Sports media talk show host Stephen A. Smith went after Fox News star Tucker Carlson this week, blasting the network’s top-watched host for his recent treatment of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.
“It pissed me off,” Smith said during a recent episode of Mediaite’s podcast “The Interview” regarding Carlson’s downplaying the insurrection. “Like I said, it did. And I’m not apologizing because to me, we can say it’s politics. Five people were killed. Thousands of people stormed the U.S. Capitol.”
“For Tucker Carlson to go on national TV and highlight how everyone wasn’t violent. The fact of the matter is, they followed the people in. They got in because the violent protesters kicked in windows, kicked down doors, bum-rushed through law enforcement officials … It’s an insult to our intelligence to say not everyone was violent ” he continued. “When Tucker Carlson points something like that out, it’s like, you are smart enough to know that’s bulls— that you’re spewing. You know better than that.”
Carlson has come under intense scrutiny for his framing of the Capitol attack in recent segments aired on his show after being given exclusive access to additional footage from the riot that day by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
At one point during an episode earlier this month, he described the Capitol breach as “mostly peaceful chaos” and he has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the attack.
Smith, a long time sports broadcaster who occasionally opines on current affairs and politics, said while he is not an “aficionado” of politics, he found it to be “common sense” that the events of Jan. 6, in which more than 100 police officers were injured, were violent in nature.
—Updated Tuesday at 5:03 p.m.