While minimizing the current threats of right-wing extremism on Thursday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked the serious nature of the plot to kidnap and execute Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, snarking that a “homeless guy” had planned to abduct her “in a shopping cart.”
Carlson, who has repeatedly downplayed the deadly Capitol riots as nothing more than a “political protest that got out of hand,” kicked off his primetime show on Thursday evening by ridiculing the concerns that QAnon adherents and pro-Trump extremists were potentially planning another insurrectionist attack on March 4.
“A lot of liberals were certain that today—this day, March 4—was the day the right-wing revolution would finally begin,” the Fox star sneered. “March 4, they believed, was something called ‘QAnon Inauguration Day.’”
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The House of Representatives actually canceled their session on Thursday due to warnings from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, which cited chatter among extremist groups discussing possible plots against the U.S. Capitol. March 4 was seen as another date of significance among conspiracists, who believed it would result in former President Donald Trump retaking the presidency.
Carlson would go on and accuse House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of telling “her bodyguards to write up a report on the threat” before noting that the intelligence warning stated that “an unidentified group of militia and violent extremists” had discussed a plot to attack the Capitol.
“Well, that sounds pretty scary,” Carlson sarcastically declared. “Another white supremacist insurrection? But, wait a second. Can we get some context—who exactly are these unidentified violent extremists?”
From there, Carlson—who Fox News lawyers have successfully argued should not be taken seriously—decided to mockingly dismiss the violent plot against Whitmer, which has already resulted in one Michigan militiamen pleading guilty to federal kidnapping conspiracy charges.
“And is the threat they pose more or less dangerous, for instance, than the plot by that homeless guy to kidnap the Governor of Michigan?” Carlson glibly noted. “The plot the FBI foiled just in time before a platoon of right wing vagrants could abduct Gretchen Whitmer in a shopping cart. We never really learned any details.”
Fourteen men in total have been charged with either state terrorism offenses or federal conspiracy charges after law enforcement thwarted the bizarre plot to kidnap Whitmer and put her on trial for “treason.” The majority of those charged were linked to the paramilitary Wolverine Watchmen militia group, which engaged in tactical training and bomb-making ahead of the planned October kidnapping.
In his plea agreement this past January, 25-year-old Ty Garbin admitted he “advocated waiting until after the national election, when the conspirators expected widespread civil unrest to make it easier for them to operate.”
