Sure, Fox News and Donald Trump have had their ups and downs but they’ll never break up so long as the other remains useful – and there’s no end to that in sight.
Let me admit that I did not watch Trump’s prime time takeover of Fox described as a town hall last night. For one thing, I’m busy with family right now. More to the point, it was pretty obvious that Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, Fox’s so-called “ultimate journalists” hosting the event, would prove again that that they are anything but.
It's clear I was not wrong.
As far as substance goes, Crooks and Liars noted that Trump admitted he took money from foreign governments. Baier feigned asking a tough question about Trump taking the money. Yet the issue was framed as a matter of Democratic opinion as to whether such behavior violates the Constitution and Baier did not indicate having done any independent investigation into the issue.
BAIER: Mr. President, before we wrap up this, you know there is this report by House Democrats documents that say nearly eight million dollars in payments to your businesses from foreign governments, China included, Saudi Arabia, while you were in office. They say Article 1 of Constitution says you can't accept money from foreign governments while president. Would you pledge to divest from the businesses in a second term as other presidents have done? That's what they were reporting.
And here’s Trump admitting he did it and that he earned the money:
TRUMP: I own hotels all over the place. I don't get free money. Somebody rents a hotel room, etc., etc., much money I gave back. I didn't have to do it. You know George Washington was a very rich man. Most people don’t know that. In his essentially White House, it wasn't built, but they had an office. He had a business desk and country desk right next to each other.
You are allowed to do that. I didn’t do it. I put everything in trust. If I have a hotel and somebody comes in from China, that is a small amount of money. It sounds like a lot of money, but it's so small. But I was doing services for them. People were staying in these massive hotels, in these beautiful hotels because I have the best hotels. I have the best clubs. I have the best clubs. I have great stuff. And they stayed there and paid. I don’t get eight million dollars for doing nothing like Hunter. I don’t get $500,000, I don’t get $500,000 for doing a painting. It is not a bad idea I guess if you can get away with it.
Baier’s response? From the network that keeps theorizing President Joe Biden must be compromised because his son took foreign money (without any proof that the father did)? “There you go. We want to hear more from Iowa voters. We’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be back here in Des Moines with more of our town hall with former president Donald Trump.”
After the break, the town hall resumed with a question about abortion.
In response, Trump boasted about how he got rid of Roe v. Wade: “For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it. I'm proud to have done it. … nobody pulled it off but me. ”
As the transcript shows, Trump's boasting went on and on. It included the old lie that Democrats want the right to kill babies after birth – which Trump probably got from Fox News in the first place.
There was no pushback or correction of the lie from either of the “ultimate journalists.”
You get the picture.
In November, 2022, I wrote that people were mistaking the Murdochs’ real desire to be rid of Trump for Fox News really dumping him. A few days earlier, I had written on Crooks and Liars, "I can assure you that if Trump becomes the 2024 front runner, Fox will fall back in line with him as fast as you can say, 'some very fine people on both sides.'”
And here we are.
Media Matters has more:
Not only are multiple media reviewers noting just how friendly and deferential the event was, but Trump himself just publicly noted it, too — specifically thanking the network’s purported “straight news” anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum for the job they did moderating the event.
It’s important to remember that Fox News followed Trump’s demands in even hosting this town hall in the first place, a fact that Baier openly admitted, by scheduling it to run opposite CNN’s Republican debate between former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in which the former president refused to participate. The network also stacked the deck by interviewing Trump in prime time, a strong contrast to Fox’s earlier town hall events with Haley and DeSantis which ran during the 6 p.m. ET time slot.
Brian Stelter sums it up nicely in Vanity Fair:
The history between Trump and Fox is so fraught, and the relationship is so convoluted, that writers typically spend several paragraphs explaining the complexities. But it is also, at a gut level, quite simple. The Fox brand and the Trump brand are both about defeating Democrats and exploiting the levers of power.
Yep, and so long as Fox and Trump share those goals and have levers of power to exploit, the marriage will continue and even, at times, thrive.