Jan. 6 Hero Cop Fanone Reveals His ‘Pretty Shocking’ Recorded Phone Calls With Republicans McCarthy, Lindsey Graham To Don Lemon

Former D.C. Metro Police Officer and current CNN analyst Michael Fanone revealed the “pretty shocking” exchanges he recorded during phone calls with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senator Lindsey Graham.

Fanone — who was beaten by pro-Trump insurrectionists during the attack on Capitol Hill and suffered a heart attack and concussion as a result — has written a book entitled “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul” that comes out Tuesday. In the book, Fanone reveals he surreptitiously recorded many conversations in the aftermath of the attack.

On Friday night’s edition of CNN’s Don Lemon Tonight, host Don Lemon asked him about those calls, and Fanone reveals he was “pretty shocked” by McCarthy’s refusal to rein in pro-insurrection House members. Perhaps even more shocking, though, was his account of a suggestion that Graham made while victim-blaming the cops who were attacked:

LEMON: You revealed that you recorded your meeting with Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. What did he say? Because you write that you left feeling you said disillusioned and depressed. As disillusioned and depressed as ever.

FANONE: Well, I mean, I think it was more what he did not say. He didn’t really say a whole lot of anything.There wasn’t a lot of substance to the conversation outside of the fact that, you know, I asked for some specific things and one of them being that, you know, he would denounce members of the party that were talking about or downplaying, or denying the reality of January 6th, the reality of Donald Trump’s involvement in January 6th.

And he wouldn’t agree to do so. And even more so, he said that he couldn’t control these fringe members of his party, which I thought was pretty shocking coming from somebody who, you know, calls himself leader McCarthy, being the leader of the House GOP.

But also, the — just to the indifference. You know, the fact that I sat there in a room, having been a victim of the violence that day. Sitting next to the mother of a dead police officer, that being Brian Sicknick. And you know, seeing a person who chose his political future and what he thought would be best for his party, rather than to show some level of compassion or empathy for, you know, the people that he — that were sitting in front of him. I mean, to him we were an inconvenience.

LEMON: You also recorded, and I want to say this is, it’s legal for you to record in D.C. You also recorded meetings with the National Fraternal Order of Police president and other local police officers. Why did you want to get these conversations on tape?

FANONE: Well, like you said, it is legal in D.C. We have one party consent, and I was the party that consented. That being said, I knew that the things that I was asking for in these conversations, most likely I would be given a very different response privately than they might say publicly.

And so, I wanted to make sure that the record reflected the conversations that they had. And that they could be held accountable if they decided to say something different in public, which all of them have.

LEMON: You also write about a meeting with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. You write in part, at one point, as I was describing the assault in the tunnel, noting that we were vastly outnumbered, Graham interrupted, you guys should have shot them all in the head, Graham said. We gave you, guys, guns and you should have used them. I don’t understand why that didn’t happen. Why? I mean, how did you respond to that.

FANONE: I mean, I told him that I appreciated his enthusiasm, but unfortunately, as law enforcement officers, we have very strict guidelines that dictate how we can use force, when we can use force. And in the situations, it would not have been appropriate just to open fire on a group of Americans. Some of whom were committing crimes, some of those crimes may have risen to the level of using deadly force to protect life or protect the officers. But many would not.

And, you know, shooting into a crowd like that, you would’ve had, individuals who would’ve most likely been killed or injured that did not deserve to be.

Watch above via CNN.