FOX NETWORK APPEARS SPLIT BETWEEN THE “NEWS” AND THE “OPINION” GROUPS

…Trump’s “Shadow Chief of Staff”, Sean Hannity

Fox Business called Trump’s Helsinki Summit: “probably the low point of the presidency.”

I believe it says a lot when the key individuals on the president’s favorite TV show, Fox & Friends in the morning, when they also went after what Trump said with Putin at the Helsinki Summit.  

Per the show’s co-host, Brian Kilmeade, he said the following: “I will say this to the president: When Newt Gingrich, when General Jack Keane, when Matt Schlapp say the president fell short and made our intelligence apparatus look bad, I think it’s time to pay attention. And it’s easily correctable from the president’s perspective. Nobody’s perfect, especially in 10 intense days of summits, private meetings and everything on his plate, but that moment is the one that’s going to stand out unless he comes out and corrects it.”

Then the host, Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business (a usually reliable pro-Trumper) called the summit, “probably the low point of the presidency”.

Trump’s bogus walk-back by changing only one word of his comments at the press conference from: “would” to “wouldn’t” , that does not change all the other questionable Trump remarks that were made in the Trump-Putin press conference.

But it is hard to judge all this when looking at the other key Fox Network hosts as to whether they are all working for the same company….?

So, today you have the individuals on Fox & Friends, and the Fox Business host questioning what the president said in Helsinki, and you also have the conversation that Fox News Anchor, Chris Wallace had with Putin right  after the Helsinki Summit. 

Here are the Putin-Wallace highlights: 

WALLACE: “You say nothing happened to you, but I need to ask you, domestically, not internationally, domestically, inside Russia, why is it that so many of the people that oppose Vladimir Putin end up dead or close to it? Former Russian spy and double-agent Sergei Skripal, the victim of a nerve agent attack in England. Boris Nemtsov, a political opponent, gunned down near the Kremlin. Investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, murdered in an apartment building. Why is it that so many people who were political enemies of Vladimir Putin are attacked?”

PUTIN: “Well, first of all, all of us have plenty of political rivals. I’m pretty sure President Trump has plenty of political rivals.”

WALLACE: “But they don’t end up dead.”

PUTIN: “Well, not always — well, haven’t presidents been killed in the United States? Have you forgotten about — well, has Kennedy been killed in Russia or in the United States? Or Mr. King?”

Wallace then attempted to hand to Putin a copy of the recent indictment of the 12 Russians accused of participating in election-oriented hacking. Putin absolutely refused to even touch the  document as if it was poison.  Then he , gestured for Wallace to put the document on a table.  (Probably had it shredded right after the interview.)

This was apparently the first time that any press person had been allowed to get in Putin's face.......ever.  Putin was obviously not amused. 

However on the other end of the spectrum was the approach of the man that is sometimes referred to as Trump’s “shadow chief of staff,” Fox's Sean Hannity. 

So, here are the highlights of the conversations between Fox Opinion host, Sean Hannity & President Trump:

“You literally just finished the press conference with President Putin moments ago. A lot came up. You were very strong at the end of that press conference,” Hannity said. “You said, where are the servers? What about what Peter Strzok said? Where are the 33,000 emails? And there was this mystery answer that I think surprised a lot of people by the president of Russia, as it relates to the Mueller investigation.”

The tone didn’t much change as Hannity indulged Trump’s claim that US-Russia relations had changed dramatically over the course of the day. He made some very limp points about NATO and he generally supplied talking points for the president.  

When the topic of NATO burden-sharing arose, Hannity again praised Trump saying: “The secretary general gave you the credit.” Then the two agreed that Trump had done wonders with NATO, and Hannity added: “Do you really believe the media will report that?”

But when the topic moved to the economy, Hannity then kind of dug a hole for himself:

HANNITY: “Fourteen states set [unemployment] records.”

TRUMP: “Fourteen states, I didn’t know that.”

HANNITY: “Record low unemployment.”

TRUMP: “Surprised that’s only 14, actually. That’s a disappointing number.”

HANNITY: “Well, keep working hard, I think it will get there. But the more amazing thing, too, is we have more jobs available than we actually have people on unemployment.”

However, the Hannity–Trump interview was seriously worth watching.  While the Fox host stuck to his talking points and his well-established pattern of a complete Trump flatterer, his body language showed a lack of enthusiasm for the end of this particular interview outing. It’s as if he realized that his history of cheer-leading had now left him cornered as a supporter of a not-so-capable US president.

This just shows that there are large discrepancies between the news side of Fox News which is the home of Wallace, Shepard Smith, Bill Hemmer, Bret Baier, Sandra Smith and others, versus the Hannity-heavy opinion side of Fox. 

Just as Trump’s open collusion with Putin, (yes, I said "collusion"), in Finland will probably rile some personnel in the White House and most of the US federal agencies, a similar attack is possible to occur at Fox News.  However, apparently not even a disgraceful Trump display of actual anti-Americanism is expected to move Hannity from his position as chief television propagandist for President Trump.

But how long will Hannity’s Fox colleagues live with that, is a very interesting question….?

Copyright G.Ater  2018