Fox News’ idea of a “fair and balanced” discussion on President Obama’s immigration action was on full display on today’s Fox News Sunday. The three guests were Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA). That is imbalanced enough but both Republicans have an extremist reaction to the immigration action.
Sandwiching a Democrat in-between two Republicans is a typical Fox News sleight of hand. It gives an appearance of balance because the sides alternate. Apparently, you’re just not supposed to notice, or maybe not care, that one side got considerably more time.
But even worse, each of the Republicans promoted an extreme reaction to President Obama’s actions, coupled with extremely inflammatory language.
In addition to promoting obstructionism and government shutdown, Cruz also made inflammatory statements like this – without challenge from host Chris Wallace:
What the president announced this week is a wholesale refusal to follow our immigration laws, to enforce our immigration laws. Number one, for 4 million to 5 million people here illegally, he’s promising to print up and give work authorization. Essentially, he’s gotten in the job of counterfeiting immigration papers, because there’s no legal authority to do what he’s doing. He’s simply giving worth authorization and claiming unilateral authority.
But, secondly, the memo that he put out—not the speech, but the memo he put out to the Department of Homeland Security says they are not to enforce immigration laws other than for violent criminals and a few discreet categories, but for most of the 12 million people here illegally, the president is instructing the executive branch to no longer enforce the immigration laws. It is a stunning and sad display of a president declining to honor his constitutional obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
Abbott, a governor, discussed his plan to sue President Obama. But then came this exchange in which Wallace suggested he found Abbott's anti-Obama rhetoric unseemly while he also pressed for more of it:
ABBOTT: (T)his president, more than any other president, has abdicated his responsibility to uphold and enforce this Constitution.
...We have a president who feels completely unconstrained by the Constitution. Attorneys General across the United States of America are the leaders in stepping up holding this president accountable to the United States Constitution. If we don’t have the Constitution enforced, it will lead to dire consequences in our future.
WALLACE: You have called this president a lawless president, a lawless chief executive. Really?
ABBOTT: Whenever the president of the United States not only doesn’t follow the law, but adamantly refuses to follow the law, the way that he’s done with regard to this particular executive order, the way that the president has unilaterally altered the terms of Obamacare, that is the epitome of lawlessness. And once the chief executive of the United States of America refuses to abide by the law and the Constitution of the this country, that leads to dire consequences for our future if we don’t have attorneys general making sure the president abides by the law.
You can watch all three interviews below.