Raskin rebukes election deniers: They take 'shocking nihilism' through 'entire Congress'
In an impassioned speech Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) decried Republicans who have continued to advance the false claim that former President Trump won the 2020 election and justify the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
“They take their shocking nihilism about what’s true and what’s false and they convert it to this entire Congress,” Raskin said from the House floor. “And it all starts of course with Jan. 6 and before that the presidential election. All starts with a big lie.”
Raskin’s harsh rebuke of his Republican colleagues comes as lawmakers have reacted to the revelation that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) provided Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to thousands of hours of government tapes from the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Democrats and some Republicans were outraged when Carlson used his access to the tapes to air his show defending the rioters, calling it “mostly peaceful chaos.”
Raskin blasted the version of Jan. 6 being spread by Carlson and some Republicans, who reject the idea that the riots were not a deadly insurrection.
“Their big lie now has to stretch all the way over Jan. 6. We have to disbelieve the evidence of our own eyes,” Raskin said. “We saw them come and descend upon this chamber… wounding and injuring 150 of our police officers. Breaking peoples’ noses. Breaking peoples’ fingers. Putting people in the hospital.”
Raskin said Carlson and other Republicans were characterizing the riots instead as a tourist visit.
“Already they’re back on the news with big lies, saying ‘no, no, no, it was a tourist visit,’” Raskin said.
Raskin served on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, a committee that publicly clashed with Trump and other GOP figures. He has been outspoken in rebuking the baseless claims that widespread election fraud cost Trump the election.
“Sixty federal and state courts rejected every claim of electoral fraud and corruption that they put forward,” Raskin said. “They don’t have a single court that ever ruled in their favor.”