AOC Calls for Govt Oversight After Blaming Tucker Carlson and Fox News for ‘Very Clearly’ Inciting Violence on Jan 6

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out Fox News, and Tucker Carlson in particular, for inciting violence on January 6th and believes the network should face much stricter federal regulations.

AOC sat down with former Biden Press Secretary turned MSNBC host Jen Psaki and was asked about Fox News record settlement of their defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox’s lack of public apology angered many progressives, and Psaki asked her guest if that was a mistake.

Ocasio-Cortez correctly pointed out that the lawyers representing Dominion were more concerned about doing what’s best monetarily for the company’s investors and not what’s best for the American Public, to which Psaki followed with a question about media organizations or social media platforms and whether they “should be accountable for the role, for being platforms, for incitement?”

“When it comes to broadcast television, like Fox News, these are subject to federal law, federal regulation in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t,” the New York rep explained. “And when you look at what Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on FOX do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence. Very clearly incitement of violence.”

One minor quibble: Fox News is a cable network, not a broadcast one, as AOC incorrectly stated, but her larger point was made.

Transcript of this portion of the interview below:

Psaki: This week, Fox News settled their defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. A lot of money. It’s now one of the largest media defamation settlements in history. Do you think in making this settlement, Dominion’s lawyers made a mistake in not requiring Fox acknowledge on air that it lied to its viewers?

AOC: Well, this was a corporation suing another corporation for material damages. Their job is to go in and get the most money that they can. And I think that they did that. They are not lawyers for the American public. And I think what is best for the country, what would have been best for the country, would have been to demand that and to not settle until we got that. But that is not their role.

And so for us, I think this really raises much larger questions. Very often, I believe that we leave to the courts to solve issues that politics is really supposed to solve, that our legislating is supposed to solve. We have very real issues with what is permissible on air. And we saw that with January six, and we saw that in the lead up to January 6th and how we navigate questions not just of freedom of speech, but also accountability for incitement of violence. These are this is the line that we have to really explore through law as well. And do you.

Psaki: Think media organizations or social media platforms should be accountable for the role, for being platforms, for incitement?

AOC: I believe that when it comes to broadcast television, like Fox News, these are subject to federal law, federal regulation in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t. And when you look at what Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on FOX do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence. Very clearly incitement of violence. And that is the line that I think we have to be willing to contend with.