Once again, Trump’s accusations against real news networks are nothing but projection and admissions.
CNN got an exclusive look at excerpts from a forthcoming book by Politico’s Alex Isenstadt. He reports that in January 2024, Trump had agreed to a “sit down” with his “golf buddy” the supposedly serious journalist Bret Baier. (Incidentally, Baier just sold his D.C. “French chateau-style estate,” worth about $30 million, to Trump pick for commerce secretary and likely crooked billionaire Howard Lutnick.)
But, apparently, Trump’s aides worried that he wasn’t “taking prep for the telecast seriously.” They thought Baier and cohost Martha MacCallum might ask some tough questions and that he’dg “basically be winging it.”
So Fox “News” did a solid for its favorite (now that Roger Ailes has died) p***y grabber. Someone texted “a senior aide” images of the planned questions and the follow ups “down to the exact wording,” according to the book. The team then “workshopped answers.”
Fox’s response to CNN is hardly a full-throated denial.
Asked about the account, a Fox spokesperson said “While we do not have any evidence of this occurring, and Alex Isenstadt has conveniently refused to release the images for fact checking, we take these matters very seriously and plan to investigate should there prove to be a breach within the network.”
The spokesperson also refuted the characterization of Baier being “golf buddies” with Trump, saying the two have only played a handful of times over the past decade.
Ditto for Team Trump:
Incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung did not directly address the book’s claims regarding the town hall, but said in a statement to CNN, “President Trump was the most accessible and transparent candidate in American history, and it’s a big reason why he won in historic fashion.”
This is not the first time Fox has been caught rigging an interview for Trump. Fox host (and current defendant in Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit) Maria Bartiromo did him the same favor in 2020.
More from CNN:
In 2022, CNN reported that Bartiromo had sent text messages to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, outlining what she planned to ask in her interview with Trump in November 2020. The texts were revealed as part of Congress’ investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
No wonder Trump wanted Bartiromo as his vice president!
Bartiromo still has her hosting job on Fox. So even if Fox fires a sacrificial underling-lamb over the town hall, there’s no reason to expect anything to change after its “investigation” at MAGA Propaganda HQ.
Meanwhile, Cheater Trump can’t stop accusing everyone else of cheating. In September, the geriatric baby told his Fox peeps that ABC News should lose its license for its “rigged deal” of daring to fact check him during his disastrous debate with Kamala Harris. He also posted on his social media platform that the two hosts and everybody else at “ABC Fake News” should be fired.
Trump’s social media peeps also falsely accused Kamala Harris of wearing an earphone in her earrings.
By the way, even with all that help from Fox, the elderly Trump couldn’t keep himself from confessing to at least one crime during that Iowa town hall: violating the U.S. Constitution by taking money from foreign businesses while in office.