By Guy Page
At his June 14 press conference, Phil Scott got about as angry as the low-key governor ever gets in public. He’s teed off that more people aren’t watching the live, televised hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Calvin Cutler of WCAX asked Scott [1:16:27 on YouTube video] if “you’ve had the chance to watch any of the Jan. 6th hearings, and if so, your thoughts on what you’ve seen.”
That’s all it took.
“Yes, I have been watching,” Scott said. “I haven’t watched every moment, every minute, of the deliberations, but it’s been eye-opening, learning more every single time I watch about what unfolded.
“I wish more people were watching, to be honest with you. We have what, 330 million people in the country, and I believe we only had 19 million watching. This was an assault on our democracy. This was an insurrection.
“And I think they’re laying out the groundwork pretty well. We’ll see as they continue to to lay out what actually happened, and how it happened, how it was orchestrated, who paid for it and so forth.
“What does it say that there’s only 19 million people that have watched it? I mean, what does that say about, maybe, apathy across the nation?
“Again – this was an assault on our democracy. This was an indisputable insurrection. So I hope more people tune in, more people listen, so that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past, and that we can uh we can move on from this.”
Gov. Scott didn’t say which channel he watches. However, he can scarcely miss it when he turns on the television. Most of the hearings have been wall-to-wall on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN and other major news outlets. Even Fox News has aired some of the live hearings. The Select Committee also has its own live-streaming page, with the added bonus feature of a tip line. “Chairman Thompson is interested in any information regarding the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” the tip line page says.
The next hearing will go live at 3 pm Thursday, June 23. On June 13, the second night of the hearings, the top-rated cable news program was Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, which did not air the hearings.