January 6th Anniversary Gets Wildly Different Treatment On Cable News Primetime: “Trump’s Failed Coup” Vs. “Barely Rates As A Footnote”
07.01.2022 - 07:39
/ deadline.com
All of the news networks carried events marking the anniversary of January 6th, albeit with differences in tone and tenor, but by the time of the opinion-heavy primetime hours, there were wildly different characterizations of the significance of attack on the Capitol.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes opened his how at 8 PM ET saying that “today we saw on full display the battle over the meaning of this date,” talking of Donald Trump’s “failed coup” as the probably the most infamous event since 9/11.
Fox News’s Tucker Carlson said it was “really just only a riot — maybe just barely,” while he again gave a platform to a theory that the events were a “false flag” operation. He even had on as a guest Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who rather sheepishly said it was “sloppy and it was frankly dumb” to refer to the January 6th riot as a “violent terrorist attack” earlier this week. Carlson had slammed Carlson for the characterization on his Wednesday show.
CNN, meanwhile, presented a two hour primetime special, live from Statuary Hall in the Capitol, with Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper presenting interviews with lawmakers who were there that day. They started with a segment recapping the events, as rioters burst through barricades, fought with police and chanted to “hang Mike Pence.”
Cooper asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi what she thinks would have happened had the rioters found her.
“They said they were going to shoot me in the brain,” she said, adding that she “wasn’t worried about myself.”
The divergent treatment of January 6th is hardly surprising, given that it started that very evening, even before the electoral vote count was resumed, and has continued since.
On a show in July, Laura Ingraham mocked the testimony of police officers before the