Immediately following his January 6 anniversary speech in Statuary Hall, President Biden told a small group of reporters that “we just have to face the facts of what happened” and “draw a clear picture for the American people.”
When one of the reporters asked if his remarks about Donald Trump could divide more than heal, Biden was ready with an answer: “The way you have to heal, you have to recognize the extent of the wound. This is serious stuff.”
Many listeners raved about the president’s address. Some Trump loyalists sneered at it. Here’s how the speech was received across the media:
— Fox’s Tucker Carlson said he would not show a single clip from the speech because it was “awful and weird.” Carlson claimed that Jan. 6 “barely rates as a footnote” as a historical event and claimed “really not a lot happened that day.” (Let that sink in.)
Related reading
— Counterpoint: Biden set the non-Fox news agenda for the entire day, and his words will carry through into Friday’s coverage too…
Cheney and Thompson on CNN’s special
Jake Tapper interviewed Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney together, and both lawmakers addressed the 1/6 denialism that has dragged down the GOP. “Some of your fellow Republicans are out there,” Tapper said, “probably right now on certain other channels, saying this was no big deal… What do you say to them?” Cheney answered, “I say that’s how democracies die.” Somberly, she said “my party is not embracing truth, is not embracing substance and seriousness.”
As for the status of the House’s probe, Thompson said, “we are learning that individuals conspired to change the outcome of the election.” Tapper heard that news and followed up: “You said ‘individuals conspired,’ conspiracy obviously being a crime, individuals including people in the inner circle of the Trump White House?” Thompson responded, “Oh, no question about it.”
“It is beginning to rot their minds”
During CNN’s special, Jamie Raskin told Anderson Cooper “I feel bad” for people, including fellow lawmakers, who are in denial about 1/6. “They are essentially in a political religious cult,” Raskin said, “and their cult leader, Donald Trump, is telling them they can’t believe their own eyes, the evidence of their own experience and their own ears. So we should try to embrace those people and help them through what they’re going through — because they’ve been fed lies and they’re swallowing the lies. And some of them may have thought they were clever at the beginning. That they could go along with it and not believe it. But many of them have allowed the lies really to seep into their soul and it is beginning to rot their minds.”
On that note…
Cruz begs Carlson for forgiveness
Oliver Darcy writes: “Tucker Carlson, the effective head of the GOP’s media wing, is only getting more powerful. This week’s proof: The Fox host skewered Ted Cruz on Wednesday for referring to 1/6 as a ‘violent terrorist attack,’ since that’s a grave sin in right-wing circles. On Thursday, Cruz was on Carlson’s program essentially begging for forgiveness. Cruz told Carlson that ‘the way I phrased things’ was ‘sloppy and frankly dumb.’ Carlson said he didn’t buy it, telling Cruz his explanation for using the phrase didn’t even make sense.’ Cruz continued to plead for Carlson to absolve him of his sins. As NYT’s Michael Grynbaum noted, the back and forth ‘is really worth a watch for insight into the power dynamics of the modern GOP…'”
The key takeaway from right-wing media’s coverage
“Web of lies”
Biden alluded to Trump’s “web of lies” on Thursday, and Trump spun new and old ones immediately afterward. Notably, though, Trump did not call into any right-wing TV channels. Fox and Newsmax provided basically the bare minimum amount of anniversary coverage. OAN didn’t even carry Biden live. Naturally, Fox fans were all over my Twitter mentions defending the lack of coverage, claiming they didn’t want to hear about Jan. 6 at all and bragging that Fox’s ratings would be high. This anonymous message from a vocal critic stood out: “Do you realize the way the media is covering and celebrating today makes Trump supporters like me hate you people even more?”
The irony of Fox’s coverage
Oliver Darcy writes: “One remarkable (and yet entirely predictable) quality of Fox’s coverage Thursday is that Biden and the news media received far more criticism and condemnation during discussions pertaining to January 6 than… the former President who incited the attack. It is impossible to overstate the fervor of anti-media, anti-Biden rhetoric that came out of Fox and the larger right-wing media ecosystem on Thursday. While reporters covered Biden’s speech and the day’s other remembrances, right-wing media personalities bashed the press and president for caring. That was truly the crux of their coverage…”
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