CNN’s K-File Plays Hegseth Audio Saying Capitol Riot ‘Wasn’t Violent at All,’ ‘Antifa Disguised as Trump Supporters’

BURNETT: “The other controversial nominee, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary. K-File revealing Hegseth, in the days after January 6th, justified the attack and fueled those false flag claims about Antifa- K-File’s Andrew Kaczynski joins me now. So, Andrew, you have been digging into Hegseth‘s past since he was announced as defense secretary pick to find out what he said, whether it squares with where he is now on crucial issues. Tell us what you found now.”
KACZYNSKI: “Yeah, and what‘s really remarkable about this audio that we found is not only that he spreads this sort of insane conspiracy theory that the initial break in to the U.S. Capitol was done by leftists disguised as Trump supporters, but in this same audio, he also seemingly justifies the actions of those Trump supporters by suggesting that their actions were rooted in legitimate grievances about the 2020 election. He himself says here that he thought the 2020 election was rigged. He immediately also attacked those who condemned both Trump and and the rioters, he said he didn‘t like the knee-jerk reaction. Erin, this podcast is just four days after that attack on the U.S. Capitol, and he said particularly that he saw these — these leftists, these Antifa members with his own eyes who broke in, who started, not Trump supporters. Listen to what he said here.”

[Clip starts]
Hegseth: “Antifa folks took advantage of this to try to get to the front and try to agitate and create openings for themselves. They want chaos, ultimately. (...) But what they really want to do is further the narrative.”
[Clip ends]

KACZYNSKI: “Look, again, and this was four days after the riot. And the thing is, there is — there was — he couldn‘t have seen this himself because it didn‘t happen. There have been multiple investigations. There have been investigations by the FBI. This is not a thing that happened. The people who broke in were Trump supporters. It was not a leftist or Antifa disguised as Trump supporters.”
BURNETT: “No, no. And obviously, he‘s saying he saw it, obviously didn‘t see it. So, so much of this nomination, Hegseth specifically, has also focused on his personal issues, right, allegations about his drinking, a sexual assault claim. But he also has a long history that you found of pushing election fraud conspiracy.”
KACZYNSKI: “Yeah. He explicitly said in this podcast that he thought the 2020 election was rigged. He attacked those who were dismissing the — saying that all these claims of voter fraud were baseless. He said, ‘Why is the media taking the line of secretary of states and governors who are saying that this didn‘t happen?’ And what‘s really notable, again, this is four days after the riot, and there had already been all of these court cases from the Trump — the Trump campaign team, I think it was 60. They had all been disproven. His own attorney general had said that this hasn‘t happened. So this was really totally unfounded. Listen to him making those comments.”

[Clip starts]
Hegseth: “The mindset of these people was not overtly radical. It wasn‘t violent at all. (...) They feel like, ‘If my vote isn‘t fairly counted, if that‘s rigged against me too, what is my recourse?’ (...) I didn‘t anticipate the rigging and the extra-constitutional way they would do mail-in balloting and signature check, and all of the guardrails that came off, came off. And so if the ballot box isn‘t there, that‘s what you saw.”
[Clip ends]

KACZYNSKI: “So, we reached out to the Trump transition. We asked if they wanted to comment on what he said, how he squares that versus everything we know that this didn‘t happen, and they did not. They declined to comment.”
BURNETT: “All right.”