Even by Fox News propaganda standards, the slobbering by the three Fox & Friends cohosts over Donald Trump’s appearance at the Daytona 500 yesterday reached new levels of nauseating. You’d think Trump had just invented a cure for the Coronavirus.
“It was amazing to see. It was a bit of history,” cohost Steve Doocy said.
After a clip of Trump announcing the iconic “Gentlemen, start your engines,” cohost Lisa Boothe gushed, “I mean, how incredible! President Trump really understands imagery. I mean, we’ve seen this with the Fourth of July, we’ve seen - he understands, like, the impact of just that imagery. And also, really what it means to NASCAR fans or really anyone. I mean, you cannot look at that and not think that it is extremely cool, and what an awesome, historic moment.”
Boothe also called it “very cool” that Trump told the drivers, “Have a good race, be safe, God bless you, we love you
Doocy agreed on that bit of coolness. Then he quickly weaponized the glorious moment on behalf of Trump's presidential campaign. “And you know, to your point, Lisa, about how he is such a good producer, such a good TV producer, in the last week, how many people have we heard in the mainstream media talking about how Michael Bloomberg is a genius because he has hired these Instagram influencers to post things about him? But then, when you look at the imagery out of Daytona 500 yesterday, where you’ve got the most iconic airplane in the world flying in at 800 feet above - look at that right there! And then you’ve got the beast! And you’ve got the president! And you’ve gotten down in the pit! And on the apron! Those are the images that will endure and will be a commercial, I’ve got a feeling, within a week!”
But they weren’t done weaponizing. “It didn’t impress everybody,” Cohost Griff Jenkins said, opening up the discussion for attacks on the media and everyone not as bowled over as these three lickspittles. Even as Jenkins was teeing up the attacks, Doocy interrupted to exclaim, “Look at that! How cool is that!” as we saw footage of Air Force One hovering over the stands.
First in the crosshairs was NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell for making a “big deal,” as Doocy put it, of the fact that taxpayers paid for Trump’s photo op. “I would imagine a lot of people in attendance there probably said, you know, finally Washington spending money in a way I can appreciate because that is cool to see [Air Force One] land right there!” Doocy later mentioned that 500 Secret Service agents had been assigned this event, as if that expense made the whole thing even more awesome.
“Very, very cool,” Boothe reiterated. Then she sneered over a tweet from former Rep. Katie Hill for saying she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or just sigh over Trump’s stunt, before deciding on all of them. “She resigned in shame so I’m not sure she’s the best person to be talking about ethical things,” Boothe said contemptuously.
For even more gratuitous, partisan weaponization, we saw a clip of contributor Dan Bongino, who had been on the show earlier: “You want to talk about liberal heads exploding everywhere? Think of all this amalgamation of things in this pot. You had patriotism, you had fast cars, you had American muscle, you had pride, love of America, President Trump. I mean all these things liberals really can’t stand.” That, of course, made it “such a great day!” for hating-Americans-who-don’t-love-Trump Bongino.
There was at least one more Fox & Friends segment gushing over Trump’s photo op today. Fox called that video “NASCAR fans in awe after Trump visits Daytona.” In it, the Daytona 500 attendees did the slobbering.
You can watch Fox reach new lows in propaganda below, from the February 17, 2020 Fox & Friends.
Also, no coverage from any of the MSM last week when Trump was in Charlotte and thought he was in Cincinnati during a speech?