Fox News knows that today’s very powerful opening of the January 6th Committee hearings does not bode well for MAGA World.
As the hearing ended, Fox News’ Bret Baier was on hand to provide commentary. He did not sugarcoat his analysis:
BAIER: You cannot watch this testimony and say that it’s not a big deal and you cannot watch this testimony and [not] say that there are questions that are gonna take us places that I don’t think we know where we’re going to go yet.
Co-anchor Sandra Smith was a good GOP foot soldier and got in their talking points:
SMITH: To your point about the questions that many Republicans feel they have that went unanswered, they claim in this testimony – Kevin McCarthy is one of them. He asked, what you won’t hear from Pelosi’s – as he calls it – sham committee, why was the Capitol left vulnerable that day? Why wasn’t the National Guard here, he asked. Why didn’t we have a better security posture? What changes are needed to make sure it never happens again?
Do these Republicans have a point, in that some of these questions wet unasked?
Smith didn’t remind viewers that Republicans could have asked all those questions if they hadn't blocked a bipartisan commission that would have given them a lot of power over the proceedings.
Baier noted that this was just the opening, “kind of setting the table,” but he also said that committee member Rep. Liz Cheney has said that they will “ask every question about who was doing what in the Capitol but also in the White House.”
“You would hope that down the road here you get to those questions,” Baier continued, “and Speaker Pelosi has a role in that as far as the overseeing of the whole Capitol security.”
FACT CHECK: Pelosi does not oversee Capitol security nor the Capitol Police force. Baier is either woefully ignorant or, more likely, he was promoting this right-wing talking point knowing it’s misleading at best.
Not surprisingly, Smith neither corrected Baier nor explained Pelosi’s actual role.
Baier went on to say that the committee will likely get to what he called “the stirring up question,” i.e. “dismissing that it was the FBI, the Deep State, that it was Antifa or Black Lives Matter [that breached the Capitol] and that it was non-violent.” Nobody pointed out that that was all part of the propaganda pushed on Fox News.
However, co-anchor John Roberts highlighted, albeit delicately, some problems facing the right-wing and their messaging:
ROBERTS: To say it was non-violent, I think would be in contradiction, what the video that we saw there, today, Bret. And again, that we saw back in January, during the impeachment proceedings.
You heard one of the officers say there in the wrap-up that we need to know if someone in power was influencing all of this. That would apparently be a nod to both President Trump and that speech that he gave on that morning of January the 6th.
Actually, it could also refer to Republican members of Congress. Right-wing extremist Ali Alexander has said he came up with the idea for the January 6th rally that preceded the insurrection – and got planning help from Republican Reps. Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar.
Roberts also told viewers that Committee Chair Bennie Thompson and Republican member Cheney have each said they have not ruled out subpoenaing Donald Trump and other members of his inner circle.
“I don’t put it past this committee,” Baier said. He explained that Thompson and Cheney have said they want to “get to the bottom of every communication and every back-and-forth.” He predicted that Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Ivanka Trump and others in the White House on January 6th will be asked or subpoenaed to provide testimony. Also House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and “other lawmakers.”
“And what that battle looks like, as far as testimony, we’ll have to see how it plays out,” Baier added.
You can watch Fox News acknowledge that the hearings were powerful and damaging to the Trumpian revisionist history of January 6 below, from the July 27, 2021 America Reports.
Underneath the Fox video is a recording of the complete hearing today, via NBC News. Warning: I feel like I came down with a case of PTSD just watching and hearing about what these officers went through.
I would, however, add that the police in general – everywhere in the USA – have always been and are still programmed to treat whites more carefully. That’s systemic. The cops fighting back against the insurrectionists knew that they would be dealing with Trump supporters and that may have prompted them to not reach for their guns.
There’s another interesting twist to the issue. During an interview with Jake Tapper last night, the head of the police union admitted that the Fraternity of Police (their union) had endorsed Trump because the majority of their members supported the former president. If that’s the case, it’s heartening beyond belief that those officers did not join the insurrectionists. Thanks, guys. And I hope you realise that you did the right thing, regardless of what the braying donkeys continue to say. And a request: please give your active support to the four officers who testified at the hearing, yesterday.
Was there connivance? The hearings will hopefully shed light on that. The 2020 election was something the country had never ever experienced. Here’s hoping the hearing is a turning point and that Americans will decide – with no ifs or buts – to preserve the union.
God’s sake, they killed a Black woman because she made a U-turn in front of the Capitol and she had her child with her in the back seat. You know damn well, as so many have said, if those people had been Black, they’d all of be dead.
So here we have cops being beaten, stomped on, sprayed, and nobody draws their gun. Who gave that order, if there was one? Why wasn’t it ignored to defend themselves? Was there a concern about how it would look to see White Americans being shot? Especially by the cops who were Black or Brown?
To my mind, getting the street-level officers to open the hearing was a perfect rebuttal to all the lies about January 6 being a love fest, a bunch of tourists, etc. etc. And I’m in love with each and every one of those officers. We all know what they and their families can expect from the same sort of folks who gleefully took selfies as they literally, physically – not figuratively – broke into the Capitol. These guys really do walk the talk of American values.
A fairly new talking point on FNC is that the hearing is a political stunt. Sheeeesh. The last officer to speak said it best (paraphrasing): A supposedly stolen election was the was the reason January 6th happened at all … of course it was and is political.