Non-lawyers Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters deliberately turned their backs on Fox News chief judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano’s assessment that Donald Trump has committed a crime and impeachable offenses by pretending that their opinion was as valid as his.
Neither Gutfeld’s nor Watters’ Fox News bio mentions any legal or government experience. Chief Judicial Analyst Napolitano, on the other hand, has a law degree, served as a judge from 1987-1995, served as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years and has worked in private practice. Presumably, he has the title of “chief judicial analyst” because Fox deems his legal opinions authoritative and reliable.
But in the Trump era, Fox hosts don’t need no stinking law if it gets in the way of propagandizing for Dear Leader. So despite the fact that Napolitano has said on Fox that Trump has violated federal law and that his “reckless, constitutionally destructive behavior” merits impeachment, Watters and Gutfeld dismissed impeachment as “a joke,” in Gutfeld’s case and “a coup” in Watters’.
Watters began the discussion on today’s The Five by saying approvingly, “The White House telling Democrats to take a hike, ’cause they’re not going to comply with their rigged inquiry.” Watters called it a “great political tactic to say 'shove it, Democrats.'” He later referred to “a lot of breaking news on the coup front.”
As usual, Juan Williams was the lone Trump opponent up against four defenders, each of whom ignored Napolitano’s analysis. Nobody disputed Williams’ observation, “Everything the whistleblower has said so far has been corroborated and guess who corroborated it? Donald Trump.” But nobody seemed to take it seriously either.
You can always count on Gutfeld to be an a**hole and he didn’t disappoint today either. “I don’t believe this is about actual impeachment,” he declared. “What they’re trying to do is create a quagmire process, OK, so that they can warp public opinion, which they are doing, so they can shake the confidence of Republicans who support the president, which is happening, I think, and handicap him with a whole big, giant cloud, a headache for 2020.”
Gutfeld went on to list all the great things he thinks Trump has accomplished. What Gutfeld did not say? That Trump has done nothing wrong.
Trump seems “like the greatest Democratic president in history,” Gutfeld asserted, “So it’s all about how much they hate the guy because they should be embracing his policies.” He also defended Trump’s sudden withdrawal of forces from Syria.
“It drives me crazy that we take this story seriously,” Gutfeld said. He also took a veiled swipe at some of his colleagues who do think it’s a big deal. To cohost Dana Perino he said, ”I’m not just a Fox host, Dana. I’m a Fox viewer, OK? … It drives me nuts that we take seriously this narrative, this conjoined narrative from the Democrats and the media. CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post … they must be laughing their asses off when we dance to their tune. This is such a joke. It’s such a joke. It’s all designed to win an election, that’s all it is.”
Williams jumped in to cite Napolitano. "Didn’t Judge Napolitano say you can’t say to people ignore what you can see for yourself with your own eyes? Here’s a president who released a letter that says, basically, I was using American military aid to extort a foreign country to get political dirt on my opponent.”
Gutfeld interrupted to sneer at Williams, “You just pulled a Schiff.” Gutfeld was referring, of course, to House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff who, as a key impeachment-inquiry figure, is a perennial Trump/Fox target.
But Williams continued, “In other words, this is what people who work at Fox are saying.”
Watters interrupted to say, “It’s a difference of opinion and that’s why there’s so much partisanship around impeachment.”
No, Jesse, it’s not “a difference of opinion.” It’s a knowledgeable and qualified legal opinion vs. Trump lickspittles’ spin.
But at least nobody called Napolitano “a fool," as guest Joseph diGenova did, with host Tucker Carlson’s support.
Watch the four conservatives on The Five demonstrate their willingness to disregard the law in service to Trump below, from the October 9, 2019 The Five.