PBS News Weekend blamed Fox News and “far right” websites for the Capitol Hill riot (or as both PBS and their also tax-funded NPR guests insisted, an "insurrection”) on the eve of the fourth anniversary of that terrible day in the nation’s capital, on January 6.
Host William Brangham: ….A mob of then-President Trump supporters smashed their way into the Capitol, falsely believing that the 2020 election had been stolen. A bipartisan Senate report later found that at least seven people lost their lives in connection with the attack.
“In connection with” is doing some misleading work there: No police officers died at the scene, the only violent death being that of protester Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, shot by a Capitol Police officer as she was coming through a window.
Brangham: ….Joining us to discuss the January 6th attack are two journalists who were there that day and have been covering its impacts ever since. Tom Bowman is NPR’s Pentagon correspondent and producer and reporter Lauren Hodges is with All Things Considered….
NPR’s Bowman noted that at first “everyone was respectful,” and he even found “a festive atmosphere.” But when he “got closer to the Capitol, it was like a storm was coming in. There was this sense of anger and bad energy….”
Hodges spoke of the rioters: “They had an eagerness to see some violence or participate in it.” Which makes it odd that the only violent death on January 6 came from the Capitol Police defending Congress. Black Lives Matter certainly didn't get this same hostile treatment at NPR.
Brangham huffed that “there’s been an enormous amount of revisionist history going on” regarding January 6. Bowman arguably contributed his own by calling the riot “an insurrection.”
When Trump supporters falsely began to blame Antifa or Black Lives Matter, Bowman said, “That was when the narrative started to change, and it really started with Fox News.”
Brangham shifted the focus to the NPR pair’s 2024 podcast “Embedded -- A Good Guy,” following three active-duty Marines who walked through the Capitol that day, especially Josh Abate, who believed the 2020 election had been stolen:
Bowman: …..He always watched Fox News and far-right websites. So that’s where he got his information from.
That NPR podcast reported, huffily, that Abate was caught on a security camera climbing a statue of MLK Jr. and hanging a MAGA hat on it. That hat is not much to hang such overwrought coverage on, but PBS and NPR made the most of it.
Bowman: ….But here’s the thing, William. The military, they don’t know if there’s an extremism problem in the military because they’re not collecting data like they would be for sexual harassment or sexual assault. Only this past year did they put out guidelines. What’s prohibitive behavior, overthrowing the government is one of them. And now all the services are supposed to collect data to make sure that they do have a handle on whether there’s a problem or not. I think a lot of that’s go, be brushed aside under the next administration.
While a lot of hay was made over a Marine hanging a cap on a statue, no mention was made of the other side of military-related “extremism” -- the ex-soldier who identified with ISIS who killed 15 people with his truck and tried to kill more with explosives in New Orleans, or the Green Beret who committed suicide by Cybertruck outside Trump Tower in Las Vegas.
Yet on the PBS News Hour on January 2, guest Heidi Beirich, brought in to discuss extremism in the military, led with “white supremacists”: “There are parts of his recent history that are very common to all kinds of types of folks that have been radicalized, whether white supremacists or Islamic extremists or otherwise.”
Otherwise, radical Islam was given a pass for a far more violent and deadly event than the Capitol Hill riot.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Weekend
1/5/25
William Brangham: Tomorrow marks four years since the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, a day that shook this city and the nation. A mob of then-President Trump supporters smashed their way into the Capitol, falsely believing that the 2020 election had been stolen. A bipartisan Senate report later found that at least seven people lost their lives in connection with the attack.
Now, years later, the legacy of that day is and what it means to our country remains a bitter partisan divide. Joining us to discuss the January 6th attack are two journalists who were there that day and have been covering its impacts ever since. Tom Bowman is NPR's Pentagon correspondent and producer and reporter Lauren Hodges is with All Things Considered. Welcome to you both. Thank you for being here.
Tom Bowman, Pentagon Correspondent, NPR: Thank you.
Lauren Hodges, "All Things Considered", NPR: Thank you.
William Brangham: You were both there four years ago, and I just wonder now, four years later, how that day stands out to you.
Tom Bowman: Well, I remember covering Trump's speech. I was there above the Washington Monument, that area in the sea of people. And then I walked down and started interviewing people, and everyone was respectful. And then I started walking down Pennsylvania Avenue and I tell people it was a festive atmosphere, which sounds strange.
You know, people were laughing, joking, waving to each other. And then as I got closer to the Capitol, it was like a storm was coming in. There was this sense of anger and bad energy. And at that moment, Lauren called me. She was up in the Capitol in the middle of a mob.
Lauren Hodges: I was there with our then extremism correspondent, Hannah Lam. And pretty much as soon as we got to the Capitol grounds, there was kind of this hunger for violence. People were really ready to start something. William Brangham: You could sense that.
Lauren Hodges: Oh, they were speaking about it. They had an eagerness to see some violence or participate in it.
William Brangham: In the last four years, we have been going through this process of trying to define and redefine what that day was all about. And there's been an enormous amount of revisionist history going on about that. What is your sense of what is driving that?
Tom Bowman: Initially, everyone agreed, Democrats, Republicans, everyone, this was a bad thing. This was an insurrection. And some Republican leaders put the blame on Donald Trump, said, you instigated this. You started this insurrection. And almost immediately, the revision started. Well, they weren't Trump supporters.
William Brangham: It was Antifa.
Tom Bowman: It was Antifa. Black Lives Matter. You know, FBI agents were up there instigating the crowd. That was when the narrative started to change, and it really started with Fox News.
Lauren Hodges: Well, and then the FBI element. Once the FBI actually started making arrests, that was when it became unavoidable. Who was there? It was Trump supporters. So then a new narrative shift started where it was, well, these were Trump supporters, but they were patriots and they didn't do anything wrong. They were just caught up in a crowd. It was a bunch of good people having a bad day.
Tom Bowman: And again, Donald Trump still calls them patriots. And it looks like he's going to pardon quite a few of them. Those who didn't get involved in violence, they're going to get pardoned.
William Brangham: This few bad apples idea percolates a lot of the podcast that you guys did called "A Good Guy." Can you tell us about the man at the center of that?
Tom Bowman: Well, his name is Josh Abate. He was a Marine and still is a Marine. He was a sergeant in the Marine Corps, third generation Marine, and he grew up about an hour west of Washington.
William Brangham: He believed that the election had been stolen. He was like many of those.
Tom Bowman: Correct. He did.
Lauren Hodges: Yeah.
Tom Bowman: He always watched Fox News and far right website. So that's where he got his information from.
William Brangham: And he was among those that entered the Capitol that day. I guess it's not really clear if he engaged in violence or not. He says he did not. How does the Marine Corps reckon with not just Abate, but several other Marines who showed up that day?
Tom Bowman: 1,500 people were arrested in connection with the insurrection, riot, whatever you want to call it. About 200 military members, mostly veterans, were there and a large number of them were Marines. Right.
Lauren Hodges: Disproportionate number.
Tom Bowman: Because they are the smallest of the fighting forces. But here's the thing, William. The military, they don't know if there's an extremism problem in the military because they're not collecting data like they would be for sexual harassment or sexual assault. Only this past year did they put out guidelines. What's prohibitive behavior, overthrowing the government is one of them.
And now all the services are supposed to collect data to make sure that they do have a handle on whether there's a problem or not. I think a lot of that's going to go be brushed aside under the next administration.
Lauren Hodges: And the reason we think that is because there's a lot of verbal condemnation right away like this, you know, zero tolerance. We don't. We condemn this. These are not good Marines.
But then when it came to action, when it came time for them to enact real consequences, nothing really happened. So the words didn't really match the actions when it came to how they were reconciling with so many of their people out there that day.
Tom Bowman: What's interesting about our podcast is there were three Marines, Josh and his two buddies from Quantico, the Marine base down there. So they were all charged with misdemeanors. They all did community service. 279 hours of community service. One hour for every Marine casualty in the Civil War, which is fascinating to me.
But in all three cases, after they were convicted, the Marine Corps panels decided to keep them in the Marine Corps. And Josh, to this day, is still a Marine. And the Secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro, has yet to decide whether to keep him in or not. The other two, one was kicked out by a general at Camp Pendleton, California. The other ran out as enlistment. So Josh, of the three, he's the only one left.
William Brangham: Really a tremendous piece of reporting. The podcast is called "A Good Guy." Tom Bowman, Lauren Hodges, thank you so much.
Tom Bowman: You're welcome.