Is Fox News beginning to turn on Donald Trump or did host Steve Doocy inadvertently reveal his own thoughts when he suggested that the January 6 insurrection was caused by Trump “and others” telling supporters that the 2020 presidential election could be overturned?
In my last post, about Fox host (and war-criminal advocate) Pete Hegseth defending yesterday’s violent assault on the Capitol, I noted that Fox & Friends cohost Steve Doocy pushed back, albeit in the mildest way possible. Here's Hegseth painting the MAGA mob as patriots:
HEGSETH: These are not conspiracy theorists motivated just by lies — that's a bunch of nonsense that people want to tell us. These are people that understand first principles, they love freedom and they love free markets. And they see exactly what the anti-American left has done to America — indoctrinating our kids, opening our borders, canceling individuals, totally censoring entire viewpoints, all the double standards that exist in our country right now. …
An October profile of Doocy in Columbia Journalism Review reveals that he is not the Trump worshipper you might think. Although Doocy said he voted for Trump in 2016, Doocy was at least open to voting for Biden this year.
When we spoke in September, Doocy said he was still an undecided voter. “I’ve got to see,” he said. Doocy told me he wished people could just talk to one another again, and really listen. He said he could imagine voting for Republicans and Democrats in the future. I asked which Democrats out there might win his vote. “I will tell you this,” he said. “I went to a Pete Buttigieg rally in New Hampshire, and I liked his message a lot. …”
But Doocy did not get where he is without hewing to the company line. Trump ranked his loyalty level, on a scale of 1 to 10, as a 12. When Trump announced, during a Fox & Friends interview, that he had an agreement with the show to appear every Monday during the presidential campaign, it was Doocy who broke the news that there was no such agreement.
So there’s no doubt in my mind that producers knew or instructed him to push back on the violent insurrection. But it’s not clear whether Doocy slipped in the implication of Trump on his own or not. What is clear is that Doocy felt comfortable doing so.
DOOCY: For the last two months, Donald Trump’s lawyers have had legitimate chances in court to prove that there was mischief at the ballot box and they’ve been unable to do that. And we’ve been talking about that for the last two months. But Pete – and I understand the frustration with all the people and you, obviously, are very frustrated that Donald Trump didn’t win because you’ve been a big supporter of his, very clearly.
The people who gathered yesterday, though, I mean, 99 percent of ‘em - a hundred percent - 99 percent, of them were peaceful. However, what was the rally about? I mean, it was called Save the Country, Stop the Steal. Were they there simply to support Donald Trump on the way out or were they there to actually overturn the election because they had been told, through Donald Trump and others, that Mike Pence could actually do that?
You can watch Doocy hint that Trump has gone too far for Fox below, from the January 7, 2021 Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.
1/7/20 UPDATE: Kilmeade blasted Trump much harder and in an unmistakeable message to Trump.
He has clearly been coaching his son in all his tricks of the trade from long before the young dork stood up at that McCain Town Hall meeting and made an idiot of himself on national TV.
In reality, no, he doesn’t have credibility. He bought into the behavior of the Pence White House and its sycophants just like pretty much everyone else at Fox News except perhaps Shepard Smith.
It’s clear that Fox News is trying to pretend that they’re really independent of the Pence White House so they can pretend to be an impartial voice for Right Wingers. (Newsmax and OAN and the various AM radio shouters have not gotten that memo, so they’re still riding the Titanic down to the bottom of the ocean) Fox News did this from time to time during the 2016 campaign and once in a while when Pence’s childish spokesman would say something really outrageous. But as documented here, they spent the last several years essentially directing policy for the Pence White House under the “Broadcast News” model – they’d suggest a new target for Pence’s childish spokesman and he’d echo whatever they said within an hour or two.
Frankly, Fox News should never be regarded as an impartial news source given their record. They should be remembered as a Far Right propaganda outlet – with Newsmax and OAN even farther over to the Right than them. None of them practice legitimate journalism.
