Donald Trump and the Republicans have decided that the best way to respond to the impeachment hearings is to create illusions of reality. The GOP talking points are simple: 1. It is unfair to Trump, 2. What about the Biden’s, and 3. Where’s the crime? Trump and cohorts just do not want to have the discussion of whether the Trump call to Ukraine’s president was “perfect,” or not. An innocent person argues their innocence. A guilty person distracts away from their crime by arguing process and blaming others.
I watch Fox News. Put away the pitch forks. The reality is that CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and all the other news outlets are biased for different reasons. One set of facts can be spun different ways. Over covering one news item or ignoring it is also a tool to control what the public thinks.
That is why it is important to get the facts/news from different perspectives and decide – individually – what is likely the truth. Each of us will arrive at different realities. That is what critical thinking is about. As such, Fox News is part of the news I consume.
I saw something interesting Wednesday night, after the first impeachment hearings.
Fox News commentator Martha MacCallum had Eric Trump on her show. What caught my attention was MacCallum’s insistence in asking Trump whether his father’s call to the Ukraine was appropriate. Eric Trump sidestepped the question repeatedly by arguing that the Democrats had nothing, that the impeachment hearings were a failure or that Biden is corrupt.
But MacCallum kept insisting, even going so far as to ask why Donald Trump felt it necessary to deliver to the Democrats a “silver platter” of impeachment by having the call with the Ukraine president just one day after the Mueller investigation had ended.
I follow the political shenanigans involving Donald Trump closely and more so, the impeachment talk. Even then I hadn’t realized that the “perfect” call was only a day after the Mueller investigation had ended.
I heard this first on Fox News, instead of all the other news coverage of the impeachment.
What struck me is that it seems to me that there are cracks developing within Fox News about Donald Trump. I’ve noticed it crop up occasionally on several other Fox News shows. Most of us have read about the recent Fox News departures and the battles between hosts about “facts”.
In this case, a Trump was put in the hot chair by Martha MacCallum.
Eric Trump kept to the party of line of distracting with arguments that America doesn’t care to a “whole lot of nothing” in the impeachment hearings. He also ran to the time-tested argument of “whataboutisms” by bringing up Joe and Hunter Biden.
But he never answered the question MacCallum insisted on.
It struck me as interesting because Martha MacCallum wasn’t letting him off easy on a question that neither threatened Trump’s lie and had little to do with the impeachment hearings.
MacCallum’s question went directly to Donald Trump and his temperament that has led to much of the turmoil surrounding him.
It was if Martha MacCallum had had enough of Donald Trump and the chaos surrounding him. If this is true, then this bodes bad for Donald Trump.
