Fox News host Trish Regan did her part to help promote bigoted, right-wing smears against Muslim Gold Star father Khizr Khan. The smears just happened to echo Donald Trump’s.
After Khan nearly stole the show at the DNC with his moving account in opposition to Trump, Trump retaliated by suggesting Khan was some kind of fundamentalist Muslim who had muzzled his grieving wife. Some right-wingers “defended” Trump with the same approach.
That bigotry found a friendly platform on The Kelly File Friday night. Substitute host Trish Regan, whom we have repeatedly caught promoting a pro-Trump message, seized on some comments allegedly made by Khan on Pakistani television.
REGAN: Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim soldier who died fighting for America, has touched off new controversy tonight after taking his story to Pakistani TV. In a new interview with his native country, Khizr Khan invokes Allah in his attack against the GOP nominee.
Fox’s apparent source for this “new controversy” was not a direct quote from Khizr Khan. It was a summary from Dunya News about the Pakistani TV interview.
REGAN: Pakistani news outlet, Dunya, summed up the Gold Star father’s appearance by saying “Khizr Khan says Allah makes people like Trump make such mistakes to discredit them permanently.”
Regan then snarked:
REGAN: In other words, Allah is against Trump. I guess Allah is rooting for Hillary in this one? Why would Mr. Khan feel the need to take his message global, while repeatedly insisting he is done giving interviews?
She further complained to Trump supporter David Wohl.
REGAN: The left had tried to hold up Mr. Khan as being totally aboveboard. But now he’s out there talking to international media, Pakistani TV. How much do you think this hurts him, his reputation and Hillary Clinton for that matter?
Wohl, predictably, took the opportunity to start making his own bigoted insinuations about Khan.
WOHL: To a certain extent he’s playing to his audience. His audience is Muslim fundamentalists, no doubt. A lot of them Pakistan. You know, at first, at the DNC, he politicized his son’s death. Now he’s putting it in the context of religious extremism. So I think it does put into context his whole speech at the DNC. When he basically was off point when he said Mr. Trump wants a Muslim ban. Mr. Trump wants suspension of Muslim immigration from hotbeds of terror. Everybody knows that.
I think if Mr. Khan studied his proposal carefully, he would agree with him. But you have to wonder at this point whether he’s on the DNC payroll, going global with this bizarre message that Allah is against Trump. I mean, did Allah also cause Hillary Clinton to become a pathologic liar and perjurer?
Regan laughed and promised, “Don’t worry we’ve got more coming up on Hillary.”
Then she turned back to raising questions about Khan, this time with guest Rich Lowry.
REGAN: It’s one thing, right, for him to be criticizing Trump here in America. It seems like a whole other thing when you start going over and talking to Pakistan TV. You start talking about how Allah is against Trump!
Lowry, a conservative Trump critic, didn’t smack down the meme Regan was pushing. “I don’t think it’s Allah who is making Donald Trump say these things,” Lowry replied. “I think Donald Trump is quite capable of saying these things himself.”
But Lowry wasn’t buying what Regan was selling, either. “My advice for Trump and the Trump campaign and Trump supporters would be to move on,” Lowry added. “As Mike Pence said, you can’t fake good kids. Captain Khan was an American hero, a great patriot. By all accounts, Mr. Khan does legitimately carry around a U.S. Constitution in his pocket. He gives away U.S. Constitutions. He and his wife are very involved in the University of Virginia ROTC program. They honor those kids. They encourage them to serve this country…
That was too much Khan-defending for Regan. She interrupted to say, “He’s got a message, Mr. Khan does, that he wants to get out, not just here in this country, but obviously overseas, and so that’s causing some people to scratch their heads on that."
Lowry responded, "If your son goes serve in Iraq and dies trying to protect other servicemen, that says something not just about him but about your family. And that’s why it was a real mistake for Trump to fall into this trap and to attack this family."
Regan interrupted again, then immediately changed the topic to “ask” Trump-supporter Wohl if Trump is getting back on message.
Watch the bias below, from the August 5 The Kelly File.
The most grating thing you do these days is make up new words to replace perfectly fine existing ones – agreeance (yuck!) instead of agreement and the like.
But the funniest confusion we get is in the rather more sensitive area of body parts and functions. For example, you should try to avoid talking about giving women a swift kick or little pat on either the pussy or the fanny, both of which refer to a lady’s ‘front bottom’ rather than her backside in the English vernacular.
Similarly, away from the US, ‘rooting’ is something mummies and daddies might do if they really really love each other and want to give their little babies a brother :)
The dumbing of America continues apace.
Guess Trish is also choosing to overlook the fact that Trump must be trying to court Allah’s support too (as he allowed a Muslim give an official prayer at the RNC).
Oh, I dunno, Trash, er, Trish . . . my guess is, since both Drumpf and Fox apparently AREN’T done smearing him, Mr. Khan feels no need to stop talking. Just a guess, though.
In the subway system, the “third rail” carries the electrical power needed to push the trains; touching it gets you killed.
In politics, the “third rail” is criticizing the family of a US serviceperson, particularly one who dies while serving; doing so kills your career.
When Drumpf criticized the Khans, he touched the political third rail, and got quite the shock — it sent his poll numbers tumbling, and he’s been on the defensive ever since.
As is the case with the subway’s third rail, none of the GOP politicians Drumpf asked to defend him came out and did so — they would have received the same shock.
Drumpf now has to rely on campaign mouthpieces like Wohl and the GOP press arm, Fox News, to bail him out . . . but, this just underscores how Hillary and the DNC pulled off a masterstroke: by giving a speaking slot to the family of a serviceman who gave his life, and who just happened to be an immigrant Muslim, they made Donnie choose how he’d respond — would he honor them for being the former, or condemn them for being the latter?
When Drumpf chose his response, he basically walked into a trap with both eyes open — and stepped in it with no shoes on . . .
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