CNN’s Anderson Cooper called out Fox News host Tucker Carlson for claiming the Jan. 6 rioters trying to keep Donald Trump in power were actually just “sightseers” at the U.S. Capitol.
And he did so with some pretty evocative ― and not to mention gross ― imagery.
“The idea of Tucker Carlson being in that mob that day and not wetting his pants is hard to imagine,” Cooper said. “I find it hard to understand somebody who’s never put himself in harm’s way in any capacity for anyone else or on reporting a story and yet has the audacity to try to rewrite history.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) ― who on Jan. 6, 2021, condemned the violence and denounced the attackers as “un-American” ― gave Carlson exclusive access to security footage from the Capitol during the insurrection.
Carlson, who has admitted to lying, has cherry-picked that footage to downplay and even ignore the violence as he tries to gaslight his viewers into thinking a group of peaceful visitors essentially acted as tourists in the Capitol as Congress met to certify the 2020 Electoral College vote for Joe Biden.
Cooper called that “an attempt to rewrite history on what is one of the most consequential, certainly one of the biggest events in American democracy, biggest threats to American democracy.”
Cooper also spoke with Michael Fanone, a former D.C. police officer who was assaulted by pro-Trump mob that day.
Fanone called Carlson “Donald Trump’s chief propagandist.”
See more of their conversation below: