Tucker Carlson Completely Botches Facts of George Floyd Death to Complain ‘We All Have to Pretend’ Derek Chauvin Committed Murder

Tucker Carlson wildly misrepresented the facts of George Floyd’s death on his show Tuesday evening, going so far as to claim “we all have to pretend” former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered the man the Fox News host mockingly referred to as “Saint George Floyd.”

To set one fact straight from the beginning: In April 2021, a jury convicted Chauvin of all three counts (second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter) against him and then he was sentenced by the judge to 22.5 years in prison, so it has been legally determined that he did commit murder, and that is not anything that needs to be “pretended.”

During the segment, Carlson introduced his Fox News colleague Laura Ingraham to report from Minneapolis on how the city was faring in the years since Floyd’s death with the following commentary:

It was just over two years ago that a violent ex-con called George Floyd got arrested in Minneapolis for trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill and promptly died of a fentanyl OD, or at least that’s what the medical examiner apparently determined — I don’t think we are allowed to say that on TV, but anyway, he died.

In response to his death, Saint George Floyd’s death, Democrats encouraged riots all over the country — they bailed out criminals, they paid for the whole thing. You have to wonder what happened to Minneapolis. It used to be one of the nicest cities in the world. It’s not anymore.

Carlson claimed “we got a text from someone in Minneapolis” that said “this place is a disaster” and the unnamed person was “afraid to go to the mall.” He brought on Ingraham to report from Minneapolis, cueing up a video clip of her interviewing two officers in the parking lot of the third precinct, which he described as “still abandoned after it was destroyed by rioters.”

During Ingraham’s chat with the officers, they complain that one of their “biggest challenges” is the “deficit of officers” and “what limited resources we have now,” as the chyron said “DEFUNDING THE POLICE HAS RUINED MINNEAPOLIS.”

“Has the activist movement, which always seemed to, in my view, be biased against law enforcement, has that made your job more difficult on a daily basis, interacting with regular folks?” she asked the officers.

They agreed it had, saying “the more of that that gets put out in the media, it makes it tough for us to do our jobs, without being harassed and cameras in our face when we’re just trying to work. We’re not trying to take away anybody’s rights. We’re just trying to do our job.”

Ingraham told Carlson that Minneapolis was a “total disaster” after the damage caused by the riots in the wake of Floyd’s death and she was “stunned how bad it was” when she visited shortly thereafter, and there was still a lot of rebuilding to be done.

Carlson wrapped the segment with these remarks as a chyron that read “DEMOCRATS EXPLOITED GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH BUT DO NOTHING AS MINNEAPOLIS CRUMBLES” was displayed on the screen:

Unbelievable. So they destroy this city. They put this cop in prison for the rest of his life, we all have to pretend he committed murder! Which he didn’t, but whatever! We have to pretend it!

And then they leave and they move on to the next thing to destroy. So perfect. Laura Ingraham, I appreciate the fact that you’re on this story and your report from there tonight.

Ingraham could be seen in the split screen blinking as Carlson said these words, but did not contradict him, simply nodding and saying “Thanks so much, Tucker. See you soon,” after he thanked her for her report.

Never mentioned once during the entire segment: the 9 minutes and 29 seconds that Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck, including 3 minutes and 51 seconds in which he was non-responsive, as established by prosecutors during Chauvin’s trial based on video evidence from police body cameras and bystander cell phones. (That figure was amended from the already egregious 8 minutes and 46 seconds found in the original criminal complaint filed against Chauvin; a number that was mentioned in many protests and served as the title for Dave Chappelle’s 2020 special on police violence and racism).

That cell phone video of Floyd went viral, showing him dying while handcuffed and pinned down by four police officers with Chauvin kneeling on his neck as he cried out for his mother, repeatedly said he could not breathe, lost consciousness, and his pulse faded away — all while Chauvin ignored bystanders’ pleas to remove his knee and even rejected offers to provide medical assistance from an off-duty firefighter and then the EMTs who arrived at the scene.

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified against his own officer, describing Chauvin’s actions as “absolutely” in violation of department restraint policies.

Dr. Martin Tobin, a longtime pulmonary specialist with extensive expertise in pulmonary and critical care medicine, was an expert witness for the prosecution, testifying that Floyd died of a “low level of oxygen” that damaged his brain and caused his heart to stop, specifically naming the actions of Chauvin and his fellow officers as the cause:

“Mr. Floyd died from a low level of oxygen,” the doctor told the jury. “And this caused damage to his brain that we see and it also caused a PEA arrhythmia that caused his heart to stop.”

Tobin explained that a PEA arrhythmia is a “particular form of abnormal beat of the heart,” which is also sometimes called asphyxia.

Tobin further explained that the low level of oxygen was due to “shallow breathing,” which was caused by “a number of forces.”

“The main forces that are going to lead to the shallow breath are going to be that he’s turned prone on the street, that he has the handcuffs in place combined with the street, and then that he as a knee on his neck, and then that he has a knee on his back and down his side. All of these four forces are ultimately going to result in the low tidal volume which gives you the shallow breaths that we saw here.”

Carlson never named the medical examiner he claimed had “apparently determined” Floyd “promptly died of a fentanyl OD,” but the original medical examiner who examined Floyd’s body reached no such conclusion. Carlson may have been referring to Dr. David Fowler, the defense witness who had retired as a medical examiner in Maryland shortly before Chauvin’s trial.

Fowler tossed a variety of theories at the wall during his testimony, including suggesting that Floyd could have died from heart disease or carbon monoxide from the police car, but never went so far as to actually testify that Floyd had definitely “promptly died of a fentanyl OD,” as Carlson claimed.

Besides the fact that Fowler’s testimony was directly contradicted by Tobin — as well as being rejected by the jury in their conclusion that Chauvin was guilty of second degree murder — even Fowler admitted during cross-examination by the prosecutor that Floyd should have received “immediate medical attention” after he lost consciousness and went into cardiac arrest.

Carlson’s postmortem attempts to malign the character of George Floyd do not change the undisputed facts in this case, nor do they erase the widely-viewed video evidence showing Floyd’s life fading away as he was cruelly pinned to the asphalt under Chauvin’s knee.

The only thing anyone is “pretending” here is that Carlson deserves to call himself a journalist or that his show belongs on a channel with “News” in its name.

Watch the video above, via Fox News.

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