CNN commentator John King reportedly claimed on Tuesday that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was attempting to silence Fox News personality Tucker Carlson by releasing footage of the Capitol incident.
McCarthy gave Carlson, access to approximately 41,000 hours of Capitol riot film, according to Axios.
According to previous accounts, the film totaled over 14,000 hours.
“Kevin McCarthy is giving Fox’s Tucker Carlson access to tens of thousands of hours of January 6 security footage. Your tax dollars paid for most of the cameras that captured the scene inside and around the Capitol that day but Speaker McCarthy is granting access only to Carlson and to Fox. Carlson is a frequent McCarthy critic, who says the speaker has no ideological core.” King said.
In a second question to a panel on the show, King reiterated the claim that McCarthy was attempting to garner good publicity from Carlson after presenting a tape of Carlson attacking the speaker.
“He said he’s not really a conservative, he’s agnostic, he, you know, flaps with the breeze. He has said worse. Is that simply what this is? Maybe if I give this to you, you’ll be nice to me?” he continued.
Carlson urged McCarthy to broadcast the tape on January 3, as McCarthy fought to get the 218 votes required to become speaker.
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