McCarthy’s GOP tries to move on from Tucker Carlson-Jan. 6 drama

Source: Politico | March 8, 2023 | Olivia Beavers and Sarah Ferris

Hours after Senate Republicans slammed the Fox News host for using speaker-provided footage to downplay the riot, the House majority pushed to talk about other things.

Mere hours after Tucker Carlson’s latest segment minimizing the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, House Republicans were eager to change the subject from the Fox News host’s riot revisionism.

While Carlson continued to roil Washington, many GOP lawmakers who gathered Wednesday morning were celebrating their unexpected win on a bill rolling back progressive D.C. crime laws and plotting their response to Thursday’s White House budget.

Carlson didn’t come up at all during House Republicans’ meeting, according to four members in the room who spoke on condition of anonymity. And not a single GOP lawmaker asked about it when given the chance to speak. In fact, some members were privately surprised by the amiability of this week’s first closed-door huddle — generally because there is usually some drama, but particularly since the Fox News segment has publicly reopened painful cross-party fissures over Jan. 6, 2021.

Yet Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to let Carlson access thousands of hours of Capitol footage from the riot has left a lingering cloud over his own leadership team, which was repeatedly pressed about the move as Carlson continues to downplay the violence of the siege by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Senate Republicans heaped criticism Tuesday on Carlson’s portrayal of the riot, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (though few directly dinged McCarthy).

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