced to seven years in prison, though the pepper spray was not directly tied to his death.

According to a Justice Department report marking 26 months since the attack, 140 officers were assaulted at the Capitol that day, including 60 Metropolitan Police officers and 80 USCP officers.

More than 999 defendants have been arrested in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

More from National Review

• Tucker Carlson’s January 6 Revisionist History

• January 6 Was at Least a Riot

• ‘I Hate Him Passionately’: Tucker Carlson Unloads on Trump in Text Messages