OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Tucker Carlson’s primetime show on Fox News has smashed another key barrier. A new report notes that Carlson dominated the cable news ratings on Friday night and it was not even close.
According to Mediaite, Carlson’s show was the highest-rated program in all of cable news after it brought it a whopping 3.09 million total viewers and 365,000 in the 25-54 demo.
“That audience was enough to beat out the usual top show in cable news, Fox News’s The Five, as well as beat the competition on MSNBC and CNN by miles. In total viewers, Carlson tripled the 8 p.m. competition on MSNBC and sextupled his CNN rival. In the demo, Carlson more than tripled both MSNBC and CNN,” Mediaite reported.
The massive ratings for Carlson came as he has been airing new footage in recent days on his Fox News program from the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police issued a memo to his staff on Tuesday following the airing of previously unseen security footage by Carlson, which showed police officers appearing to stand passively as a large crowd entered the Capitol that day.
Police Chief Tom Manger condemned the comments made during the airing of the footage on Carlson’s Monday night program, stating that it was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions” about the riot of January 6, 2021, when a group of people breached the U.S. Capitol building, causing disruptions to lawmakers who were in the process of certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
“The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video,” Manger claimed. “The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”
Manger noted that Capitol Police “maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day.”
In his memo, Manger thanked and praised members of the Capitol Police force, commending their efforts on January 6.
“You fought like hell on January 6 and risked your lives to protect the Constitution and everything this country stands for,” he wrote. “You, along with our law enforcement partners, saved every member of Congress and their staff.”
Republicans are also calling on Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi to answer questions about security failures at the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the complex vulnerable on January 6, 2021,” says the report, which is based on emails, text messages, and testimony from many involved.
The report also claims that “staff within the House Sergeant at Arms office emailed Paul Irving that January 6th was Pelosi’s fault.” The report does not provide evidence for that claim.
“The Republicans responsible for the withering report — Jim Banks (R-IN), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) and Troy Nehls (R-TX) — are the five congressmen originally nominated to sit on the Jan. 6 committee, until Pelosi vetoed Banks and Jordan. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled the rest of his nominees in protest. Pelosi then installed two Never Trump Republican outcasts, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger. Given Pelosi’s assiduous grooming of Cheney, no doubt it suited both their interests to focus the final Jan.6 committee report on Trump — and not on Pelosi’s culpability,” the New York Post reported.
Republican lawmakers are demanding answers.
“The reason there wasn’t a proper security presence on that day goes right to the speaker’s staff and the speaker’s office. As you go back and look at the communications, there’s this pattern that develops where the Sergeant of Arms is meeting with Pelosi’s staff. Many of those meetings, Republican staff wasn’t allowed to be there, but they had this pattern where everything had to run through her office, her staff, before the Sergeant of Arms could make a decision,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said when speaking about House Republicans’ report detailing security failures at the Capitol that day.
Texas Republican Rep. Troy Nehls issued a similar response: “And Nancy Pelosi. You do have questions you need to answer … Nancy, we’ll get you, and we’ll fly you back from Italy once you’re the ambassador,” Nehls said as he joked about prior reports speculating that President Biden was considering offering the U.S. Ambassador to Italy post to Pelosi.
