CNN host Kaitlan Collins fact-checked Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s claims that the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots were an inside job following the network’s town hall on Wednesday.
During CNN’s town hall with Ramaswamy — which received criticism from the network’s own senior media reporter, Oliver Darcy — Ramaswamy declared, “If you had told me that January 6 was in any way an inside job, the subject of government entrapment, I would have told you that was crazy talk, fringe conspiracy theory nonsense. I could tell you now, having gone somewhat deep in this, it’s not.”
The remark led to a chaotic back-and-forth when moderator Abby Phillip tried to fact check Ramaswamy’s claim live during the event.
Following the town hall, Ramaswamy’s comments were once again fact-checked by CNN.
“You have been watching a live CNN town hall with Vivek Ramaswamy in Iowa, 33 days before the Iowa caucuses, in what was a closing message for the Republican candidate to voters,” said Collins at the conclusion of the town hall:
Part of that closing message was pushing a conspiracy theory about January 6. Mr. Ramaswamy says that January 6 was an inside job. That’s a claim that he first made at a debate recently. It was not. That is according to the FBI director, who I should note is a lifelong Republican who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, who testified as much before Congress. There are also hours of testimony, dozens of criminal indictments that say as much.
Collins then brought on CNN correspondent Tom Foreman, who also proceeded to fact-check Ramaswamy’s remarks.
“This is a message, Kaitlyn, that he has pushed before, and he always gets very energetic about it and the crowd, to some degree, always responds,” said Foreman:
The FBI director Christopher Wray has said it’s completely wrong there were any agents in the crowd trying to instigate this. When you look through the video, there is no evidence of police rolling out the red carpet. There is evidence at times of police standing by while people walk past them, which seems to be a measure of simply the fact that these people were either leaving or that the police were so overwhelmed that it was at the point at which there was nothing else to do.
Most importantly, though, look at what the courts have done as they’ve looked at this. As of last July, 30 months into it, about 350 — according to the Department of Justice — 350 defendants have been charged with assault and resisting or impeding officers or employees, including many attacks on the officers in question here. There have been many convictions, there have been many people sentenced, there has been no evidence in this of what he claims of an inside job, even though he makes that claim time and again.
Watch above via CNN.
