Judging from her horrified reaction to Donald Trump’s claim that Russia is no longer targeting U.S. elections (despite his own Director of National Intelligence warning otherwise), Fox host Melissa Francis seems to be wavering in her stalwart support for Dear Leader.
During Fox News’ Outnumbered show today, video was shown of Trump clearly responding, “No,” to a reporter’s question as to whether or not Russia is “still targeting the U.S.” That contradicts Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, who has recently said, “the warning lights are blinking red” and that Russia is engaged in “ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.”
Francis, is usually a reliable Trump supporter. But now, she responded that Trump’s response “sounds insane.” Her emphatic outburst suggests that she was disturbed by Trump's comments at the Putin summit in Helsinki this week.
“It could be that he believes we’re stopping the meddling at this point,” Francis offered, perhaps remembering who pays her salary.
Democrat Jake Maccoby, who had agreed that Trump’s remark sounded insane, piped up, “We are working really hard to make this sound reasonable.”
“No, no, no, I’m not working hard to make it sound reasonable because it doesn’t sound remotely reasonable and I’m not trying to say it sounds reasonable,” Francis continued. “It sounds insane. I’m only saying he could be saying that we’re now stopping it but to deny that Russia is trying to meddle forever and has been forever would be totally insane.”
“That wasn’t the question,” cohost Harris Faulkner chided. Flailing around for spin, she added, “I don’t know that we caught in totality what the question was.” But she admitted that it did sound like the question was, “Do you believe Russia or is Russia still meddling?”
Cohost Jillian Mele to the rescue! She theorized that Trump was just maybe being awesomely strategic.
MELE: You know how many times over the course of the last year and a half we’ve heard the president say, “I’m not gonna let other countries know what I’m doing. I’m not gonna tell you my plan.” … A lot. Do you think - again, just spitballing here – do you think that this perhaps could be part of his plan?
Faulkner said that it might be his plan but that lawmakers are putting together a package to impose more sanctions against Russia.
Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery said the chaos Trump creates “oftentimes leads to something beautiful,” and suggested this could be the basis for a second round of a Putin summit that is completely on camera.
The Outnumbered show left it there. But at a press briefing shortly thereafter, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted Trump had not said Russia had stopped targeting the U.S. but had said “no” to whether he would take further questions. This was solidly debunked by Shepard Smith (video to come).
Watch Francis’ unusual criticism of Trump below, from the July 18, 2018 Outnumbered, via Eric Dolan, which also contains the "insane" Trump response to a reporter's question about Russia. Underneath is Huckabee Sanders’ equally insane attempt to claim Trump didn’t say what we all heard him say.
If Darth is implicated in the Russia scandal, the Foxies can use the excuse to say they were critical of him.
This scheme is not going to work. The Foxies will be branded as friends of Darth, and we will make sure the masses are reminded of that association forever.
When Darth goes down, he will take Fox “News” with him.