The same Fox News show that endlessly politicized Benghazi is now trying to discourage us from asking questions about what happened in Niger that took the lives of four American servicemen.
Media Matters caught the disturbingly authoritarian exchange on this morning’s Fox & Friends. It started with comments from Brian Kilmeade following a report from Fox’s Griff Jenkins that a formal investigation has begun into the ambush by “Islamic militants” that left our four soldiers dead in Niger (my emphases added).
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): You have an incident happen. People want to get to the bottom of it and you have the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff come forward and say this is what we know so far, we’ll give you the latest. And of course, the family members need to know details as soon as we get it. And now I’m just curious why the American people need to know how many people are doing what in West Africa? It seems like now—it seems like people looking for some type of scandal. I need to know how many troops are in West Africa? Really? Just know that Al Qaeda, al-Shabaab, ISIS are fanning out there and they’re doing it not for fun but in order to train others to stop terrorists from eventually coming over here.
Cohost Steve Doocy seemed a bit uneasy by Kilmeade’s suggestion. “Well, it’s good to know what we’re doing overseas…” he began.
Doocy was quickly interrupted by cohost Ainsley Earhardt: “But we don’t want to know too much. We don’t want to know the strategy.” Her cohosts quickly agreed. As if General Joe Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (misidentified as “chainman” on screen), who was seen saying, “We owe the families” and “the American people” an explanation about what the soldiers were doing in Niger was about to spill classified information.
This is the same Ainsley Earhardt, by the way, who claims she’s a “hard-hitting” journalist.
“Absolutely not,” Doocy agreed emphatically. But he also noted that he didn’t think anyone would be talking strategy but “a timeline” of what happened.
Watch the deliberate attempt to stifle questions that might make Dear Leader Donald Trump look bad below, from the October 24, 2017 Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.
