Sen. Lindsey Graham joined the Fox culture of death as he chose Donald Trump’s political fortunes over American lives lost and harmed as a result of his botched handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Over the weekend, The New York Times published a bombshell report: “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus: An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.” One Times takeaway noted that Trump ignored warnings about the pandemic “from the intelligence community, national security aides and government health officials.”
But Graham pretended that Trump has been a pandemic hero, even as the U.S. has surpassed every other country in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths. More than 25,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 but Graham suggested we should all celebrate it's not much worse.
Cohost Brian Kilmeade cued up Graham’s talking points – and legitimized them – with his phony “just asking” question. “The look back Sunday with the New York Times picked up by every news organization pointed all fingers at, basically, the president for dropping the ball and not acting sooner. The president fought back. Where does the truth lie?”
Sure enough, Graham began his slobbering tribute: “Number one, Mr. President, the American people understand what you’ve done for them and this effort to destroy Trump, no matter the cost to the country, is getting a bit old, and is pissing a lot of people off.” Actually, it seems the rising death toll may be pissing people off more. Trump’s approval rating has been steadily sinking of late.
Without challenge, Graham continued slobbering about Trump’s “really important decisions to save American lives.” That included this whopper: “The most important thing the president has done is unleash the private sector in testing and trying to develop drugs by giving FDA waivers for therapies and vaccines to speed up the process.” FACT CHECK: Trump’s promises about testing are largely unfulfilled. He promised five weeks ago that anyone who needs one can get a test but they are still in severely short supply.
Nevertheless, Graham thinks Trump is doing a heckuva job because we’re going to be “well below the 100,000 minimum expected” deaths. As if the tens of thousands of deaths already is no big deal.
Cohost Ainsley Earhardt was also more concerned with Trump than American lives. She gushed over his propaganda video that aired yesterday. “He put together a timeline of him saying in January travel ban. Then you have people in the media saying this is ridiculous, it’s going too far, you had Biden saying xenophobia, and then it would have another soundbite of President Trump in February, then another one, and the media criticizing him, and now the media criticizing him for not doing enough. So, I thought that was pretty smart on his part.”
Serious journalist wannabe Earhardt didn’t mention that Trump’s video inadvertently revealed how he had failed.
Nor did Graham. He continued by suggesting that Trump’s glories could have been so much greater if only the Democrats had not impeached him. “People are dying right now, and this president is doing everything humanly possible to work with anybody that will work with him,” Graham said. “February 6, we voted to acquit the president, and Democratic leaders who are criticizing the president now wanted to extend the trial for weeks to call more witnesses. Joe Biden criticized President Trump when he invoked the Chinese travel ban. He’s trying to rewrite history, not President Trump.”
Most Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the pandemic. But you’d never know it from this group of sycophants.
You can watch Graham try to rewrite history below, from the April 14, 2020 Fox & Friends,
Actually, ‘long before’ may be stretching it a bit. I’d guess Lindsay would be the bookies’ favorite in the Self-Slaughter Stakes.
But that’s not the embarrassing part. The bobble-heads, especially a giddy Ainsley Airhead, praise Trump’s campaign ad (being kind) as if it was brilliant truth. No fact checking that every example cited was highly edited, out of context material promoting an entirely false narrative.
Raw scripted propaganda. And I’m not just talking about the White House video.