The Most Devoted Trump-Fluffers on Fox News Repudiate His ‘Enemy of the People’ Spiel

Donald Trump is losing his grip on the most reliable lap dogs that State TV has to serve up. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends have long been Trump’s goto toadies. Even before he was a candidate for president, he had his own weekly segment on the program called “Mondays with Trump.” And ever since it has been the Fox News show that he has appeared on most frequently when he needed some ego stroking or damage control.

Fox News Friends

The hosts of Fox and Friends rarely have any disagreement with Trump. But on Tuesday’s program there was a surprising rift on a matter that Trump holds dear. His frequent references to the media in language he stole from Joseph Stalin as “the enemy of the people” has become almost as ubiquitous in his public pronouncements as “Make America Great Again, “Lock Her Up,” or “Build the Wall.” So this exchange between co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade is bound to rattle his dentures (video below):

Doocy: So there he is talking about his term, “enemy of the people.”
Kilmeade: I really wish he would lose that term. It doesn’t help anybody. It doesn’t push back on the media that he wants to push on…The press isn’t the enemy of the people.

Kilmeade added that “that broad statement does a lot of damage.” And Doocy joined in saying that Trump “probably feels like they are not doing him any favors, and so he doesn’t like them,” but “are they the enemy of the people? I don’t think so, either.” So even though Doocy tried to soften the blow, they both firmly rejected Trump’s favorite hateful characterization of the press that he despises so much. In fact, Doocy’s soft-serve actually makes the criticism even more harsh because it implies that Trump has only been saying that about the media to punish them for not being more adoring. Which, of course, is true.

UPDATE: Fox’s Martha MacCallum has also condemned Trump’s reckless rhetoric:

“When he points at the press in the back of the room and calls them the enemy of the people, that is wrong,” MacCallum said in a Women Rule podcast interview earlier this fall. “And it exacerbates the situation.” When asked her perspective on the president’s calling the media “fake news,” the host added: “I find it disturbing. I think it’s a mistake.”

Lately Trump himself has tried to walk back his neo-fascist approach to the free press. He now says that he never meant the phrase to apply to all of the media, just the “fake” media. That, however, is typical Trumpian bullshit. Because he also says that the fake media is the largest percentage of the media. How large? According to Trump, “A big chunk, okay? … ‘80%.’”

Consequently, Trump can’t pretend that he’s just singling out a few bad apples. He still wants to malign the whole field of journalism, especially when it doesn’t sufficiently suck up to him. But now he is losing the support of the most glassy-eyed disciples in the Church of Trump. That’s gotta hurt the big Narcissist-in-Chief. Where does he go if he can’t go to Fox News?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

An Alleged (and Smelly) Smear Campaign Against Robert Mueller is Burning Up the Internet

The StormTrumpers are on the march. Whenever Donald Trump is in trouble, there is a rapid response team of defenders who fan out across the InterTubes to either deny that there is anything untoward afoot, or to clumsily try to change the subject with unrelated and unfounded distractions.

Robert Mueller Trump

Something like that may be going on now as a bombshell story broke regarding special counsel Robert Mueller. Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic published a story on Tuesday about an alleged scheme to tarnish the otherwise pristine reputation of Mueller with accusations of sexual harassment or assault. Bertrand’s article reported that:

“A company that appears to be run by a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist offered to pay women to make false claims against Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the days leading up to the midterm elections—and the special counsel’s office has asked the FBI to weigh in.”

The story has all the ingredients of a risque melodrama. It revolves around a woman who says that she was offered $20,000 to make a public accusation of sexual misconduct against Mueller. There was no truth to the charges. The woman, who identified herself as Lorraine Parsons, said that the offer came from a private intelligence firm called Surefire Intelligence. This firm has connections to a GOP activist named Jack Burkman and a notorious pro-Trump conspiracy theorist, Jacob Wohl. Wohl had already been hyping a “scandalous” Mueller story since Tuesday morning.

Bertrand’s article contains more details along with some provocative speculation. And there is more here from NBC. At this early stage of the story it’s impossible to ascertain whether there is any substance to it. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone if it turns out to be true. This is the sort of depravity that dirty tricksters like Wohl and Roger Stone and Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft engage in on a regular basis. And Burkman is well known for having led his own investigation of the deplorable and debunked conspiracy theory about the murder of Seth Rich.

While it would be prudent to wait for more information to develop before coming to any conclusions, there is one lesson that can be learned and applied for future targets of similar allegations. The first thing that Mueller did after being apprised of this affair was to refer it to the FBI and ask them to investigate it. That’s the behavior of an innocent man. Unlike that of now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh – and his protectors in Trump’s White House and the Republican Party – who all refused to cooperate with a comprehensive probe into the charges against him.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Presumably we will hear more about this as information becomes available. And the FBI’s report will also shed light on the matter, assuming it’s released to the public. In the meantime, it will be interesting to watch the right-wing conspirators twisting in the wind as they struggle to make excuses for the crimes that are being alleged and unveiled. Generally when they resort to this sort of underhanded activity, their nervous reactions tend to expose their eventual guilt. Keep the popcorn handy for this one.

Trump Accidentally Admits that Fox News Really is the State TV Division of His White House

Continuing to demonstrate the cowardice that is an integral part of his nature, Donald Trump gave yet another interview to the only network that he isn’t afraid to be questioned by. He appeared on Fox News with the sickly sycophantic Laura Ingraham for a few minutes of fluffing interspersed with incoherent and irrelevant weaving and dodging.

Fox News, Laura Ingraham

The interview broke absolutely no news, making it the pointless waste of time that everyone expected. It was just Trump bragging (lying) about imaginary accomplishments and whining about how he is so beaten up by reporters. Seriously, this tough talking pile of unworthy conceit is actually so weak that, by his own account, those pesky, lightweight news nerds are ripping him to pieces. The only thing that can be described as a revelation from this softball fest is something Trump said that he didn’t mean to reveal (video below).

In a discussion that was ostensibly about his Stalinist references to the media as “the enemy of the people,” Trump tried to justify his reckless hyperbole by claiming that “It’s my form of telling the truth.” Because everyone needs their own “form” of the truth. Then he let this actual example of truth inadvertently slip out:

“We have a lot of supporters. You know that better than anybody. All you have to do is look at your ratings.”

What Trump is saying is that the proof of his popularity is evident in the ratings of Fox News. Really? That must mean that Fox News is an official arm of Trump’s administration and that their fortunes are inextricably intertwined. Which is true, but it’s not something you hear them confess very often.

The interview also addressed a couple of other media related matters. In the following exchange Ingraham helped Trump out by citing a harsh comment by a guest on CNN (who later apologized, which neither Ingraham or Trump acknowledged even though it happened hours before the interview):

Ingraham: There was a woman who was on CNN a short while ago saying that you have radicalized more people than ISIS — that was CNN today.
Trump: Well, that must be some kind of a sick woman. When I say “the enemy of the people,” I’m talking about the fake news and you know it better than anybody.

What Trump isn’t saying is that when he talks about the fake news he means almost all news, and probably everything other than Fox News and a few wingnut websites. Trump never gives an adequate explanation for his use of the “enemy of the people” line even after he is asked about it directly:

Ingraham: How does it help expand your base, to call them [the media] the enemy of the people? How does it help America heal?
Trump: That’s a very good question. Before we finish though – So we’ve done a great job with North Korea…”

Whereupon Trump changed the subject and Ingraham never brought it back up. Why should she when her assignment is to comply with the Fox News mission of falsely maligning Trump’s critics and defending him from any and all criticism aimed his way. She did that throughout the interview. And she even capped it off with this bit of twisted unfairness and imbalance: “You know they [the media] are going to be biased. […] They’re never going to be fair to you.” Left to the imagination is Ingraham’s unspoken elaboration that Trump can always rely on Fox News for unconditional fawning and slobbering tongue baths. Like the one she just gave him.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.