https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/21/president-trump-holds-another-quasi-rally-fox-friends/
View attachment 4690861
“Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade got President Trump talking about fundraising in another interminable appearance on Monday morning. “We don’t need money,” said Trump, after Kilmeade had noted that the Joe Biden campaign was outspending Trump by 2-to-1.
One of the reasons that Trump doesn’t “need money," of course, was hovering over the entire conversation: Who needs cash when the highest-rated morning show on cable news will let you drone on for 40-plus minutes about your opponent’s mental acuity and alleged dependence on teleprompters?
Monday’s love fest follows a similar session from last week, when Trump proclaimed that he’d be appearing on “Fox & Friends” weekly from here on out. Fox News responded that there was no such agreement whatsoever. Okay, but Fox News has never needed an “agreement” to shill for the president.
“Fox & Friends” is the sort of place where President Trump can know next to nothing about a pressing matter, and, well, that’s just fine. The first topic on Monday was the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the White House’s plans to nominate a replacement. Asked about short-lister
Barbara Lagoa of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Trump said: “Well, she’s excellent. She’s Hispanic. She’s a terrific woman, from everything I know. I don’t know her. Florida, we love Florida. And so, she’s got a lot of things — very smart. They’re all very smart ... These are really top people — to get on that list.”
That’s a substance-free answer. So co-host Steve Doocy was there to fill in some of the potential nominee’s background: “Judge Lagoa, who you apparently are considering, she’s 52, she’s an appeals judge in the 11th Circuit from Miami, she’s the daughter of Cuban exiles and would be the second Latina on the Supreme Court and I’ve been reading this morning in The Washington Post, it sounds like a lot of people who surround you and perhaps are trying to bend your ear really like her because not only is she a brilliant jurist ... but she’s from Florida.”
That was a swing-state question. Trump blathered on a bit about the politics of the nomination. “I think less so than the person themselves,” he said, suggesting, perhaps, that electoral politics weren’t such a big consideration.
A low point came when co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked about Ginsburg’s deathbed wish that her replacement be handled by the next president. Here’s how that discussion proceeded:
View attachment 4690862
Boldface added to highlight the allegation from President Trump that top congressional Democrats somehow dictated the deathbed wish of a legendary Supreme Court justice. Or hijacked it? Or altered it? Or fabricated it?
Just what Trump was alleging here would have been nice to know. But the crew at “Fox & Friends” let that sail past them.
Not all was lost. Kilmeade raised the issue of hypocrisy — how Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2016 stopped the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland on the rationale that it was an election year and the people needed to decide. Now that the tables are turned, McConnell & Co. argue that 2016 was different because the Senate and the White House were in the hands of different parties, whereas right now they are both Republican. In responding to Kilmeade, Trump engaged in some accidental honesty, which is the only kind he knows:
View attachment 4690863
Boldface added to highlight an important affirmation for “Fox & Friends” co-hosts when interviewing President Trump.