OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has caused “The View” cohost Whoopi Goldberg to snap this week after he shared never before seen footage from the January 6 incident at the Capitol the actress and comedian likened it to the George Orwell book “1984.”
“Tucker Carlson took a page from George Orwell’s 1984 and told his viewers to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears,” she hilariously said on Tuesday’s show.
Hilarious because what Carlson did was actually provide the evidence that no one was allowed to see for two years and somehow, to Goldberg, that means he wants his viewers to ignore the evidence.
“You know, I don’t know what he’s playing at, but people saw what they saw, they saw what they saw. And they’ve seen what’s gone down with it, and no matter what, you can’t put this monkey back in the cage,” she said.
In the clip of Carlson’s show that “The View” played Carlson said “The crowd was an enormous crowd, a small percentage of them were hooligans.
“They committed vandalism, you’ve seen their pictures again and again, but the overwhelming majority weren’t,” he said.
“They were peaceful, they were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists, they were sightseers,” he said.
“Protesters queue up in neat little lines, they give each other tours outside the speaker’s office. They take cheerful selfies and they smile,” Carlson said.
“They’re not destroying the capitol, they obviously revere the capitol,” he said.
But Goldberg insulted Carlson’s audience when she said
“This was insurrection and just was what it was, so people are very upset. His viewers, maybe they’re going to buy it, I don’t know,” she said.
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police issued a memo to his staff on Tuesday following the airing of previously unseen security footage by Fox News host Tucker Carlson which showed police officers appearing to stand passively as a large crowd entered the Capitol on January 6.
Police Chief Tom Manger condemned the comments made during the airing of the footage on Carlson’s Monday night program, stating that it was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions” about the riot of January 6, 2021, when a group of people breached the U.S. Capitol building, causing disruptions to lawmakers who were in the process of certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
“The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video,” Manger claimed. “The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”
NEW – Capitol Police chief Thomas Manger sends internal memo this am saying Carlson’s report was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions” about Jan. 6 and says the “opinion program” never reached out with appropriate context. Reporting w/ @rachelvscott pic.twitter.com/BrnD0n4IN1
— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) March 7, 2023
Manger specifically objected to a segment that featured Capitol Police officers guiding Jacob Chansley, also known as the “QAnon Shaman,” through the Capitol building and Tucker Carlson’s portrayal of them as “tour guides.”
He also expressed concern about Carlson’s emphasis on Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who a medical examiner found had died of natural causes after suffering a stroke a day after the January 6 incident while protecting the Capitol, the Daily Wire reported.
The New York Times initially reported on January 8 that Sicknick was killed by a rioter wielding a fire extinguisher during the riot. However, the paper retracted the story five weeks later after the D.C. medical examiner stated that Sicknick had died of natural causes a day after the event. Other outlets also erroneously reported that Sicknick was beaten to death.
Nonetheless, both Sicknick’s family and the police believe that his death was related to the riot.
Video of Sicknick appearing to lead people out of the Capitol building after “he was supposedly murdered outside overturns the single-most powerful and politically useful lie the Democrats have told us about January 6,” Carlson noted.
Manger noted that Capitol Police “maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day.”
In his memo, Manger thanked and praised members of the Capitol Police force, commending their efforts on January 6. “You fought like hell on January 6 and risked your lives to protect the Constitution and everything this country stands for,” he wrote. “You, along with our law enforcement partners, saved every member of Congress and their staff.”