How Republicans are reacting to Tucker Carlson's 'off the rails' Jan. 6 stunt

The Fox News host's decision to broadcast cherry-picked footage of the Capitol riot seems to be backfiring

Tucker Carlson
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

On Monday evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson kicked off the first of a planned series of broadcasts featuring footage from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot given exclusively to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Using clips cherry-picked from the tens of thousands of hours of tape provided by McCarthy, Carlson claimed the footage broadly "does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress," and that "the protesters were angry. They believed that the election they had just voted in had been unfairly conducted."

"And," he concluded, "they were right."

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Rafi Schwartz, The Week US

Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.