Apparently, Fox News chief Roger Ailes has a message for Republicans who refuse to even hold hearings on anyone President Obama nominates to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat on the U.S. Supreme Court: You’re acting crazy.
On Tuesday, Fox News contributor Peter Johnson, Jr. visited Fox & Friends and, in a Fox News change of pace, accused Republicans of being anti-American - for their obstructionism over the Supreme Court vacancy.
JOHNSON: Some consultant is telling somebody you’ve got to be tough. There’s rage. There’s anger. I see it in tweets. I see it in e-mails. I see it in the people that I meet. They say, “Don’t give the president what he wants. He screwed this country up.” OK, you can make a pretty good argument on that in a lot of points. But is that a reason to turn your back on the Constitution?
Now Senator Kirk and Senator Collins have defected, to the Republican party, on this issue and Senator Kirk talked about taking an oath, his Navy reserve career, and that it means something to uphold the Constitution. A lot of people think that’s naïve in this rough and tough environment where we kick the heck out of each other. Let them kick the heck out of each other. You know who’s going to suffer? You are, I am, the American people. They should sit together like adults, Democrats and Republicans and decide together - nominee, not a nominee - what’s best for the country, not what’s best for the party or any nominee.
As we have previously reported, Johnson is Ailes’ personal attorney and serves as a stand-in for his opinions. And this was not just a one off, either. As Media Matters has reported, Johnson took to the Fox News airwaves at least three other times to pressure the GOP to change course.
Watch this one below, from the February 23 Fox & Friends.