Although Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer pretended to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan that Donald Trump’s racist attacks on Baltimore and Rep. Elijah Cummings were out of concern for the city’s welfare, it was very clear that, like Trump, Hemmer only cared about scoring divisive partisan points.
Hogan, a Republican who, after two days of Trump’s Twitter attacks, called them “outrageous and inappropriate” was hardly a profile in courage when he visited Fox News yesterday. But he wasn’t the Trump flunky Hemmer wanted, either.
Nevertheless, Hogan began by showing fealty to Trump. “I want to give credit to the administration,” Hogan said, for sending in federal law enforcement to help state and city police makes arrests in Baltimore.
But Hemmer pushed the discussion to be more pro-Trump.
HEMMER: I know you took exception with the president’s words. Has he, even though you disagree with the way he put it out there, has he helped to bring attention to the problems in Baltimore?
HOGAN: Look, I think that could be the silver lining.
And wouldn’t you know it, Fox called its video of this interview, “Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan sees silver lining in Trump-Cummings feud.”
With assistance from Hemmer, Hogan blasted the (Democratic) mayors of Baltimore “who have failed to get the job done.”
However, Hogan went on to say, “Instead of just focusing on the bad stuff and just attacking, let’s figure out how do we figure out how to help them fix it.”
Clearly Hemmer didn’t want to focus on anything constructive like that. He wanted more divisiveness. “Do you think Elijah Cummings has done a good job?” Hemmer asked.
“I don’t want to characterize Elijah Cummings. I don’t believe you can put all the blame of Baltimore City on Elijah Cummings,” Hogan replied. “But I also think he could do a lot more to help us.” However, Hogan also said he’d “love to have more help from the White House and from the Congress.”
“It’s really a city problem but they can’t do it by themselves,” Hogan added.
But Hemmer was intent on more smearing not problem solving. He had a graphic of Baltimore murder rates ready to display. Then he noted with disdain, “16 billion [dollars] given to the city of Baltimore by the federal government. It was 7 billion 10 years prior.” So why are they blaming Cummings? Or is Fox demanding that he administer the funds, too?
Hemmer did Trump another solid by playing a White House video of Cummings condemning drug use in a “drug-infested” area of Baltimore in 1999. “The words weren’t the same but you could argue they were quite similar,” Hemmer said pointedly.
Only if you’re a Trump lickspittle, Bill. Cummings was clearly condemning the drug problem, not the city, itself. And since the comments obviously came during a Congressional hearing, presumably Cummings was looking for solutions. In contrast, Trump’s tweets were only aimed at racially weaponizing problems in Baltimore against Cummings.
But Hogan sanitized and helped validate Trump’s smear. “You know, that’s the hypocrisy here,” he said. “And it’s great that we’re finally focused on some of these things.”
Later, Hogan reiterated, “I think we could make more progress without the exact wording that was used.”
Then, he continued, “The wording wasn’t exactly the same.”
Watch Hemmer propagandize for Trump’s hatred toward America below, from the August 1, 2019 America’s Newsroom.
As Ellen correctly notes, Mike Pence’s childish spokesman had no interest in “helping” Baltimore or in doing ANYTHING to raise awareness about social issues. He just wanted to have a tantrum about a congressman he hates, and one who happens to also be black, something that we have seen is revolting to the Far Right. (Witness Ronald Reagan’s recorded viciousness – something that Fox News has studiously avoided discussing)
Watching Right Wing pundits trying to explain away the bigotry of the childish Tweeter’s nonsense would be laughable if they weren’t talking about actual politics today.
As for the childish Tweeter himself, his comments are as irrelevant and unimportant as he is. What matters is the behavior of the deplorables he emboldens and the non-response of the general GOP members who will not be able to walk this back.