Fox host Harris Faulkner seemed to have trouble finding anything good to say about Donald Trump’s disgraceful press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin today. So she resorted to Trump TV's all-purpose fallback: Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Poor Faulkner, a Trump loyalist, had to contend not just with Trump’s ghastly behavior but the horrified reaction from all sides, including a blunt condemnation from House Speaker Paul Ryan.
After Faulkner read Ryan’s statement about Trump’s presser, she chided Democratic guest David Tafuri for smiling. “This is an American moment,” she scolded. As if she and the Republicans would not have pounced had the situation been reversed. If you don’t believe me, check out her behavior in the rest of this discussion.
Faulkner sounded approving as she said that the two-hour discussion between Trump and Putin signaled, “clearly, the ball is moving.”
Tafuri said that he agreed with Ryan’s criticisms and cited as the “most disappointing” moment in the press conference Trump’s blaming of “both sides” for tensions between U.S. and Russia.
“There’s nothing the U.S. did that’s equivalent to Russia interfering in our election or annexing Crimea or propping up Assad in Syria,” Tafuri began.
Faulkner sounded almost frantic as she repeatedly interrupted Tafuri and asked conservative guest Rebeccah Heinrichs to respond.
Heinrichs did not refute what Tafuri said. Instead, she “praised” Trump because “there was no capitulation on the part of a matter of policy coming out of this meeting.” Heinrichs spoke emphatically, as if that would overshadow the terrible faintness of her praise. “President Trump didn’t say we’re going to concede on any major policy point that’s important to the United States.”
Then, probably because she was unable to find anything else positive to say about the appalling press conference, Heinrichs pivoted to attacking former President Barack Obama. “The Obama administration, as a matter of policy, gave into the Russians time and time again. So even though I wasn’t happy with the president’s rhetoric today, I’ll take this tough policy over the Obama administration’s Russia reset policy every day of the week.”
But that wasn’t enough deflection or whataboutism for Trumper Faulkner.
FAULKNER: You know, we still don’t know what happened to Hillary Clinton’s server and you heard the president talking about that, too. If there can be an investigation wide enough to let us know what was on the server and what might have been looked at, that would be helpful, too.
Watch Faulkner do her part for the Fox News arm of the Cover-up Caucus below, from the July 16, 2018 Outnumbered Overtime.
In the same paragraph, he said 1) he had maximum confidence in America’s intelligence community; and 2) he was impressed by Putin’s strong denials. A textbook case of double-think.
BTW: Whoever thought up that “would” vs. “wouldn’t” cop-out has a great future in marketing. Impressive. But not very convincing.