‘They Just Walked In’: Tucker Carlson’s Bizarre Revisionist Defense of Capitol Rioters

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Tucker Carlson defended the Capitol rioters in a lengthy monologue on Tuesday night, presenting a bizarre, revisionist account of the Jan. 6 attack, one that will sound odd to anyone who was awake and mildly aware of what happened on that day.

“A mob of older people from unfashionable zip codes made it all the way to Washington D.C., maybe by bus. They wandered freely through the Capitol like it was their building or something,” Carlson said. Beside him, a graphic put “insurrection” in scare-quotes.

“They didn’t have guns, but a lot of them had extremely dangerous ideas. They talked about the Constitution, and something called their rights. Some of them made openly seditious claims. They insisted, for example, that the last election was not entirely fair,” he continued.

Carlson’s mocking tone aside, one has to assume his viewers believe that he is honestly describing what happened on Jan. 6. He is not. In reality, the rioters, fueled by the lie that the election was stolen, violently stormed the Capitol building. They chanted “Hang Mike Pence” — the vice president! — a surely notable fact that Carlson curiously neglected to mention.

The violence at the Capitol killed five people. In addition, two police officers committed suicide afterward. More than 100 police officers were wounded. One reportedly lost an eye, another lost a finger, and others sustained brain injuries.

Carlson’s issue, however, is with the prosecution of those who carried out the attack. (It is notable that in order to defend their actions, he needs to lie about what they did.)

The Fox News host expressed outrage at the prosecution of Eric Munchel, the rioter photographed inside the Capitol Building with zip-tie handcuffs. He, along with his mother Lisa Eisenhardt, were charged with three felonies, including engaging in violent entry or disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon. A judge ruled last month that they would remain in jail until trial, citing evidence that both had expressed a desire to “act against Congress again.” (An appeals court disagreed with that judge, arguing that the pair were not violent during the riot and therefore no longer posed a threat.)

Carlson did not mention those charges, or reckon with the rationale for why the pair were being jailed.

“Neither Lisa Eisenhardt nor her son, Eric Munchel, damaged either property at the capital or committed any violence,” Carlson said. “They just walked in to what we used to refer to as the people’s house.”

I would not blame you for assuming that Tucker Carlson was on vacation, or perhaps asleep, when the Capitol was ransacked. He was not. On his show that night, Carlson did not describe the hundreds of rioters seeking to thwart the democratic process and lynch the vice president as a group of elderly tourists taking a leisurely stroll through the halls of Congress.

“If you don’t bother to pause and learn a single thing from it, from your citizens storming your Capitol building, then you’re a fool,” Carlson told his audience on Jan. 6.

One has to wonder what lesson Carlson learned from the storming of the Capitol. None of the answers are promising.

This story has been updated.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.