Report: McCarthy Gives Tucker Carlson Jan. 6 Footage

Facts

• US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has reportedly given Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to 41K hours of footage from the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Sources have told Axios that Carlson's team sorted through the video last week and that the show will begin airing footage in the coming weeks.¹
• Carlson told Axios that the footage would 'reveal... what actually happened on January 6,' hinting that it could provide an alternative, more pro-Trump version of events from that day.²
• McCarthy previously promised to release the footage on Jan. 12, just days after becoming Speaker earlier this year. During that press conference he said, 'I think the American public should actually see all what happened instead of a report that’s written for a political basis.'³
• While Carlson has called the riots a 'forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards' and Washington 'a regime of secrecy and deceit,' the Jan. 6 congressional committee hearings did play numerous excerpts of the footage last year.⁴
• McCarthy reportedly didn't consult House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-N.Y.) about the footage — all of which the now-defunct Jan. 6 committee had access to but refused to release for security reasons. He allegedly did not consult GOP leadership before making his decision per CNN.⁵
• Though it's yet unclear whether McCarthy will release the footage to the general public, Democrats will likely be preparing a defense against the claims Carlson will make on his show.⁶

Sources: ¹Breitbart, ²Forbes, ³Daily Caller, ⁴Axios, ⁵CNN and ⁶Red State.

Narratives

• Republican narrative, as provided by PJ Media. The fact that Democrats from the Jan. 6 Kangaroo Court are crying foul over this news makes it all the more exciting. While they cite 'security' reasons for not wanting Tucker to have access to the footage, they're actually afraid the surveillance video will show how fraudulent their hearings were. By giving this footage to the most prominent news host in the country, McCarthy has given the American people a chance to decide for themselves whether Jan. 6 was an insurrection, a harmless mob, or even a government false flag operation.
• Democratic narrative, as provided by Salon. Beyond potentially obstructing ongoing federal investigations into the insurrectionists, the new Republican majority has chosen to give a far-right conspiracy theorist access to surveillance video so that he can carefully curate election-denying segments of late-night television. After a lackluster midterm election performance, the GOP has no substantive legislation to offer, so, instead, they'll continue living in the past and try again to persuade their voters that when they lose it's because of a 'government conspiracy' against them.