Leave it to Fox News to find a way to diminish Democratic concerns over the Flint water crisis – and throw in a little bit of race baiting at the same time.
On Happening Now, host Heather Nauert discussed with Fox’s Gregg Jarrett a class action lawsuit pending against Michigan’s Republican governor and others:
NAUERT: Gregg, as an example of how political this is now getting, the mayor of Flint, Michigan at the White House at this hour, meeting with Valerie Jarrett. The White House is going to be naming a czar. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders weighing in in the Democratic debate coming down on Republicans about this.
GREGG JARRETT: Because it raises issue of class and race. Sixty percent of the residents of Flint, Michigan are black. Forty-one percent live below the poverty line. They’re going to the White House because they want a federal emergency disaster declaration to get federal funds but they’re likely not going to get it.
NAUERT: Well this is a way they could potentially get more black votes in the coming election.
Or, it could be part of the job of being president. According to USA Today, nearly 9,000 children live in Flint and have been exposed to extremely dangerous levels of lead as a result of this colossal screw up by a Republican governor who tried to save money by switching Flint's water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. In addition, untold visitors drank the water and pregnant women exposed their unborn children to it. On top of all that, an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease may well be related to drinking the Flint River water.
Watch it below, from the January 19 Happening Now, via Media Matters.
Of course, this is the same Bret Baier who ran a New Hampshire ‘man in the street’ primary piece which unsurprisingly only interviewed folks planning to vote Republican. Is there another party in America? Maybe not. ;^)
