On Monday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) slammed a CNN reporter as he took questions about his decision to release footage from the January 6 Capitol riot to Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Because of the footage that you gave Tucker Carlson, last night he went on and said this was a mostly peaceful chaos as he said, he downplayed Brian Sicknick’s death, said it was not related to January 6, that this was not an insurrection,” CNN reporter Manu Raju said. “Do you regret giving him those [tapes] so he could whitewash the events of that day?”
“No. I said at the very beginning, ‘transparency,’” McCarthy responded. “And so what I wanted to produce for everybody is exactly what I said, people can actually look at it and see what’s gone on that day.”
When asked if he agreed with Carlson’s portrayal of the events that occurred on January 6, McCarthy said, “Each person can come up with their own conclusion.”
“But I just wanted to make sure I had transparency, because I know on CNN, I mean, I had here where you guys actually wrote where we were,” McCarthy continued as he held up a printed off CNN report. “This was a secret location … I don’t know if you got concerned by that, I don’t even know from a point of view of security if we could ever be taken there again. But when you broke that at CNN, that was a real concern to a lot of people.”
BREAKING: McCarthy defends Tucker release of J6 tapes, slams CNN pic.twitter.com/e6FxWHWoDf
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 8, 2023