Tangle - Tucker Carlson releases January 6 footage.

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

On Monday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired his first segment on January 6 after receiving some 41,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol. The footage was given to Carlson by new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who promised to hand the footage over as part of his campaign for Speaker.You can find our summary of what we learned from the January 6 hearings here, our coverage of the Ray Epps story here, and all our previous January 6 coverage here. See the ProPublica archive of video footage from that day here. You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here and today’s “Have a nice day” story here.Today’s clickables: Quick Hits (1:28), Today’s Story (3:53), Left’s Take (9:25), Right’s Take (14:34), Isaac’s Take (19:38), Under the Radar (28:56), Numbers (29:43), Have A Nice Day (30:26).You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the new, newly released January 6th footage that came out via Tucker Carlson and Fox News on Monday, some of the reactions to it, as well as my take.

Before we jump in, though, a quick heads up that tomorrow we are doing a reader mailbag edition in the subscribers only Friday edition of the newsletter. If you want to receive that edition, you need to go to readtangle.com slash membership and become a Tangle member. We are going to tackle a lot of the questions that are tied up in the backlog over the last few months. You know, I try to answer a question every day, but there are way more that come in than newsletters we publish and podcasts we publish. So I'm going to try and clear the backlog a bit tomorrow. All right, with that out of the way, we'll start off today with some quick hits. First up, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 81 years old, was hospitalized after tripping and falling at a GOP event. McConnell had polio as a child and has talked about some of the

physical challenges he's faced after his recovery. Number two, President Biden is going to announce his 2024 budget today and is expected to pressure Republicans to cap the price of insulin while also announcing a major tax hike on wealthy Americans. Fiscal budgets are political documents and not binding law. Number three, U.S. intelligence agencies say they concluded that Russia conducted a malign influence operation during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections. Number four, the Justice Department announced a probe into the Memphis Police Department following the death of Tyree Nichols. Separately, a two-year investigation found that Louisville, Kentucky engaged in systemic discriminatory actions in the lead-up to the death of Breonna Taylor. Number five, the National Transportation Safety Board

announced an investigation into Norfolk Southern Railway's safety culture. Norfolk Southern has had five major accidents since December, including one in East Palestine, Ohio. Last night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired newly released video from the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. The footage was provided exclusively to Carlson by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Carlson called January 6th, quote, mostly peaceful and meek with a small percent that was violent. quote, mostly peaceful and meek with a small percent that was violent. He showed limited edited footage Monday night on his program that draws an audience of 3.5 million viewers and pointed to images of a few protesters shuffling through the halls of Congress.

More than 40,000 hours of surveillance footage from in and around the Capitol have been withheld from the public. And once you see the video, you'll understand why. Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that January 6th was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim. And that's exactly why the Democratic Party and its allies in the media prevented you from seeing it.

By controlling the images you were allowed to view from January 6th, they controlled how the public understood that day. They could lie about what happened, and you would never know the difference. On Monday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired his first segment on January 6th after receiving some 41,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol. The footage was given to Carlson by new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Republican from California, who promised to hand the footage over as part of his campaign for Speaker. In the full 30-minute segment, Carlson highlighted images of people inside the Capitol building who

were walking the halls peacefully, taking photographs, and at times being escorted by Capitol police. In particular, Carlson focused on Jacob Chansley, also known as the QAnon Shaman, who became famous for wearing horned hats and roaming the hallway shirtless during the riots. Chansley pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison. However, Carlson aired footage showing Chansley flanked by Capitol Police, who were calmly moving through the building with him, opening doors, and at times even appearing to open doors for him as he traversed the Capitol. At one point, Chansley even praised for the Capitol Police officers. While Carlson did air some footage of the hand-to-hand fighting, rioting, and mobs inside

the building, he emphasized that those were only images many in the media and Congress wanted you to see. Instead, he focused on airing footage of people who did not appear to be violent or destructive. They were peaceful, orderly, and meek, Carlson said. They were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers. Carlson also contends the footage proves Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day, was not killed by demonstrators, and that Trump supporter Ashley Babbitt was quote-unquote murdered by police. The crimes committed and charged on January 6th at the Capitol run the gamut. Around 1,000 people involved in the Capitol riot have been charged with federal crimes. More than half have pled guilty, including over 130 who have pled guilty

to federal crimes. Members of some extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are facing sedition charges, and several members of the Oath Keepers have already been found guilty. Hundreds of others have been charged with simple misdemeanors and have not served any prison time. There was some bipartisan outrage after Carlson's segment aired. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said the show was filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about January 6th. The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video, he said. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments, he wrote in a memo to lawmakers. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican from Kentucky, held up those remarks at a press conference saying he wanted to associate himself with Manger. It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict

this in a way that's completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks, McConnell said. Senator Tom Tillis, the Republican from North Carolina, said the segment was bullshit. Senator Kevin Cramer, the Republican from North Dakota, said to somehow put that in the same category as a permitted peaceful protest is just a lie. Congressional Democrats were united in their outrage. Other Republicans were more supportive. On Twitter, Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican from Wisconsin, asked when judges will be applying justice equally and said the footage doesn't look like thousands of armed insurrectionists to me. Representative Mike Collins, the Republican from Georgia, called for the release of all quote-unquote J6 political prisoners. McCarthy, for his part, defended the

decision to give Carlson the footage, telling reporters he had no regrets about handing it over and did it as a matter of transparency. He repeatedly refused to answer questions about how the segment characterized the day. Each person can come up with their own conclusion, McCarthy said. During his segment, Carlson told viewers that he had allowed the Capitol Police to review the footage they were airing as part of the editorial process to ensure none of it was endangering any members of Congress or police. But after the segment aired, a Capitol Police spokesperson said that didn't happen. No other news outlets had been given access to any of the footage. This is the second time in a matter of weeks Carlson has been the subject of front page news. In late February,

a court filing revealed private text messages from Carlson in which he harshly criticizes Trump and mocks his legal team's allegations of election fraud. Today, we're going to take a look at some reactions to the new footage from the left and the right, and then my take. You can find our summary of what we learned from the January 6th hearings in a link in today's episode description, as well as our previous coverage of the Ray Epps story and all our previous January 6th coverage. All right, first up, we'll start with what the left is saying. Many on the left criticize Carlson for lying to his viewers and say his portrayal of the

day's events is a partisan whitewash. Some call out Carlson's critical comments behind closed doors and claim he is simply pandering to keep viewers. Others describe their own very different firsthand experiences of the events of January 6th. In CNN, former Capitol Police officer Michael Fanone said Carlson's spin on January 6th is a lie. I should know, he said, I was there. Fox News conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson began airing footage this week of the January 6th insurrection, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gifted to him exclusively, he wrote. And just as I anticipated, the footage was manipulated and selectively edited to fit an extreme MAGA narrative espoused by Carlson, former President Donald Trump,

and the leaders of the new Republican House majority. Even his own legal team has acknowledged that Carlson doesn't recite quote-unquote actual facts on the topics he discusses on air. And now we have yet another indication that Carlson himself doesn't believe what he talks about on air. Legal filings made public on Tuesday as part of Dominion Voting System's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News exposed Carlson as a fraud. I didn't need to read the reports of his text to know that Carlson's spin about January 6 is fabricated, Fanone wrote. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. I fought alongside my brother and sister officers to defend the Capitol. We have the scars and injuries to prove it. But as much as I feel anger and disgust about Tucker, I reserve equal disdain for McCarthy.

His decision to hand over footage of restricted areas of the Capitol to a partisan actor who has routinely and gleefully spread misinformation about the attack endangers everyone working in the building. But it is not out of character. It is a damning reflection of just how extreme or how opportunistic the House speaker truly is. If McCarthy were truly interested in transparency, his course of action would be simple, release all the footage to all news outlets or continue the critical work of the January 6th committee. In Vox, Andrew Prokop called out the desperate pandering of Carlson. We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can't wait. I hate him passionately. We're all pretending we've got a lot to show for it because admitting what a disaster it's been is too tough to digest. But come on, there isn't really an upside to Trump.

Tucker Carlson sent all those texts, newly revealed as exhibits in the lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox on January 4th, 2021. Yet Carlson devoted his show this week to a revisionist history of the attacks on the Capitol two days afterward, omitting Trump's then ongoing attempt to steal the election, portraying concerns about a stolen election as reasonable, and even vindicated and minimizing the violence that took place, Prokop wrote. The story of January 6th and Carlson's extremely selective and misleading telling to his viewers isn't about how a mob whipped up by the president of the United States tried to prevent the transfer of power or how that president tried to steal the election. It's about how Democrats and the media were mean to Trump supporters. The story is also about how he, Tucker Carlson,

would never do something like that. He loves you, Trump supporters. He respects you. Pay no attention to those texts behind the curtain about how he disdains and disbelieves Trump. He is your loyal champion against your enemies, so please don't change the channel, Prokop wrote. What all this omits from the narrative is that, well, Donald Trump actually tried to steal the election. He worked feverishly to try to get state officials and members of Congress to change the outcome after election day, and he hoped the crowd assembled on January 6th would aid him in that effort. In the New Republic, Alex Shepard called it a desperate whitewashing. It has been well established from the very beginning that Capitol Police were so overwhelmed that they were unable to gain control of the chaotic unfolding situation and were,

in many cases, relegated to simply accompanying rioters. Carlson implies that this footage should exonerate Chansley. Alas, it did not. Chansley's attorneys had access to this footage via discovery. Much of it was already publicly available, and his public defender noted that he did not take part in any of the violence at the Capitol, something that appears to be true, he said. It doesn't matter. The same video footage shows that Chansley is clearly guilty of the thing to which he pleaded guilty, obstructing an official proceeding. The fact that not every rioter was violent that day is hardly relevant. No one has contended so, and many of those who were present inside the Capitol that day have received relevant. No one has contended so, and many of those who were present inside the Capitol that day have received light sentences as a result, Shepard said.

Some of the people who entered the Capitol were violent. People died as a result. Many people were injured. These casualties were among the consequences of an attempt to violently overthrow the United States government. The grievances of the rioters, moreover, were based on lies, States government. The grievances of the rioters, moreover, were based on lies, lies that Carlson has admitted he does not believe. The 2020 election was not stolen, and Carlson knows it. He just can't let his viewers know. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right is split on the segments, with some praising Carlson for trying to upend the mainstream narrative, and others angry he misled his viewers. Some say the footage has undermined

central Democrat narratives about January 6th. Others say Carlson is employing revisionist history to keep his viewers. In The Federalist, Tristan Justice praised the segment and criticized the media's reaction to it. On Monday night's edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Fox News published tapes from the Capitol riot two years ago, which undermined central Democrat narratives, Justice wrote. Left-wing lawmakers on Capitol Hill spent two years exploiting the few hours of political turmoil to smear Republicans as violent extremists, complete with summer show trials produced by a former television executive.

After reviewing more than 40,000 hours of footage released to them by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Carlson aired three segments that illustrated a deception campaign put forward by Democrats' select committee on January 6th. The first revealed Jacob Chansley, known as the QAnon shaman, who became the face of the Capitol insurrection, was given VIP treatment by police officers and even escorted throughout the complex. The second segment from Carlson's program showed Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick walking, healthy and vigorous, around the Capitol building after altercations with protesters, he wrote. January 6th hoaxers on the select committee claimed these altercations caused Sicknick's subsequent death. Sicknick's January 7th death was exploited by Democrats and their allies in

the media as a direct consequence of the turmoil at the Capitol. Carlson's third segment revealed that Ray Epps, a suspected federal informant who encouraged protesters to storm the Capitol both on the eve and the day of the riot, appears to have lied to federal investigators about his whereabouts on January 6th. Twas the season of chaos and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book,

Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The New York Post editorial board said you can condemn January 6th,

but still have questions about what happened. January 6th, 2021 was a shameful day in American history, a riot stirred up by sore loser Donald Trump to stay in power. There are also questions about the actions of the Capitol Police that day and whether some of the people who entered the building were treated unfairly by the courts. Both things can be true, the board said, but it's a mark of how polarized we are as a society and the way that elites insult the intelligence of Americans, that such balance is vilified and even censored. On Monday night, Tucker Carlson aired January 6 footage the public hasn't seen. Some of it was very familiar, people breaking through windows and doors, flooding into the Capitol to try to stop Joe Biden from becoming president. But some of the material

is, frankly, bizarre. Why do two cops follow QAnon shaman Jacob Chansley around, even opening the door for him to get into the Senate floor? Why isn't he escorted out of the building or arrested? The Capitol Police tell the Post that their forces were outnumbered and that they asked Chansley to leave, but he wouldn't. They weren't trying very hard, the board said. Chansley argued at trial exactly what the video shows, that police aided him. The judge still sentenced him to nearly four years in prison. Is that punishment fair? And were other riot defenders held too long or in questionable conditions? To ask these questions is not to dismiss what happened on January 6th.

The people who disgustingly broke into the Capitol or struck police should be prosecuted. In National Review, Noah Rothman criticized the revisionist history of Tucker Carlson. Review, Noah Rothman criticized the revisionist history of Tucker Carlson. The riots in and around the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, might be the most extensively photographed act of mass violence in the nation's history. And yet, there's still more footage of the day's events that the public has not yet seen. Closed-circuit security camera footage from inside the Capitol, in fact, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy provided to Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson. On Monday night, Carlson played that footage for his viewers and claimed that it invalidates the notion that the attack on the Capitol building was an attack at all, Rothman

said. This monumental allegation is not supported by the facts Carlson presented. The footage of that day's events confirms from discrete angles an account of events already well-established by media outlets and congressional investigatory bodies. If that account is unfamiliar to Fox viewers, that says more about the network and its priorities than the news outlets and institutions Carlson set out to indict, he wrote. To this day, Carlson said, there is dispute over how Chansley got into the Capitol building. But by whom? They would have to contend with footage already made public showing Chansley entering the building after a fellow rioter shattered and crawled through a window. Chansley testified to that. Chansley is hardly the only excruciatingly well-documented example of outmanned police officers calmly engaging with demonstrators,

clearing the way for or corralling intruders in the Capitol complex or retreating to more defensible terrain. Nor is this specific act of deference by Capitol police officers remarkable. The Post later confirmed that the officer featured in Carlson's footage, Officer Keith Robichaux, spoke with HBO documentarians about his experience with Chansley. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. It's hard to know where to begin. First, and most importantly, I want to make it clear that I'm glad this footage is coming out. Rather than fight McCarthy on handing it over to Fox News, reporters and politicians should keep insisting he release the footage to more news organizations. If McCarthy is really interested in transparency, as he claims, he should actually be transparent, not conduct a

political operation, which is what this looks like so far. Second, I also want to be clear that this footage did not teach us much we didn't already know. Carlson's segment mostly recycled information we had, but reframed it in the tone of a bombshell news story, packaging new camera angles on events we've already seen, and then insisting this was an obvious indictment on every Democrat and journalist who has ever breathed a word about this story. Let me give you an example of how he is misleading his viewers with that narrative. Carlson's biggest focus was on the QAnon shaman, whose real name is Jacob Chansley. He insists the footage showing Capitol Police walking Chansley around proves he was on something closer to an innocent police-assisted tour rather than the mission to obstruct the certification

of the election that he was convicted of. But the footage Carlson shows doesn't prove that. It is, I admit, bizarre to see some of the images of police calmly standing next to Chansley. It is also footage we had, in large part, not yet seen. But we already knew the Capitol Police, once they realized how wholly outnumbered and overwhelmed they were by the January 6th mob, opted to try and de-escalate rather than fight. We know this because they testified as much. They testified to doing exactly what the footage shows them doing, escorting some of the protesters around, hoping they would be satisfied enough to obey their orders and leave. The officer featured

prominently in Carlson's segment, Keith Robichaux, had already described this to a crew from an HBO documentary about that day. The sheer number of them compared to us, I knew ahead there was no way we could get all physical with them, Robichaux said. I walked in behind Chansley and that is when I realized I am alone now. I was by myself. Robichaux is also on tape, filmed by reporter Luke Mogelson, repeatedly demanding the protesters evacuate the premises. He is ignored. This is not anything like being a tour guide. This was all published and discussed widely in the weeks after January 6th. I almost prefer to think Carlson and his team missed it, otherwise he is again intentionally misleading his viewers. Mogelson's video has over 3 million

views on YouTube and was published on nearly every television network, but the narrative Carlson constructs does not comport at all with this reality. This is just one example of many. The conservative columnist Noah Rothman, who we quoted under what the right is saying, did a great job deconstructing all the misleading tales. Carlson says there is a dispute over how Chansley got into the building. There is not. We know that Chansley was with a group of rioters who were shattering windows and then pushed through doors to the Capitol. That is all on tape. In fact, Chansley had previously told CBS's 60 Minutes that he was waved through into the Capitol by police. That claim angered the judge in his case so much that he chastised him in court for lying, then he ordered the release of footage showing how

Chansley actually entered the Capitol. That story was front page news in many outlets over the course of several days. Hopefully, Carlson's team somehow missed it. Carlson also suggested Ashley Babbitt was quote-unquote murdered, a legal allegation which the officer in question has been absolved of, making such a claim from a news anchor egregiously irresponsible. Babbitt tried to climb through an interior window that would have gotten her into the Speaker's Lobby, one of the most secure areas of the Capitol building. A Capitol Police Lieutenant named Michael Byrd drew his firearm and repeatedly told Babbitt to stop, fearful that the mob would follow in behind her. She refused. He shot her once in the left shoulder and she was immediately administered aid and then evacuated to a hospital where she died. Just

yards away, behind Byrd, were dozens of lawmakers some of the rioters had loudly and clearly promised they were going to find and kill. Again, all of this is on video, from multiple angles. There is no mystery here. However, there were some elements of what Carlson ran with that were interesting new or right. The January 6th committee did, at times, turn into a show trial. Networks like CNN were regularly receiving leaked footage and information to make it as politically damning for Trump as possible. Since Carlson aired his footage, Benny Thompson, the Democrat from Mississippi who chaired the committee, made the surprising admission that he didn't think any members on the committee had ever accessed the footage Carlson released. Instead, Thompson said, his staff had watched it. Other framings also had elements of

truth. U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, for instance, died the day after the riots. Many news outlets, including the New York Times, said he was beaten with a fire extinguisher and implied he was killed by rioters. It turns out no such beating ever occurred. The Times had to retract that report after a medical examiner determined Sicknick died of natural causes after suffering several strokes. Carlson aired footage he said was of Sicknick walking around, presumably healthy, after the time the Times had initially reported he had been beaten with a fire extinguisher. But again, we already knew that report was erroneous. We did learn that Sicknick had been sprayed in the face with some kind of chemical like pepper spray

and collapsed at 10pm that night after the riots, but a medical examiner ruled there was no correlation between that and his death. The idea that the two events are totally unrelated seems like a rather shocking coincidence, but what can we do but trust the medical examiner's report? Carlson, though, once again took things too far. He claimed that members of the January 6th Committee repeatedly alleged Sicknick was murdered by rioters despite knowing that was a lie, but nobody on the committee ever alleged that, not once. Again, there are transcripts of every word spoken at those committee hearings. The committee accurately depicted the violence Carlson also pointed out that the footage shows Ray Epps, a man many suspect was a federal informant, was on the Capitol grounds 30 minutes after he had told federal investigators he left.

The footage Carlson shows appears to confirm this, but this doesn't really prove anything. I've written about Ray Epps and spent many, many hours trying to figure out his story, and Carlson's bombshell really doesn't change it. It should go without saying, but the fact Epps could have lied or been 30 minutes off about the time he left the Capitol

does not mean he is a federal informant or somehow orchestrated thousands of people rioting and trespassing into the Capitol building. Carlson seems to imply otherwise with no other evidence. Again, so much of Carlson's report covered things we already knew. There were news crews, journalists, and photographers present on January 6th. Capitol rioters filmed themselves extensively, so much so that ProPublica has an entire video archive where you can pick any moment in time from that day and see what was happening at the Capitol all from the perspective of the protesters. It is a rather remarkable collection. Spend five minutes

clicking around, there is a link to it in today's episode description, and I doubt you'll conclude anything close to what Carlson does. When taking all the footage into account from that day, close to what Carlson does. When taking all the footage into account from that day, including Carlson's, the conclusion is rather plain. Carlson portrays the day as a largely peaceful intrusion on the Capitol, with police assisting folks into the building and patriotic Americans showing reverence for the premises. This is farcical. Certainly, some trespassers were calmly taking pictures and soaking up the Capitol. I bet many viewed their visit in these terms. I'm sure the crowd was a mix of some normal tourists, level-headed Trump supporters, angry rioters, and hardcore extremists. But the most crazed had planned a violent overthrow for months. Many hundreds of them were enraged, destructive, and fighting with police officers,

and the more visibly peaceful among the crowd only entered the building after windows had been smashed, police overrun, and doors broken through. They were not invited in, waved through, or given tours. Hundreds if not thousands of people were violent and destructive. There were some moments of peace and calm and some attempts by police to remove people from the premises without a physical struggle. Many people were hurt, millions of dollars of damage was done, and Capitol Police were entirely outnumbered and overmatched for hours. At least a few dozen of the protesters explicitly intended to commit violence against lawmakers, and many more than that engaged in physical violence against police. Frankly, it is remarkable that in this entire fracas, just a single shot was fired by one officer. That shot was a tragedy and should never have needed to be fired, but it was not the officer's fault or the fault of Democrats or the

media. There are, quite literally, hundreds of thousands of hours of video and photographic evidence to corroborate all of this, not to mention the firsthand account of thousands of people who were present. That Carlson could fill a few minutes of television time with images of protesters behaving peacefully should not be a surprise. There are still questions about that day I want answered and still concerns I have about the treatment of some January 6 prisoners. But Carlson and Fox News had a privileged opportunity to add nuance to these questions in a way that got us closer to the truth, and they squandered it, instead tallying yet another strike against their own credibility. All right, that is it for my take.

Next up is our Under the Radar section, as we are skipping our reader question today. In one of the strongest signals yet that he intends to run for president, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is scheduled to meet GOP lawmakers in Iowa. DeSantis will greet members of the state House and Senate at the Capitol, engaging in the sort of retail politicking that's expected in the Iowa caucuses, Bloomberg reports. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, the Republican, is expected to attend the event, though she has said she'll remain neutral in the Republican primary. DeSantis is currently on a national tour to promote his book, The Courage to Be Free, and his visit comes just three days before Donald Trump is expected to visit. All right, next up is our numbers section. The estimated amount of damage done by Capitol rioters is $2.7 million. The number of people arrested on charges

related to the January 6th riot is over 1,000. The number of people who have pleaded guilty to federal crime so far is 518. The number of Capitol police officers who were assaulted during the riots is 140. The length in years of the longest sentence issued for a Capitol rioter yet was 10 given to ex-cop Thomas Webster, who swung a metal flagpole at an officer during the riots. The length in months of the sentence given to Julian L.E. Cotter, the 33-year-old convicted of dousing Officer Sicknick with pepper spray, was 80 months. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day section, All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day section. An alligator that was believed to have been stolen from a Texas zoo is coming home more than 20 years later.

Officials from Texas Parks and Wildlife say they found an alligator that had been in the care of a former zoo volunteer for more than 20 years. The volunteer allegedly stole an egg or young alligator hatchling and left the zoo with it in her pocket, then kept the alligator as a pet. Employees from the zoo traveled some 50 miles to retrieve the alligator. Gators have been making news recently. A four-foot alligator was recently found in a park in Brooklyn, and in Philadelphia, a three-foot caiman, a relative of the alligator, was rescued from FDR Park. CBS has the latest in the alligator diaries, and there is a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. Like I mentioned at the top, we have a reader mailbag coming out tomorrow in the newsletter. If you're interested in getting that mailbag, you need to subscribe at reetangle.com slash membership. We'll be back here on Monday. Have a great weekend. Peace.

Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, check out our website at www.tangle.com. We'll be right back. dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

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