Fox has been talking about the Russia investigation in the past tense, as if it is over and done with and nothing ever came of it. That is not only untrue but a likely sign that the Trump TV network is worried.
Kudos go to CNN’s Reliable Sources host, Brian Stelter for catching this meme.
Noting that there are multiple investigations still ongoing, breaking news still being reported and many of Trump’s explanations unbelievable, Stelter said “conservative media heavyweights” (read: Fox News) are nevertheless talking about Russia “in the past tense, like it’s over, like it’s been settled and like Trump has been completely vindicated.“
Stelter went on to play several clips from Fox News, starting with Tucker Carlson asking Joe Concha, media reporter for The Hill, “Did the Russia story disappear or is that my imagination?”
We know why Carlson would be more interested in spin than the truth. But what’s Concha’s excuse for doing Carlson’s dirty work for him? Does Concha want a contributor’s contract on Fox that badly? Apparently, he does.
CONCHA: Yes. Boy, before I went on vacation, it was the biggest story of our lifetime and we were entering a constitutional crisis. … Now I can’t seem to find any coverage on it. It really is quite remarkable, Tucker.
Yet Stelter noted that the day before that conversation, CNN broke the news that, during the 2016 campaign, a top aide to Trump tried to arrange a meeting between top Trump officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Maybe Tucker missed that, although Fox’s newsroom did follow up on it,” Stelter dryly added. That and the previous day's Politico headline saying Trump had been clashing with multiple Republican senators over Russia.
Stelter further said that Fox opinion shows have been depicting the Russia scandal as having “just faded away” for weeks. He played clips of Maria Bartiromo and Sean Hannity, among others, suggesting that the Russia scandal has fizzled and Democrats have moved on to the next bogus attack.
For example:
HANNITY: It’s gone from Russia, Russia, Russia, to President Trump going to launch a nuclear war with North Korea, to, oh, my gosh, racist, racist, racist.
“The message from these FOX shows is, people are out to get Trump, no matter what, whether it’s about Russia, whether it’s about Charlottesville, no matter what it is,” Stelter continued. And he had another clip, this time of Brian Kilmeade suggesting that the media “come up with some type of Russian limerick that we will have to digest” every time Trump “gets on a roll.”
Yet, when there is a new development, Stelter rightly pointed out, Fox just ignores it.
He also showed Tomi Lahren offering to trade away the Hillary email “scandal” if the media would stop covering Russia, thereby revealing that it’s all a matter of politics to her, having nothing to do with scruples.
But then Stelter homed in on what’s really going on: Fox wants the Russia investigations to be over and that partisanship trumps any sense of journalistic principles:
STELTER: But what is clear from all these clips is that the pro-Trump media wants the Russia investigations to be over. So, maybe they are just pretending like the investigations are over.
They’re not curious. They don’t want questions answered about what really happened last year and what might happen in future elections.
But the reality is, as Eugene Robinson wrote in “The Washington Post” the other day, the bad news about this Russia thing keeps pouring in for Trump.
Journalist Elizabeth Drew, who covered Watergate, summed it all up:
DREW: You always have the politicians as well saying, oh, people aren’t interested in Watergate. Oh, people aren’t interested in that Russia business. You people are just wasting your time.
That means they’re pretty worried about it.
Watch Fox whistle past the graveyard below, from the September 3, 2017 Reliable Sources.