Fox News covered Trump’s bonkers ‘news conference’ with clips of him obviously lying right after the correspondent reported the truth.

I summed up Donald Trump’s news conference for Crooks and Liars yesterday as “Felonious Fat Elvis rehashing his favorite hits, I mean lies. Other than caving to Vice President Kamala Harris and agreeing to debate on ABC after all (which he had announced the day before on Fox & Friends) and announcing he wants to also debate on Fox News and NBC, the only real news was how desperate and flailing the aging felon seems.” That’s because it was full of lies and grievances we’ve all heard before.

Naturally, I was curious to see how Fox News covered on its flagship "news" show, Special Report, what social media has depicted as a dumpster fire:

Live shot of Trumps press conference: pic.twitter.com/lIAgh2Hns1

— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) August 8, 2024

Well, either Special Report couldn’t come up with a good way to spin it or they wanted to send a message to their preferred candidate to get it together ASAP.

In any event, I thoroughly enjoyed correspondent Aishah Hasnie’s reporting. I’ve seen her promote MAGA talking points in the past. So this was a pleasant surprise in which the joke seemed to be on Trump.

The segment began with clips from Trump attacking Harris, claiming she “doesn’t know how to do a news conference.” That, right there, was funny given how off-the-wall Trump’s was.

Anchor Mike Emanuel was on board the MAGA train. After the clip, he said, “President Trump slamming Kamala Harris during a news conference today at his Florida estate. Moments ago, Harris spoke briefly, publicly to reporters for the first time since ascending to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, though she has been facing increasing criticism for her reluctance to speak with reporters in formal settings.”

As I wrote in another C&L post, “Harris has only been the likely candidate for about two and a half weeks. With such a short time before the election, she has had a lot on her plate what with staffing up her campaign, choosing a running mate and – oh, yeah, doing her day job with work such as helping to get Americans freed from Russia. It was an accomplishment Trump said would not happen unless he were in the White House.”

On top of all that, she has agreed to debate Trump on September 10, on ABC. She’ll get plenty of questions from the ABC News moderators then. Emanuel surely knows that.

Then came Hasnie. She started by saying that Trump’s news conference “comes amid recent polling that reveals that Kamala Harris has now gotten a small bump, a small lead against former President Donald Trump. The former president today telling reporters, though, that the fundamentals of this race, the issues have not changed and he is not changing his campaign strategy.”

That was followed by a clip of Trump saying, “We’re leading, so I’m not complaining.”

Hasnie continued, “Trump addressing recent reporting that he's frustrated with his campaign amid a new Marquette Law School poll that shows Vice President Kamala Harris leading him by six points.”

HAHAHA!

I guess this next Trump clip was the “balance.” He said about Harris, “She's a woman. She represents certain groups of people, but I will say this: When people find out about her, I think she'll be much less. I see it right now. I see her going way down to the polls now.”

Hasnie continued with the Fox cheerleading line: “Trump taking questions for more than an hour today at Mar-a-Lago, calling out Harris for not taking any questions for 18 days.” That was followed by another Trump clip in which he said, “She can't do an interview. She's barely competent.”

I’m not a campaign strategist but something tells me that’s not the kind of rhetoric that will woo voters away from the joyful, fun and uplifting Harris-Walz campaign. Especially not women voters, whom Trump needs.

Hasnie continued, “Campaign officials help Fox News they believe Trump can win the White House if he can hold North Carolina and win battleground Pennsylvania and Georgia. But some conservatives are worried about the Peach State after Trump's recent attack on popular Governor Brian Kemp.”

We saw a questioner asking Trump if his relationship with Gov. Brian Kemp is “salvageable.” She was referring to what The Guardian called “an 11-minute tirade about Kemp and the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, with a side jab at the attorney general, Chris Carr, for spite,” at his recent rally in Georgia. The tirade came after Trump said, “Atlanta is like a killing field, and your governor should get off his ass and do something about it.”

Trump’s answer today will not likely inspire Kemp, Raffensperger or Carr to enthusiastically support Trump. “I don't know if I can or not,” he groused about patching up the Kemp relationship. “I got him elected. Without me, he wouldn't be governor. I got him elected. He was doing terribly. I got him elected. With that being said, I hope we can repair it but if we don't, the people are still the people and they're gonna vote. We're leading Georgia by a lot.”

FACT CHECK: No, he is not. Larry Sabato’s “Crystal Ball” at the University of Virginia’s The Center for Politics, two days ago changed its Georgia rating from “Leans Republican” to “Toss-Up.” Hasnie didn’t mention it.

However she left us with one final clip from Trump’s presser: his response to President Joe Biden expressing concern that Trump would not accept a loss in November. “Of course, there'll be a peaceful transfer and there was less time and there'll be a peaceful transfer. I just hope we're going to have honest elections.”

Hasnie did not remind us of the very violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But I doubt she needed to.

Trump’s press conference went on for about an hour. Although he sounded stark raving mad in much of it, including his claim that he had a bigger crowd on Jan. 6 than Martin Luther King Jr. had for his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, there were moments that Fox producers could have highlighted that were less awful for him. For example: his claim that Harris “destroyed” San Francisco or that she and Tim Walz are part of the “radical left” or his attempt to paint her candidacy as some kind of coup.

So, is there a member of the Trump resistance in the Special Report house? Or was this a warning shot to Trump? MAGA propaganda incompetence at Fox News? I don’t know. But you can watch it below and decide for yourself. The video is from the August 8, 2024 Special Report.

8/11/24 Correction: The spelling of Larry Sabato's name has been corrected.