Tucker Carlson’s show on Jan. 6 attack reopens a rift among Republicans

“It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks,” said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, holding up a letter written by the chief of the US Capitol Police that described Tucker Carlson’s program as being “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6th attack.”Drew Angerer/Getty

WASHINGTON — At the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, the defendants in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were portrayed as martyrs by some attendees and former president Trump even released a song he had recorded with some of them.

On Monday, the hard-right Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson aired cherry-picked video footage from a trove provided to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that omitted the violence of the day, which he called “mostly peaceful chaos.”

Yet by Tuesday, GOP senators and some members of the House found themselves pushing back with recollections of just how volatile and dangerous the attempted insurrection was.

The fallout after Carlson’s video, and the deep contrast with the way the event was treated at CPAC, illustrates how two years after they mostly refused to participate in the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, the Republican Party is divided over the story it wants to tell about that day. The ongoing effort by the far-right to rewrite the history of the attack has become a flashpoint in the halls of Congress and could be one in the emerging 2024 primary campaign, underscoring the rifts left behind by the Trump era.

“It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks,” said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, holding up a letter written by the chief of the US Capitol Police that described Carlson’s program as being “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6th attack.”

BREAKING: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls it a "mistake" for Tucker Carlson and Fox News to release the never-before-seen J6 footage. pic.twitter.com/8d2c75Z3eK

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 7, 2023

The attack on the Capitol left some 140 police officers injured, with five officers dying in the days or months afterward. Members of the mob broke windows, fought with officers, and called for Vice President Mike Pence to be hung. Senators and members of the House of Representatives were forced to flee through the halls and barricade themselves inside their offices or in secure spaces.

“I was there all day in person on January 6,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who roundly condemned Carlson’s presentation of the day’s events, although she noted she does not watch his show. “From what I’ve heard, he very much misrepresents what was a full-scale riot, a scene of chaos, a dangerous situation, and an attempt to halt a peaceful transfer of power.”

The attempts to sanitize the riot began just weeks after it happened, once it became clear the base of the Republican Party was unmoved by it, with some lashing out at those who questioned the former president.

At the time, Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia likened the riot to a “normal tourist visit.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who initially denounced Trump for failing to intervene more forcefully to stop the riot he helped start, soon visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago to make amends. McCarthy also refused to put members of his party on the Jan. 6 select committee after Democrats rejected two of his initial picks.

But Republicans across the Capitol expressed renewed concern with McCarthy’s decision to give Carlson the chance to rewrite the story once more by providing him -- and no other media outlets -- with the exclusive raw footage

“If you give footage, give it to all the networks, not just one. Clearly placating the base of my party is not the right way forward for the Republican party or for the country,” said Senator Mitt Romney of Utah.

“I worry that some people, because they see video without seeing all the video, without seeing the tape from the security cameras, will be misled into thinking that somehow this was misrepresented to them,” Collins said.

Other Republicans dismissed Carlson’s narrative with facts from the day.

“Anybody who had any situational awareness should have known that this is not a tourist opportunity when you see police barriers breached, when you see windows broken, when you see police officers assaulted. Not a place that I want to go on vacation or take a tour,” said Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who called Carlson’s program an expletive.

The deeply conservative North Dakota Republican Kevin Cramer agreed.

“When you come into the chambers, when you start opening members’ desks, when you stand up in their balcony, to somehow put that in the same category as permitted protest is just a lie,” he said Tuesday.

But still others in the party seized on the opportunity to rehash the story and accuse Democrats of engaging in selective editing of their own on the January 6th Committee (which included two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who have since left Congress.)

“If there’s other storylines on January 6th, I’d like to know about them,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who himself denounced Trump that night before realigning himself with the president later. Still, he said, “There’s no video you’re going to show me to convince me it wasn’t a terrible day for America.”

Trump’s staunchest allies in the Senate were quick to highlight a clip on Carlson’s footage, which showed police officers following, but not stopping, Jacob Chansley, a rioter known as the “QAnon Shaman,” as he walked through the building. Chansley plead guilty to attempting to obstruct the certification of the election and is serving a 41-month prison sentence. Officers have previously testified that they were outnumbered and reluctant to escalate confrontations with the mob, according to CNN.

“I thought that was pretty revealing video,” said Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. “There’s a lot more of this story that needs to be told.”

Another portion of Carlson’s program sought to challenge the conclusion supported by the medical examiner that the death of Officer Brian Sicknick one day after the riots was connected to injuries he sustained there.

In a statement they released on Tuesday, his family said the attempt to reframe the story of his death caused them fresh hurt.

“Every time the pain of that day seems to have ebbed a bit, organizations like Fox rip our wounds open again,” they said, “and we are frankly sick of it.”

Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka of the Globe staff contributed reporting.