FOX
NEWS WOULD RATHER NOT ADMIT TRUMP IS A GIANT CROOK
A massive New York Times report
on Trump’s tax fraud was too big for even Fox News to ignore. Instead, they
brought on Don Jr. to play defense.
BY CALEB ECARMA
SEPTEMBER
28, 2020
Moments before Fox News aired the White House’s Sunday press
conference—which took place shortly after the publication of the New
York Times’ massive report on Donald
Trump’s tax records—an out-of-frame employee apparently let out an exclamation that embodied the sentiment
of a network tasked with playing cleanup after yet another presidential
bombshell. Following the announcement of “Yes, we have the president here,”
came a hot-mic “Ah, shit.”
While Fox News has not entirely avoided
covering the Times scoop on how the president managed to pay
just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 after paying zero dollars in
10 out of the 15 years prior due to a string of disastrous business endeavors,
the network has turned to Trump’s closest allies, including those who happen to
share his name, to shrug off this latest financial scandal. On Monday morning,
first son Donald Trump Jr. appeared on Fox
& Friends and grinned and shook his head when Brian
Kilmeade inquired about the piece. “Look, it’s ridiculous,” Junior
said, claiming that “my father” has paid “tens of millions” in taxes. “Of
course the New York Times does this,” he said. “They put out a
selective picture of all of these things the day before the debate to try to
give someone like Joe Biden an attack line to come up with one
or two catchy sound bites—and that’s the game.” He went on to compare the Times report
to “the debunked claim about the military,” referencing the Atlantic’s story on Trump
calling deceased U.S. service members “suckers” and “losers,” a report that,
incidentally, was partially confirmed by a reporter
on the same network hosting Don Jr. The president’s son closed
with a screed against “the Biden crime family” and accusations that Biden’s son
is supposedly linked to “human trafficking and prostitution rings in Eastern
Europe.”
Later in the morning, Fox &
Friends scored an interview
with White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, her first TV
appearance since the Times story was published. Rather than
press the top White House communications aide, Ainsley Earhardt likewise
framed the Times piece as a strategic drop to help Biden in
Tuesday’s debate: “What do you make of the timing of this, the tax thing coming
out, you know, a day before the debate, and how is he preparing for the
debate?” McEnany replied by likening the report to a “hit piece” and saying it
is a repeat of “the same playbook they tried in 2016.”
In Fox’s morning news segment delivered
by Griff Jenkins, a reporter on the network’s hard-news side as
opposed to its opinion side—a difference without a distinction, aside from the
hard-news personalities’ Professional Reporter voices—the emphasis was placed
on Trump’s denial, rather than the details outlined in the investigation. After
mentioning the Biden campaign’s new ad that cites
the Times report to note that teachers, firefighters, and
nurses pay thousands more in taxes than the president's $750, Jenkins
harped on Trump “vehemently disputing the report, lashing out at the Times saying
his returns will show otherwise but he cannot release them because he is under an
IRS audit.” (As has been previously reported, an audit would not prevent Trump
from releasing his tax returns.)
It is not uncommon for the Trump–allied media
to sidestep damning new reports about the president, but with the Times tax
story logging four
million engagements by Monday morning and leading network and cable shows
throughout the day, even the most sycophantic pro–Trump figures have found it
more difficult to brush aside. So far, Fox isn’t going that route, but is
instead carefully framing various segments and interviews about the
investigation, possibly because it can only fill so much airtime with pieces on an
award-winning rat in Cambodia, a pro-troops, first responders, and police
themed BBQ chain opening their 96th location, and
B-roll footage of South
Dakota’s governor riding a horse—all of which aired in the aftermath of
the Times report. Still, that reality certainly won’t stop
some from shrugging it all off.
“Frankly, I don’t care. I didn’t elect him to be my tax
accountant,” said former
Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is now a Fox News contributor
and self-styled “comedian,” despite
being roughly as successful at comedy as he was running for president. During
his appearance, Huckabee explained that every time the “New York Times says
something about Donald Trump, I kind of blow it off as totally lacking in
credibility,” and concluded with, “So what?”
