Trump, McCarthy and Fox have run out of a new truth-defying playbook

[ad_1]

CNN —

A Trump industrial complex of power-hungry politicians and profit-seeking conservative media stars spins an alternative reality that defies history that once again puts truth and democracy on the line.

A flurry of new developments Tuesday exposed the connection between the political fortunes of former President Donald Trump, the speakership of Kevin McCarthy and Fox News, revealing who really holds power in a Republican Party controlled of its extreme elements.

In a new burst of lies on Tuesday night, Tucker Carlson, the face of Fox News cherry-picked more excerpts of US Capitol security footage from the January 6, 2021 insurrection, in a new sought to obscure the reality of that day of infamy when Trumps mob, fueled by his anger, stormed the building. McCarthy, who gave Carlson exclusive access to the tapes, despite the Fox hosts debunking conspiracy theories about the coup, told CNNs Manu Raju that he regrets nothing even a group of Republican senators strongly criticized the decision. The California Republicans’ comments only exposed his apparent political motivation to appease the extremists he needs to narrowly win the speakership in January and on whom his tenuous hold on power depends. A new release of behind-the-scenes emails and texts from the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox shows how the network’s top leaders knew Trump’s voter fraud claims were false. and his acolytes. But the trove also showed how top talent and executives, including Rupert Murdoch, feared that telling their audience the truth would alienate viewers. All this comes after Trump vowed over the weekend to win back the White House and launch a new presidency of retribution against his enemies. Critics often complain that the media takes the demagoguery of former presidents too literally. But Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024, has proven he is willing to incite violence as a tool of political power. And if he leads the Republican ticket again, he’ll be one step away from the White House.

These revelations and new attacks on the truth are not isolated events in the ever-changing politics of the right. All of these are interrelated, rooted in a common effort to foment extremism and political unrest in the pursuit of personal power or political wealth.

The most influential and vocal leaders of the Make America Great Again movement are in fact engaged in a never-ending effort to hide the truth from their most loyal followers.

These figures are united in a willingness to give the grassroots conservative base, which the Trumps have already begun to lie, what it wants to hear whether it is conspiracies in voter fraud in the 2020 election or that the chaos in the Capitol did not take place. Electoral dissidents continue to gravitate to deep red parts of the country meaning there is still a strong constituency for such messages. But the poor performance of many such midterm candidates in swing states last fall suggests that some voters normally open to voting Republican have no real political home.

However, the political and financial power of Trumps conspiracy theory machine means that US democracy, which barely survived under his first assault in 2020, is likely to face another severe test in the next two years as it raises his third bid to the White House.

It’s hard to draw any other conclusion when Carlson with millions of viewers and the power to make the speaker of the House dance to his tune as recently as Monday night offered this completely false conclusion about the legitimacy of Joe Bidens presidency : In retrospect, it is clear that the 2020 election was an egregious betrayal of American democracy.

Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer, drew parallels between Carlson’s latest effort to hide the reality of the insurrection and Foxs earlier efforts to promote conspiracies about the 2020 election to please the its viewers even though documents released from the Dominion suit show that the opinion hosts who fanned them didn’t believe them.

Speaking to CNNs Erin Burnett, Ginsberg pointed to a harsh decision that showed Fox was worried that if they told the truth it would hurt them financially, if not destroy them, and by spreading of lies, they appeal to their audience and make money. He also said the same calculation is at play in the Dominion case, but it also plays into the latter’s reputational issues and what they say about elections.

It is too early to know if the Fox case will go to trial, if other evidence unearthed in the discovery process will be exculpatory or to know the full picture of the case.

But Ginsberg pointed to a major weakness in the networks’ defense when he said: There is still no credible evidence that there was any fraud that could potentially overturn the election results.

McCarthy’s decision to grant access to the tapes to Carlson, who has a long record of conspiracy theories on January 6, 2021, reinforced the impression that he sought to discredit the findings of the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the insurrection when the chamber has been under Democratic control for the past two years.

However, after the mob attack on the Capitol, McCarthy said Trump was responsible. McCarthy’s decision to turn over the footage to Carlson in an apparent bid to obscure the truth of the insurrection contrasted with his own views in the days following the riots, CNN’s KFile reported Tuesday. They scaled the walls, McCarthy told KERN radio in his Bakersfield, California, area district. They brought ropes. A couple of protesters died because they scaled. And when you have an inaugural, there’s scaffolding. They are scaling the scaffolding. They, they passed the place.

McCarthy told CNN’s Raju that his decision to release the footage was an act of transparency even though no journalists other than Carlson had seen it. A GOP source told CNN Melanie Zanona last month that he made a commitment to do so to Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of the holdouts who threatened his bid to become speaker, but the apparent deal did not specify that Carlson must obtain the material. (McCarthy told reporters Tuesday that the footage would be released to all media organizations, but did not say when.)

McCarthy’s move will likely fuel Jan. 6 conspiracy theories among radical House GOP members, who will decide whether he stays in power for the long haul. And he is once again rewarding his political patron, Trump.

But the rare spectacle of a House speaker, who will be next in line to the presidency behind Vice President Kamala Harris, surrendering his own power to a conservative television personality who once criticized him was a revealing moment. McCarthy has long been said to be under the influence of extremist elements in his party such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that one of them is only half right.

McCarthy’s decision to release the tapes led US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger to lament the Carlsons’ program, which he said was filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the Jan. 6 attacks. Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died a day after he was attacked in the insurrection, the Fox star argued that the footage proved that the violence was not to blame. Leave us the hell and instead of spreading more lies from Supreme Leader Trump, why don’t you focus on the real news? said the family statement. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Carlson before the second helping of the tapes on Tuesday, in one of the most embarrassing hours we’ve seen on cable television.

But the most intriguing reaction came from a group of Republican senators, many of whom were on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 as the crowd insulted by Trump descended on the Capitol.

I thought it was an insurrection at the time. I still think it’s an insurrection now, said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds on CNN’s Raju. Described by North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis describes Carlson as bullsh*t. And in a dramatic moment, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Fox had erred by describing what happened in a way that contradicted US law enforcement accounts.

Regarding the presentation on Fox News last night, I want to associate myself completely with the opinion of the Capitol police chief about what happened on January 6, McConnell told reporters while holding a copy of the Mangers statement.

The Republican reaction was not universal among senators but it reflected the personal experiences of many of the lawmakers and staff at the Capitol on that terrifying day more than two years ago. It also appears to reflect some early polls showing the GOP’s appetite for Trump’s weakening. Many Republican voters share Trumps antipathy for the establishment elites, the media and Washington. But there is evidence some of them also fear that he will not win a general election again and want to move on from the former president.

But at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington last weekend, Trump gave a preview of a second term that will likely contain the same series of lies and incitements that he traded in after the 2020 election and in which McCarthy and Carlson are trying to whitewash and silence.

I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been harmed and betrayed, I am your recompense, Trump said.

[ad_2]