Fact checking Vivek Ramaswamy’s CNN town hall in Iowa

CNN —

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy participated in a CNN town hall Wednesday in Iowa ahead of the state’s caucuses next month.

The entrepreneur made some claims that deserve closer scrutiny.

A false claim that police rolled ‘out the red carpet’ on January 6

Ramaswamy doubled down on his previous comments that the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was an “inside job,” adding that there is evidence of police “rolling out the red carpet” for rioters and inviting them in.

Facts First: Ramaswamy’s claim that the rioters were invited into the Capitol is false. About 140 police officers were assaulted while trying to stop the mob from breaching the Capitol. There were hours-long battles between police and rioters near some entrances. CNN obtained footage from police body-worn cameras showing how dozens of officers engaged in hand-to-hand combat with rioters in a desperate effort to keep them out of the building.

There are plenty of instances where rioters waltzed into the Capitol without a fight, but only after they had stormed past barricades and, in some cases, even stepped through broken windows. In some areas, police were so outnumbered by the mob that they retreated, stood aside or tried to politely engage with rioters to de-escalate the situation rather than fighting or making arrests, but that is clearly not the same as welcoming rioters into the building.

From CNN’s Marshall Cohen and Kaanita Iyer

A false claim about ‘government entrapment’ on January 6

Ramaswamy reiterated his belief that January 6 was an instance of “government entrapment,” claiming as evidence that “we know there were federal law enforcement agents in that field.”

Facts First: FBI Director Christopher Wray, a