What the heck does an attack on Muslims near a London mosque have to do with Donald Trump’s Muslim ban? Absolutely nothing. But Fox News must be desperate to turn what might be a black mark on their own Islamophobic side into a political plus.
Trump’s proposed Muslim ban blocks entry from six countries, none of which are the U.K. Yet before knowing who drove a van into a crowd of worshipers at the Finsbury Park Mosque in London or why, Fox trotted out Republican Ric Grenell to suggest the incident was proof we need Trump’s ban.
“I don’t understand why people would be against a temporary halt to ensure that the system is safe.” Grenell complained, “We’re not having that honest conversation because we’ve got members of the media who immediately called it something that it’s not.”
Actually, it was Trump-supporter Rudy Giuliani who called the ban a “Muslim ban” and he was quoting Trump! Furthermore, Trump also called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on” during his campaign.
Not surprisingly, Fox anchor Jackie Ibanez did not correct Grenell. So he continued griping about the media. They “try to whip up a feverish debate that I think is extremely unhelpful,” he accused.
Now that’s rich, coming as it did during a segment designed to whip up a feverish debate and be unhelpful to anything other than the service of Trump.
Rather than challenge Grenell, Ibanez helped validate him. “A lot of people are afraid of looking Islamophobic,” she said, thereby suggesting that opponents of the ban care more about foreign Muslims than Americans’ safety.
And that just happened to remind Ibanez of Glorious Trump’s glories.
IBANEZ: What I’m hearing you say is, the great thing about our current president, President Trump, is that he’s bold. He calls it how it is. He lets them know, ‘Listen, you’re not going to Heaven. You’re not. You’re going to Hell. And that’s something that’s refreshing to hear.
Watch what passes for breaking news coverage below, from Fox’s June 18, 2017 broadcast via NewsHound Richard.
FOX News was talking about the #TravelBan which has nothing to do with the breaking news of Muslims possibly being targeted in #London. pic.twitter.com/7poWFHW4lL
— Richard W. (@IceManNYR) June 19, 2017
Also, his stupid ban is in limbo and has at least a 50-50 chance, at least, of never going into effect. News media as a rule rarely goes nuts over a proposal or initiative until it looks a lot closer to actually happening.
If a layman such as myself can figure this out why isn’t the non-Foxified press not making it a thing? Isn’t it their job or is Trump’s lies and corruption so widespread they just can’t keep up?
What I don’t get is the relitigation of the Trump lie it’s a 90 ban just to do a review to fix things. Trump has had more than 90 days while time wastes away with all the lawsuits to do a review. What I’m hearing from this Fox bs’er is Trump hasn’t done the first step regarding its alleged purpose. Trump doesn’t have to actually ban anyone to review and update vetting policy. In fact, didn’t Trump boast [aka lie] the other day he had indeed toughened the vetting during a rant against Obama? So do we even need it now unless it indeed is a ban! 🤥
