President Donald Trump posted a Twitter rant in defense of Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson on Sunday morning while ordering Fox News to keep the hateful pair on the air.
Not long after he threatened FCC action against Late Night television programming and Saturday Night Live for making fun of him, Trump demanded Fox News not fire Pirro or Carlson, two of his top propagandists, even though they are both under fire for incendiary remarks as advertisers flee their shows.
Pirro insulted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for wearing a hijab in Congress, calling her “un-American” in a tirade that resulting in her show not airing on Saturday night.
Carlson is in trouble because of past remarks he made on a radio show about women in which he also defended child rape.
Fox News condemned Pirro’s statements, but has refused to punish Carlson even as he refuses to apologize.
On Sunday Trump lashed out at the network and claimed that Democrats and the media are in cahoots to get both hosts booted from their jobs.
Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox …..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
….must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
….to the people that got you there. Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for @JudgeJeanine. Your competitors are jealous – they all want what you’ve got – NUMBER ONE. Don’t hand it to them on a silver platter. They can’t beat you, you can only beat yourselves!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
Trump is clearly demanding allegiance from Fox News as if he runs the network and he’s being a hypocrite for demanding “balance” from other networks but not his own propaganda machine.
In reality, advertising dollars are an important revenue stream for all news networks, and Fox News has to do what’s best for business instead of what the president wants. If that means firing Pirro and Carlson to replace them with hosts who won’t scare away advertisers, then so be it.
If an MSNBC host remarked that a Jewish Republican lawmaker is “un-American” for wearing a yamaka, Trump would be demanding that host be fired. And if a CNN host had made past remarks in support of child rape, Trump would also demand that host be terminated as well. Trump is also a walking double standard himself since he often makes incendiary remarks about all sorts of people and groups, yet he still has his own job. One could even say Trump has said much worse than anything Pirro and Carlson have said. The difference is that he is an elected official who can only be fired by Congress or the voters. Fox News is a private employer that can fire employees for any infraction of company policy.
Fox News should not let Trump dictate company decisions. Because if they do, the network truly becomes a state-owned entity.
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