Fox And Friends Has Fallen!
Things have to be bad when they actually start to speak the truth to the President
Today is the day that Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs go into effect. The market has had a few dead cat bounces but remains significantly lower than a week ago, when Trump initially announced the tariffs. The dollar remains considerably lower, too. Interest rates on bonds are rising. Walmart and Delta, among other major businesses, are announcing that they must revise all their future projects because of the tariffs.
Perhaps most importantly, Fox News has finally begun to talk about the potentially negative impacts of the tariffs on one of the President’s favorite shows: Fox and Friends.
Here’s the full quote:
“We think that China is gonna have to pay for it. A special needs toy importer– when the tariff went into effect, his tariff bill went from $26,000 at midnight to $346,000. And that’s money that’s got to have to come out of his pocket… They think foreign countries have to pay the tariff, that’s not true. Tariffs are being paid by Americans.”
I’m not sure who they think the “we” who think other countries will pay for the tariffs are.
Oh wait:
That clip is from a Republican Party dinner last night.
Fox and Friends’ reality check represents a significant shift for Fox in terms of content. Until now, all of the significant Fox editorial content (Watters, Hannity, Ingraham) has been more or less all in on supporting the tariffs.
Chances are that President Trump watched the segment. The only question is whether or not he is listening. This gets us to a larger issue about President Trump’s media consumption habits:
Not to be a dick about it, but this sounds a lot like the comment section when Connor/Fortune says something not completely insane for once.
I admire your optimism, but come on.
Next week: “Biden is old.”
@drj:
To be clear, this isn’t a firey denouncement. But in an ecosystem where Trump can never fail, only be failed, it’s a huge step in the right direction. I, for one, will take that.
Also, FWIW, Fortune’s at least willing to go on record as being “worried” about the tariffs.
Jack/Connor/Drew/Garualdi/Whatever and JKB are so constitutionally unable to deal with the cognitive dissonance of admitting being wrong that they’ve wisely chosen to stop commenting for the time being. I’m not complaining about that.
@Matt Bernius:
I hear what drj is saying, but you also have a point. As folks in President Trumpland start talking to each other and stories like the small business owner now being screwed start to spring up in abundance like a spring flower super bloom folks in Congress may start to worry about their re-election chances and that might lead to action to reduce some of the insanity that our President has gleefully introduced into the world, or maybe not.
I say maybe not because my boss, who I like and is actually an incredible boss (best boss my team at work has had in over 5 years I have been working there), said that what President Trump actually did was wreck everyone else’s economy and our stock market is not down that much, so we still have all the power in the world.
Spoken by someone who can afford to buy on the dip, but I am down over 50K(!) from where my brokerage account was not even 2 months back (nearly 2 years of steady gains in my account completely wiped out, account is lower than it was in July 2023), but this is why you generally stay away from talking politics at work. I also think that it has not sunk in with my boss that for quite some time there a period where Europe and Asia functioned just fine without having to take their marching orders from the United States, and once folks realize that Europe can get along without having to be Trump’s lapdog, that may sober some folks up and turn them against the actions of this current administration.
Connor will come back when there is a stock market rally to say see, told you snowflakes Trump is the best thing to happen to America since sliced wonder bread, completely not caring it will take a sustained rally over the course of months to claw back the loses me and many others have experienced. A sustained rally will be hard to keep going with a President that to this very second only cares about getting revenge on his “enemies,” and can care less about listening to gentler voices about how to govern over the course of the next four years.
President Trump’s only desire to listen to folks like Gingrich, Navarro, and Kennedy means we are in for a rough four years (and I do mean “We,” as plenty of MAGA folks are going to see their life get a lot harder than it needs to be, it is not just liberals that suffer).
@drj:
@Matt Bernius:
It’s well known that saying the names of demons summons them.
BTW 😉
Looks like FOX took a hit in the murdoch.
This is all soooooo disturbing. The brainwashing, and Kilmeade looks like he’s just learning about all of this on-air in real time.
Trump has surrounded himself with people who don’t dare bring up reality to him and we are all paying for it. Thanks, Trump voters.
They just need to regroup. Go read Zero Hedge. Its painful. Its writers who try to come of as tough guy, manly men (probably someone eating Doritos in front of his computer) ranting about what’s wrong with he rest of the world. However, even at Zero Hedge they have noted the effects on markets, and now the bond market, have not been good. So their response is to call it hysteria and most importantly to call Trump fearless. Yup, Trump is fearless. He wont let the actual results of his ideas sway what he believes or does. Nevermind that the basis for his ideas is weak. Those supporting the ideas are considered crackpots.
If I did something stupid like this and refused to change my mind the wife would call me a stupid A&&hole. Hah! From now on I am going to tell her I am fearless.
Steve
I’ve been criticizing tariffs since before the election.
Trump is telling everyone to not panic, which proves he’s been hearing complaints. I’ve never seen presidential advisors go at it like Navarro and Musk.
@Fortune:
Definitely not in our lifetime–I’ve been trying to think of historical examples that come close. Maybe Lincoln’s cabinet?
Let this sink in for a moment.
No, you did not read the tweet incorrectly.
Did this person admit the basic math error when it was pointed out?
You know the answer.
@Kurtz:
When adamantly defending the proposition that 2+2=5 is a condition of employment, minor errors of a few hundred percent are negligible.
@Fortune:
Thanks again for responding. Out of a desire to find some shared understanding, I offer a consideration and a question.
Consideration:
For me, the way you interpret what you write seems out of sync with the way I (and I think others) interpret what you write. Allow me to present an example from a recent post on the tariffs. Here was our exchange over three comments:
You might have intended your first post to signal you are critical of the tariffs. As an outside observer, it doesn’t really read that way–hence my initial comment.
I’m pretty sure you intended the final comment to be critical. I guess it is critical, but in a pretty passive way. Expressing that you are worried about something isn’t the same as saying you affirmatively think something is bad or destructive.
In my experience, in text based mediums, it’s helpful to be really clear about what you are saying because it’s so easy to miss important meaning or cues.
That gets me to the question:
Are you being sarcastic in writing this? I honestly cannot tell. If you are, I agree with the sarcasm.
If you are not being sarcastic, I think this is a prime example of why people think you defend Trump as this is an incredibly generous reading of Trump’s responses to criticism of the tariffs.
Taken seriously such an incredibly narrow reading of “hearing” as “being aware of” that it really empties hearing (in my case I was thinking about it in terms of active listening–and, to eat my own dog food, perhaps I should have made that more clear in the OP) of any real meaning. This is especially the case when you look at how he’s communicating “calm down” through negging:
To me hearing/listening means taking what others are saying seriously and addressing their points, NOT just insulting them and repeating the same false information.
Beyond that, I think–as someone who pays attention to politics–your statement, again, if it was serious, provides Trump with a level of deference that based on past behavior, he doesn’t deserve to have extended to him. Let me know if that doesn’t make sense (note: I’m not expecting you to necessarily agree with any of this, but I am curious if you at least see the perspective I’m arguing).
Beyond all that, great point about Navaro and Musk! There was infighting during Trump I, but it usually only got close to this level when one of the individuals was fired from the White House.
What
dogsTrump hears.@Matt Bernius: In the example you gave, the first thing you should understand is I don’t care what Outside the Beltway commenters think of my opinions. I’ve made obvious, non-political observations and gotten negative replies. It’s obvious if I say the sky is blue, it’ll move some people to argue it’s green, or just that I’m anti-gay. I saw someone object to my right-wing news sources after I posted links to Psychology Today and The Guardian.
I don’t remember the article I posted under, but I was doing a public service letting people know the right was critiquing Trump’s tariffs negatively or at best forgivingly, but not positively. I know I’ve personally objected to tariffs before on this site.
My comment “Trump is telling everyone to not panic, which proves he’s been hearing complaints” was in reply to the sentiment expressed by Arieh Kovler. Every president, no matter his party, is insulated from bad news. Biden is old, and his advisors didn’t let him know how badly he was doing in the polls. If Trump is saying “stop panicking”, he’s arguably more aware of public dissatisfaction than most presidents. If you read “A therefore B” as sarcastic, it’s not my fault.
What level of awareness compels him to say
?
@Fortune:
First, thanks for adding those few sentences and unpacking your thinking. I wish you had taken the time to do that right from the start as it would have increased your reader’s ability to understand the point you were making.
As far as the larger thrust of your comment, I get that you don’t care if people understand you or not.
All I will say is that for me, reaching common understanding is important (hence this conversation). I’m of the mind that if multiple people cannot seem to understand the point I’m trying to get across, then the problem might be with my communication style (at least in that context) versus their reading comprehension style.
If memory serves, it took us until after the election to determine that you disagreed with the tariff policy. I was just checking some archival posts on tariffs I wrote (and others that James and Steven wrote) from before the election and you never commented on any of them. Again, I’m not saying you needed to–just trying to help provide context for why people might not understand your positions.
@Matt Bernius:
Scratch the surface of any Trump apologist and you’ll find a pathetic coward. Love when the trash takes itself out.
People don’t understand the ravings of a schizophrenic for similar reasons. Garbage in, garbage out.
@DK:
Dial it back there DK. Like a lot, because that’s an utterly unfair attack.
Fortune may be many things, but he isn’t mentally ill (and let’s take the stigmatization down a bit too). Nor are his posts “garbage”… like at all.
I just think, like a lot of us (including myself), he (?) thinks he is communicating a bit more clearly or transparently than he actually is. I can apply that to any number of other commenters here–it’s just that since he typically is taking a different/counter position, he tends to get a lot more engagement and push back.
I have a simple question: Why would someone who doesn’t care whether other commenters understand his comments bother to make them in the first place? I mean, other commenters are the only ones reading them. There’s nobody else, is there?
@Jay L Gischer: I don’t care what you think of my opinions. I’m trying to inform you of facts, or at least show you how people outside your bubble are thinking.
@steve:
Bwa haha hahahaha hahahahahaha.
The snark is strong in you, young Padawan.
ETA, let us know how sleeping on the back patio works for you after that answer.
@Fortune:
Then why bother posting your opinions? I wouldn’t waste my time posting an opinion on a site that I didn’t care about. I find it odd that you complain about people misrepresenting your opinions yet you refuse to make minor adjustments to make your opinions clearer.
Opinions are not facts.
@Matt Bernius:
I haven’t yet dialed it up.
This clown has repeatedly shown himself to be an apologist for Trump, a dangerous white supremacist. That is 100% garbage. His Trump apologetics are garbage af. I could say much worse about the fake “anti-Trump” enablers who’ve spent the past decade as a stalking horse for American fascism.
He and others like him are just like Trump: dishonest, manipulative, and fraudulent. That’s why they get push back. Not because they’re being misunderstood, picked on, or treated unfairly. No, they’re not super special victims. Nor are they contrarion martyrs for ideological diversity, like they pretend to be when whining about how they’re being victimized by the mean ole lefty bubble.
They’re just unethical and full of crap. And always sitting in a wagon, circled by liberals protecting them from being told, “You’re full of crap.”
Signed,
Someone with a master’s in clinical psychology.
P.S. Contrary to the misguided belief of well-meaning, bleeding heart liberals-of-a-certain-demographic, you are never going to change the MAGA at your Thanksgiving and Christmas tables via coddling, performative maternalism, and get-out-jail-free cards. Maladaptive behaviors have to be clearly identified and confronted, not validated with obsequious graciousness.
@Matt:
Occam’s razor: manipulative, full of it, not mentally capable — or some combination.