Wednesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson opened his program ripping the media and political responses to his airing of previously unreleased January 6, 2021 footage.
Carlson maintained the video cast doubt on the assumed narrative of January 6.
The FNC host also questioned the takeaways from politicos and the media, including the January 6, 2001 was “the worst” attack on the United States since the Civil War.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: One of the hallmarks of people who are telling the truth in case you’re wondering how to tell the difference, is that people who are telling the truth are calm. They don’t wave their hands around and make wild accusations, they don’t need to do that. It’s enough to say what they know.
And if honest people turn out to be wrong about something they have claimed, they’ll admit it, they don’t double down on false. They made a mistake, and that’s okay. It’s not like they’re claiming to be God.
Liars behave differently. Liars are touchy, sometimes to the point of hysteria. They’re hiding something, that’s the whole point of lying, and they’re worried you’re going to find out what it is.
Liars are fragile, because over time, lying makes you weak and afraid, and it has the same effect on countries by the way.
We’re living through one of those clarifying moments, which actually we’re thankful for, where we’re learning exactly who the liars are.
On Monday, we showed you unreleased videotape from January 6, it proved, that tape proved that three of the most important claims our leaders have made about that day were untrue, their claims were lies.
We were not shocked to discover that we knew there was a reason that congressional leaders had been hiding the tape and that reporters in Washington weren’t demanding to see it, they were lying to us, obviously, that’s what you hide things.
But what was actually surprising, what we can’t quite get over even now is how they responded when they were caught lying. They didn’t seem embarrassed, they didn’t apologize. They weren’t even curious to learn more about what actually happened on January 6th. Let’s see the tape. No, they don’t want to see it. They exploded in rage.
And then as liars tend to do, they doubled down. They told the same lies they’ve been caught telling, but with even greater aggression this time. “Shut up, it is midnight,” they said as the sun rose behind them. Who acts like that? Well, sociopaths do. And in this case, the sociopaths turned out to be both Democrats and Republicans.
The commitment to lying in Washington is far deeper and more bipartisan, even than we realized and we follow this stuff for a living.
Now, you’ll sometimes hear people say that the whole partisan system is an illusion and that underneath the manufactured debates, the leaders on both sides are in fact secretly united in a common love of money and power and the deception required to get them, and honestly we could never really bring ourselves to believe that, it’s just too dark.
But now we do believe it because we have seen it.
Consider the death of Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Now, we still don’t know exactly how Officer Sicknick died. We’re not certain that anyone does know, no one has explained it.
But after reviewing the previously withheld video evidence, we can tell you with certainty that Officer Sicknick was not beaten to death by Trump voters at the Capitol. The tape shows very clearly Brian Sicknick walking through the building in apparent health after the media told us for two years that he had been murdered.
So, they were wrong about that. Okay, they got caught.
Here is the interesting thing, they won’t admit it. Liz Cheney’s tweet is still on Twitter tonight: “Officer Sicknick was killed defending our Capitol from the violent mob on January 6th.” No correction.
Anderson Cooper of CNN still has not apologized: “Officer Brian Sicknick died after being hit the head with a fire extinguisher during the fight,” he told us. Those are lies. So why not just admit it and move on? But they won’t.
In fact, this week, the White House trotted out both the Press Secretary and Joe Biden’s Attorney General, the Attorney General of the United States, to claim not just that Brian Sicknick was actually murdered by Republicans at the Capitol, but that other officers were murdered, too. It’s almost beyond belief. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The wide range of bipartisan lawmakers, you heard them all yesterday, you guys reported on it, who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law, which cost police officers their lives.
MERRICK GARLAND, US ATTORNEY GENERAL: It was a violent attack on a fundamental tenant of American democracy, that power is peacefully transferred from one administration to another. Over a hundred officers were assaulted on that day, five officers died.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Five officers died on that day. That’s just not some guy on Twitter, that’s the Attorney General of the United States. That’s a man whose honesty is central to his job. If he had a choice between IQ and integrity in an Attorney General, of course, you would go for integrity, because it’s essential, but Joe Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland is a liar, he just lied about something that is provably false.
Who are these five officers who were “killed that day”? Notice he didn’t tell you. No one ever tells you. No one ever shows you their autopsies. They don’t want any detail. They just want the slogan.
Now they’re counting Brian Sicknick. That’s a lie. But who are the other four? Well, those are four officers who killed themselves after January 6, in some cases, long after January 6, but they are suicides, we know for a fact were the results of the Republican mob at the Capitol.
It’s just false. And it’s not some esoteric fact, that fact is available to anyone who has internet access. No police officers died that day on January 6th, none, not one. Some were assaulted, that is true and their assaults are indefensible.
So how many were assaulted? Well, Garland said over a hundred. The Government Accountability Office says the number is 114 and we’re just going to roll with that. We don’t know if it’s true, but we’ll take it at face value and that is bad. We are opposed to assaulting police officers in any context. We said that on January 6, 2021, and we are stating it, we are against that.
But is January 6the the worst assault on the US government since the Civil War? That’s insane. It’s not even close. How about March of 1954 when Puerto Rican separatists shot five Congressmen in the Capitol Building? Five Members of Congress shot in the building. It’s all bad, but the worst since the Civil War years? You’re just a flat out liar if you’re saying that.
More recently, this is an event we all remember, Antifa descended on Washington, DC to force the sitting President from office, but it was Trump, so that’s cool, and while they were there, they set a historic Christian church on fire, St. John’s in Lafayette Square. Do you remember that?
You should because it happened Labor Day weekend less than three years ago. And when it happened, the left-wing Mayor of Washington, DC refused to allow her police department, the MPD to assist Secret Service agents while they were under siege and getting beaten. No. She made her cops stand back and watch it happen, and they were very upset about it at the time. You may have forgotten that.
Here is what it looked like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe there are several fires raging now down this street and this is what you hate to see. There are people throwing fireworks and who knows what else.
And that crane is just fully engulfed.
That’s bad. They just set fire to St. John’s Church.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: That is burning a church across from the White House. Those are the George Floyd riots. So, what was the toll there?
Now, we’re not going to guess, we’re going to go again right to the government. According to recently released GAO report last month, during those attacks, the 2020 attack on the White House by left-wing mobs and we are quoting: “Federal Protective Services, the Secret Service and the Park Police reported that at least 180 officers were injured during the demonstrations, including concussions, lacerations, exposure to chemical gas, and severe burning.”
So while stipulating that all riots are bad because precision matters, facts matter, the truth matters, here is the truth. More cops were injured by Kamala Harris’ favorite mob, BLM at the White House than were injured by Trump voters at the Capitol on January 6th, a lot more.
So again, to be clear, both events are bad, but here’s the key, we only remember one of them. Why? Because the people in charge of history are liars, liars, and lying is bad. And on a national scale, it is deadly. It’s corrosive of everything that is good in the country, including trust and your grasp on reality itself and that is why they try to make you lie. Men can become women. Climate change is an existential threat or whatever the lie is they’re making you tell.
They don’t believe it, they know you don’t believe it, but by forcing you to repeat it, they degrade and control you. They make you less of a person.
They also hurt individuals.
We told you Monday about Navy veteran, Jacob Chansley. He was tried by the media, convicted of being a domestic terrorist and sentenced to four years in prison.
What exactly was Jacob Chansley’s crime? Well no one has ever been precise about that. Here is what the media told you it was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABC NEWS REPORTER: In his horned helmet, fur pelt, and face paint, Jacob Chansley became known as the QAnon Shaman, but prosecutors called him the most prominent symbol of a violent insurrection.
MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: He had been in jail since January, and he’s trying to get out, but prosecutors say he is still too dangerous to release.
PAUL BUTLER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Make no mistake, Chansley is a stone cold thug.
CBS NEWS: He kept saying I’m — you know, “I’m not violent. I’m peaceful. I’m a Shaman.” But then you put those images, what you were just talking about, you put those images together and that isn’t an image of — you know, of peace. This is the new face of extremism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “It’s the new face of extremism,” so Jacob Chansley is the new face of extremism. “He’s a stone cold thug.” “Prosecutors say he is too dangerous to release.” And most people believe that because why wouldn’t they? They were told it and there was no evidence to the contrary.
And now there is evidence to the contrary, we brought it to your Monday. The video that we reviewed at great length over three weeks showed with precision what Jacob Chansley actually did inside the Capitol and here’s what it looks like once again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON (voice over): Here’s a video of Chansley in the Senate chamber. Capitol Police officers take him to multiple entrances and even tried to open locked doors for him.
We counted at least nine officers who were within touching distance of unarmed, Jacob Chansley, not one of them even tried to slow him down.
Chansley understood that Capitol Police were his allies. Video shows him giving thanks for them in a prayer on the floor of the Senate. Watch.
JACOB CHANSLEY, QANON SHAMAN: Thank you Heavenly Father for taking the inspiration needed to these police officers to all us into the building.
CARLSON (voice over): Contrast the reality of what Jacob Chansley did in the Capitol Building on January 6th, the indisputable facts recorded on video, some of which has never before been seen with the depiction of Jacob Chansley that you’ve seen in the media for more than two years.
“He’s a terrorist,” they said. “He should be killed.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shoot him. Shoot him. Like if you burst into United States Senate, if he was dressed like bin Laden, would you have shot him?”
CARLSON (voice over): “Shoot him. Shoot him.” It makes you wonder who are the violent extremists here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So as you saw and again, details matter, because this is a man, this is an American citizen, a Navy veteran. This is a human being and so what he actually did should be of deep concern to every American because he’s in jail tonight.
What Jacob Chansley actually did was wander peacefully through the Capitol, shepherded by Capitol Police officers who literally opened doors for him. When one was locked, they went to another.
Dozens of officers stood and watched him, all of them had guns, Jacob Chansley did not. They never told Jacob Chansley to get out.
The head of the Capitol Police today said, we were just trying to calm the situation. It was already calm. He was the only protester in the frame. They could have led him outside, they didn’t, they helped him.
We’re not going to speculate as to why, we don’t know why. All we know is what we see on the tape and no one disputes it. We didn’t cherry pick it. We didn’t make it up.
Once inside the Senate Chamber as we told you, Chansley said a prayer thanking God for the kindness of Capitol Hill Police, and good for him, they were kind. This was not a domestic terrorist, and that matters.
But what matters even more is the videos that we showed you after 26 months were not shown to Jacob Chansley’s attorneys. It’s a violation of the Constitution and he is in jail because of it, because the liars on the January 6 Committee and the prosecutors who did their bidding, and that means Bennie Thompson, and that means Adam Schiff, it means Liz Cheney, these people had this man’s life on their hands.
They helped withhold these videos from Jacob Chansley’s attorneys. That means the Judge who sentenced Jacob Chansley, Royce Lamberth never saw them either. And therefore Lamberth was able to say — Judge Lamberth was able to say that what Chansley did was “horrific.”
He apparently had no idea that Chansley was wandering around with the cops walking through doors, they opened, then saying prayers for them.
We’re quoting: “You made yourself the center of the riot,” said the Judge, really? He accused Chansley of “obstructing the functioning of government.” But that’s not at all what was happening. He was ambling through the Capitol flanked at all times by armed cops who were directing his movement.
Meanwhile, prosecutors of the DOJ, the real villains here, falsely, they lied in Court and said that Chansley was “leading the charge into the Capitol on January 6th.” They said he was “The flag bearer for the mob,” apparently because he had a flag. He was alone, and of course the media picked up on this and amplified it as the DOJ intended.
“Fortune” Magazine disgraced itself by comparing the man you just saw to ISIS. They said Chansley had “the zeal to possibly kidnap or kill officials.” These aren’t just lies. These are lies that destroyed a man.
So no matter who you voted for in the last election, you could probably agree that sending someone to prison for four years on the basis of fabricated evidence is the most serious threat to civil liberties we could possibly face. And yet here is the thing, leaders in both parties, the party that Chansley voted against and the party he voted for have said nothing. Not one word about the implications of this videotape, the implications not just for Chansley, but for our Constitution and our country going forward.
Instead, oh, how dare you show this? What is clearly exculpatory evidence. And again, it’s not just Chuck Schumer, its Republican senators, Kevin Cramer, Mike Rounds, Chuck Grassley, John Thune, Lindsey Graham, of course, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, needless to say, Kelly Armstrong — all went after us.
We’re not whining about that, we don’t care actually, but it just tells you everything about the way things actually work. They’re not loyal to their voters, they are loyal to each other and they’re willing to lie, really lie and crush people.
Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis and BLM superfan, Mitt Romney, all weak men and like all weak men, vicious men, were especially angry. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): It was a mistake in my view for FOX News to depict this in a way that completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at Capitol thinks.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): I think it’s bull [bleep]. When you see police barricades breached, when you see police officers assaulted, all of that, or you had to be in close proximity to it. If you were just a tourist, you should have probably lined up at the Visitor Center and came in on an orderly basis.
I just don’t think it’s helpful.
SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): It’s really sad to see Tucker Carlson go off the rails that bad. The American people saw what happened on January 6th. 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Weak men are vicious men, and these are weak men whose attitudes towards an individual whose life has been destroyed on the basis of false and withheld evidence is vicious.
Oh, we cherry picked? Really? What they’re saying, ironically, what they’re describing, ironically, is exactly what the January 6 Committee and the prosecutors in these cases did for two years. They selectively picked small segments of tape to convince Americans that January 6th was something that it wasn’t.
It was awful. We would not defend it. We hate vandalism. We hate assault. Was it a violent instruction? It was not it. Was it a killing of five officers in the Capitol? It was not. Those are lies, and they buried tape that contradicted and revealed those lies.
So all we did was play the tape that they had been hiding for 26 months and show that there were American citizens, Jacob Chansley, specifically, and others whose civil liberties were annihilated, and you can make your own rational judgments about what that means.
Do you want to live in a country where that’s possible? They don’t care. Neither party in Washington cares.
In fact, the leader of the Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer just joined the leader of the Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell, in calling for this show to be pulled off the air.
Now, that’s not an argument based on logic, it is based on hysteria and the shame you feel as a weak and terrified person when your lies are exposed.
Here is Chuck Schumer claiming for the first time that like Sandy Cortez, he himself nearly died on January 6.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Tucker Carlson ran a lengthy segment last night arguing the January 6th Capitol attack was not — not — a violent insurrection, an attempt to rewrite history and erode the very foundation of our precious and sometimes fragile democracy.
So yes, this morning, I am furious. Millions of Americans are furious. I was here on January 6th. Many of you saw the footages, I ran for my life, coming within a few feet of these criminals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Yes. So we invited Schumer on, McConnell, anybody is always welcome to come on our show. If we got something wrong, tell us how. If you think we altered the tape in some way, tell us how.
But they won’t, nor will they answer the most basic question, which is why should a non-demonstrably nonviolent man who literally said a prayer of thanksgiving for police officers on the Senate floor, how is that man ISIS? How is he a domestic terrorist? How is he a threat to the Republic? Why is he in jail for four years? “Shut up. Pull that show off the air.”
They won’t answer any questions, but we have a question, which is how in a free country guided by the Constitution were these people allowed to withhold evidence from Jacob Chansley’s lawyer? How could that happen?
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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