Trying to defend Trump from an outspoken critic from within his own administration who wrote an anonymous op-ed in the NY Times, Fox News' Brian Kilmeade praised Trump for wanting to assassinate President Assad of Syria, even though it's illegal to do so.
The Trump administration and Trump himself want the DOJ to investigate the NY Times and uncover the op-ed writer's identity for offering up an opinion piece to the newspaper.
Co-host Steve Doocy said, "What law is broken? Unclear."
There is no law broken. Trump might be angry, but no classified information was written so this is all more nonsense spewing from the Oval office.
Fox and Friends then played video from VP Mike Pence, who did his duty and attacked the person who wrote the piece claiming national security was at risk because of the op-ed. Huh?
The three co-hosts were outraged at such disloyalty.
As Fox and Friends was trying to smear Bob Woodward's new book on Trump and anonymous, they claimed Donald always wants differing opinions around him so he can make the correct choice. Then Brian Kilmeade ventured in la-la land with this one.
Kilmeade said, "So much of the anonymous allegations, as well as the Woodward book, talk about his foreign policy decisions. Nothing about saying I'm going to -- I would love to kill Assad is unnatural."
He continued, "It looks like President Bush tried to take a shot at Saddam Hussein before the war started. A lot of people including me thought that was a good move."
"When you are the President of the United States and have a bit of emotion in ya, and you say to a staffer in confidence, 'let's kill this guy?' What's wrong with that? That's a natural reaction and you should be able to trust the people in the Oval Office."
U.S. government sanctioned assassinations were outlawed in 1976 and any man who assumes the Oval Office should know that.
Gerald Ford's 1976 executive order on foreign intelligence activities (issued after the disclosure that the CIA had plans to do in Fidel Castro) explicitly prohibits government employees from engaging in "political assassination." This certainly rules out killing heads of state through covert means.
But as they debate some of Woodward's allegations, they also lend credence to his claims.
Trump's myopic mindset on trade is causing real concerns throughout our government.
According to Woodward, the president is obsessed by the fact that the U.S. pays $3.5 billion a year to station troops in South Korea as a first line of defense against the North. "I don't know why they're there," he said at one meeting. "Let's bring them all home." At another meeting, Secretary of Defense James Mattis starkly why the U.S. has 28,000 troops in Korea: "We're doing this in order to prevent World War III."
As Digby writes, "Anyway, assuming this is true, it's scary as hell. Trump's obsession with what he calls "wasting money" is based upon his total ignorance about .... well, everything. He came up with one big idea --- that America is being screwed by other countries --- about 30 years ago and is too goddamned dumb to ever learn anything else."
No wonder so many people in his administration try to restrain his worst instincts.
