Liz Cheney, the former Republican Congresswoman from Wyoming who when in office until earlier this year was among the only leading members of the GOP at the national level willing to go against Trump on significant issues like the integrity of the 2020 election, spoke on Twitter this week against new lies from Tucker Carlson.
Carlson, who hosts on Fox News, is promoting the deceptive narrative — supported by small selections from tens of thousands of hours worth of footage showing various scenes around the Capitol complex on January 6 — that the Capitol riot wasn’t all that bad. Cheney, as a leader of the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot, has obviously long proven her interest in tamping down destructive narratives about the riot and its inciting circumstances in the interest of, among other concerns, ensuring it doesn’t happen again. The more these people promote the narrative that it was essentially fine, and even largely justified, the more expansive that the active realm of potential incitement remains.
“One lesson of Jan 6 is this: Trump’s lies, spread on TV & social media, provoked a violent attack on our Capitol,” Cheney said on Twitter. “No responsible adult, and especially no American pledged to our Constitution, should deny what happened or repeat the same reckless lies.”
Carlson also promoted false narratives about the 2020 election in the controversial Monday night episode of his show, lumping the handling of that year’s balloting in with what he explicitly referred to as criminal activity. And as for the well-documented and brutal physical violence at the Capitol in 2021? He referred to some of it as just vandalism, and while others in the GOP, including but not limited to Senators like Mitt Romney, have also criticized Carlson’s deceptive message, how many of Carlson’s TV viewers — facilitated by the leadership at Fox — were instead receptive to the idea? He’s giving what could be used as excuses for what in reality is more violence and encouraging the true believers.
One of the points Carlson was trying to make on air this week was that footage ostensibly showed police as receptive towards — and not that concerned about — individual rioters moving through the Capitol in certain instances. What he failed to explain was how police were vastly outnumbered, leaving officers to resort to tactics other than just arresting everybody, which they literally couldn’t have done because of limitations to their resources.
One lesson of Jan 6 is this: Trump’s lies, spread on TV & social media, provoked a violent attack on our Capitol. No responsible adult, and especially no American pledged to our Constitution, should deny what happened or repeat the same reckless lies. pic.twitter.com/MReMysC534
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) March 7, 2023
