Kevin McCarthy grants Fox News' Tucker Carlson hours of unreleased January 6 footage

Washington DC - House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has reportedly given Fox News host Tucker Carlson thousands of hours of unreleased footage from the January 6 Capitol riots.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (l) has reportedly granted Tucker Carlson of Fox News access to over 41,000 hours of unreleased footage from the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (l) has reportedly granted Tucker Carlson of Fox News access to over 41,000 hours of unreleased footage from the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots.  © Collage: Imago/ZUMA Wire

According to Axios, Carlson and his production team now has access to over 41,000 hours of surveillance footage that hasn't been seen by the public.

Carlson has used his prime-time show on Fox News to repeatedly suggest that official accounts of what took place that day are wrong or exaggerated.

While most dubbed the events that day as an attempted insurrection, Carlson has downplayed it as "vandalism," and described it as an "outbreak of mob violence" and "a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards."

Trump gets temporary reprieve from courthouse grind as he heads to Wisconsin
Donald Trump Trump gets temporary reprieve from courthouse grind as he heads to Wisconsin

Last year, a House committee investigating the insurrection played numerous clips from that day, but House Speaker McCarthy seems to agree with Carlson in thinking there's more to the story.

During his second news conference as speaker, McCarthy told reporters that he believes "the American public should actually see all [that] happened instead of a report that's written [on] a political basis."

Recent legal filings from a court battle between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems showed that Carlson and other prominent Fox hosts pushed Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud even though they admitted behind the scenes that they knew he was lying.

Despite this, McCarthy seems to still consider Carlson a credible and trustworthy journalist.

Excerpts from the footage are expected to air on Tucker Carlson Tonight in the coming weeks.

Cover photo: Collage: Imago/ZUMA Wire

More on US politics: