President Obama took a not-so-thinly-veiled shot at Donald Trump yesterday, during a press conference at the “Three Amigos” summit in Canada. So, of course, Fox News hit back with “analysis” from an extremist Trump buddy and with some help from host Trish Regan.
During the press conference, it was revealed that Obama, President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed a Clean Energy and Environment Partnership, trade, drugs, human trafficking, Venezuela and more. But Regan only focused on these remarks by Obama, in which he criticized the notion that Trump is a populist:
OBAMA: Somebody else who has never shown any regard for workers, has never fought on behalf of social justice issues or making sure that poor kids are getting a decent shot at life or have healthcare — in fact, have worked against economic opportunity for workers and ordinary people, they don’t suddenly become a populist because they say something controversial in order to win votes.
That’s not the measure of populism. That’s nativism or xenophobia or worse. Or it’s just cynicism. So, I would just advise everybody to be careful about suddenly attributing to whoever pops up at a time of economic anxiety the label that they’re populist.
Regan merely introduced guest Sebastian Gorka as the author of a book about jihad, which she misnamed. Here’s what she didn’t tell the “we report, you decide” network’s viewers: Gorka has worked as a paid advisor to Trump and has a history of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, including complaining about “Islamists” in the “innermost circles of America’s national security institutions.”
Instead, Regan painted Gorka as a voice of practicality and common sense as a counter to President Obama’s supposed coziness with Muslims.
REGAN: Americans are scared. Yet, the president, as we just heard, still labels this as xenophobia when people are talking about profiling Muslims in this country. You’re shaking your head. No, you don’t see it as xenophobia, it’s more just a reality, unfortunately, that we need to face right now.
Gorka jumped at the bait.
GORKA: I’m shaking my head, Trish, because I don’t know how you’re doing your job right now. I’m still trying to recover from that absolute mindless rambling at the end of the president’s presentation there. What was he talking about? He was wittering on about what is populism, what isn’t populism, “Look it up in the dictionary, sorry for this rant, I’m at the end of my term.” I got whiplash from that.
Regan prodded Gorka to specifically defend Trump.
REGAN: I think that he [Obama] takes it quite personally, Dr. Gorka, that Donald Trump has been as successful as he is. He sees it really as an affront to everything he stands for and he has worked for, and we see that come up over and over again. He takes these opportunities to really start to dig in and try and emphasize what he dislikes about Trump, but one of the reasons, perhaps, and I’d like your perspective on this: Donald Trump has seen the success he has is because Americans really feel underserved by this president.
GORKA: Yeah, can I suggest another definition for the president, of “populism?” Democracy. Where the majority of the people are fed up with political correctness and fed up with a commander-in-chief who divides the nation… The Trump phenomena is a direct response to his divisive presidency.
Fact check: As Ellen wrote in a post for Liberal America, President Obama is currently the most positively-viewed recent second-term president and that includes St. Ronald Reagan. In recent polls, Obama’s approval rating just jumped up to 56%. His favorability was 53%. Real Clear Politics’ average has Trump’s favorability at 33.4%.
Regan didn’t mention any of that, of course.
Watch her bias above, from the June 29 Your World.
News Hound Ellen also contributed to this post.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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