“The Truth Will Prevail”: Right Wing Media Celebrate Tucker Carlson’s J6 Footage Exclusive
By Kevin Howley, February 26, 2023
In the opening days of 118th Congress, Republicans produced a media spectacle of epic proportions when they failed repeatedly to elect Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Speaker of the House. Between all the wheeling dealing, floor huddles and fisticuffs, the GOP made the formality of selecting a majority leader look like a full-contact version of “Let’s Make a Deal.”
Now that the dust has settled, House Republicans’ plans for the next two years are plain to see: do everything but legislate. The details of the deal that ultimately bestowed McCarthy with the speaker’s gavel remain opaque. But the contours of that bargain are beginning to emerge. None more striking than McCarthy’s unilateral decision to release thousands of hours of surveillance footage of the US Capitol insurrection to longtime faux news reporter and Fox News opinionator, Tucker Carlson.
Tucker the Truth Teller
When it wasn’t ignoring the House Select Committee’s riveting televised hearings last summer, the right wing noise machine dismissed dramatic witness testimony and downplayed harrowing images of Capitol police fighting for their lives as lawmakers scurried in the halls of Congress to save their own hides. It was a remarkable display of willful ignorance in the face of overwhelming evidence of violent mayhem that threatened to overthrow a free and fair election.
Now that Carlson has the footage at his disposal, they’ve changed their tune. A recent headline from PJ Mediaput it this way: “The Truth Will Prevail: Speaker McCarthy Gives Tucker Access to 41,000 Hours of J6 Surveillance Video.” WND celebrated the news as well. “Finally! Jan. 6 Surveillance Video Being Released.” Likewise, the MAGA wing of the Republican party expressed their enthusiasm.
Conspiracy queen Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) took to Twitter to exclaim: “For all of you that doubted we would release the tapes. Here you go!” Greene added, “Americans deserve to see the truth, not a one sided narrative and unfair two tiered justice system.” Even McCarthy holdouts, like the gun-toting Lauren Boebert (R-CO), expressed her gratitude to the Speaker: “Thank you,” she tweeted, “for following through on this. The public deserves to see everything that was hidden.”
What a difference a data dump makes.
The Daily Caller reports that Carlson’s producers began reviewing the footage on Capitol Hill earlier in February, and his shows will start airing excerpts in the coming weeks.” For his part, Carlson, in his trademark self-congratulatory mode, offered this glimpse into his investigative prowess: “Some of our smartest producers have been there looking at this stuff, trying to figure out what it means and how it contradicts, or not, the story we’ve been told for two years.”
Back in January, the Fox News host dismissed the House Select Committee’s findings and downplayed the historical significance of the J6 insurrection, describing the assault on the US Capitol as “a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards, that took place more than a year and a half ago.” Carlson’s gift for understatement tells you all you need to know about what his “investigation” will uncover.
False Flags and Other Lies
This isn’t the first time Carlson took aim at the J6 Committee’s work. In 2021, his documentary series, “Patriot Purge,” alleged that the Capitol insurrection was, as the Daily Caller put it, “a false flag operation to frame Trump supporters.” It’s part of a broader right wing effort to undermine the committee’s legitimacy and subvert the Congressional investigation’s narrative of the day’s events.
Headlined, “This Is Why They Don’t Want More J6 Videos Released” WND claims: “Newly surfaced Jan. 6 video footage shows DC police firing stun grenades into a crowd of peaceful, pro-Trump protesters, raising the specter that police brutality and reckless, provocative actions by incompetent officers enraged the crowd and led people to rush past them into the Capitol.”
With allegations of police brutality, provocations and incompetence, I’d swear this lead was written by ChatGBT after it crawled through news reports on Black Lives Matter protests. Regardless, it’s crystal clear Carlson and his GOP minions in the House aim to subvert the findings of a bipartisan investigation into Trump’s failed coup attempt.
It’s a win-win for Carlson – whose reputation took a hit in recent days following revelations that he acknowledged, off camera of course, that peddlers of Trump’s Big Lie, like Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell, were talking nonsense – and for dozens of House Republicans who likewise endorsed phony claims of election fraud and who were working inside Congress on that fateful day to overturn the 2020 election.
Them Darn Dems
When the news broke that the House Speaker was turning over thousands of hours of surveillance footage, some of it containing sensitive information, Congressional Democrats called out McCarthy in no uncertain terms. The gleeful response in right wing media was hard to miss.
Townhall declared, “Schumer Loses It Over McCarthy Giving J6 Footage to Carlson.” Over at Blaze, one headline reads: “Democrats in Full Panic Mode After McCarthy Gives Tucker Carlson Access to 41,000 Hours of Jan. 6 Protest Footage.” Over at Breitbart, a headline reads, “January 6 Committee Howls as Kevin McCarthy Gives Footage to Tucker Carlson.” Meanwhile, writing for PJ Media’s Morning Brief, Steven Kruiser, offers this bit of breakfast snark: “Dems Are Oozing Flop Sweat Over Release of J6 Surveillance Video.”
Promises, Promises
Lost in all the gloating is the disturbing realization that Kevin McCarthy’s deal with the MAGA wing of House Republicans to secure his speakership is the gift that keeps giving. But don’t take my word for it. Citing McCarthy’s statement to the New York Times, a headline from the Washington Examiner reads, “ ‘I Promised’: McCarthy Stands By Decision to Give Jan. 6 Footage to Tucker Carlson.”
Finally, Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) tweet is revealing as it is ominous. Making explicit reference to the Never Kevin caucus that nearly cost McCarthy his prized speakership, Gaetz wrote: “Thank you to the 20 patriots who helped EARN this commitment from the Speaker. Thank you @SpeakerMcCarthy for affirming this commitment you made. Keeping promises is how trust is built. I’m growing more optimistic by the day!”
Say what you will about Representative Gaetz, but he’s certainly learned at thing or two about the dark art of extortion from his spirit guide, the twice-impeached former president.
You don’t need to be a political scientist to appreciate the existential threat all of this poses for the republic. When propaganda masquerades as journalism, election integrity is subverted, and failed coups are dismissed, covered up and even justified, authoritarian rule isn’t simply a possibility, it’s a certainty.
Kevin Howley is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Social Movement Studies, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. His most recent book is Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination.
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Last month, Tucker Carlson dismissed the House Select Committee’s findings and downplayed the significance of the J6 insurrection, describing it as “a forgettably minor outbreak…” Carlson’s gift for understatement tells you all you need to know about what his “investigation” will uncover. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
