Biden Battles a Beach Chair, More Cocaine Capers and Summer is Hot!
A condensed overview of 20 hours of Fox News for the week ending 7/16/23
A short clip of Biden briefly struggling with a low beach chair was played repeatedly on a loop on multiple Fox News programs last week. As I watched our 80-year-old president slowly lower himself into the chair that was just a few inches above the sand I could only think of one thing.
That would be difficult for anyone over the age of 25.
Knees get stiff rather early in life.
Fox News hosts used Biden’s unsteadiness as yet another sign of the elderly man’s cognitive and physical decline. Clips of Biden’s prior stumbles and falls would follow the beach chair clip as further proof that he is one missed step away from becoming a comatose invalid.
The story involving a small bag of cocaine found in a visitor area of the White House was dredged up again on every program making it the second biggest topic on the network last week. A viewer might think that the cocaine was an actual nuclear bomb the way Fox News hosts spoke of it.
But the biggest calamity Fox News conveniently ignored was the punishing heat that blanketed about one-third of the American population. The network didn’t just downplay the dangers of climate change it argued that it played no role in the extreme weather.
Shows I covered last week
Fox & Friends
The Five
Fox News Tonight
Hannity
Even the Dems Want to Replace Biden
Piers Morgan hosted the last week of “Fox News Tonight,” the placeholder in the 8:00 p.m. time slot vacated by “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
On Thursday, Morgan wasn’t exactly subtle.
“The president Biden is an old man. But how much time does he have left? This may sound an indelicate question, but the media is now openly speculating about the president's life expectancy. Is it a fair and valid question? Well possibly. He's running for reelection through 2028. But will he make it another six years?,” asked Morgan.
Brian Kilmeade also had the same sentiment on “Fox & Friends,” earlier in the day.
“If you see Joe Biden, the struggles he's had, the approval rating that's that has been around 40%, sometimes as low as 36%. You wonder, is he really going to run for reelection? Judging by the falls over the sandbags, the lack of interviews, the press conferences, the problems he's had with public addresses. But not only have we noticed it, Democrats seem to have noticed it, and they might be queuing up for a replacement. And in a dramatic move, as early as the fall, maybe even this summer,” said Kilmeade.
Kayleigh McEnany repeated the same theme on “The Five,” the next day.
“Well, it comes amid a new report on how the president's antics have got Democrats worried. Top donors are said to be quietly looking for a replacement candidate, bring in Newsom,” said McEnany.
Sean Hannity also piled on.
“The walls are now closing in on the Biden White House. The Atlantic is now calling for Joe to step aside. Biden was just slammed by The New York Times for being a deadbeat granddad. Also, USA Today. And here's fake news. CNN quote, The slow pace of Biden's reelection campaign feeds Democrats 2024 anxiety,” said Hannity.
This is not new for the network as it has promoted the idea that Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, Hillary Clinton and even Michelle Obama will be asked to replace Biden at the top of the ticket.
The Cast of The Five Didn’t Know There Aren’t Cameras in the West Wing
No one on the cast of “The Five,” bothered to do about five minutes of research on the location the small bag of cocaine was discovered in the White House.
On Thursday Greg Gutfeld started off the discussion.
“No video? No. If this had happened on January 6th, if they found a bag of cocaine on January six, there would have been like eight different angles of whoever had it. But for some reason, it's just down on the White House. Where are the cameras?” asked Gutfeld.
Dana Perino talked about her dog Percy.
“And they don't have any cameras. Yes, everyone has a ring camera. There's like three cameras on my dog right now. Just to make sure I know what he's doing at all times,” said Perino.
Judge Jeanine Pirro was incensed about the lack of video surveillance footage.
“And number two, why are the cameras not working? Where are the canines?” asked Pirro.
Harold Ford Jr. appeared to be more diplomatic towards the Secret Service.
“And if they've narrowed down to 500 people, there would have to be cameras to be able to help them. Even narrow that number down even further. . .And I would imagine if it's only been a week and a half or two and you've narrowed down a 500 people to all the points have been made. They ought to be able to find a camera that can help narrow it down, maybe even more to the president,” said Ford.
If the cast had watched “Hannity,” on Monday they would have seen Kayleigh McEnany say there are no cameras in the West Wing.
“So, I would say at this point, it would have to be a staff member if that reporting is true. There are no cameras inside the West Wing, so that makes it much more difficult. But sit down. Every staff member,” said McEnany.
On Thursday Piers Morgan invited on Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) to discuss the scandal as Moskowitz was one of many House members who had been briefed about the details of the investigation by the Secret Service.
“They surmised during this period of time there is no necessary camera footage of this area. There's reasons to that that I can't go into based on the location of this particular area,” said Moskowitz.
Moskowitz also explained at length how the Secret Service has protocols and other technology in place to detect a substance like ricin or anthrax but not a drug like cocaine.
The area the cocaine was found in was in a heavily trafficked area that hundreds of people had passed through over the course of the weekend. Since the Secret Service did not find any physical evidence that could tie the cocaine to a specific person they decided to close the case.
Fox News Invents an International Scandal
Fox News implied that President Joe Biden committed a grand faux pas when he did not attend the coronation of King Charles and his wife Queen Camilla in the U.K.
Monday morning on “Fox & Friends,” White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich was reporting from the U.K. about President Biden’s visit to the country.
“The president was just joking with the U.K. prime minister. They've only been meeting once a month or so because they've had so many frequent meetings in the last several months. But the president really made a point of stopping here to meet with the King after missing his coronation,” said Heinrich.
Steve Doocy interrupted her.
“You know, I know a lot of people in the United Kingdom, and he was over there for the coronation of King Charles the III, we’re steamed that our president didn't go, that it was like a snub. And that's when he called him up on the phone and said, hey, the new king did to the president. Why do you stop by for a state visit some time? So that's what this is all about, right? A makeover,” said Doocy.
What Doocy and Heinrich conveniently left out is that no American president in the history of the United States has every attended a coronation of any monarch in the U.K.
The fact that First Lady Jill Biden and her granddaughter attended the event was above and beyond what previous administrations have done in the past.
The last coronation for a British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, was in 1953. Even though then President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a close relationship with the Queen he chose to keep to tradition and sent an envoy to the coronation instead.
PBS Actually Reported on Climate Change
The extreme heat was the first story almost every single day last week on the NewsHour. I complied the opening lines to climate based stories for the week. Both co-hots Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz presented each story.
Monday
“From one end of the country to the other. Extreme weather is the top story tonight. Ferocious heat in the west and drowning rains in the east are making headlines. Both the heat and the heavy rains persisted today, and millions of Americans were left to cope and clean up.”
Tuesday
“And in New England, a storm for the ages has ravaged Vermont. There have been no deaths or injuries, but property damage could reach the tens of millions of dollars. And parts of the state capital are underwater . . .It was a storm that dumped nearly an entire summer's worth of rain in a matter of days.”
Wednesday
“The flooding that ravaged Vermont this week was receding today. And Montpelier is the capital cleanup crews plowed through sludge as cars struggled to maneuver on streets slick with mud. At a briefing, FEMA Chief Dan Criswell said it's evidence that climate change is at work and getting worse. . .Meantime, the National Weather Service issued a new round of heat alerts to more than 108 million Americans today. Forecasts called for the Southwest to break temperature records again.”
Thursday
“A wave of sizzling heat moved into central and southern California, with forecasts topping the 100 degree mark through the weekend. It adds millions more people to excessive heat warnings that have blanketed the Southwest for days.”
Friday
“Still no relief from the heat tonight. A swath of the country stretching from the west to the south has spent another day sweltering in extreme temperatures. Phoenix faced a 15th straight day of temperatures at 110 degrees or higher. Heat warnings have also taken effect in much of California. But a Death Valley National Park tourists have turned out to feel the burn. That is despite forecasts that readings could reach 130 degrees this weekend.”
Fox ALMOST SORTA KINDA Admitted the Weather wasn’t Normal
On Fox News the network did include brief stories about the extreme weather including some footage from the flooding in Vermont. The heat and excessive rain was simply presented as typical summer weather with one exception.
On Thursday on “Fox & Friends,” Ainsley Earhardt had a brief moment of rebellion.
“People in the southwest are under extreme heat warnings. Our senior meteorologist, Janice Dean, is here with our fox weather forecast. Is all this normal at this time of year, Janice?” asked Earhardt.
Janice Dean was quite frank.
“No, this is extreme when it comes to temperatures and the flooding that we are dealing with. Let's take a look at the maps and I'll show you where we are dealing with the potential for severe storms,” said Dean.
Fox Let Chris Christie Rip Into Donald J. Trump
I’ve noticed this trend for the past couple of weeks. Fox will invite former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on a program and Christie will spend most of his energy and focus criticizing Trump. None of the Fox hosts push back or challenge any of Christie’s opinions they just let him rip.
On Tuesday on “Fox News Tonight,” Piers Morgan largely sat passively as Christie absolutely destroyed the former president.
“I mean, let's just look at this as an example. What member of Donald Trump's senior staff or senior cabinet members would work for him again, not one of his secretaries of state, not one of his secretaries of defense, neither of his attorneys general, not any of his chiefs of staff, not any of his White House counsel. What does that tell you about what it's like to work for this man?” asked Christie.
Morgan briefly interjected and Christie just plowed ahead.
“I got offered. I got offered. Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Homeland Security, White House chief of staff. And I turned them all down.
Morgan interrupted again.
“But you did. You did support him? Yes, I did. Until you say January the sixth,” said Morgan.
Christie continued.
“No, not January 6th. Let me be very clear. People get this wrong. Election night 2020, when he stood up in the East Room of the White House behind the seal of the president and said the election was stolen when not even all the votes have been counted. He had no evidence, and to this day he has no evidence that the election was stolen. That's when I abandoned him.
And by the way, he abandoned me and others like me who supported him. I was the first one on board in 2016. I chaired his opioid commission. I chaired his transition. I prepped for the debates in 2016 and 2020. I did everything I could to support Donald Trump and make him the best president he could be.
But he disappointed me, and he let me down. He didn't repeal and replace Obamacare with a Republican Congress when he said he would. He added 6 trillion to the national debt. He didn't build the wall in Mexico. He built 47 miles of wall. And guess what? We paid for every nickel of it. We never got the first peso from Mexico.
And so when you look at the ways that he failed us, not even talking about his personal conduct as a as a president, how he failed us, he abandoned me . . . you know, Republican voters deserve more than anything else. Two things. They deserve the truth, which they don't get from Donald Trump. And they deserve results on the issues they care about, like immigration and the national debt and educational freedom. And by the way, on educational freedom, he didn't do one thing to make it easier. So what does you say? What do you say about,” said Christie.
Steve Doocy Goes Rogue
On Tuesday, on “Fox & Friends,” Steve Doocy seemingly went off script when he questioned the validity of Gal Luft, a whistleblower who claims to have incriminating evidence against President Biden and his son Hunter.
“The problem with that particular guy that you mentioned, Brian, the Gal Luft, was indicted yesterday on 36 charges. He faces 100 years in prison. He's on the lam. He's the guy James Comer said was their secret informant who had all the goods on the Biden family. And we're going to talk more extensively about him in about 45 minutes at the top of the next hour,” said Doocy.
Brian Kilmeade interrupted.
“But do you think that's unrelated, the fact that all these charges on him, 36, is not very similar to Donald Trump?” asked Kilmeade.
Then Ainsley Earhardt also jumped in.
“He said it’s not true. He said the reason they're charging him with all of this is because he went to the FBI and he told them all these secrets about the Biden family that he knew and an exchange, the very same agency, the DOJ, the big umbrella that went after him,” said Earnhardt.
To quote the U.S. Attorney Damian Williams involved with Luft’s case,
“As alleged, Gal Luft, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen and co-head of a Maryland think tank, engaged in multiple, serious criminal schemes. He subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking U.S. Government official; he acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement. As the charges unsealed today reflect, our Office will continue to work vigorously with our law enforcement partners to detect and hold accountable those who surreptitiously attempt to perpetrate malign foreign influence campaigns here in the United States.”
Luft’s case goes back to 2016 when he failed to register as a foreign agent while acting to advance Chinese interests in the U.S. He is also accused of helping Chinese companies sell weapons to Libya, and he allegedly attempted to sell weapons to United Arab Emirates and drones to Kenya.
Federal officials say he attempted to bypass U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil by telling an associate to falsely say the oil was from Brazil.
Luft was arrested in Libya back in February and fled after being released on bail pending extradition.
Also, on Thursday Doocy openly disagreed with Lucas Tomlinson, a Fox correspondent, about the House investigation into the FBI.
“Right. Look, is the reason the FBI director is, as I listen to ours, is the reason he couldn't answer a lot of the questions, like what Matt Gaetz was asking was because there's a long-standing FBI policy and Department of Justice policy not to comment comment on ongoing investigations. And what he was asking about is ongoing,” said Doocy.
“They love to fall back on that,” said Tomlinson.
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare the hours I watch on Fox News with five hours of the PBS NewsHour. The following list are stories PBS covered that Fox News did not.
According to the Kremlin, five days after its short-lived rebellion, The Wagner Group commander’s pledged loyalty to the Russian government in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
James Lewis the sole suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed seven people in the Chicago area died at the age of 76 in his home in a Boston suburb. Lewis did serve 12 years for attempting to extort Johnson & Johnson to ‘stop the killings.’ Authorities could never get enough evidence to link him to the murderers themselves.
An Oklahoma judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by three survivors seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. During the racist attack hundreds of Black people were murdered and thousands were left homeless as an angry white mob burned and looted a 35-block area then known as Black Wall Street.
PBS produced a segment about what the recent SCOTUS decision on affirmative action in higher education might mean for the medical community. Currently only 5.7% of doctors in the United States are Black and 7% are Latino.
Violence in the occupied West Bank continues to escalate. PBS produced two segments, one from the perspective of Palestinians living in the area and the other from the point of view of Israelis. Both segments focused on people living in the West Bank not government officials. The network also included a short segment about Israelis and Palestinians living in parts of Israel that are integrated and how the violence in the West Bank is bleeding over to more peaceful areas.
Israelis continued mass protests against proposed changes to the judiciary by the far-right government. Netanyahu and his cabinet want to limit the power of the Supreme Court, critics say it would weaken democracy in the country.
Prosecutors in Georgia indicated that they would announce indictments for Trump and his co-conspirators regarding their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in their state. Indictments are expected in the first half of August.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers have petitioned the federal court in Miami that no date should be set until all “substantive motions” in the case involving the mishandling of classified documents were resolved. If granted it could push the trial until after the 2024 presidential election.
Air Force General Charles Brown said that Senator Tuberville’s (R-AL) protest that is holding up military promotions is hurting the military.
Senator Tuberville (R-AL) conceded that white nationalists were racist after saying it was a matter of “opinion” whether white nationalists are racist in an interview with CNN.
Hackers may have stolen sensitive information from HCA Healthcare for 11 million people in 20 states. Samples of the data were found on spaces where cybercriminals sell information.
PBS produced a segment about the increased popularity of non-alcoholic beer, wine and cocktails.
Bank of America has been ordered to pay $100 million to customers and $90 million in penalties and $60 million fine has been ordered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for creating new accounts without customer’s consent and charging double for bank overdraft fees.
Northwestern football coach Patrick Fitzgerald was fired over a scandal involving hazing of players. The hazing involved "coerced sexual acts" and physical punishment.
Inflation dropped sharply to 3%, the lowest rate in two years. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates the next time they meet in two weeks as the core inflation rate remains high at 4.8%.
The European Union passed a major climate bill to restore natural habitats. The bill would require countries to restore 20% of nature areas within their borders on land and at sea.
State-backed Chinese hackers hacked into Microsoft cloud-based security and penetrated U.S. government agencies that deal with China ahead of Secretary of State Blinken’s visit to the country. Blinken warned the Chinese diplomats that the hackers will be held responsible.
North Korea fired an ICBM missile that landed in the Sea of Japan as part of a test.
PBS produced a segment that featured stunning images from the James Webb telescope.
Newly passed legislation bans abortion after six weeks in Iowa. Abortion had been legal in the state up to 20 weeks.
More than 100 people have died during record monsoon rains that led to massive flooding in parts of northern India this week. It’s the worst flooding the area has seen in 40 years.
A mass grave containing the bodies of 87 people was discovered in West Darfur. The United Nations human rights office had credible information that the Rapid Support Forces were responsible.
A federal jury found that the gunman responsible for the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh is eligible for the death penalty.
Trusses raised the roof on the fire damaged Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The building is expected to re-open in December 2024.
Milan Kundera, a Czech novelist and former dissident died at the age of 94. He is best known for his novel,`The Unbearable Lightness of Being.’’
Russia banned all gender affirming care for trans people, dissolved marriages of transgender people, placed a ban on changing gender markers in official documents, and prevented trans people from adopting or taking guardianship over children.
PBS produced a segment about the 50th anniversary of the Watergate scandal. One of the Watergate prosecutors, Jill Wine-Banks compared Trump’s many legal problems with Nixon’s and called out Fox News for spreading lies and disinformation.
India launched an unmanned rocket to land a spacecraft on the moon.
The Biden administration canceled $39 million worth of student debt for 80,000 borrowers. It is intended to fix mistakes made by loan services in the income driven payment plans.
An appeals court overturned the judge who blocked the U.S. government from contacting social media companies. The final decision will be decided based on a lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general.
Years before Roe v. Wade was overturned researchers found a link between abortion access and violence towards women. As women lose access to reproductive care they are more likely to be a victim of violence from men. Organizations that help abused women have seen increases in violence in parts of the country where access to abortion has been eliminated or limited.
PBS produced a segment about how wind energy farms are hotly contested in some rural areas.
Marketa Vondrousova of Czech Republic became the 1st unseeded woman to win Wimbledon.
U.K. Junior doctors staged a 96 hour walkout over better wages.
PBS produced a segment about a program that uses discarded oyster shells to build artificial reefs to save coastland in Louisiana.
By the Numbers
Coming up…
This week I’ll be back to one primetime show as “Fox News Tonight” is no longer in the line up. I’ll be covering “Fox & Friends,” “The Five,” and “Jesse Watters Primetime.” I will also cover Trump’s town hall on Hannity on Tuesday.