Right-wing pundit Megyn Kelly is downplaying the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, accusing the national media covering the insurrection that day made the incident out to be worse than it actually was and claiming that the Trump mob that attacked Capitol police officers are actually “pro-cop.”
During a recent episode of her podcast of the people who gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory, Kelly said that only a small faction “turned” but “there’s no question the media represented this as so much worse than it actually was.”
Kelly argued that despite seeing “all seen the video of people, like, screaming in the face of cops, being totally disparaging, and defecating on the floor of the U.S. Capitol, and lawmakers were understandably afraid,” the incident is “not like [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying] ‘I need therapy for the rest of my life’ afraid, but I could understand it, and I didn’t like seeing it at all.”
As noted by The Hill, the attack left five people dead, including one Capitol Police officer. One woman who had illegally entered the Capitol was shot and killed as rioters sought to break into the Speaker’s Gallery just off the House floor. More than 100 others were injured.
The mob overwhelmed Capitol Police, and numerous videos have shown members of the mob using various weapons against officers to get past barriers and to enter the Capitol, but that didn’t stop Kelly from claiming that the Trump mob is “pro-cop.”
Supporters of Trump are “supposed to be pro-cop,” she said before insisting that the mainstream media outlets, in covering the events of Jan. 6, were “tying the political rhetoric” of Trump repeatedly denying he lost the presidential election and peddling false claims of voter fraud to “what we saw that day.”
Several GOP lawmakers as well as Trump have downplayed the events of Jan. 6. One GOP congressman likened the images that day to a tour group visiting the Capitol.
