The morning after former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:
Great reporting by @foxandfriends and so many others. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2017
So exactly was Trump watching when he sent this out?
To no one’s surprise, Trump was likely watching a segment on Fox & Friends about Comey’s testimony. The morning show aired a segment about the media’s focus on Trump’s untrustworthiness. Here’s the transcript:
HARRIS FAULKNER (HOST): Major bombshells coming out of yesterday’s hearing, like Loretta Lynch telling James Comey to call the Hillary Clinton emails a “matter” instead of an “investigation,” and that Comey orchestrated leaks of his own memo to the press through a friend. The media, however, focused elsewhere.
B-ROLL OF MSNBC’S CHRIS MATTHEWS: Comey came across as an honest man under oath against a president who really doesn’t focus much attention on telling the truth.
B-ROLL OF DAN RATHER ON MSNBC: Trump is at the point where he has to say, “I’m not a liar. The other guy’s a liar.”
B-ROLL OF CHUCK TODD ON NBC: This is still a horrendous day for the president.
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Right before that was a segment about how Comey’s unique language throughout the testimony led to a media frenzy, like his quote, “Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” and his quoting of Henry II.
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The show’s narrative spin was friendly toward the president, enough to likely make Trump feel good about what the Comey testimony revealed. The big revelations, if you’re solely watching Fox & Friends, are that Comey leaked information to the media, that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch tried to influence an FBI investigation, and that the mainstream media is biased by focusing on the parts that make Trump seem untrustworthy.
Earlier in the show, Fox & Friends had Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) on the show, and he seemed to parrot several narratives that had already popped up right-wing news sites.
Gohmert said, “As Marco Rubio said, the only thing they didn’t leak was the truth!”
It’s yet another instance of Fox & Friends insisting that those who focus so much on Trump’s misdeeds — the media, Democrats, and now the FBI — are actually obscuring information in order to take down Trump. It’s perhaps the only way to resolve the cognitive dissonance of right-wing news narratives with everything else.
