After Donald Trump ridiculously claimed on Fox that insurance companies are the only beneficiaries of Obamacare, he went on to cover up his lie about President Barack Obama not having visited fallen soldiers - by saying, “Ask General Kelly” if Obama had called after Chief of Staff John Kelly’s son died in Afghanistan.
During his softball interview with Brian Kilmeade, Trump was given the opportunity to “clarify” his lie about Obama the day before. Yesterday, Trump had been asked during a press conference, “We haven’t we heard anything from you so far about the soldiers that were killed in Niger? And what do you have to say about that?”
Trump’s rambling answer sounded suspiciously like he had sloughed off the whole thing. He claimed he had written personal letters that had “been sent or they’re going out tonight but they were written during the weekend,” which was still more than a week after their deaths. Trump also claimed he “actually wrote letters individually to the soldiers we’re talking about” even though they are dead; it’s their families he should have written to. In addition, Trump said he prefers to call but he wants “a little time to pass,” when it had already been 12 days since their deaths.
That was bad enough. But then Trump disgracefully tried to deflect away from that by arguing that he was more respectful to Gold Star families (never mind Khizr Khan!) than Obama and previous presidents: “Most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate,” Trump said.
That attack on Obama was not just classless and unbefitting a president, it was a big, fat lie. Ditto for George W. Bush.
Unfortunately for Trump, his efforts to legitimize himself by smearing Obama and Bush backfired.
So, naturally, Kilmeade (also a cohost on Fox & Friends) knew it was his job to help Dear Leader out of the jam, not to make sure his listeners knew the truth:
KILMEADE: One of the questions was about writing the Green Berets soldiers and ends up being a bigger story. Can I ask you what you thought about when you brought up past presidents and what they’ve done? Do you want to clarify anything?
Still Trump could not respond with conduct becoming to his office:
TRUMP: Well, there’s nothing to clarify because if you look at my whole (ph) this was again fake news CNN. I mean, they’re just a bunch of fakers. So, they asked me that questions and for the most part to the best of my knowledge I think I’ve called every family of somebody that’s died and it’s the hardest call to make. And I said it very loud and clear yesterday. The hardest thing for me to do is do that. Now, as far as other representatives, I don’t know. I mean, you could ask General Kelly did he get a call from Obama. You could ask other people, I don’t know what Obama’s policy was. I write letters and I also call.
Now, sometimes if you had a tragic event with - it’s very difficult to be able to do that. But I have called, I believe everybody but certainly I’ll use the word virtually everybody where during the last nine months something’s happened to us all. I’ve called virtually everybody.
Caught in a lie, Trump was backtracking and putting the onus on Gold Star father Kelly to bail him out. Sad!
Almost as sad, was Kilmeade’s continued failure to challenge Trump on this despicable behavior. Or on his next lie:
TRUMP: I’m getting tremendous support even in your polls I’m getting tremendous support and it’s hard to believe I can get support when you have so many phony stories out there.
FACT CHECK: Fox News’ poll in August showed dismal approval ratings for Trump.
“But all I know is FOX is good. FOX, we love you, FOX,” Trump gushed. And why wouldn't he? He could probably shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and Fox would find a way to cheer him on.
Listen to this disgraceful excuse for news below, from Fox News Radio’s October 17, 2017 The Brian Kilmeade Show.
Originally published at Newshounds.us
