Fox & Friends helped Republicans reinvent Donald Trump as a great guy this morning, along with Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise.
Of course, none of the cohosts mentioned the 25 women (so far) who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Nor did anyone mention Trump’s racist dog whistles in the campaign nor his callous response to the coronavirus death toll of 1,000 Americans a day: “it is what it is.”
Instead, the Fox Friends helped regurgitate a talking point from the Republican National Convention, that we’d all know what a great guy Trump is, too, were it not for the media. After paying a clip of Jordan conveying that message, he got a chance to expound on it while the three cohosts listened unquestioningly.
JORDAN: I wish every single American could spend time with the president of the United States. … When you’re around him, there is a charisma, there is an energy, there is a passion that he has for the American people. He loves our law enforcement, our veterans, our military, and just regular families like ours, and it comes through and it’s so sad, but I really do wish that every American could spend some time with him ‘cause you get to see a side that CNN will never tell you and the mainstream press will never tell you, but he’s a good man who loves this country.
Scalise had a similarly heartwarming version of Trump:
SCALISE (speaking about the day he was shot by a “leftist gunman” in June, 2017): The president and the first lady show up at the hospital and just spent quality time consoling my wife and taking care of my family, and he did that throughout the next three months that I was in the hospital.
He would just call randomly to see how I was doing, and he cares about people, like Jim said, it’s a genuineness. He’s fought for the forgotten men and women of this country that Washington had left behind. …
This is the side of the president that people need to get to see more, and I think they’re going to see more of it this week, and that’s really a very sharp contrast from Joe Biden and his 47 years in Washington, D.C.
After a round of Democrat-demonization (accusing them of trying to steal the election and fueling chaos and violence), and an RNC ad video attacking Democrats over the coronavirus pandemic, Jordan called Trump “a real leader throughout this entire thing.”
A real leader doesn’t ignore the warnings about the pandemic. A real leader doesn’t shrug off the deaths of 156,000 Americans by saying, “it is what it is.”
You can watch Fox help the GOP cook up a new and improved Trump below, from the August 25, 2020 Fox & Friends.