A supposedly “straight news” report from Fox News last night was a work of propaganda blatantly designed to legitimize Donald Trump’s attacks on the U.S. city of Baltimore and its U.S. Congressman, Elijah Cummings.
Anchor Shannon Bream interrupted her own reporting from the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in Detroit for a supposedly straight news break. There to help shore up Trump’s fragile ego after 10 Democratic presidential candidates got 2.5 hours on CNN, was Fox correspondent David Spunt.
Spunt’s report began with a lower-third banner blaring, “LIKE LIVING IN HELL” and, underneath, “PRES. TRUMP RENEWS ATTACKS ON ELIJAH CUMMINGS, BALTIMORE.”
Spunt began by saying, “The president feeling confident tonight” and “celebrating” a judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee alleging that the Trump campaign and Russia over the email hack during the 2016 presidential campaign.
That has nothing to do with Trump’s attacks on Cummings or Baltimore but the “LIKE LIVING IN HELL” banner remained on the screen.
“Now, it’s 2020 that’s on the president’s radar,” Spunt said, moving on. The “objective news” banner read “SLEEPY JOE” as we learned who Trump predicts will be the Democratic 2020 nominee.
“But until President Trump steps on that stage in the fall of next year, he’s focused on the day-to-day,” Spunt said. Sure he is. The Slacker in Chief is focused on the day-to-day of watching television, tweeting and playing golf. Also, hating on America.
“And Baltimore,” Spunt added, as though Trump were actually doing something presidential on behalf of the city instead of weaponizing it against Cummings who, as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has had the audacity to do his job for the American people.
Now we got a clip of Trump saying, “People living in Baltimore are very happy that I’m bringing out the fact that it’s like living in Hell.” Actually, no, they are not. Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources newsletter made the educated guess that Trump got that idea from another Fox News report in which (fake reporter) Lawrence Jones interviewed local residents. They “blasted local leaders and went easy on Trump,” Stelter noted. Other (real) reporters found quite different reactions.
Predictably, Spunt didn’t question Trump’s ridiculous assertion.
“The president continuing his attacks on Baltimore, specifically the congressional district represented by House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings,” Spunt continued. We got another clip of Trump, this time saying, “Baltimore’s been very badly mishandled for many years.”
Naturally, Spunt didn’t question why, then, Trump hasn’t done anything about it in the more than 2.5 years he’s been in office and why he only seems to care now that he wants to use an American city as a cudgel against an American congressman.
Instead, Spunt all but endorsed Trump’s attack. As the “MONEY PIT” banner appeared, Spunt said, “In 2014, the Department of Housing and Urban Development [the department Trump deliberately sabotaged by appointing the completely unqualified and inept Ben Carson as head] and auditors have routinely criticized Baltimore for failing to account for its spending of federal dollars, warning those grants could be taken away.”
If you ask me, failing to account for $4 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the $105 million we have spent on Trump’s golf trips (despite claiming he’d be too busy working to play golf, in an attack on President Obama). But I digress.
“Right now, those grants still exist,” Spunt said pointedly.
Watch Fox’s “straight news” work to justify Trump’s poisonous rhetoric below, from the July 30, 2019 Fox News @ Night. It’s yet another demonstration of how nobody hates America more than Donald Trump and Fox News.
The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (think National Cathedral), put out a video condemning Trump’s trashing of Baltimore:
“When such violent dehumanizing words come from the President of the United States, they are a clarion call and give cover to white supremacists. We have come to accept a level of insult and abuse in political discourse that violates each person’s sacred identity as a child of God.”
She also criticizes other religious leaders for their silence.
https://www.chron.com/news/article/National-Cathedral-condemns-Trump-s-racialized-14270548.php