So much for the Murdoch efforts to be rid of Donald Trump. But it was hardly the kind of rousing welcome-back TFG probably hoped for.

Trump's announcement that he’s running for president droned on for more than an hour. And while I saw some “it’s time for a change” talk on The Ingraham Angle before I sat down to do this post, Fox is obviously not willing to completely kick Ole P***y Grabber and Traitor Trump to the curb, regardless of Rupert and/or Lachlan Murdoch's wishes.

If you ask me, Trump sounded weirdly robotic and, of course, all about his own glorification, punctuated with patriotic promises of doing wonderful things for the America he obviously hates.

Probably aware Trump would put their viewers to sleep, Fox cut away to compliment the speech.

Host Sean Hannity asked guests Pete Hegseth, a Fox & Friends host, and guest Mike Huckabee for their “thoughts so far.”

Hegseth, who got married at a Trump golf club in 2019, was hardly effusive. “Nothing like the original,” Hegseth said. “He went back to the themes that put him in the White House.”

Hegseth also called it a “forward-looking speech” which, he claimed, “recognizes the disaster of the last two years.”

“This looks like Trump in as good a form as you’ve ever seen him, sticking to the issues that matter to his voters, making the case to Republican primary voters that he’s the guy to continue to be the standard bearer, as the original that remade the party,” Hegseth continued.

Then Hegseth took a dig at an unnamed Ron DeSantis. “There will be others, many of which leveraged their association with Trump to get where they are, who will try to be like Trump,” Hegseth said. “There’s only one original who got to the White House and fought.”

“If he stays on message, the way he did tonight,” Hegseth said pointedly, “he’s got a formidable case to make to a Republican electorate.”

Hannity, sounding drunk again, read some quotes from Trump’s speech (instead of showing the real thing), in which he painted the country as on the verge of collapse, culminating in Trump’s claim that “America has been brought to its knees.”

“Could you have imagined all this happening in two short years? ‘Cause I frankly couldn’t,” Hannity said to Huckabee.

Huckabee was more upbeat than Hegseth about the speech. “Sean, the construct of the speech is pitch perfect. If he keeps on like this tonight, he is unbeatable in 2024,” Huckabee told the Fox viewers. “This was an absolutely brilliant speech, the best I’ve heard him give in a long time. And, [if] he stays on this message, I agree with Pete. He stays and keeps it between the ditches and this focus? He’s unbeatable.

Yeah, big if.

And let’s face it, we all know and they all know Trump will never stay on message. Heck, he may not even be able to stay out of jail.

Last week, I wrote in a post that people were mistaking the Murdoch efforts to be rid of Donald Trump as Fox News gospel. Meaning that just because the Murdochs want Trump gone doesn’t mean that Fox News will dump him. In that post, I quoted Erik Wemple who also went against the conventional wisdom that Fox is “done” with Trump. “Murdoch won’t be ‘done’ with Trump until his chief propagandist, Sean Hannity, is done with Trump,” Wemple wrote.

In a related post for Crooks and Liars, I wrote that Trump was not likely to slink away no matter what the Murdochs or Fox News say. And, if he should become the 2024 front runner, Fox will fall back in line with him as fast as you can say, “some very fine people on both sides.”

So even if it’s not the kind of Fox fawning Trump had grown accustomed to, Fox is not done with him. Yet.

You can watch it below, from the November 15, 2022 Hannity.

(Trump image via screen grab from video stream)

12/5/22 correction: Mike Huckabee was incorrectly described as a Fox News contributor.