US President Joe Biden sharply criticized the opposition Republicans and the conservative news channel Fox News after a program that downplayed the storming of the Capitol in early 2021. “More than 140 officers were injured on Jan. 6,” Biden wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “How dare anyone belittle or deny what hell they’ve been through?”
“I hope House Republicans are ashamed of what they’ve done to undermine our police force,” added the President.
With his tweet, Biden reacted to a broadcast by the controversial Fox News moderator Tucker Carlson on the storming of the Capitol. The journalist on the far right had shown footage that made the attack on Congress look like a peaceful event.
“They were peaceful, they were civilized, they were gentle,” Carlson, who is extremely influential among conservative television viewers, said at one point. “They weren’t insurgents, they were tourists.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican, provided Carlson with 41,000 hours of video footage of the Capitol storm.
Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger called the Fox News show “offensive” and “misleading” after it aired. “Quieter moments were deliberately picked out” without providing any context about “the chaos and violence” that day.
Radical supporters of President-elect Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to prevent confirmation of Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election. The attack that killed five shook the United States and also caused international horror.
Trump and other Republican politicians and right-wing commentators have long downplayed the violence of the Capitol storm. Tucker Carlson’s broadcast also drew criticism from leading Republicans, including Senate Conservative leader Mitch McConnell, who called it a “mistake”.
Fox News is currently under particular scrutiny. In recent weeks, court documents have revealed how those in charge and prominent moderators of the conservative broadcaster – including owner Rupert Murdoch – considered allegations of electoral fraud spread by Trump to be nonsensical, while Fox News offered the allegations a platform.
Internal communications at Fox News became known through a claim for damages by the voting machine company Dominion, which had become the target of conspiracy theories from the Trump camp. A new court document was released Tuesday that further casts doubt on moderator Tucker Carlson’s credibility. Accordingly, the conservative television presenter, who openly supported Trump in his programs, “hated” the ex-president behind the scenes.
Carlson texted an employee two months after the 2020 presidential election, “We’re very, very close to ignoring Trump most nights. I really can’t wait. I hate him passionately.”
Fox News said in a statement that Dominion was using the contents of the court filings to slander the network by twisting and misattributing quotes.
