After the committee’s last summer hearing on Jan. 6 last week, the conversation on CNN and MSNBC turned to an intriguing, if familiar, possibility of what the panel’s findings might yield. Not only is criminal prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump justified, but it seems more likely given evidence of his inaction when rioters ransacked the Capitol, many experts say.
If this feels like déjà vu — more predictions about Trump’s impending downfall — the reaction of pro-Trump platforms to the hearings feels like something new, reflecting his friendly media Guard’s drive to rewrite the history of violence effort made that day.
Even the committee’s vivid portrayal of Mr Trump’s failure to intervene led two influential right-wing media outlets to New York Post and Wall Street Journal, to condemn him over the weekend, many top conservative media figures continued to push for a cleaner narrative of January 6, 2021. They turned Capitol Police into villains and claimed a government conspiracy to criminalize political dissent.
Talk show host Mark Levine scoffed at claims that Trump was trying to overturn the election or sedition. If he had, Mr. Levine explained in an appearance on Fox News, other webcast hearings, the former president would have taken more immediate steps, such as ordering the arrest of Vice President Mike Pence or firing the attorney general.
“You would think all the talk about crime, they would show us,” Mr. Levine said on Fox News Thursday night. “Nothing,” he added. “Absolutely zero evidence that Donald Trump was involved in the violent overthrow of our election or our government. Literally nothing.”
To be more precise about what he meant, Mr. Levine starts from 14th Amendment That is, anyone “participating in an uprising or rebellion” was barred from holding federal public office.
That’s why the media keeps calling January 6 an “uprising”, Mr. Levine explained.
(This article was written by an MSNBC contributor.)
In fact, part of the right wing’s message to Trump supporters is: You may have initially held back in fear of what you thought was happening in the Capitol, but you were misled by the mainstream media.
“It’s odd that when I talk to these people, their disgust with the media is stronger now on January 6 than it was a year ago,” said Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman and talk radio host who Reason left the party. Its unwavering support for Mr Trump. By the time the committee presented evidence, Mr Walsh added that “half the country didn’t care or thought it was a hoax.”
This dissonance can be confusing. As Laura Ingraham said in a Jan. 6 text message to Mark Meadows, the same Fox News host is pleading with the president’s chief of staff to have a conversation with the president. Mediation or risk “destroying his legacy”, now accusing the mainstream media of exaggerating the Capitol event.
Key takeaways from the January 6 hearing
Conservative narratives often rely on the core of truth from incomplete or inconsistent accounts from law enforcement and witnesses — typical in any investigation of this magnitude — that Mr. Trump’s allies in the media then amplify.
One of the most influential journalists on the right-wing pro-Trump after January 6 was Julie Kelly, a writer for America’s Great Site, whose articles contributed to the coverage of major conservative outlets such as Fox News. information. For more than a year, Ms Kelly has questioned the seriousness of the attack and downplayed the death of police officers at the scene that day.
One early reports Officer Brian Sicknick died after falling from his injuries after “physical contact” with pro-Trump thugs, Capitol Police said on Jan. 6. A later autopsy revealed that he died of natural causes after suffering multiple strokes hours after the attack.
Ms Kelly and others seized on the findings, usually without acknowledging that the officer had been attacked by thugs and sprayed with an unknown chemical irritant, or that the trauma he experienced may have played a role in his condition. , while forensic famous. “Sicknick didn’t die because of anything that happened on January 6th,” she announced In April, in an article titled “Defunding Capitol Police.” “But that doesn’t stop Capitol Police from continuing to sell the lie that Trump supporters are responsible for his death,” Ms Kelly added.
Ms Kelly did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Another way conservative media people attack the Capitol Police is by claiming that the concept of people breaking into the Capitol by force is some kind of hoax.
On January 6, the commission showed many videos of thugs breaking in. One of them captured members of the Proud Boys, Dominic Pezzolasmashed windows with police shields, sending dozens of thugs into the building.
On Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Friday show, he mocked the testimony of an anonymous former White House security official who said Secret Service agents had called their families to say goodbye in case they were killed. Mr Carlson then played video, in which police, far outnumbered by the Capitol, stood passively on the sidelines while thugs marched through barricades.
“We don’t know why the police let people into the Capitol on video,” he said, calling the hearing a “show trial” and saying he was proud his network didn’t air them in prime time.
As the Capitol Police was portrayed as something less heroic, new heroes emerged. One story circulating on the right last week was about a 69-year-old woman, Pam Hemphill, who recently started a 60-day prison sentence after pleading guilty to breaking into the Houses of Parliament on January 6. . Hemphill was portrayed on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, which replaced Rush Limbaugh’s show in many markets, and is typical of the sympathetic message conservatives have heard about her. The presenter described her as a victim – a grandmother and a cancer patient who was sentenced to an unreasonably harsh sentence.
“Think about months of BLM protests in this country,” Say Clay Travis, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement. “How many of those real thugs were held for 60 days for what they caused? That’s absolutely untenable.”
Even the committee’s biggest revelations have not been quelled in the right-wing media. When former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson described Mr Trump’s violent response after the Secret Service refused to escort him to the Capitol, some right-wing commentators insisted the former president’s fans heard him feel bad about it. Feeling uplifted when angry. can not go.
Breitbart News-Journal host Alex Marlow told his audience that many Trump supporters like the idea that their president is working hard to join the Capitol, as he told them.
In an email, Mr. Marlowe said he thought many conservatives in his audience saw what he saw in the impeachment proceedings and Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Hearings. “Trump is again the victim of a dispersal smear campaign by political and media establishments,” he said, describing the audience’s views.
Part of the effectiveness of the conservative media’s defense of the former president’s actions on Jan. 6 was its consistency. When the committee made its case, it was rare to break the rules and question his behavior. However, some have begun to show interest in other potential Trump rivals, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Ms. Ingraham aired her show live Friday from Florida, where she interviewed the governor.
But the blistering condemnation of Mr. Trump over the weekend by the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal suggested that deeper rifts may be starting to form.
Like Fox News, both publications, part of Rupert Murdoch’s conservative media empire, have published editorials questioning Trump’s character. The Wall Street Journal called the latest news of his inaction “horrific.”
The Washington Post went a step further, calling his actions on Jan. 6 an “eternal disgrace” and declaring that “Trump has proven himself unworthy to be the chief executive of this country again.”
