As a devastating hurricane bore down on Florida and the southeast, Donald Trump ridiculously claimed that he didn’t cancel his campaign rally and fundraiser in Erie, Pennsylvania out of selfless consideration for his fans. Fox News correspondent John Roberts unquestioningly regurgitated the claim.
During his report, Roberts overlooked Trump’s lies about Medicare as well as Trump’s sudden amnesia about the importance of due process while noting the cries of “Lock her up!” about Sen. Dianne Feinstein during Trump’s campaign rally last night. Feinstein has not been charged with any crime, much less convicted.
Near the end of his report, Roberts got to Trump’s decision to toss aside concerns for Americans facing a life-threatening storm in favor of attending a campaign rally. This is Trump’s claim to hold the rally out of selflessness:
Departing the @WhiteHouse for Erie, Pennsylvania. I cannot disappoint the thousands of people that are there - and the thousands that are going. I look forward to seeing everyone this evening.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2018
And here’s Roberts buying the story and selling it to Fox News viewers:
ROBERTS: President Trump did consider canceling tonight’s rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, for a while, because of the hurricane but he didn’t want to disappoint thousands of people, he said had already lined up to be in the rally but I wouldn’t be surprised if his rhetoric is toned down just a little bit tonight out of respect for those people who are dealing with such hardship in Florida and in the southern states.
Also along with Trump, Roberts failed to point out that the Fox fan in chief wasn’t just going to a rally but to a fundraiser. More specifically, it was a fundraiser for Rep. Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. And it looks a lot like it was the campaign Trump didn’t want to disappoint. From CNN:
A GOP source involved in the event said the Barletta campaign was urging the White House not to cancel his trip because of the fundraiser and the dwindling time left before the election to schedule another rally.
In my last post, I noted that Trump does not care about being president to all Americans. This is just more proof.
But hey, Trump’s thoughts and prayers are totally with those who are suffering. “Godspeed. God bless you all. It’s a bad one,” he said earlier.
Watch Roberts present Trump’s myth as fact below, from the October 10, 2018 Special Report.
A White House spokesperson this week promised to “look into” a Fox News decision to cease broadcasting of Trump campaign rallies in full.
According to The Daily Beast, the White House is concerned about losing a key platform just before the midterms. Instead of airing the rallies in their entirety, the network has taken to showing abbreviated clips of the events.
Rallies in recent days have drawn significantly lower ratings, Politico reported. In some cases, Trump rallies have fewer viewers than regular Fox News programming.
A senior White House official reportedly said that White House Communication Director Bill Shine, a former Fox News executive, was expected to be in talks with the network about the decision to nix live Trump rallies.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/white-house-says-will-look-fox-news-decision-stop-airing-trump-rallies-ratings-plummet/
