and it should worry anyone who cares about trying to hold
the president accountable.
It's been a hell of a week.
First there was the Russia leak.
The Washington Post reports that Trump reveals highly classified information during a White
House meeting with the Russian ambassador.
Not good.
The next day, the
Comey memo.
The New York Times reports that a memo by former FBI director James Comey
describes Trump asking him to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn,
which sounds a lot like obstruction of justice.
Both stories are damning, they're
confirmed by multiple news organizations, and they come amid growing concerns
about Trump's ties to Russia and his abrupt firing of Comey.
By any reasonable
measure, this all looks very very bad for the White House, but that's not what you
see on Fox News.
Fox spent the week masterfully
deflecting focus away from Trump. And though the Russian leak and Comey memo
scandals are very different, Fox handles both stories basically the
same way.
Attack the story.
Raise doubts in the
viewers mind about the credibility of the reporting. For the Russian leak,
this meant calling the story a conspiracy theory.
Mainstream media
starts launching many conspiracy theories.
Criticizing the story's
anonymous sources.
All the Washington Post sources are anonymous I don't know
how credible those sources are.
So many anonymous sources with literally no
accountability.
Outside sources and sources from Mars apparently.
Calling it fake news.
Bogus fake news story
it's fake news
and parroting the White House's
talking points.
Ok, it was denied by the Trump administration officials
and McMaster has said absolutely that did not happen.
Do you thinks that the Washington Post
moved too fast?
For the Comey memo, it meant suggesting the story was made up.
A so-called memo magically surfacing in the New York Times.
Criticizing anonymous sources.
These unnamed sources, is this a way to would be reporting the news?
And just saying I don't believe it.
Risking that much politically or otherwise
around general Flynn, I just can't see it.
You could write anything in a memo, it
doesn't mean it was right.
That seems highly unlikely
For the Russian leak, that meant going after the Washington Post.
The Washington Post, just like the rest of the destroy-Trump media, has no
credibility. It's just an extension of the DNC.
Completely unreliable.
For the Comey memo, that meant going after Comey.
Jim Comey has major credibility problems.
But had nothing to do with the good of the country, it only had to do
with his own ass being fired.
That what James Comey was doing tonight?
Seeking revenge?
Comey is a little bit of a drama queen.
This is very Mean Girls by the way.
And in both cases, it meant obsessing about the leakers who are
talking to reporters in the first place.
The real story here is who's leaking to the press.
Who is leaking?
Leaks.
Constant leaks.
What do we do about the leaks?
The leaks are a bigger story than the substance of what is leaked.
You're saying President Trump is under attack by the deep state
intelligence community.
The deep state.
Deep state.
You're worried about the deep state leaking.
Blame the media for covering the story.
Would any other
administration get this kind of scrutiny?
This is something that every Republican
President has to deal with, the press is against them
Does their hate for President Trump
cloud their ability to bring you the facts?
Attack Hillary Clinton.
It was their own presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who severely
mishandled classified information.
Where the fake news media back then?
And Barack Obama.
Why the hell not?
And if we want to talk about obstruction what about
President Obama?
Let's see the documents about President Obama.
I want to see the
Obama Comey memos.
And when all else fails...
Just dismiss the story entirely.
The way people are reacting is if the world is coming to a
close because of what may or may not have been reported.
It's like a three
days story if it's true. I don't think there's a lot in here. It's a boring
scandal.
What's wrong with revealing some highly classified information to the Russians?
Why wouldn't the President of the United States share that with Russia?
Right, it makes it easier for Russia to figure out who our ally is, although you
gotta figure a Russian as well all our allies are anyway.
And what even is
"obstruction of justice" anyway?
"I hope you can let it go" he's not directing him to
let it go.
He just said "I hope", he didn't say I command you or I order you to do that.
"I would hope", that's not the same.
It's just not.
If you understand
language, it's not.
Fox's entire strategy for dealing with Trump's scandals is to
downplay the significance.
But if every story is Watergatem, is any story
Watergate?
Make the audience suspicious of the media.
They've succumbed to
trump hatred, that is so intense it has destroyed their judgment and in some
cases affected their character.
And then deflect their attention to literally
anything else.
The world is a very complicated place, what you think is
happening often really isn't happening.
If you're not a regular Fox viewer it's easy to roll your eyes and laugh at this stuff, but
imagine if you were.
Imagine if Fox News were your main source of information and
news every day.
For a huge portion of Trump supporters, that's the reality. They
get their news primarily from Fox, which means that even powerful, well-sourced
and incredibly damning reporting about Trump's behavior might not be enough to
change his supporters minds about him.
There are obviously a lot of people in
high places in Washington who will do anything they can to undermine his
position.
It just doesn't penetrate the Fox News echo chamber.
The destroy Trump
propaganda media, they have been working around the clock
to smear, slander, besmirch, character assassination.
And if you're hoping that Congress will pose
some check on Trump's behavior, this should worry you.
Before anybody rushes
to judgment, we're not going to base our opinions solely on a news article.
Republicans and Congress are unlikely to break rank with Trump, unless their
constituents pressure them to.
Unless Republican voters think these scandals
are big enough to take seriously, but if those voters are watching Fox that might
never happen.
This didn't really fit in the video but Tucker Carlson did a totally
bananas segment where he yelled about the bathrooms in Penn Station, so here you go.
Normal people use the men's room in the train station.
Yours are disgusting.
And now you're complaining about his tax returns?