Time and again Fox News demonstrates that they’re not so much a “news” network as they are a broadcaster of GOP talking points, whatever they may be. As The Republican party has deteriorated into a radically reactionary faction engaging in bad faith arguments, pursuing policies specifically to punish liberals, Fox News has followed. Years ago, they dropped the slogan “fair and balanced”—which was laughable when they adopted it—but despite this, or rather because of it, they still command a large cable news audience. This is just the latest example of their breathtakingly dishonest hypocrisy.
Last night, a video from NowThisNews showing the naked hypocrisy of Fox News blazed around the internet:
Everything wrong with Fox News in one video pic.twitter.com/MhnApiQ3pG
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) March 16, 2018
The video features Fox News personalities viciously attacking Obama for agreeing to meet with North Korean leadership without preconditions and breathlessly praising Trump for doing the same.
Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity called Obama’s offer to sit down with our adversaries a “mistake,” gasping that “Obama would personally negotiate with the leaders of terrorist nations like Iran and North Korea without preconditions. Wow.” When Trump offered the same thing, Hannity’s gasps turned to gushing. He called it a “big win” and a “major foreign policy breakthrough” while excoriating the media for not giving his God Emperor credit.
By the way, the White House already walked back Trump’s promise to meet saying that concrete progress would have to be made before any negotiations which was… The Obama administration’s position.
It’s an excellent snapshot of how Fox News isn’t really a news organization as much as the communications wing of the Republican Party, and now the official state media of the Trump regime.
Interestingly, the video features far-right North Korea hawk John Bolton criticizing the Obama administration, saying, “Look it’s a bad idea for the president to speak to Kim Jong-Un.” before doing a complete 180 with Trump, “Why wait ’till the end of May? Let’s do this by the end of March.”
While that may have given you whiplash, it gave John Bolton a (potential) seat on the National Security Council–he’s rumored to be Trump’s pick for the next National Security Advisor. He knows how to play the president like a fiddle and he’s been pushing for a war with Iran for years, which should terrify you.
Speaking of war, Fox News also spent the entirety of the war in Iraq boosting the Bush administration and implying critics of the war effort weren’t patriotic or supportive of the troops or wanted America to fail. Fox News personalities like Larry Kudlow also trumpeted the Bush economy and mocked anyone who thought a recession was imminent during, until the economy finally collapsed in 2008. He’s now Trump’s pick for White House Economic Advisor, which should also terrify you.
Trump ran against both Bush’s foreign policy, specifically the disastrous war in Iraq, and his economic policies. Because Fox News has no other principles than “advance GOP arguments and mock, denigrate, and lie about liberals” these staggeringly wrong pundits still have jobs. Now, because Trump’s a childlike cable news addict, he’s plucking these hollow ideologues from their posts to give them real power in the White House.