A Fox News segment designed to attack Rep. Eric Swalwell’s remarks about Republican complicity with Donald Trump conveniently edited out everything Swalwell said about Trump corruption.
In a video disingenuously titled, “Democratic Rep. Swalwell: GOP worse than bums,” cohost Ainsley Earhardt misrepresented both what Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said as well as Swalwell’s later comments about Schiff.
Speaking of Schiff, Earhardt said, “He said that Republicans - anyone who supports this president – he called them bums.”
That makes quite a divisive, pro-Trump talking point from Earhardt but it’s not at all what Schiff said. Here’s Schiff’s full “bums” quote in which it's clear he used a popular phrase to talk about voting out incumbent Republicans in Congress.
SCHIFF: Well, the broad question is how do you counter a president who repeats falsehood after falsehood after falsehood, that has the bully pulpit of the presidency to do it and has allies in Congress who are willing to support that. And Martha, at the end of the day, there's only one remedy for that and that is you need to throw the bums out. As long as there's a majority in Congress that is willing to do this president's will and as long as we have a deeply unethical president, there's only one remedy.
And that is to change the Congress and to let the investigation go on. And that's what we need to try to fight to do.
Predictably, not one of the two other cohosts corrected Earhardt. She went on to say that Swalwell “doubled down on that.” What Swalwell doubled down on was not criticism of “anyone” supporting Trump but those who support Trump’s corruption, lies and attacks on the Mueller investigation. Here’s what Swalwell specifically criticized:
SWALWELL: Well, what [Schiff’s comment] is saying is that you're actually worse than bums if you're not willing to stand up to a president who is attacking a former FBI director, a patriot who served our country in Vietnam like Bob Mueller.
You're not -- you're worse than a bum if you are allowing the president to cash in on the Oval Office, and put Chinese workers ahead of the American workers, when your company is taking a $500 million loan from Indonesia.
You are worse than a bum when you're allowing your daughter to receive trademarks from the Chinese while you're executing trade deals.
And so I think he was probably being kind to them. People want to see a check on the president, but they also want to see us to put on his desk the things that he has said that he would sign that Republicans won't show the courage to do, like immigration reform, like an infrastructure package, like prescription drug reform, and like background checks.
So, I think people are pretty fed up, and they want to see people to start to stand up to the president.
As Media Matters reported, Fox seems to be making a concerted effort to avoid discussing the new trademarks Ivanka Trump just happened to receive less than a week before her father vowed to find a way to help out ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications company that has violated U.S. sanctions on countries such as Iran and North Korea. But in addition to Ivanka Trump’s conveniently-timed Chinese windfall, there’s the $500 loan from a state-owned Chinese company for an Indonesian real estate project Trump has a direct personal interest in.
After a loud sigh of disapproval from "not in the tank for Trump" Earhardt over Swalwell’s (edited) remarks, cohost Brian Kilmeade read a list of what Republicans like about Trump. “So they see that and they say, ‘I like what’s going on,’” Kilmeade claimed.
So, because Trump’s policies are so great, we’re supposed to turn a blind eye to how he and his family are lining their pockets with money from China and entities supposedly at odds with U.S. policy.
Watch Fox & Friends disappear Ivanka Trump’s trademarks and the Chinese loan below, from the May 29, 2018 Fox & Friends.