If Donald Trump’s attempts to squelch reporting he doesn’t like is an attempt to “get us back to a free press,” as Rudy Giuliani argued with a straight face on Hannity last night, you have to wonder what Giuliani thinks is a muzzled press.
The entire discussion between Giuliani and Sean Hannity last night could not have been more Orwellian. In it, Hannity once again celebrated Trump's "beatdown" of American journalists who have had the audacity to probe Trump's ties to Russia. Only now, the two attempted to pass off such disgraceful behavior as some kind of respect for the First Amendment.
No less than Fox's own Shepard Smith called out Trump's behavior at his presser this week with language that suggested Smith was speaking for Fox News. But Giuliani both praised Trump and held himself up as a fan of the First Amendment. At the same time, Giuliani extolled the honesty of compulsive liar Trump! From the FoxNews.com transcript:
GIULIANI: This was a great thing that he did.
[…] I know what they do. I know the games that they play. It is—it is refreshing and it is very good for our democracy that we have a president that is trying to get us back to a free press.
[…]
He cannot be intimidated. He’s an honest man, so they’re not going to catch him in some kind of lie or something like that. And he’s got the courage to fight them back! And the American people have caught onto it.
[…]
GIULIANI: The American people have now caught onto it. So I think that this is going to be very helpful. I think maybe—maybe—He may actually reestablish journalistic ethics.
Then there was this exchange:
HANNITY: It was a beatdown.
GIULIANI: That was a commander-in-chief.
HANNITY: It was a beatdown.
GIULIANI: That was a commander-in-chief.
HANNITY: It was fun to watch. All right, let me move on.
What this is really about is Fox's Trump Team efforts to counter the growing evidence “that Donald Trump and his administration-in-formation are partially, perhaps wholly, beholden to the Kremlin and/or those Russian oligarchs in its thrall,” as Frank Rich put it.
I’m all for presenting opposing opinions. If Hannity wants to argue there’s no evidence connecting Trump to Russia, fine. But the Trumpsters are acting like they have something to hide with their attempts to distract from and squelch such evidence via attacks on democracy. That cannot be tolerated in America.
Watch the guilty behavior below, from the January 12, 2017 Hannity show.
’Nuff said.
I also think we’ve got to keep reminding ourselves and others that the Obama administration, already in August and September, had advance information both on the hacking and on the possible existence of material that would compromise Trump’s reputation. The FACT is that they did NOT divulge that information until AFTER the election, because of doubts as to the sources. After several months of investigations, the IC had enough corroboration (not 100% but sufficient) to warn both the incumbent and especially the President-elect that this stuff was floating around the web and that preliminary findings suggested that the sources were credible. Although he is still Mr Trump, the Donald should remember that “forewarned is forearmed”. Instead of blasting the IC and getting their backs up, he’d better draw back and treat them with respect.
Wouldn’t surprise me one bit to learn (if ever we do) that it was a disgruntled (aka true) Republican who leaked the news about that 2 page summary. The Trumplicans couldn’t care. The Donald can do no evil. Full stop.
However, I remain trustful that the majority of the American people will start to push back.
