Millions across the nation rejoiced on Tuesday at the news that Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted on all counts for the murder of George Floyd, whose death last summer sparked nationwide protests against police violence targeting Black Americans, accelerating America's centuries-long reckoning with the racism embedded in its law enforcement.
Last May, Chauvin was one of the officers responding to calls of a forgery in progress. With Floyd handcuffed, Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly 10 minutes, eventually suffocating him even as Floyd warned he couldn't breathe and as bystanders implored Chauvin to relent.
Ahead of the verdict, while the jury was sequestered and cut off from news outlets, President Joe Biden said:
"I'm praying the verdict is the right verdict, which is, I think it's overwhelming in my view. I wouldn't say that unless the jury was sequestered now and not hear me say that."
Far-right Fox News host and the most famous racist to lose Dancing with the Stars, Tucker Carlson, raged against Biden in his nightly broadcast, which aired live just after the verdict.
Watch below.
Tucker reacts to politicization of Derek Chauvin trialyoutu.be
Carlson asked:
"When was the last time a sitting president weighed in on a jury decision before it was made? Answer: never."
Like many of the assertions delivered to Carlson's millions of viewers each night, the claim was completely false.
In fact—as Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty pointed out—one of Carlson's favorite Presidents, former President Donald Trump, did the same thing.
Tumulty linked to a piece from Reuters, in which Trump advocated for his former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, to be acquitted for tax and bank fraud.
As the jury was still deliberating and not under sequester, Trump said:
"I think the whole Manafort trial is very sad, when you look at what's going on there. I think it's a very sad day for our country. He worked for me for a very short period of time. But you know what? He happens to be a very good person. And I think it's very sad what they've done to Paul Manafort."
Manafort was convicted, only for Trump to pardon him before leaving office.
After another Trump associate—Roger Stone—was convicted, Trump specifically targeted the forewoman of Stone's jury, slamming her to his millions of Twitter followers and prompting a rebuke from Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who presided over the case.
Like Manafort, Trump also pardoned Stone before leaving office.
Author Robert Draper pointed out that former President Richard Nixon also weighed in on a high profile case: that of cult leader Charles Manson.
Nixon said Manson was guilty—a statement which almost resulted in a mistrial.
Once again, it was proven that Carlson's claims aren't to be trusted.
Carlson, who formerly employed an avowed white supremacist as one of his head writers, saw widespread backlash for his overall reaction to the guilty verdict.
Chauvin will be sentenced in around two months.
