Less than 48 hours after police officers involved in the deadly January 6th Capitol riot testified before a congressional committee, Fox News spent a day mocking the emotional testimony and instructing its viewers to ignore the facts.
Politics
Capitol Police Officers Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn, as well as DC Metropolitan Police Officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges, testified on Tuesday before a select House committee regarding the Donald Trump-led Capitol riot. Officer Hodges spoke of being trapped and squeezed between the opening of a revolving door. Officer Gonell told of how he was beaten with baseball bats, hockey sticks, and an American flag. Officer Dunn described being called a “F*cking N*gger” by the MAGA mob. Officer Fanone explained how rioters dragged him into the crowd and threatened to kill him with his own gun.
Apparently, the harrowing descriptions of the events of that day were all fun and games and the brunt of jokes for Fox personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, who spent the majority of their airtime on Wednesday mocking the police officers and snickering at their life-threatening ordeals.
On “The Ingraham Angle,” Ingraham reduced the officer’s testimonies to a theatrical play and introduced what she called “the Angle awards for today’s best performances.”
She presented the “best-exaggerated performance” award to Officer Gonell for the tears he displayed while describing being beaten by a flagpole, while Officer Dunn was handed the “best political performance” award for describing his mindset after being called the “N” word.
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Laura Ingraham is giving out best performance awards to police officers from today’s hearing pic.twitter.com/NyDynIN7rP
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 28, 2021
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Ingraham also awarded the “best dramatic performance” to Reps. Adam Schiff and Adam Kinzinger for daring to display emotional reactions following the Capitol riot testimonies.
On “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Carlson took his turn mocking the testimonies and took particular issue with Officer Gonell’s words that “on January 6th, for the first time, I was more afraid to work at the Capitol than my entire deployment to Iraq.”
Carlson responded: “Actually, what happened on January 6th, according to the video we do have, does not look a lot like Iraq. It’s not Fallujah,” he snickered.
Regarding Officer Fanone’s statement that he’s been “left with the psychological trauma and the emotional anxiety of having survived such a horrific event,” Carlson literally laughed out loud at the officer’s experience.
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Watch Tucker Carlson literally laugh at DC cop Michael Fanone saying he’s “been left with psychological trauma and emotional anxiety” from the Capitol riots.
Fanone was nearly beaten to death and suffered a heart attack!
This is truly sociopathic behavior here. pic.twitter.com/VA2QN3Rk5T
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 28, 2021
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Being noted Donald Trump flunkies, both Ingraham and Carlson were clearly following marching orders to dismantle and discredit the events of January 6th in the hopes that the public miraculously forgets it ever happened before the 2022 election rolls around.
DESPICABLE!
Deadline:
One of the standout moments from the first meeting of the January 6 Select Committee came when Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) fought back tears as he addressed the four witnesses, police officers who defended the Capitol from pro-Donald Trump rioters.
But hours after the moment, he was mocked — along with questioning the testimony of the officers themselves — by two of Fox News’ star primetime hosts, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.
On CNN’s The Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Kinzinger about the comments.
“That personality on that television show, I don’t think has ever served in uniform a day in his life,” Kinzinger said. “I would argue that is a very cold hearted thing. Or it’s just simply driven on expanding your cold hearted personality for ratings.”