Calling into Fox, Laura Ingraham uses Trumpist insurrection to condemn Black Lives Matters protests

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the January 6, 2020, edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto

LAURA INGRAHAM (FOX NEWS HOST): I was at Lafayette Park the weekend of Memorial Day, on that Monday night when the St. John Church was set on fire and the utility building. It's a historic building, a small building in Lafayette Park, it was smashed into and they tried to burn that down, too. I mean, that was chaotic. Bricks were thrown, I got a lot of it on video. A lot of the people who are, I'm glad, condemning any violence or intrusion into federal installations and so forth were markedly silent when there was widespread violence and pushing back on police and National Guard troops and attempts to breach that fence right outside the White House perimeter.

And so that was happening and that was terrifying, I got to tell you. I was there. It was terrifying, it wasn't all roses and sunshine and peaceful. They tried to burn down St. Johns's church. So we all have to be, as Americans, concerned when the system of government is not trusted by tens of millions of people on both sides.

In 2016, the left tried to take down a duly elected president. In 2020, we have tens of millions of Americans who believe that state legislatures and state officials didn't follow their own rules and laws and did not properly account for votes. That has to be addressed. So we need to restore faith in the system and what we're seeing today I'm afraid is not going to restore faith in the system and probably not going to accomplish a hell of a lot either. 

 

In June of 2020, Matt Gertz examined Fox News lies about the nonviolent Black Lives Matter protest in Lafayette Park that would be met with tear gas before President Donald Trump's photo-op outside St. John's Episcopal Church that Fox cheered on:

This was a sick and twisted attempt to gaslight the country based on a bullshit semantic effort by the U.S. Park Police, which issued a statement claiming that it had deployed “pepper balls” and “smoke canisters” to clear the square but that “no tear gas was used.” But “tear gas” isn’t a specific chemical compound. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains, it’s a blanket term for chemical agents used for riot control that cause temporary respiratory distress, which encapsulates a variety of compounds including Mace and pepper spray. 

The Park Police also claimed that they only responded after “violent protestors” had thrown “projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids.” Reporters who were there say that didn’t happen, there doesn’t seem to be any video evidence of it, it contradicts the Justice Department’s explanation that the park was cleared as part of a previous decision to expand the White House perimeter -- and even if it was true, it still wouldn’t justify tear-gassing the entire crowd.

To defend the Trump administration on these grounds -- including by farcically arguing a distinction between “tear gas” and “gas that causes tears” -- requires either mind-numbing stupidity or fervent and unyielding pro-Trump zeal.