Sure, Fox acknowledges the newly revealed audio of Trump showing very sensitive classified material to people who had no business looking at it was bad but that’s all the more reason to remind everyone about Hunter Biden!
This morning, Fox & Friends engaged in a lengthy discussion about the very, very damning, newly released audio (you can listen to it below the post). As The New York Times explains, the recording, cited in Trump’s latest indictment, which you can hear below, captures Trump blabbing about “what he called a ‘highly confidential’ document about Iran that he acknowledged he could not declassify because he was out of office.” It’s pretty clear none of the people he’s talking to have a security clearance.
Furthermore, the recording contradicts what Trump told Bret Baier in last week’s interview in which Trump insisted “everything was declassified” in the boxes he refused to return to the government. The recording also puts the lie to his claim, in the Baier interview, that he had been talking about “newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles” in the recording.
As Crooks and Liars’ John Amato noted, even cohosts Ainsley Earhardt and Steve Doocy acknowledged how damning the recording is:
[Earhardt said,] "’See, as president, I could have declassified it, now I can't, but you know this is still a secret' he is saying on that tape."
"Yeah, he's admitting he’s got classified documents,” Doocy replied.
But to Brian Kilmeade, the recording was all about how unfair the Department of Justice is (a right-wing trope that also serves as their justification for plans to sabotage it and purge it and install MAGA loyalists).
First, Kilmeade suggested that the DOJ leaked the recording: “How many leaks have come out from [special counsel] Robert Hur’s office about Joe Biden’s documents?” he asked reporter Gillian Turner. When both Turner and Earhardt said they didn’t think any had, Kilmeade sneered, “It’s amazing. Tight ship.”
Of course, it’s pretty certain there’s nothing particularly damning or even interesting about the Hur investigation into Biden’s retention of classified material. But nobody mentioned that.
For more “Let’s make Trump treason about Biden,” the show played a clip of #LyingKayleigh McEnany acknowledging the seriousness of the recording on the Hannity show last night, before segueing right to the weaponizing propaganda that really has nothing to do with Trump’s wrongdoing: “That being said, I agree this case would not have been brought against any other candidate,” #LyingMcEnany lied.
She continued, “I have real questions about Joe Biden not just taking classified information when he had no declassification authority … Have to think how this will be litigated on a national state, national election.”
Then McEnany offered some advice to her favorite P***y Grabber and fellow liar, that he talk “routinely on the campaign trail” not about him, but "about you, the American people.” She meant, the economy, inflation, and “the horrors of the Joe Biden presidency."
“That is such great advice,” Kilmeade gushed. “I hope the president takes it.” He went on to offer his own advice: that Trump “quickly pivot” from any question about the classified documents case to saying the judge has asked him not to discuss the evidence and he’ll abide by that.
Then, apparently at a loss for any other way to make Trump’s dangerous behavior about Hunter Biden, Kilmeade launched his conspiracy theory:
KILMEADE: I would like to bring something else up. I'm wondering if the timing is affected. The New York Times gets these documents, gives it to CNN at the same time that Hunter's stuff hits turbo speed in terms of revelations and widespread interest. Now of course you don't script Russia, but that was fortuitous timing for the Hunter Biden investigation. But then here this comes, and I wonder is anyone curious what Joe Biden managed to smuggle out of the SCIF, I assume over the past 20 or 30 years, that ended up at the University of Delaware, at one of his houses, one of his lawyer's places, or in Chinatown. I just don't understand how they can be both be doing investigations and only one side is leaked out.
Nobody else bit. Doocy quickly brought up that the January 6th investigation is heating up and Earhardt mentioned that there’s also a criminal investigation in Georgia (over Trump’s demand that the Secretary of State “find” him enough votes to win after he had lost the 2020 presidential election both nationally and in Georgia).
You can watch Fox do its best to be both rid of Trump and not alienate its Trump-loving viewers - while keeping its eye on the real goal of destroying Biden – below, from the June 27, 2023 Fox & Friends. Also below is the shocking audio recording of Trump spilling our nation's most sensitive secrets.
The GOP used this approach during the first impeachment of Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman. (And it’s really odd to think that we have to refer to that as just his first impeachment…) Whenever a GOP congressman got the microphone during the impeachment proceedings, they would immediately launch on a fact-free monologue about the “Biden Crime Family” or about “Hunter Biden’s crimes”. With the intent of confusing viewers into throwing up their hands and yelling “Ah, to heck with all of them!”
In the current situation, the desperation of angry Right Wingers is clear and understandable. They have a standard-bearer who is likely to either land in federal prison or be compelled to plead guilty to felonies within the next several months. (Which will render him unable to seek office, by the way) The only play they can think to make is to throw as much mud at President Biden and his family as they can.
So we hear nonsense about “Hunter Biden’s laptop”, which is a canard. In reality, there is no indication that any such laptop ever existed or that Hunter Biden ever went to the shop of the Trump fan in Delaware. What we do know exists is a “hard drive copy” that appears to contain the results of a data hack into Hunter Biden’s iCloud storage in 2019. This data hack was available in the Ukraine, coincidentally, when Rudy Giuliani was trolling for that kind of thing in later 2019. Time Magazine and Politico covered this fairly thoughouly. Or we hear about IRS “whistleblowers” in hushed tones. Except that it’s really just Gary Shapley again, and now he’s trying to get people to doubt the word of David Weiss, who already sent a terse letter to the angry Right Wingers in Congress, politely telling them to back off. But why should anyone listen to the prosecutor on this matter?
The reality here is that angry Right Wingers are panicked that little Donald Trump is facing at least four criminal prosecutions, with two of those due to have their indictments announced shortly. They have no idea what to do after he’s sentenced, so they’re frantically doubling down on the smears.
One would think these guys could figure out that their game-playing is quite obvious to all seeing it. On the other hand, angry Right Wingers might just be falling into the usual and predictable pattern of a gambler going into a downward spiral of going all-in on bad hands and then losing greater and greater sums until his entire life savings is exhausted.