Fox News hosts did their best to help out their BFF birther, Donald Trump, after a #BlackLivesMatter demonstrator got beat up by Trump supporters at a rally over the weekend.
On Saturday, at a Trump campaign rally in Alabama, a #BlackLivesMatter protester was “shoved, tackled, punched & kicked,” according to a CNN reporter. The protester was identified by The New York Times as “Mercutio Southall, 31, who co-founded a Black Lives Matter chapter in Birmingham.”
Sunday morning, Fox & Friends cohost (and “objective” Fox reporter covering Hillary Clinton’s campaign) Ed Henry tossed Trump an opportunity for rehab:
HENRY: Yesterday, at that large rally you had, there’s video going viral of an African-American protester from #BlackLivesMatter who appears to have gotten roughed up. We don’t know who did it - whether it was supporters, whether it was security. Can you comment on that and whether or not you want to remedy that situation…?
But Trump did not take Henry's lifeline and distance himself from the melee. Instead, Trump gave the violence a thumbs up.
TRUMP: I will tell you that the man that was, was - I don’t know - you say roughed up, he was so obnoxious and so loud, he was screaming. I had 10,000 people in the room yesterday, 10,000 people, and this guy started screaming by himself and they—I don’t know, rough up, he should have been—maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. This was not handled the way Bernie Sanders handled his problem, I will tell you, but I have a lot of fans and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy, who was a troublemaker, was looking to make trouble, but I didn’t get to see the event.
Rather than challenge this thuggishness, Henry quickly closed the segment. But not before he and his two cohosts each made a show of how tots supportive of Trump they are.
HENRY: Well Donald Trump, we appreciate your time this morning. Thank you for coming on Fox & Friends Weekend, and on top of that there’s a new poll Fox will have at the top of the hour, 9:00 A.M. Eastern time. Going to be very interesting news for Donald Trump. Everyone’s going to want to watch that.
JULIET HUDDY: Thank you.
CLAYTON MORRIS: Thank you Donald, we appreciate it.
HUDDY: Have a good day, and a good Thanksgiving.
Watch it below, from the November 22 Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.