Trevor Noah
On Tuesday’s Daily Show, Trevor Noah marveled at a remarkable data dump from the House select committee into the events of 6 January: a collection of frantic text messages from Fox News hosts to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the attack, urging him to urge Donald Trump to stop the rioters.
“Mark, the President needs to tell the people in the Capitol to go home,” Fox host Laura Ingraham wrote to Meadows. “This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” Sean Hannity wrote to Meadows that Trump should “make a statement” to “ask people to leave the Capitol”.
“Oh man, this is so amazing,” the Daily Show host said. “Fox News has spent the whole year acting like January 6th was nothing. Just nothing, it’s just a few patriots having their voices heard. But it turns out that in private, they were freaking out about it.”
“This is like finding out the flight attendant who’s been telling you it’s just a little turbulence is actually going back into the cockpit like, ‘doesn’t anybody know how to fly this thing?!’” he added.
“It’s crazy that CNN fired Chris Cuomo because he was caught giving secret advice to a politician, his brother,” he continued. “But now it turns out that basically everyone at Fox News was giving secret advice to President Trump and his people,” including Fox and Friends anchor Brian Kilmeade.
“But I guess that’s what makes it ok?” Noah added. “Like if one person at your network has no integrity, that’s a problem. But if nobody has integrity, that’s a company policy.”
Stephen Colbert
On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert also examined the trove of text messages sent to Meadows, including from Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, who wrote, “We need an Oval Office address, he has to lead now.”
“OK, that reveals two things about Don Jr,” said Colbert. “One, he knew his dad was responsible and failing to lead, and two, he does not have his father’s cell phone number.”
As for Ingraham’s private fear that Trump’s failure to address the riot was “destroying his legacy”, even Colbert was surprised. “The January 6th attack scared Laura Ingraham! And keep in mind, her side gig is appearing in your bathroom mirror if you whisper Medicare for All three times.”
“These Fox News hosts pushed the big election lie for months leading up to January 6th,” he continued. “And then when their obedient viewers stormed the Capitol, they acted all surprised.”
“It reminds me of Charles Manson’s statement after he was arrested: ‘They did what?! I was kidding. Helter sorry.’”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel mocked the two-faced performances of Trump’s supporters despite private misgivings over the insurrection. “Donald Trump Jr, a man who glues his beard to his face every morning, was right: the president did nothing for hours, and as a result people died,” Kimmel said. “Of course, Don Jr spent the past 11 months praising his father’s lack of action.”
Kimmel then read the texts from Kilmeade, Ingraham and Hannity expressing concern over the president’s legacy in abetting the attack on the Capitol. “Gee, if only they had some sort of media outlet where they could’ve said that publicly,” he deadpanned.
The host then contrasted the texts with their on-air statements after the riot: “There was certainly a lot of violence that day but it was not a terrorist attack, it wasn’t 9/11, it wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to America, it wasn’t an insurrection,” said Ingraham on 27 July 2021.
“Please get him on TV, destroying everything you have accomplished,” wrote Brian Kilmeade during the attack. And this November, on Fox News: “Why is it that every other network, if you took January 6th out of their rundown, they’d have a test pattern.”
“I have to say, I don’t think we give the Fox News gang enough credit for their acting,” Kimmel remarked. “It’s really good.”
