Michelle Malkin visited Fox & Friends this morning to add her special brand of venom to the Trump shutdown and the unpopular border wall he is holding the federal government hostage over.
Despite Trump’s claim that he was “proud to shut down the government for border security” and would take the blame for it, Malkin and the Trump Friends used a visit by Democrats to Puerto Rico to suggest that they should be taking the heat instead of Trump. In fact, the trip to Puerto Rico was designed to highlight the problems faced by the island in the wake of the disastrous Hurricane Maria, especially as Democrats plan oversight into the recovery effort.
Trump is contemplating taking money from the disaster relief fund to pay for his border wall (which he promised Mexico would pay for). But neither Malkin nor any of the Trump Friends discussed that.
Malkin claimed the pressure to end the shutdown “is on the Democrats if the narrative is told properly” and that that’s the narrative “that has to break through.”
Ignoring the unpopularity of the border wall, cohost Ainsley Earhardt asked Malkin to tell everyone why she thinks the border wall is a “monument for the people." Malkin similarly ignored the unpopularity of the wall in order to sneer at those opposing the shutdown.
MALKIN: What we have had on all of the other networks, of course, is this idea that somehow President Trump is akin to a human rights abuser because he is standing and holding the line on the sovereignty of this country. And you’ve got story after story, sob story after story of the hardship here when the real hardship of course is the costs that have been born by the American people because nobody in Washington wants to stand up and do something about this finally. How many wake up calls do we have to have after 9/11 that underscore that this is a national security issue, that this is a public safety issue, it’s a cultural issue, it’s an economic issue. … We have to confront it now.
In reality, as Fox News’ own Chris Wallace so memorably made clear, the border is not a national security issue. None of the three hosts corrected Malkin’s misinformation. Not did anyone object to her childish name calling in which she referred to Democrats as “Beltway crap weasels.” Instead, cohost Steve Doocy chuckled with appreciation.
Malkin has no apparent credentials in national security, immigration or international relations. But the three cohosts treated her as some kind of expert. See how even the expressions on their faces granted her undue respect below, from the January 14, 2019 Fox & Friends.
It is especially galling to see an immigrant and POC give succour to the racist xenophobes of Fox and the Republicans.