We all know that Fox is going to defend Trump and lie for him no matter how many crimes he commits, because that's what the right wing propaganda network that should not be called a "news" channel does. On this Saturday's Fox & Friends, they reacted to Trump's latest threatening post on "Truth Social" in all caps, "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!," which, as we discussed here, has already been met with a swift response from Special Counsel Jack Smith's office by pretending it wasn't a threat and then lying about an appearance on MSNBC by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Since they can't actually defend the indefensible, they have to resort to, one, ignoring everything Trump has actually don, the events of January 6th that he provoked and the fact that he tried to overturn the election, and two, serving up constant distractions where they pretend Democrats are just as bad as Trump and Republicans.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: It's getting silly. So he posts “If you come after me, I'm coming after you.”
HEGSETH: Well, they'd love to give him a gag order to, if they could. This is a protective order saying materials pertinent to the case can can't be released. If they could, they'd shut him up completely, which is the entire point.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Exactly.
HEGSETH: You say it's getting silly, and that's the entire point. But, you're right, we're callous to the fact that this last week was like nothing we've ever seen in this country.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: I'm not callous to it.
HEGSETH: I didn't mean that, we all are. It's like, oh, another indictment. Oh, another this. What we are seeing is absolutely unprecedented targeting of a political opponent.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: It's interesting, this week also we see Alexei Navalny, he is Putin's biggest critic and opponent, getting put in jail. By the way, Britain, the UN, the EU, all issuing statements about how bad it is that Putin is trying to jail his opponent.
Wonder if those guys, those same organizations will come to the defense of Donald Trump? Probably not.
CAIN: It's almost like the slightly indirect shots of an indictment of a former president are so loud and explosive that the direct shots go unnoticed. You know, president Trump saying if you come after me, I come after you and it's a direct shot and no surprise. It's something we already knew. It's sort of been his ethos for most of his life. If you come after me...
HEGSETH: I'm a counter-puncher.
CAIN: ...I go after you. But there is another fascinating set of sound going around out there, and I hope we'll grab it a little bit later in the morning, but Doris Kearns Goodwin on MSNBC said something to the effect of, you know, we have to do anything we can to stop him from winning the election.
The point is, that's a direct shot, like, you are saying you need to subvert the democratic process. You're acknowledging Donald Trump's not just potential, but perhaps probability of winning an election and saying we'll do anything we can to to stop him from being president of the United States. And it's not just Doris Kearns Goodwin, there's sound of President Biden saying the same thing.
HEGSETH: Saying the very same thing.
CAIN: When asked what will you do about your rival, we will do anything we need to ensure we protect this democracy.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Her comments were also in the context of sort of the left's, the Democrat party's sort of, we're still stunned. What? We've just, we've indicted him three times and his poll numbers go up? It's like, they're freaking out. And then she said, basically she said if this whole indictment thing doesn't work and everything else we've tried on him, then we have to figure out some way, because it's just not tenable for us to have that guy be elected.
Real Clear Politics has the video and transcript of Goodwin, and here's what she actually said during the exchange they're lying about:
JONATHAN LEMIRE, MSNBC: We have gone through the example about Nixon and Watergate, but it also means sometimes these presidential elections, these bitterly contested fights, still even the party said, okay, it's time to turn the page. Even in 2016 by the next morning, the Democrats were doing so, but are you seeing anything here that would suggest that there were other Republicans, real ones that matter, not just the occasional lonely voice to push the party and Donald Trump to move past this in the next election?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: It's still so hard to accept that. I thought after January 6th when you saw McConnell speak, when you saw McCarthy speak that that was going to be the beginning of leadership turning against him, and then somehow, somehow it's not happened, and it can't just be a few of them.
We've got to figure out when is that going to happen? When is it going to break? Maybe the more this thing becomes clear, what was done, you've to believe that rational thought would come back in the minds of some of these people. But if not, it's going to take the overwhelming organization, just as you were talking about earlier, organizing the country at all the levels so that he cannot win that election. If the party will not depart from him, then he has to be defeated and the party has to be defeated.
She's clearly talking about voting him out of office, but won't stop the liars on the right from taking her out of context.
