Media Pans Fox And Friends’ Attempt To Prove Trump Has Constantly Called Out Russian Interference
After two days of clean-up attempts by President Donald Trump following his disastrous joint press conference with Vladimir Putin in which he sided with the ruthless autocrat over his own intelligence community, the president sat down with CBS News’ Jeff Glor and said he would hold Putin personally responsible for election meddling because he is in charge of his own country.
During that interview, Trump also said that he believes his intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election and that he has called out Russia many times throughout his presidency, something White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated this week. Well, Trump’s favorite morning program was listening and it came prepared Thursday morning with a montage clip.
After Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said Trump put the issue to bed once and for all with his CBS interview, fellow host Ainsley Earhardt introduced the clip by declaring “the president has called out numerous times Vladimir Putin for meddling in the election.”
Then we got this:
FLASHBACK: Here are the numerous times President Trump has called out Russia for meddling pic.twitter.com/XSpPqaQsOT
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) July 19, 2018
As you can see above, each of the five instances that the F&F crew highlighted shows Trump saying that he thinks Russia meddled but that it was probably other countries or individuals as well. Even in his walk-back attempt earlier this week where he used his infamous “double negative” excuse, Trump ad-libbed that other countries were probably involved.
But this was as conclusive as you could get for co-host Steve Doocy, he exclaimed: “So, as you can see right there he has said a number of times he thought it was Russia and he thought they were meddling.”
This led to not one but two tweets from the president, who cited the clip as proof that he has accepted the intelligence community’s findings. (Mind you, the New York Times reported Wednesday night that Trump has known since before his inauguration that Putin was personally responsible for ordering the attacks but has continued to muddy the waters over the issue.)
“Trump recognized Russian Meddling MANY TIMES.” Thank you to @foxandfriends and @FoxNews for actually showing the clips. The Fake News wants no part of that narrative! Too bad they don’t want to focus on all of the ECONOMIC and JOBS records being set.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2018
“Trump recognized Russian Meddling MANY TIMES” pic.twitter.com/T8MERS93wI
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2018
While the president was extremely happy with the curvy couch crew giving his a ready-made clip to show he has diligently held Russia to task for hacking America’s elections, others were not so impressed. Many in the media rolled their eyes and rightly pointed out that the president was hedging in each of his so-called call-outs of Russia.
In this 54-second video meant to prove that Trump recognizes Russian meddling, Trump denies the US intelligence community's consensus conclusion that Russia & Russia alone was responsible for interfering in the 2016 election no less than ten (10) times https://t.co/k9StDH2i9s
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 19, 2018
In each one of these examples, Trump says it could have been other countries https://t.co/UgUGOeIsPp
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) July 19, 2018
every one of these examples has trump saying it was russia and other countries https://t.co/iZ6BTQMwTw
— David Mack (@davidmackau) July 19, 2018
Each of these examples includes some variation of "and probably it was other countries." https://t.co/Uy9nnCrq8F
— David Gura (@davidgura) July 19, 2018
Grandpa can’t hear his own words any more. Especially when he says “It could have been others too.” https://t.co/zMNoLlc4C0
— Richard Wolffe (@richardwolffedc) July 19, 2018
Trump tweeted a 'Fox and Friends' clip that, more than anything else, shows that he almost never exclusively blamed Russia for interfering in 2016. https://t.co/yUdPlmGWcp
— Philip Bump (@pbump) July 19, 2018
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump provided a breakdown of Trump’s public comments on Russian election interference and showed that while Trump wants us all to now believe that he’s taken a firm stance on Russia’s cyberattacks and influence campaign, in each of the assertions shown in the clip he “leaves open that door of doubt — as he has so many times.”
