Tucker Carlson downplays January 6 and defends Republican members of Congress involved in the planning and execution
Carlson: “It was a lot of things -- it was not an insurrection, no evidence of that. Why are they calling it an insurrection?”
Published
Citation From the January 3, 2022 edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight
TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): So, from the very first day, well a year now, CNN and Politico and The Atlantic and all the airhead news anchors have been calling January 6th an insurrection -- and to us in literal America, that's been confusing because it wasn't an insurrection. It was a lot of things -- it was not an insurrection, no evidence of that. Why are they calling it an insurrection? Now we know.
Marc Elias, probably the biggest Democratic lawyer in America has issued what he calls a prediction. Here it is. "Before the midterm election, we will have a serious discussion about whether individual Republican House members are disqualified by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment from serving in the Congress."
Well, what's that amendment? Well, that's the amendment adopted right after the Civil War that prohibits, wait for it, insurrectionists, from holding office. So, if you don't want to lose the Congress, just ban the other side from running. Not an attack on democracy. Jonathan Turley is a professor of law at George Washington University and he joins us tonight. Mr. Turley. So maybe, I mean like, if you're concerned about short-circuiting democracy, maybe you shouldn't prevent voters from electing whoever they want, right?
JONATHAN TURLEY (GUEST): Yeah, nothing says democracy like barring people from running for office, apparently. Of course, it's very common, you know, in countries like Iran. They just disqualified hundreds of people from their ballot. This is a much more modest idea, but it's an equally dangerous one.