Tucker Carlson’s reaction to Derek Chauvin’s conviction was to cast doubt on the jury who decided he murdered George Floyd
Tucker Carlson #TuckerCarlson
After the conclusion of the Derek Chauvin murder trial, Tucker Carlson’s reaction Tuesday night was to question the jury’s motivation in reaching their guilty verdict.
A few hours earlier, a jury of five men and seven women returned a unanimous guilty verdict on three counts in the death of George Floyd, a Black man: second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter.
The verdict came around a year after footage circulated of then-police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck. The killing sparked mass protests, some of which turned violent, and a new chapter in America’s struggle with racial injustice.
On Tuesday’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Fox News star characterized the verdict not as an impartial decision based on the trial, but the jurors’ way of saying “Please don’t hurt us.”
It was part of a longer opening monologue suggesting that the jury was spurred by fear of rioting by people who would have been angered by a verdict of not guilty.
“Can we trust the way this decision was made?” he asked.
“Everyone understood perfectly well the consequences of an acquittal in this case,” Carlson said. “After nearly a year of burning and looting and murder by BLM, that was never in doubt.”
“Last night, 2,000 miles from Minneapolis, police in Los Angeles pre-emptively blocked roads. Why? They knew what would happen if Derek Chauvin got off.”
This thinking has been aired elsewhere on Fox News. On Tuesday afternoon’s “The Five,” Greg Gutfeld expressed relief at the verdict because, as he put it, “my neighborhood was looted” during protests following the killing.
Drawing pushback from fellow hosts, he said he wanted “a verdict that keeps this country from going up in flames.”
On his primetime show that evening, Carlson framed the verdict as open to debate. “Is the officer guilty of the specific crimes for which he was just convicted?” he asked. “We can debate all that, and over this hour we will.”
Carlson has previously given weight on his show to the debunked theory that fentanyl in Floyd’s system contributed to his death. Chauvin’s defense also argued this, but were rebutted in court by prosecution witnesses.
Carlson went on to say that politicians, protesters and media figures tried to “intimidate” the jury.
“No politician or media figure has the right to intimidate a jury,” he said. “And no political party has the right to impose a different standard of justice on its own supporters … All of them are happening now.”
He did not specify in his opening monologue how this happened in Chauvin’s trial, but he has previously accused Democrats of holding a double standard in discussions around the Capitol riot and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed Floyd’s killing.
Both President Joe Biden and Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters have drawn criticism for commenting on the trial before the verdict was out. Biden commented that there was “overwhelming evidence” for what he called “the right verdict,” while Waters directly said she was “looking for a guilty verdict.”
On Tuesday, Carlson suggested that the fatal shooting of Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt – a white Trump supporter – would not get the same level of scrutiny as Floyd’s killing due to “political or ethnic considerations.”
In February, Washington DC police investigators recommended that no charges be made against the unnamed officer who killed Babbitt, although the Department of Justice is yet to make a decision.
Fox News did not immediately respond to Insider’s a request for comment.