If they’re really dumping him, they’ll wait until at least after this convention, and possibly until after both conventions. They won’t want to upstage their coverage of either party’s week in the sun.

Assuming Sherman is correct (and I believe he is), it will be interesting to see how the channel maintains its consistent talking points. My thinking is that they’ve effectively internalized Ailes’ thinking. But it would be something to see Fox News go rudderless.

I don’t believe it’s an accident that we’re hearing this from Hume at the same time that Bill O’Reilly is making shameful comments about President Obama being supposedly too cozy with Muslim countries. It’s not an accident that this is at the same time that Sean Hannity is now regularly shouting with open anger on his show about how much he hates this president.

It’s clear that Hume is simply following the same debunked talking points as everyone else, only trying to give them an avuncular “elder statesman” spin. The problem with that approach here is that Hume doesn’t have the experience or gravitas of an elder statesman, since most of his career has been spent repeating Fox News talking points and lines of the day.

I believe there is a two-pronged reason for the constant venom coming from Fox News at President Obama these days. The first is their very real panic now over the trainwreck of having Donald Trump as the GOP candidate – something that has already tanked their convention and has the potential to cause significant losses for them in November. In what I can only describe as impotent rage, they are flailing away and stomping on the floor – in a manner that resembles a child throwing a huge tantrum.

The second prong has to do with the hatred they’ve had for this president since he became a realistic candidate for the office. From the moment that President Obama was elected, Fox News happily followed the Rush Limbaugh/Newt Gingrich/Karl Rove line of “I hope he FAILS!” Since that didn’t happen, and since President Obama had the temerity to be re-elected in spite of all their attacks over the first 4 years, now they’re attempting to trash him as he completes his second term. This time, it’s more about writing a false first chapter in the history books about the Obama presidency. The intent is to plant an impression in right wing viewers that the last eight years, as O’Reilly angrily put it, saw absolutely no progress or accomplishments of any kind, or as Hannity would tell you, saw only disaster and apocalypse for the country and the world. The fact that these statements are nonsensical does not matter to Roger Ailes. He just wants to put them on the record and hope that this manufacturing and repetition of “facts on the ground” will let the right wing establish this as the history of our times.

It’s something they’ve already had some success with regarding Hillary Clinton. For 25 years, she’s been smeared by the right wing, sometimes on a daily basis. She’s been accused of nearly every crime we can conceive, and when she’s dismissed or disproved those smears, she’s been accused of lying about it. Is it any wonder that the right wing now crows about how they can point to polls showing that “most people distrust her”? (They never mention that most of the people responding yes to that question are in the right wing/GOP group that hated her from the beginning.) The real success for Fox News here has been with more gullible voters, and sadly with many Sanders supporters who don’t realize they’re repeating right wing propaganda from the 90s. To Fox News, this is a huge win, and one they’d like to repeat with the legacy of President Obama.

I had a similar debate with a right winger on Saturday night, with similar results. He spouted a series of Fox News talking points about Black Lives Matter as well as trying to pillory President Obama in the same breath. When I pointed out that he was stating unfounded and disproven opinions, he demanded that I immediately provide evidence to show that. I told him he could use his smartphone very easily to pull up the actual record but he refused to do so. He then insisted that of what he’d just regurgitated: “Those are FACTS!” I responded that what he’d stated were opinions and not factual ones. I pointed out that the Dallas killer was not a member of Black Lives Matter and had explicitly stated that. But it was no use. He wasn’t going to listen and he wasn’t interested in anything outside of his own bubble.

I’m frankly shocked at the consistency of the massive double standard that has been applied, going back through most of my lifetime. The same right wingers who angrily supported Ronald Reagan during his frequently challenged presidency (a record number of his people were indicted and convicted during his administration) were the ones who most regularly attacked Bill Clinton. Suddenly in the 90s, they woke up to the notion of corruption in government. But when George W. Bush got into office, they switched sides again, first to angrily declare his victory during the brief moment where the country considered having a recount and then to angrily demand everyone support him because of 9/11. I remember being told that I better support Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq because if I didn’t, I was supposedly “supporting the terrorists”. I remember being told that the very real ethical problems that plagued the Bush presidency were just “liberal bull@$@!”. And when Barack Obama became President, suddenly the pendulum swung back the other way again. In addition to constant attempts to smear his administration with allegations of criminality and corruption, there is a sadly regular streak of racism in play. And we’ve sadly become used to racist aspersions being thrown at this President, as well as to anyone the right wing wishes to attack.

The most interesting part of this segment was the very real anger being displayed by Hannity when Schoen had the temerity to point out that Clinton is ahead. Schoen noted that Trump’s negatives are firmly higher than Clinton’s, and Hannity tried to cut him off with a flat denial. Schoen kept going, sensing Hannity wasn’t happy with this line, and added a qualifier “Sean, you have to realize this election is teed up for Hillary. Monica is right, it’s very very close.” (Nate Silver actually has it at nearly 80 percent likelihood of Clinton winning…) Schoen continued, “But the Secretary of State is ahead in every swing state.” Hannity’s response was to say “BARELY” and glare openly at Schoen. A bit of nonsensical discussion about Trump’s VP options followed, with Hannity advocating for Trump to select Newt Gingrich.

Schoen stayed quiet for this, but at the end, he came back in for one more try:

SCHOEN: “All you’re saying is that Hillary will be the next President.”
HANNITY: “No, I’m NOT saying that.”
SCHOEN: “Absolutely.”
HANNITY: “I believe Donald Trump is gonna win this election.”
SCHOEN: “I understand.”
HANNITY: “And I hope I’m right, because you know what? Four more years of Obama is something the country doesn’t need. (does a “washing hands” gesture) Good luck. We can’t afford it.”

It seems pretty clear to me that Hannity did not want to hear anything close to the true numbers for Clinton and Trump at this time. Schoen realized a little bit late that he was stepping out of line for what Hannity wanted him to say.

Byrne’s assertions have been completely debunked by Jan Gilhooly, the president of the Association of Former Agents of the United States Secret Service. (Gilhooly was with the Secret Service for 29 years) Gilhooly makes clear that Byrne would definitely not have been able to personally witness the scenarios he describes, as he didn’t have the clearance to be posted where he says he was. It’s far more likely he is repeating hearsay and gossip. Gilhooly is fairly specific in condemning Byrne’s actions here on two counts. On the one count, Gilhooly points out that Byrne is violating an honorable trust the Secret Service has with their clients by repeating gossip and innuendo like this. On the other count, Gilhooly is directly and carefully showing that Byrne is simply lying in most of his accounts.

But with Clinton already leading in the polling, Hannity is obviously too angry and too desperate to notice the problem with his source here. Just as he was too desperate to notice the issues with Ed Klein’s accounts, or with the other self-promoters, like the guy who regularly gets trotted out with the Benghazi stories.

What all these “writers” have in common is that they are willing to peddle half-truths and outright lies to a specific political audience, in the hope that they can make some money from the book sales and appearance fees. And if they’re lucky, someone will consider them an “expert” on one of these areas. Kind of like what happened with Katie Pavlich, who trafficked in complete untruths about Fast & Furious to get herself a cushy position at Fox News. To my mind, it is beyond unbelievable that people like this can be taken seriously anywhere. The fact that Fox News promotes them is another indication of an intrinsic problem with the network.

The coverage tonight was clearly intended to push this vote as a big plus for Donald Trump. Over and over again, the anchors and commentators were careful to note this vote as yet another sign that the voters were tired of the establishment. That this was some kind of repeat of 1979 and 1980.

That may well turn out to be true. Ellen is correct to have major concerns here. Dan Rather said about the same last week.

But I note that we’re not the same as the U.K. – we have a much larger and much more diverse electorate. Which has been exactly the problem that Donald Trump faces. I honestly don’t see Trump getting a landslide vote in his favor – not when he has yet to articulate anything coherent in terms of policy or careful thought. Not when he continues to issue ad hominem attacks and when he relies on right wing smear jobs as his fact papers. Not when he’s worked hard to alienate every voting group in this country other than angry white men.

It is true that Donald Trump could win this election. If his people show up and everyone else stays home. So if we have a lesson from the UK, I’d say that it would be: Don’t stay home on Election Day. And I note that the British vote had a high participation rate, where our rates tend to be lower. I urge anyone that cares about what happens this fall to actually take the time and vote.

I find it frankly offensive that O’Reilly can even joke about the Supreme Court after the behavior the GOP has indulged in this year. The reality is that we have an 8 member court due to no other reason than the right wing’s uncontrollable hatred for the current President. We’re talking about GOP Senators who refuse to even hold a hearing for or meet with a nominee, out of sheer spite.

It is that reason above many others that makes it vital for Donald Trump to be soundly renounced by the electorate this fall. The right wing cannot be allowed to get away with this game.

Does anyone know what a “basement intellect” is? I’m starting to wonder if I speak the same language as this person.

There’s an easy way to stop “this racism business” and get it under control. It’s simple. Trump should stop saying racist things and apologize. Problem solved.

I also note that all this talk about whether the law firm donated to the Clintons is irrelevant – since Trump himself has donated to the Clintons!!!! Should Trump recuse himself from the race for that reason?

Sanders has flip-flopped about the superdelegates the farther the primary campaign has gone. First he was totally against them, saying they were preset for Clinton and against him. Then when he realized he couldn’t get the pledged delegates he needed, he began making noises about how he was going to get a lot of superdelegates to switch to him – and if he didn’t’, it would mean that everything was rigged against him. In other words, heads I win, tails you lose. He can’t have it both ways.

Regardless of superdelegates, Clinton handily won the nomination, culminating with what happened last night. She has more than a majority of the pledged delegates and has essentially won just with them. When the same situation happened with Obama and Clinton in 2008, Clinton graciously stepped aside and congratulated Obama.

In the current situation, I expect that after tomorrows’ discussions in DC (which were begged for by Sanders after he realized how badly yesterday was going for him), we will see Sanders commit to supporting the Dem nominee, which is now confirmed as Clinton. He will be thrown a few bones by the Dems in terms of the platform and who’s on the various committees, and he’ll get a prime time speaking position at the convention. There will be no contested convention – instead, Sanders will make an impassioned appeal to his supporters to not abandon the work they’ve been doing over the past year. He will remind them that a Trump presidency would mean that all that work was in vain. He will also remind them that voting for Trump would undermine everything they’ve done. In the end, most of his supporters will support Clinton, if only to make sure that Trump is soundly defeated and sent packing.

Ellen is correct that Fox News (and right wing radio)‘s coverage of the California primary was predicated on the assumption that Bernie Sanders was about to win a major upset and embarrass/humiliate Clinton on the moment she was confirming she’d landed the nomination. The right wing hope was that Sanders would come from behind in California and win either by a few points or many points – which would have furthered the right wing spin that Clinton hadn’t really earned the nomination. (The spin starting today is now playing that Clinton only gets votes because of sympathy for her over her husband, so that even if she wins the Presidency, it should have an asterisk next to it like the 1999 Spurs NBA Title.)

I’ll be very curious to see what happens after the conventions, but I expect, as I’ve stated throughout, that this will be the nastiest, most vicious presidential campaign we’ve ever seen. Trump has already indicated he is willing to get as far into the mud as he can, if he thinks it can somehow win him this office. I really don’t know what to expect out of a debate, other than to think that Trump will continue his practice of attempted bullying and insults, rather than any discussion of facts or policy.

To be clear, Megyn Kelly is no Barbara Walters. Walters was a groundbreaking network news person who was able to parlay her career into a steady gig of major interviews. In her heyday, her popularity was significantly greater than anything Kelly has achieved.

Alyson Camerota and Major Garrett are not really in similar situations to Kelly – unless Kelly is looking to take a major demotion and work as a co-host or a lower level correspondent for another network.

Camerota worked initially in real news, including some work on Ted Koppel’s documentaries in the 90s. She joined Fox News close to its start as a co-host of various news-ish shows and continued as such throughout her time at the network. She never had an AM or prime time show of her own and never really branded herself as a hardline conservative. It appears she was a bit less conservative than her colleagues at Fox News, based on her work as a co-host at CNN since then. She is one of the very rare exceptions in that she has been able to get real work after Fox News, but she also appears to be a fairly open-minded person who fits in wherever she works.

Major Garrett is a different story. He was never even a co-host at Fox News – he was always a political correspondent, known for extremely hard right wing views. His various books about the greatness of the GOP should be a quick indicator of that one, as should his early association with the Washington Times. I’m amazed that CBS agreed to hire him as a correspondent, given his track record. The foolhardiness of that choice became obvious last summer when he embarrassed himself at a presser with President Obama and was publicly scolded for it. If anything, Garrett is a good object lesson in why Fox News personalities are not suitable to be hired in real journalism ventures. But again, he was never a solo host of anything on any of these networks.

Megyn Kelly is her own story – as discussed by Joe Muto, she’s actually an extremely smart person who may not in fact be as conservative as she acts on camera. But she made a specific choice to join Fox News in 2003 and has spent virtually her entire media career there. This was frankly a smart choice for her financially – Fox News did extremely well during the W Bush years and she was looking to become a media star, not a journalist. Her problem now is that she’s identified with Fox News as a major face of the network. She’s repeatedly said and done things on the air that have been hostile to non-conservatives – which has worked out great for her at Fox News but make her unsuitable to, say, anchor the CBS Evening News. The viewers couldn’t ever take her seriously. And this interview show has demonstrated that she doesn’t have the chops for that. It’s a specific skill set that Barbara Walters really honed – Kelly has never developed that, and didn’t realize she needed it.

It’s interesting that we can find a few odd cases here and there of people who worked at Fox News going to work at other networks. Yes, there have been politicians and consultants who have jumped around the various networks – Gingrich, Dobbs, Dick Morris, etc. But when it comes down to the on-air personalities and even many of the behind-the-scenes people, it’s not often you find Fox News people getting big opportunities at real news organizations. And that’s because they have a bad political odor to them – they were knowingly working for a nasty propaganda operation under the thumb of Roger Ailes. It’s very very hard to unring that bell.

This has been evident for some time. The only hiccup in it was Trump’s tantrum at Fox about Kelly. My instincts say that was genuine, in that Trump cannot handle anyone being anything less than fawning before him. (Which is yet another reason he is completely unsuitable for higher office) I wouldn’t be surprised to see him throw a few more tantrums between now and November.

Fox News has already laid the groundwork for its attempt to dismiss Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The narrative they’d like everyone to believe is something about how Clinton is a loser candidate who can’t even finish her campaign, or how she cannot win her nomination without rigging the system. And of course, Fox News’ polling always seems to mysteriously show her in increasingly negative numbers.

I keep thinking back to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, where the right wing media sources repeatedly told everyone that Barack Obama had no chance to be elected and confidently predicted a big win for the GOP candidate. I’ll be curious to see what the real polling numbers are following the conventions. I still have no idea how Trump can overcome the fact that he only has one core constituency – angry white male voters. It’s true that if all the Clinton voters stay home, he has a chance – but that simply points up how important it is for everyone to not take this election for granted.

It’s really quite simple. If Donald Trump did something 20 or so years ago, that’s ancient information. (And by the way, the NY Times story is a much bigger deal than people are admitting right now) So if Trump has been caught pulling an outrageous scam and is currently involved in lying about it, that’s unimportant and irrelevant.

But if Hillary Clinton did anything 20 or so years ago that Fox News can try to spin, that’s extremely relevant and important material that must be repeated on all newscasts and on the various prime time pundit shows.

Everybody got that straight?

I find it fascinating that Trump supporters like Sean Hannity believe that he has any chance at convincing anyone he has the temperament to be President. Or that he’ll get women to vote for him.

I completely agree with Ellen’s conclusion. There’s no way he doesn’t throw another tantrum at Kelly before November.

Moments like this are strong indications that Donald Trump will not be able to get the votes of many people who are not already angrily voting for him. We can see this as either intentionally condescending or as completely tone deaf. Either way, the result is the same.

As for O’Reilly’s support for Trump, that’s par for the course at Fox News at the moment. I will acknowledge that O’Reilly did grudgingly state in another segment that Hillary Clinton is currently ahead of Trump in the polling. But O’Reilly, like the rest of Fox News and right wing radio, is openly hoping for a massive criminal indictment of Hillary Clinton, so as to get her out of Trump’s way. It also appears that O’Reilly and the others are trying to pave the way to condemn the Justice Dept if they don’t do what the right wing so desperately wants.

Eyes raises some good points, and I agree people need to be vigilant about voting, as always.

With Kasich now out of the race, the GOP is having to settle for Donald Trump full-on. There is always a chance he could somehow overcome his negatives or try to boost Clinton’s higher (the more likely approach he’ll take). I remember clearly what happened in 2000. Nobody truly thought that George W. Bush was a serious candidate but he did manage to get the GOP to fully rally behind him. Al Gore ran a lackluster campaign, apparently thinking the American people were not foolish enough to vote something like W into office. And we had Ralph Nader, repeatedly begging the Dems to take up his issues and stand on some kind of principle. The Dems refused to listen to Nader. Result? Left-wing voters chose in droves to give their votes to Nader rather than Gore, thus giving Bush a razor thin potential to take various key states like Florida. (The only full recount actually completed of Florida for 2000 showed that Gore actually won the state – but by less than 100 votes, and by the time anyone understood this, W had been making mistakes in the White House for 10 months and 9/11 had already happened.)

This time around, it seems to me, Hillary Clinton is smartly addressing Sanders’ issues rather than ignoring them. Any pivoting she needs to do will be minor compared to what Donald Trump will need to do in order to get most voters to choose him. And Clinton is not campaigning in the lackluster manner that Gore did in 2000.

Trump does have the potential to attract many voters due to his celebrity and his outrageous manner. But he still has an extremely serious problem in his alienation of most women and non-white voters. Hispanics will not forget or forgive his slurs of them. Muslims will not forget or forgive his statements that refugees from the Middle East should be turned away. African Americans will not forget or forgive the constant racism of Trump’s supporters or the condescension of his statements that he’ll get their votes. And any intelligent person listening to Trump can hear that he has no real plan to deal with anything in the event that he actually wins this office. So the only approach Trump is likely to take is to throw mud at Hillary Clinton. It’s clearly his hope (and the right wing’s hope as well) that he can rattle her and get her off topic. Fox News is clearly hoping to see Trump throw a bunch of insults at Clinton in their first debate and then see her lose her temper. I tend to doubt they’ll be satisfied with what actually happens.

The really interesting part of what happens over the next several months isn’t the obvious toxicity of the coming hijinks but rather how the various conservative voices react to Trump being their nominee. Some will hold their noses. Others will withhold any discussion – passively turning their noses up at him. Which makes sense in long-term strategy – if his campaign really belly-flops to its full potential, the smarter move for places like National Review is to stay out of it. That way, they can sagely discuss the matter after the fact without having done anything to embarrass themselves along the way.

The notion of Cruz running again for President sounds like his ego talking again. He was just humiliated in a memorable fashion. There are many differences between Cruz and Reagan, not the least of which is that Reagan was a popular man both inside and outside of the GOP. Cruz, on the other hand, is widely disliked both inside and outside of the GOP. Should he attempt to run for the highest office again after he’s primaried in 2018, it would be more akin to Gary Hart’s second presidential run, and probably even more humiliating for him than what just happened. I strongly believe his initial intent was to build up his “brand” so that he’d be an attractive name for Fox News to bring in – like Huckabee was in 2008. He forgot that Huckabee is still popular at Fox News and will jealously guard his turf there. And at this point, Cruz has been blocked by Huckabee’s return there.

It will be interesting to see who Trump allows to speak at the convention. I believe Cruz had hoped for a prime time spot where he could, again, build his name. Given how the campaign went, given the totality of Cruz’ failure, and given all the bad blood, I now doubt that Cruz will even be given a daytime opportunity. I do expect that Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson will be given opportunities – and that Christie will campaign to get the VP nod from Trump.

Something tells me that Trump will not have to worry about dealing with those matters.