Fox anchor Harris Faulkner asked, with a straight face, how a guest can “defend the fawning that we’ve seen among some in the media over the current administration.”
Either Faulkner has developed a severe case of amnesia or she has a very skewed idea of what fawning means. Or she's banking on viewers not remembering her own as well as her colleagues' treatment of Dear Leader Trump.
But we have not forgotten. For example: During her December 13, 2018 interview with Trump, she helped validate his lie about his “tremendous” support from women. From my post of the same day:
TRUMP: I think I have the greatest base in the history of politics. I have people that I love and that love me, frankly. That includes a lot of women. I've got a tremendous percentage of women last time, remember? I wasn't going to get women.
This is a big distortion. Trump got 41% of the female vote in 2016, 13 points behind Hillary Clinton's 54%. In fact, Trump has historically low favorability among women.
But Faulkner, a Fox "news anchor" said eagerly, “I interviewed some of the women for Trump, yes.”
“I mean, Hillary wished she had my numbers, OK? Hillary got trounced with women,” Trump added, now lying outright.
Faulkner never challenged a word.
Near the end of the interview, there was this exchange:
FAULKNER: Yes, you have such energy for [the presidency].
TRUMP: Do I have a choice?
FAULKNER: Well, yes you do, actually. You do, not every president would have worked six and seven out on a campaign trail.
TRUMP: You know I work hard, but...
FAULKNER: Some don't, but you do.
Faulkner is far from the only Fox fawner. Host Maria Bartiromo has some stiff competition from others but she may win the award for Fox’s biggest Trump suck up. From her May 14, 2020 interview with Trump:
BARTIROMO: This entire term has been dominated by resistance. You’ve gotten so much done. Tax legislation, I mean, international things. So much done.
BARTIROMO: You know, Mr. President, there are a lot of people today that are very happy that you’re so tough, as tough as you are.
BARTIROMO: People voted for you because they trusted your economic smarts. They knew you could turn things around for the economy and business. You’re the first business president.
BARTIROMO: So you think that they would rather see a recession, a terrible economy, joblessness, than have you get another term.
BARTIROMO: Are you ready to fight for another four years?
BARTIROMO: I’ve never seen anybody that take a punch and get right back up and keep punching and where does this resilience come from that you keep getting things done in the face of all of this?
Or maybe it’s Lou Dobbs:
You may recall his September, 2019 description of the notoriously miserable Trump White House as “sunshine beaming throughout the place, and on almost every face.”
Or his March 18, 2020 Twitter poll which asked if President Trump’s COVID leadership was “superb, great or very good?”
#LDTPoll: How would you grade President Trump’s leadership in the nation's fight against the Wuhan Virus... superb, great or very good? #KAG2020 #AmericaFirst #Dobbs
— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) March 18, 2020
Whoever the Fox “winner” is, almost anyone on the network would out-fawn anyone elsewhere in the media.
You can see why Aaron Rupar tweeted “irony just died a violent death” with his clip, below, from the June 7, 2021 The Faulkner Focus.
irony just died a violent death pic.twitter.com/Vmqu23y7BU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 7, 2021
When Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush were in office, angry Right Wingers like Wally George and his radio copycat Rush Limbaugh told everyone to show respect for “The President” and told everyone that Reagan was the greatest president anyone ever had, that it was “Morning in America!”. When anyone pointed out all the very real scandals of those years, they were told to shut up.
When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, angry Right Wingers went on a massive tantrum, throwing any mud they could, impugning every single step he took and attempting to gin up any “scandal” they could as a way of getting revenge for all the bad publicity of the Reagan years. Fox News came about as part of the machine effort to attack and destroy Bill Clinton. They simply weren’t in place early enough with enough people paying attention to them to have much effect yet.
When W was selected in 2000 by the Republicans on the Supreme Court, we were then told it was “Morning in America again” even when the W/Cheney White House mismanaged the economy into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
When President Obama took office in 2009, the same angry Right Wingers and all their acolytes immediately declared that America was doomed so long as the Obama White House existed. And once again they tried to create any “scandal” they could, only to repeatedly roll snake eyes.
When the Trump campaign squeaked through in 2016, we were then told with a sneer that these people were going to “Make America Great Again”, and that we should enjoy how much damage they were doing.
Now that Joe Biden is in the White House (something most angry Right Wingers refuse to even acknowledge), we are now told that everything is somehow doomed again.
It’s as though these people have gotten a heck of a lot of practice at this game…
