While PBS stations celebrated music and fireworks with A Capitol Fourth from coast to coast on July 4, the tax-funded PBS NewsHour marked the Independence Day holiday in its own inimitable style by trying to tie the patriotic celebration to right-wing extremism and the January 6 Capitol Hill riots. Congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins sat down with two liberal professors to decry the dangers of the right wing on Tuesday evening.

Host Amna Nawaz set the scene for PBS’s attempt to deflate the spirit of the Fourth of July by linking the Founding Fathers to right-wing extremism, while also reminding viewers that many of the Founders were slave-owners, as if that’s shocking news.

Nawaz: The American Revolution and the Founding Fathers, two parts of U.S. history celebrated on July 4th. In recent years, they have also become political and ideological tools, including at times of some extremist groups on the right. Lisa Desjardins has more.