Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker passed his Trump/Fox News audition with his snarky, disrespectful and anti-American behavior during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, at least judging from the amused reactions of both Mick Mulvaney and Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday today.
On Friday, Whitaker drew gasps when he responded to questioning from Democratic Chairman Jerrold Nadler, “Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up.” Sadly, Whitaker kept up that contempt throughout the hearing.
Writing in The Atlantic, Natasha Bertrand speculated that Whitaker’s performance was staged for “an audience of one,” i.e. Donald Trump. She noted that the imminent confirmation of Bill Barr as attorney general means Whitaker will soon be out of a job. “He has reportedly been considered for the role of Trump’s chief of staff,” she wrote.
Talk show host Randi Rhodes, however, theorized that Whitaker was auditioning for Fox News. On her Friday webcast (at 50:50), Rhodes suggested Whitaker was trying to please Trump so that he would recommend the guy to Bill Shine, the former co-president of Fox News who is currently Trump’s deputy chief of staff in charge of communications. “You know Whitaker will start showing up as a frequent guest on Fox and then all of a sudden, they’ll announce that he has just been hired as a Fox News “anal-yst,” Rhodes predicted.
Since there’s so little difference between Fox News and the Trump administration, Whitaker could have been killing two audition birds with one YouTube moment, so to speak. I don’t think it was any accident that his “Your five minutes is up,” snark was right at the beginning of the hearing, guaranteed to catch the most attention. Sure, enough, it went viral, as was surely Whitaker's design.
Sadly, as inept and corrupt as Whitaker has proven himself, he got an “attaboy” from Trump’s Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney, via a loud chortle, followed by a friendly chuckle and grin from host Chris Wallace after he aired the now-viral clip.
Wallace went on to grill Mulvaney about whether Trump “recognize[s] that Congress has a legitimate oversight role.” But though Wallace also asked Mulvaney what Trump thought of Whitaker’s behavior in the hearing, Mulvaney didn’t answer. Wallace never challenged Mulvaney for laughing appreciatively at Whitaker’s shocking rudeness.
However, Mulvaney’s laugh was all the answer we needed to know how Whitaker's performance had been received in Trump World. So was Wallace’s palsy smile.
So look for Whitaker to be showing up on Fox News soon. That is, unless he gets some other gig in the Trump administration. Or unless he winds up in legal jeopardy for lying to Congress. But hey, if he’s a big enough Trump lapdog, even an indictment might not be an impediment to a Fox News contract.
Watch Mulvaney and Wallace give Whitaker a metaphorical pat on the head below, from the February 10, 2019 Fox News Sunday. The relevant portion begins at 6:31.