It’s hard to think of anyone on Fox News who has more gravitas (a low bar, admittedly) than Chris Wallace. So when he took to the network’s airwaves today to blast Kellyanne Conway and even Donald Trump for promoting Ivanka Trump merchandise, it's almost certain that it was a message from Fox News HQ.
After Conway’s law-breaking commercial for Ivanka Trump merch on Fox & Friends today, Press Secretary Sean Spicer advised that Conway had been “counseled” and refused to say anything further.
But on Happening Now, Wallace said a lot more:
WALLACE: I don’t know the legality of it but just in the sense of appropriateness, the idea of somebody [Conway] in the White House Briefing Room that we pay for, her salary paid for by us, sitting there shilling for Ivanka Trump and saying, ‘Go buy her products.’
I mean this was the thing that a lot of people were worried about from the very start, that blurring the lines.
But Wallace also had some words for Donald Trump.
WALLACE: Now, you’ve got the president in his tweet – and incidentally a tweet he sent not on his personal email account but on the POTUS, White House email account [sic] and now Kellyanne Conway, in the White House Briefing Room pushing for people to buy Ivanka Trump’s products. I can’t imagine a more classic case of blurring the lines between public and private. So whether it’s to the letter of the law, illegal or not, it certainly seems wrong and inappropriate for her to be doing that.
And again, I keep going back to what President Trump said in his inaugural address: Every decision we make will be how it affects and benefits the American family. And I think they ought to ask themselves on some of these tweets, on some of these statements, are these really helping and benefitting the American family?
By the way, there was no such concern from the Fox & Friends Curvy Couch Crew. Trump Friend Steve Doocy chuckled appreciatively when Conway used the show’s airwaves to make her plug.
Watch Wallace send a message to the White House below, from the February 9, 2017 Happening Now.
Plus, even after Ailes, I would be very surprised if a Fox anchor would just go after a Republican president like that without somehow clearing it with producers in advance.
Another sign that Wallace was not going rogue is that the host did not interrupt him or even act shocked.
Also, let’s face it, Fox had egg on its face when nobody on Fox & Friends challenged Kellyanne Conway’s spiel or even asked questions about it. So I suppose Wallace could have been a CYA ploy to make the network look like less of a shill.
When I say brains I’m not talking about Einstein here. More like the squirrel that learned how to get food out of the vending machine.