The criminal hush-money trial of former President Donald Trump has kicked off, and Fox News has been providing extensive coverage. However, much of Fox News’s coverage has been devoted to parroting the ex-president’s grievances and defending him against the charges.
On Monday, Fox News primetime host Jesse Watters complained that Trump was being treated unfairly because he was not getting enough time to golf. “The guy needs exercise,” Watters exclaimed. “He’s usually golfing. And so, you’re going to put a man who’s almost 80, sitting in a room like this on his butt for all that time? It’s not healthy.”
Watters also asserted that detainees in the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison receive more preferential treatment than Trump has been afforded throughout his trial. “They had more allowances for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” Watters said. “I think they bought a million-dollar soccer field for the people in Gitmo.”
On Tuesday, Fox News contributor Ian Prior warned that the hush-money trial could result in the end of America. “This is the kind of thing they would do in the Roman Republic that led to the end of the Roman Republic,” Prior said. “Caesar is out there and says if you do not come back to Rome…and face prosecution, what did he do? He crossed the Rubicon and there’s the end of the Republic.”
Just ahead of opening statements on Monday, Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt said that Trump facing criminal charges could result in a dangerous precedent. “Does this set a precedent for other people who want to run for president?” Earhardt asked. “What if they’ve done something like this in the past and they can say, ‘Oh, well, they told me in the 8th grade they want to run for president, so since they paid off a girl when they were 30 years old, then that was election interference!'”
The award for zaniest take, however, goes to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who claimed that the possibility of serving jail time made Trump akin to slain freedom fighters during the civil rights movement. “This is literally like some of the civil rights workers in Mississippi in the 1960s,” Gingrich said. “The New York system is now so deeply corrupted and it’s so bitterly, deeply anti-Trump.”
Appearing on Trump confidant Sean Hannity’s primetime show on Monday, the ex-president’s son Eric Trump bemoaned that his dad was facing 34 criminal charges over allegedly falsifying business records to cover up the hush-money payment made to Daniels before the 2016 election. According to the younger Trump, however, his father was too busy running the country to keep track of these records, though he added “not that anything was done wrong in the bookkeeping.”
These are just a few of the more outlandish claims that Fox News personalities have made in defense of Trump. It is clear that Fox News is more interested in defending Trump than in providing fair and impartial coverage of his trial.
