Trump famously said he could shoot somebody and not lose any voters. Now, apparently he can callously put the health and safety of the Secret Service at risk, and not lose any supporters either. After Captain Super-Spreader decided to pull his little PR stunt outside of Walter Reed Hospital, Fox has been working the refs trying to defend his reckless behavior and downplaying the needless risk involved for the men who were unfortunate enough to be in the vehicle with him.
On this Monday's Outnumbered, the hosts took things a step further, and basically said this is what the people paid to protect Trump signed up for. They also lied about the risk to their health, claiming that they were somehow protected because there was some Plexiglass that was supposedly between Secret Service in the front of the vehicle and Trump.
This is the Secret Service officer who has been with the president the entire time so is it really fair to say that there is additional exposure having him get in this vehicle with the president for an additional, let's say, 10 minutes maximum?
SAPHIER: I think whatever the president does regardless, he's always going to be criticized. In terms of this we always want to decrease exposure to anybody who doesn't necessarily need to be close to the president especially if he's contagious. If this is the same Secret Service agent who has been with him for several days without Plexiglas, it's likely his risk of exposure has already occurred and I can almost guarantee, we saw him wearing a mask.
You know, is it a bit of a spectacle? Sure. Was it necessary, no, but this is the president, he wanted to make sure that the Americans are standing outside that hospital, know that he's doing okay, he wants them to know how much he appreciates them. We take them outside of the hospital all the time, that being said, proper precautions, want to make sure they are not going to expose anyone unnecessarily.
Someone please explain to me how Plexiglass is going to help in a vehicle that's hermetically sealed.
Somehow that didn't come up during the discussion on Fox though. Kennedy actually admitted that maybe there was a better way that Trump could have tried to assure his voters that he's doing okay, but also justified his reckless behavior by saying that "the Secret Service agents know the risk of the job" when they signed up, as though anyone working one of those jobs ever expected the president himself to be the one putting them at risk -- and ignoring the fact that members of the Secret Service are rightfully horrified by Trump's actions.
That didn't stop Trump bootlicker Pete Hegseth from also pretending his actions were justified, and using the occasion to attack the press and CNN:
HEGSETH: Of course. It has value in and of itself. It's the symbolism. This is... I want to thank the people who are here for me. I carried you and fought for you. You're praying for me and support me. I want to be out there to show you how much I appreciated it, and the cameras are going to be there and America is going to see that I'm out and about.
A couple of things on that. Of course the Secret Service is not risk-less profession. These are men and women that sign up to put their lives on the line for the president. All the PPE that was there was the proper protocol.
So shame on folks at CNN. What a sham story. You wonder why people don't trust the media, why they call you the fake news and enemy of the people. It's because you manufacture stories and run with it with these hyperbolic banners that make people think they should be panicking when we all know it's a bunch of nonsense.
And then you wonder why we're skeptical of your anonymous sources? This is what they do to themselves, and they maybe think it works for clicks or a few eyeballs, but it only degrades their credibility even more and does a disservice to what the president is attempting to do, which was rally the nation.
Ben Rhodes wondered how they'd act if this was the Obama administration behaving this way.
We all know the answer to that question.
Here's more with some appropriate reaction to Trump's behavior on Twitter.
Here's the idiot himself missing the point and making it all about him:
(Text: It is reported that the Media is upset because I got into a secure vehicle to say thank you to the many fans and supporters who were standing outside of the hospital for many hours, and even days, to pay their respect to their President. If I didn’t do it, Media would say RUDE!!! )
