Harris Faulkner, a Fox News Trump-sycophant extraordinaire, had the nerve to whine on the air today that the media had not asked “the tough questions” of Barack Obama.
Media Matters caught Faulkner engaging in some whataboutism on Outnumbered Overtime today. When guest David Burstein complained about Trump’s attacks on the press, Faulkner interrupted to make it about Obama.
BURSTEIN: There is a principle in this country that I think is more important than any of that, which is about the respect of the free press. And I think this president has continually—
FAULKNER: Can I cut in for a second there? Because respect has to come with responsibility too. And what did we find out about the press corps and the Obama administration? That [former Deputy National Security Adviser] Ben Rhodes was looking around for maybe some friendly people among the press. And I’m not saying that it isn’t within his right to do that, but there was a love affair for a while that was going on. There’s responsibility to ask the tough questions too.
Irony alert! Did Faulkner not notice the lack of tough questions from all the Fox hosts who have interviewed Trump? Or does she not have a clue as to why Trump does interviews almost exclusively with friendly Fox hosts? Or is Faulkner's idea of tough questioning Maria Bartiromo repeatedly agreeing with Trump and assuring him, “You’re doing the right thing?" Or Sean Hannity telling Trump, “You were very strong” during that infamous Helsinki press conference?
Faulkner rarely, if ever, asks the tough questions about Trump. In fact, she has a knack for making every hole he gets himself into about someone else’s misdeeds. After Trump’s shocking Helsinki presser, she said, “You know, we still don’t know what happened to Hillary Clinton’s server and you heard the president talking about that, too.” After Charlottesville, she made Trump critics the bad guys: “[T]hey do not have America in their sights … shame on them.” She made Trump’s attacks on protesting NFL players about black-on-black crime and the Rob Porter scandal about Obama. In that discussion about the Rob Porter scandal, Faulkner said, “What I want to get to is who’s looking out for the president?”
Watch the irony below, from the July 19, 2018 Outnumbered Overtime, via Media Matters.
Obama was the first black president, a huge milestone in U.S. history. So certainly there was some glow when he was first elected. However, eventually the glow wore off and he ended up with a press relationship not dissimilar to his predecessors.
Trump is a Twitter troll who came to Washington like a bull in a china shop determined to stir the pot. A lightening rod attracts lightening. Not to mention much of Trump’s bed wetting over “fake news” is proved a lie because he loves the coverage right-wing propaganda factory Fox News showers him with – and Fox is known to be the least accurate cable news outlet. His “fake news” crybabying is simply The Donald ‘working the refs’ because anything that doesn’t thickly flatter the clinical narcissist sets him off like a bottle rocket.
