As the first prime-time hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol gaveled in, Fox News host Tucker Carlson opened his show Thursday by bragging about his network not carrying the proceedings live on its main cable channel.
“This is the only hour on an American news channel that won’t be covering their propaganda live,” Carlson said of the committee. “They are lying and we are not going to help them do it.”
Every other major television network and cable channel offered continuous special coverage of Thursday’s proceedings, including NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN.
Fox News took heat this week from Democrats and media pundits after it announced it would carry live continuous coverage of Thursday night’s hearing only on Fox Business Network and its other streaming, digital platforms. It will also make its coverage available to its local affiliates across the country.
But Fox did not on Thursday preempt Carlson’s top-rated opinion program, which the host has used over the last several weeks to cast doubt on the committee’s assertions and suggest the controversy over the violent attack on the Capitol has been overblown.
On Thursday night, the committee made the case that former President Trump worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election and incited the mob that stormed the Capitol that day. Carlson called the attack “forgettably minor by recent standards.”
Fox News said this week its primetime anchors would cover Thursday’s hearings “as news warrants.” Carlson played clips from the first hour of the hearing three times, attacking committee members Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over their statements after doing so.
Carlson’s show took no commercial breaks during Thursday’s show.