Source: Anna Moneymaker / Getty
Just earlier this week, Donald Trump was out here threatening legal action against CBS because the network aired two versions of an answer Kamala Harris gave “60 Minutes” after being asked why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is not listening” to the United States. The edited answers were aired for a promotional preview of the interview, not the actual interview, which was aired in full. Also, neither relatively mundane answer aired in the previews were particularly damning for Harris, so, essentially, Trump was throwing a hissy fit over nothing as usual. Also, Trump has indicated, once again, that he doesn’t understand how the law works since he’s trying to sue a news station for the common journalistic practice of editing a clip for a preview, which is protected by the First Amendment, and justified by, well, common sense and bare minimum media literacy.
Also, if Trump is mad at CBS, he should be furious at Fox News.
This week, Trump paid a surprise visit to a barber shot in The Bronx as part of his Black friend pander-o-thon, which is essentially what his campaign has become as of late. Trump was mingling with and taking questions from Black and Latino barbershop customers and employees, and it was all aired on his favorite whitey-friendly propaganda network, Fox News. However, the version of the segment that aired as part of “Fox & Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones’ (the’s the Black one, of course) ongoing barbershop interview series was heavily edited in order to make Trump appear to be less of the rambling, lying, scatter-brained, cognitively declined blowhard that we all know him to be. And we’re not just talking about the version aired for a promotional preview, but the only version of the visit that aired on the network at all.
From CNN:
CNN reviewed a more complete video of the barbershop visit that was uploaded to Instagram on the day of Trump’s appearance in the Bronx and compared it to the segments that were shown on “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
The televised broadcast omitted Trump’s comments about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. He told the barbershop customers that “they just dumped 50,000 people — 32,000 migrants from another country — in Springfield, Ohio. They don’t know what to do.” The actual number of migrants in Springfield is far lower, according to the city’s own data. The broadcast also left out Trump’s gross exaggerations about crime in Aurora, Colorado.
One of the most telling parts of the dialogue began when an audience member asked Trump about finding a way to eliminate federal taxes in the future. On Fox, Trump was shown immediately answering affirmatively: “There is a way.”
But that response from Trump actually came more than seven minutes later, after Trump (and Jones) brought up other topics, including inheritances, the Keystone Pipeline, Ronald Reagan, Russia, and transgender sports players. Trump had to be nudged back on track several times by the unnamed audience member, who kept circling back, apologetically, and said “I wasn’t able to finish my question.” After he repeated his tax inquiry yet again, Trump said “there is a way.”
But on Fox, it was stitched together as one seamless back-and-forth.
Fox also cut some of the former president’s insults, as when he mocked the Wall Street Journal, a sister property of Fox. “Don’t listen” to the “Wall Street jerks or Wall Street Journal, cause they don’t get it,” Trump told the barbershop audience.
In another unplayed portion of the visit, Trump praised Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban and called him a “very respected guy.” That exchange underscored Trump’s tendency to favor autocratic leaders, but Fox decided not to share it with viewers.
So, to recap: Trump loves fascist leaders, hates staying on topic, loves lying on immigrants, hates accurate statistical data, and loves singling childish insults at people he doesn’t like — and, for some reason, Fox News felt the need to edit it all out as if we haven’t already seen Trump in front of a camera before. Fox could have aired the unedited segment and nothing new would have been discovered about the fact-averse ex-president.
But more to the point — how come Trump isn’t mad?
Again, Trump threatened to sue CBS over Harris’ “60 Minutes” appearance — an event he backed out of participating in, by the way — arguing that the network edited a single question and answer aired in an ad for the interview to “make her look better.” So, unless Trump is the petty, lying hypocrite that we all know he is, surely, he’s gathering his legal team to take action against his favorite network to run crying to whenever his political opponent strikes a nerve — which is, apparently, always.
One could argue that you can’t blame Fox for editing the interview since the network probably wants to avoid suffering another nin-figure lawsuit as a result of airing Trump’s lies, but this was more than that. It is as clear as day that the conservative “news” site doesn’t want to present the raw footage of Trump being unhinged and mentally not all there less than two weeks ahead of the election.
This is a glaring example of the media bias and “fake news” that MAGA supporters claim everyone else but conservative “journalists” are guilty of — but Harris isn’t out here threatening to file lawsuits.
Maybe it’s time we stop pretending the right choice to make in November isn’t abundantly clear.
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