On Thursday the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection that Donald Trump incited held its eighth session. It was the second session that was broadcast in primetime. The primary focus of this hearing was to provide details about the 187 minutes that the former reality TV game show host did nothing while Congress was under attack by his StormTrumpers.
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To be accurate, Trump didn’t actually do nothing. He was earnestly engaged in what is perhaps his favorite pastime, watching television. Specifically, he was watching Fox News for hours and cheering on his army of violent seditionists. He certainly wasn’t performing his duties as president. And the Committee masterfully documented Trump’s blatant and lethal negligence. As Rep. Kinzinger noted…
“Whatever your politics, whatever you think about the outcome of the election, we as Americans must all agree on this: Donald Trump’s conduct on January 6th was a supreme violation of his oath of office and a complete dereliction of his duty to our nation.[…] President Trump did not ‘fail’ to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse and telling the mob to go home. He ‘chose’ not to act.”
That’s about as righteous a condemnation of Trump’s criminal misconduct as has been articulated since the hearings began. But Trump wasn’t the only subject of condemnation. Fox News was featured in much of the Committee’s presentation. Which is ironic considering that Fox News almost entirely ignored the hearings. Just as they did for the first primetime session, Fox refused to air it live. They are consumed with the fear that their dimwitted viewers might be exposed to some truthful information about their Dear Leader’s malfeasance.
RELATED: Fox News Commits to Keeping Their Viewers Ignorant By Refusing to Air the January 6th Hearings
Consequently, Fox banished the hearings to their low-rated business network, where it couldn’t do much harm to their ultra-MAGA narratives. However, there was a brief mention of the hearings by Fox’s Senior Propagandist, Tucker Carlson. Taking a break from delivering another of his deadly anti-vaccine rants, Carlson babbled that…
“If you’ve ever been in a TV control room, there’s a huge bank of monitors that shows everything that’s on TV. And one of our producers just said that on every other channel they’re playing some kind of January 6th hearing. January 6th? As if that’s the biggest thing going on in America right now.
Now why are they doing this? No one wants to watch it. You know what happened on January 6th. Some guy in Viking horns wandered around on mushrooms and made weird noises, and that was kind of it. It was an ‘insurrection,’ where none the insurrectionists had guns. But it makes the people covering it feel like they lived through Vietnam. More lifestyle liberal narcissism. That’s really the key to everything.”
Tucker Carlson boasts about Fox's decision not to carry the 1/6 hearing. pic.twitter.com/4Oz1PH6Pjh
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 22, 2022
Not surprisingly, Carlson’s critique was littered with lies. First of all, he’s pretending that his producer had to inform him that the January 6th hearing was in progress. He obviously knew that and was prepared with his pre-packaged and cartoonish put-downs. Secondly, Carlson also knows that the hearings are a major news story because prior broadcasts have garnered huge ratings and their impact has registered in polling.
RELATED: The January 6th Hearings are Driving Public Opinion – And Trump’s Latest Delusional Meltdown
So Carlson’s assertion that “No one wants to watch it,” is pure bullpucky. As is his belittling of the rioters as harmless characters who “wandered around on mushrooms and made weird noises.” Carlson left out that they broke windows, battered down doors, terrorized members of Congress and their staff, and injured more than 140 law enforcement officers, including five who died.
Carlson also lied about the insurrectionists not having guns. Numerous reports document that the rioters were armed at the Capitol and had more weapons stashed nearby. Trump even admitted that he was aware that they were armed and didn’t care because “they aren’t here to hurt me.”
Sean Hannity also briefly covered the hearing, just long enough to call it “a one-sided political smear,” and to blame Democrats for the riots. But if the hearings are one-sided, it’s because almost all of the witnesses giving their accounts under oath are Republicans who worked for Trump. What’s more, Hannity had no evidence to support his contention that Democrats were to blame for the riots that were populated solely by Trump supporters.
It’s too bad that Fox News declined to let their audience see any of the hearings. Because they were referenced several times. Most notably when Committee Vice-Chair Liz Cheney said that…
“We know from employees this TV was tuned to Fox News all afternoon. Here you can see Fox News on the TV showing coverage of the joint session that was airing that day at 1:25. Other witnesses confirm that president Trump was in the dining room with the TV on for more than two and a half hours.”
So the White House photographer was told "no photographs" when she tried to snap pictures of Trump as the Capitol was under attack. pic.twitter.com/mE4j0J4N6S
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 22, 2022
So although Trump could watch Fox News while the insurrection was in progress, Fox’s viewers couldn’t be told that fact. Not that they would have watched if it were shown. While the ratings for MSNBC, CNN, and the broadcast networks all spiked sharply during the hearings, When Fox aired them during the day they actually lost viewers. Their audience simply can’t handle the truth. It’s a condition that Fox has nurtured in them over many years of cult indoctrination.
RELATED: Frightened Fox News Audience Tunes Out January 6th Hearings Even When They Air on Fox
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When is somebody, somewhere going to round up all of these psychopaths and put them somewhere in an institution where they can do no more harm to the Nation? Put them somewhere where they can all be together in their make believe world. The United States is one of the very few Nations in the world that will publicly let these deluded mental patients go on national TV and spew their delusions with the whole Nation.. These asshats such as Carlson Tucker and his minions are very seriously mentally ill psychopathic liars and these dumb, gullible, ignorant Rethuglican voters are just as delusional. The United States isn’t becoming a third world Nation, it has already became a third world Nation. I have given up any hope i ever had that things will EVER be any better, only worse. Canada, ready or not, here i come!! The United States is now a banana Republic.