Former Fox host Gretchen Carlson joins the attack on her old network after opinion leader Tucker Carlson, predictably, used exclusive access to January 6 security footage to falsely portray the attack on Congress as a peaceful protest.
Ms Carlson, who has no relation to her former colleague, angrily denounced the network and criticized the channel’s journalists for covering Mr Carlson’s comments and the ensuing backlash as if they were somehow unattached to the situation.
Notably, her criticism comes just days later Media buzz host Howard Kurtz revealed on-air that Fox bosses have banned him and others from speaking about the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit the network is facing for platforming the lies that led to the attack.
“This is F’in bs – let your ‘straight’ news anchor spread totally fabricated lies and injustices to the American public by promoting lies through Tucker Carlson and pretending it’s not your network,” said Ms. Carlson.
She added: “WTF.”
It has been revealed that her former colleague is trying to play both sides of the issue; private texts sent by Mr. Carlson have now been made public as part of the aforementioned lawsuit facing his company – and a different Mr. Carlson comes forward in them. In the lyrics, the pro-Trump primetime cheerleader is seen as desperate for his party to move forward with the former president, gives no support to his 2020 election conspiracies, and even mentions one of Donald Trump’s lawyers liars.
On air this week, however, he attempted to paint the violent attack on Congress as anything but. Despite police serious injuries, including one officer who was struck twice and died shortly after the attack, the Fox host described the invading rioters as “meek” while deriding the responding officers as nothing more than “tour guides” during the playback of footage of police trying to verbally dissuade rioters from continuing their criminal actions.
His words have drawn condemnations from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, and several of his GOP colleagues. The chief of the US Capitol Police also denounced Mr Carlson’s words in a letter on Tuesday.
Absent from the wave of criticism is Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has just been elected to office and faces the prospect of presiding over an unruly caucus with only a single-digit majority in the lower chamber. The speaker evaded questions as to whether he approved of Mr Carlson’s Jan. 6 depiction on his show this week, claiming he had not seen the opinion leader’s show himself, despite being the one who approved it to give Mr Carlson the exclusive to put on a show.