In an interview with CNN This Morning on Tuesday, acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns accused Tucker Carlson of rewriting history, after the Fox News host Tucker Carlson showed footage from the January 6 Capitol riots.
Burns compared Carlson's use of January 6 footage to propaganda techniques used by the Soviets and Nazis and even went so far as to say that Carlson was “rewriting” history. “These bills that DeSantis and others are doing limit our ability to understand who we are, and are not inclusive. They’re exclusive,” Burns said. “Their narrowing the focus of what is and isn’t American history is terrifying. It feels like a Soviet system. Or, you know, the way the Nazis would build a Potemkin village.”
“Potemkin villages” were constructed in the Nazi Germany Theresienstadt concentration camp that portrayed the Final Solution plan of exterminating Jews as a benign relocation program.
McCarthy granted Carlson access to roughly 40,000 hours of security footage taken from the riot. The footage was not given to any other outlet, although he claims his office is “working on” doing so according to CNN.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer also criticized Carlson's framing of the event, calling it a “bold-faced lie.” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor that “To say January 6 was not violent is a lie – a lie pure and simple.”