Most Senate Republicans aren’t interested in rewriting the history of Jan. 6, 2021, even after influential Fox News host Tucker Carlson downplayed the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol.
During his program Monday night, Carlson aired selectively edited Capitol surveillance video of the attack, portraying the day’s harrowing events as a gentle tourist visit with Donald Trump supporters calmly walking through the Capitol.
“I think it’s bullshit,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters Tuesday when asked about Carlson’s portrayal of the events as mostly peaceful. “When you see police officers assaulted, all of that ... if you were just a tourist, you should’ve probably lined up at the visitors’ center and came in on an orderly basis.”
“I was there on Jan. 6. I saw how violent it was,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) added.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said Jan. 6 “was clearly more than a peaceful protest of some rowdy boy scouts,” while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he wasn’t interested in “whitewashing” the events.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) erred by handing over the surveillance footage only to Carlson.
“It’s really sad to see Tucker Carlson go off the rails like that. The American people saw what happened on Jan. 6. They’ve seen the people who got injured. They saw the damage to the building. You can’t hide the truth by selectively picking a few minutes out of tapes. It’s so absurd, it’s nonsense,” Romney said.
Federal prosecutors have charged nearly 1,000 people with crimes for their actions that day, according to the Justice Department, including more than 300 for assaulting or interfering with police. More than 500 rioters have pleaded guilty, 60 of them for attacking officers.
The mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop lawmakers from certifying the 2020 presidential election result, which the former president claimed for months had been rigged against him. Trump had summoned his supporters to Washington for a “wild” protest and then riled them up that day with a speech near the White House, telling them to go to the Capitol.
Carlson obtained the footage exclusively from McCarthy, who said last year that “no one would disagree” that the riot was a violent insurrection. It’s not clear whether McCarthy still feels that way; he declined to answer questions about Carlson as he entered his office on Tuesday afternoon. | 
