Fox tried to chalk up criticism of Donald Trump’s behavior overseas last week to a biased media but even host Neil Cavuto had to acknowledge that Trump stepped on his own message with his attacks on Bette Midler, Sen. Charles Schumer and others.
Former Ambassador Nicholas Burns, who served in both Bush administrations as well as in the Clinton and Obama administrations, called Trump’s visit “embarrassing” for his attacks on London Mayor Sadiq Khan and U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Burns noted that if a foreign leader attacked our local politics during a visit to Washington, “We wouldn’t like it one bit.”
All that was before Trump sat at Normandy American Cemetery and disgraced one of the most solemn places on earth with vicious smears of American dignitaries.
Cavuto tried to spin Trump’s foreign failures as fake news from a hostile American press. “The foreign press, normally not very receptive to a Republican president let alone this one, has nicer things to say about him than the American press,” Cavuto said pointedly.
Guest Nile Gardiner, of the Heritage Foundation, was effusive in his praise of Trump: “I’ve been on the ground here in London all week, and I have to say I think that not only was this one of the president’s best overseas trips, it may well have been his most successful. I think the response here in the U.K. has been tremendous, very positive press coverage here for President Trump, even from some of his critics as well. You had some demonstrations, far smaller than anticipated, just about 7,000 demonstrators on the streets,” Gardiner said.
FACT CHECK: The number of protesters was at least 10,000 and likely closer to 75,000.
Gardiner continued slobbering: “But I have to say the optics of this trip, his meetings with the queen, the state banquets, his speech, I think this has been a very, very effective visit and also on the policy front, really pushed forward the idea of a U.S.-U.K. free-trade deal, he hosted a business roundtable at St. James Palace.”
Gardiner also said Trump “projected statesman-like leadership on the world stage“ during his “impressive” visit.
Axios’ Alayna Treene lowered the bar. “He didn’t embarrass the prime minister, he didn’t embarrass the queen,” she said about Trump.
But then Cavuto admitted a bit of truth. Trump “did zing the mayor of London,” Cavuto said, though he suggested it was justified because the mayor had been “lampooning” him. “But to me, he’s the leader of the free world, he shouldn’t punch down,” Cavuto added.
Treene also said the media was justified in criticizing Trump’s tweets about “Bette Midler being a psycho or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer being a creep.”
And while Treene agreed that Trump’s D-Day speech was well received here and abroad, she and Cavuto agreed he stepped on it with “tweeting,” as Cavuto said. Nobody pointed out Trump stepped on it bigly in his vile interview with Laura Ingraham at Normandy.
Watch Fox try to rewrite history below, from the June 7, 2019 Your World.
The press in Europe generally did its best to ignore the President’s silliness, although his ignorance was duly noted. That press conference with the Irish leader was pure comedy.