Donald Trump has attacked professional black athletes, including NBA star Steph Curry, in the most childish and un-presidential way. So, of course, Fox News is attacking Curry, too.
I should say that not everybody on Fox has taken Trump’s side in his war on black athletes. But given that Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth actually gushed over Trump’s Charlottesville remarks, it was a safe bet he’d side with Trump now, too.
In addition to Trump’s attack on athletes taking a knee during the national anthem, he also went after NBA star Steph Curry for declining an invitation to the White House. Shortly after Fox & Friends reported on Curry, Trump peevishly tweeted that he was withdrawing his invitation.
Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017
This morning, Fox & Friends played a clip of Curry’s response.
CURRY: It’s surreal, to be honest. … I don’t know why he feels the need to target certain individuals, you know, rather than others. I have an idea of why but it’s … just kind of beneath, I think, a leader of a country to go that route. It’s not what leaders do.
An African American suggesting Trump or the U.S. might have some racial bias? That’s Fox’s cue to go into attack-the-black mode!
Media Matters caught these remarks (my emphases added):
HEGSETH: So Steph Curry is the son of an NBA player, Dell Curry, a great NBA player. Steph Curry himself, one of the best—probably the best shooter of all time. My kids – two of my kids have his jersey. We love Steph Curry. Yet, he is a millionaire millennial. He is a coddled—he’s lived a coddled life where he shoots a ball and dribbles a ball for a living, and somehow now he’s preaching to this president about what leadership really looks like? When it’s a—and even Steve Kerr, the coach of the team, said it’s a privilege to go to the White House. Instead the Warriors are saying that they’re going to go to D.C. anyway and celebrate equality, diversity, and inclusion.
It's hard to think of anyone who has led a coddled life more than Donald Trump and his passel of kids yet when they speak, Fox swoons.
Watch the hypocrisy below, from the September 24, 2017 Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.
And I wasn’t all that political in the Reagan years so maybe I should have disliked him more. OTOH, even GWB looks not so bad next to Trump.
And I don’t weep for Ronald Reagan. I lived through his presidency in my teen years, and I vividly remember that disaster. I remember the graft and the corruption and the selfishness and the greed, all pushed hard by Reagan and his handlers. His was a thoroughly venal administration – one that saw an all-time high in the number of its members who were prosecuted and/or disciplined for criminal behavior. Including, by the way, Ann Gorsuch, the mother of the man who stole the Supreme Court seat that should have been filled by Merrick Garland.
I personally find it tragic that in subsequent presidencies, we have found Right Wingers who have been even more outrageous than Reagan – to the point that people today point to Reagan as a positive figure who engaged both sides, etc. When the opposite was true. The only difference is that in the subsequent years, the Hard Right have pushed the GOP much farther over to their corner. So that now we have truly scary figures like Pence and Bannon trying to dictate policy in this country, and people say that Reagan was much more reasonable. No, Reagan and his group were pretty scary too. It’s just that the W presidency was much scarier, as those guys had taken the gloves off even the public amiability that Reagan worked to project. And the Pence White House is downright horrifying in its viciousness. But just because the current group is a nightmare doesn’t lessen the meanness of the Reagan White House. I don’t know that I would have gone to the Reagan White House or the W White House – those were houses that presided over immense cruelty to others. And I know for sure that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the current White House – it’s an embarrassment to this country and to the entire world.
So true.
Seems the rats have started looking for a way to escape from the sinking WH ship. No sympathy for them from me. They thought they had a nice fat meal ticket and they decided to jump ship only after realising that the paper it’s printed on is such poor quality.
I don’t recall Matt Birk going on Hannity but this will be helpful tomorrow when Hannity will undoubtedly have a hatefest with Bannon over the athletes.
I will say I think there is a difference between not going to the White House because you disagree with the president’s views on policy, as Birk did, and not going because you feel that Trump is a racist and is not worthy of the office, as Curry and teammates are doing, IMO.
I hated Ronald Reagan but I probably would have gone to the White House if I were invited out of respect for the office. But Trump has disgraced the White House in so many ways and he has specifically signaled that he only cares about his base.
So I do not think it is inconsistent to criticize people like Birk who snubbed Obama just because they disagreed on policy yet support Curry who is standing up for rights and American values.
I don’t recall Fox News having a problem with Langer, Kuechenberg and Fernandez refusing to show up in 2013 when President Obama honored the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins team.
I don’t recall Fox News attacking Matt Birk when he refused to go to the White House in 2013, citing his anti-choice reasoning. In fact, in June 2013, Sean Hannity gave a friendly platform to Birk to expound on his reasoning. His reaction to Birk’s refusal: “I think it was the right stand, and I think I might have done the same thing, having the same position as you do.” Hannity followed this by pushing an agenda about the Right Wing “Born Alive” gotcha bills that were not passed in Illinois when President Obama was a State Senator there. Hannity wrapped up his congratulations of Birk by telling him “Appreciate your stand.”
I also don’t recall Fox News attacking Tim Thomas in 2012 for refusing to go to the White House with the Boston Bruins. That said, there were reporters and pundits who did attack Thomas, in similar terms to those being used by Fox News against Curry. But there’s a difference in the current situation – President Obama never came out and made nasty comments about Tim Thomas. Trump, on the other hand, couldn’t resist sending out mean tweets.