Donald Trump’s first National Prayer Breakfast will probably be remembered for his bizarre ranting about his Apprentice ratings and his attack on Arnold Schwarzenegger on the subject. But to the pundits on Fox Business Network’s Risk & Reward yesterday, Trump’s remarks were just proof of what a Glorious Christian Leader he is, especially in comparison to former President Obama.
After an introduction by Apprentice producer Mark Burnett, Trump went off on replacement host Schwarzenegger. Here’s how Vanity Fair described it:
But Trump, apparently, couldn’t simply smile back and remember the good times. Instead, he quickly set his sights on Schwarzenegger. Said the president, pausing occasionally for laughter: ”We had tremendous success on The Apprentice, and when I ran for president, I had to leave the show. That’s when I knew for sure I was doing it. And they hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place, and we know how that turned out. The ratings went right down the tubes. It’s been a total disaster, and Mark will never, ever bet against Trump again, and I just want to pray for Arnold if we can for those ratings. But we’ve had an amazing life together, the last 14, 15 years, and an outstanding man, and thank you very much for introducing me. Appreciate it. It’s a great honor.”
Trump, of course, failed to note that The Apprentice’s ratings have been falling for years, and that the show’s affiliation with Trump himself may have contributed to its continued decline. Oh, and the fact that Trump is still an executive producer on the show, even though he no longer hosts it.
Not long after the breakfast (but long before Risk & Reward aired live), Schwarzenegger hit back with a tweeted video in which he suggested switching jobs with Trump: ‘Because you’re such an expert in ratings … And then people can finally sleep comfortably again.”
The National Prayer Breakfast? pic.twitter.com/KYUqEZbJIE
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) February 2, 2017
But Risk & Reward, possibly one of the most pro-Trump shows on FBN (which is saying a lot), didn’t bother to mention any of that to its viewers.
Instead, the discussion started with a clip of Trump saying at the prayer breakfast, “Terrorism is a fundamental threat to religious freedom. It must be stopped and it will be stopped. May not be pretty for a little while. It will be stopped.”
The lower-third summed up the comments as, “Trump: Protect Christians.”
Host Elizabeth MacDonald wasted little time getting to the Obama attacking:
MACDONALD: President Trump calling for the protection of religious freedom today in the face of radical Islam at the annual National Prayer Breakfast.
Quite a departure from President Obama’s 2015 speech where the president called out Christians for the Crusades which happened almost a thousand years ago.
She played a clip of Obama from 2015 in which he said: “Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history and lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
Next, MacDonald “asked” Fox’s favorite, over-the-top Trump-supporter, Brunell Donald-Kyei, about the “stark differences” in the speeches.
That was all Brunell Donald-Kyei needed to pull out the “We finally have a real Christian in the White House” dog whistle:
DONALD-KYEI: Christians all around the world should be rejoicing because we have a president in office by the name of Donald J. Trump who understands the power of God and understands that He has to be praised.
[…] When I listened to the former president talk about us, as far as religion, what I would say is this, we have to understand that religious freedoms are important for all of us.
You’ve got 215 million Christians being persecuted on the daily around the world and slavery he’s talking about? Slavery was under all different kinds of religions. And so it’s very unfair for the former president to just put it under Christ.
MacDonald interrupted to prod Donald Kyei to make her Christianity a little more anti-Muslim (just in the nick of time to defend Trump’s unloved “Muslim ban”). MacDonald said, “President Obama was downplaying Islamic terrorism and the brutality there in his speech, whereas President Trump is saying, ‘Wait a second we’re gonna stop it.’”
Donald-Kyei honed her message accordingly:
DONALD-KYEI: That’s what he always did. That’s why we’re in the trouble we’re in. That’s why we have an executive order where people who are from countries where terror is funded shouldn’t be allowed in the country.
It’s because of downplaying and kowtowing and bowing of our former president to terror that Donald Trump is now our president having to deal with this issue and be the grownup in the room and say, “Hey we’ve got to protect American citizens.”
That’s his first job as our president to make sure our national security is in order.
Later, she lectured us, “We have got to get behind our president.” As if Fox was ever supportive of Obama.
Not once did they mention Trump’s bonkers, un-presidential and un-Christian remarks about Schwarzenegger.
Watch the propaganda below, from the Feburary 2, 2017 Risk & Reward show.
Donald-Kyei brought up some ugly memories of another President who glorified and embodied stupidity. That President was a better dresser than Trump though. But they both run things in a slip shod manner. That well dressed President had four jetliners slam into this country kamikaze style in nine months. So what kind of nightmare are we due just because of sloppiness and arrogance??!
Nuclear meltdown, terror attack or good old fashioned stock market going to hell in a handbasket?? The volatile market was up 200 today.