PoliticsTucker Carlson cast doubt on the motives of the jurors who convictedDerek Chauvin on Tuesday.- He suggested their verdict might've been meant to avert riots some feared would follow an acquittal.
- "Can we trust the way this decision was made?" he asked.
After the conclusion of the Derek Chauvin murder trial, Tucker Carlson's reaction Tuesday night was to question the jury's motivation in reaching its guilty verdict.
A few hours earlier, a jury of five men and seven women returned a unanimous guilty verdict on all three counts against Chauvin in the death of
Chavin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter. The verdict came about a year after footage circulated of the white police officer Chauvin kneeling on the neck of Floyd, a Black man, for several minutes. Floyd's death sparked international protests, sometimes-violent unrest, and a national conversation in America about racial injustice.
On Tuesday's "Tucker Carlson Tonight," the
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.
-nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) April 21, 2021
"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."
He continued: "Last night, 2,000 miles from Minneapolis, police in Los Angeles preemptively 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" in the initial unrest after Floyd was killed.
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 discredited theory that fentanyl in Floyd's system contributed to his death. Chauvin's defense team also argued this but was rebutted in court by prosecution witnesses.
Carlson went on to say politicians, protesters, and
"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."
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 last summer.
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 the Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt - a white supporter of then-President Donald Trump - would not get the same level of scrutiny as Floyd's killing because of what he called "political or ethnic considerations."
In February, Washington, DC, police investigators recommended that no charges be made against the unnamed officer who killed Babbitt, and the Department of Justice announced last week that he would not face federal charges.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.