I don’t want to let this story get lost in the noise of Democrats dive-bombing the USS Trump in their latest insane kamikaze attack.
Turns out the usual Republican suspects are still out there trying to destroy the president, too.
Most disturbing is the story that the weasel Paul Ryan is working overtime trying to crush Trump by turning Fox News against him. Mind you, conservatives can no longer count on Fox News for fair and balanced coverage (nor on the Drudge Report, but that is another story).
Gabe Sherman has written an expose at Vanity Fair about the efforts of Ryan and Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch to silence the Trump supporters at Fox. Of course, Sherman is all for it, and he’s just stirring the pot hoping to provoke internecine warfare at Fox.
Murdoch is ultimately to blame for the looming collapse of Fox News, having put the execrable Ryan on the board in the first place as a way to thumb his nose at Trump.
According to Sherman:
Among the powerful voices advising Lachlan that Fox should decisively break with the president is former House speaker Paul Ryan, who joined the Fox board in March. “Paul is embarrassed about Trump and now he has the power to do something about it,” an executive who’s spoken with Ryan told me.
Somebody had better do something about Fox News, but if they want to have a winning strategy, they better not follow the advice of world-class loser Ryan (or his weak-sister running mate Mitt Romney). The Fox News audience has no use for Ryan, Romney or any other RINOs.
Of course, it’s no secret that Fox News has engaged a number of liberals on its staff for years — people like Chris Wallace and Shepherd Smith — but they’ve been in the minority and were tolerated by viewers for the most part as a necessary burden to justify the “fair and balanced” motto.
But now cracks are starting to show in the uneasy truce between the vastly popular and very conservative nighttime hosts and the guttersnipes like Smith. Here is how Vanity Fair reported the internecine war that erupted this week.
Inside Fox News, tensions over Trump are becoming harder to contain as a long-running cold war between the network’s news and opinion sides turns hot. Fox has often taken a nothing-to-see-here approach to Trump scandals, but impeachment is a different animal. “It’s management bedlam,” a Fox staffer told me. “This massive thing happened, and no one knows how to cover it.” The schism was evident this week as a feud erupted between afternoon anchor Shepard Smith and prime-time host Tucker Carlson. It started Tuesday when Fox legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano told Smith on-air that Trump committed a “crime” by pressuring Ukraine’s president to get dirt on Biden. That night, Carlson brought on former Trump lawyer Joe diGenova, who called Napolitano a “fool” for claiming Trump broke the law. Yesterday, Smith lashed back, calling Carlson “repugnant” for not defending Napolitano on air. (Trump himself is said to turn off Fox at 3 p.m., when Shep Smith airs.) Seeking to quell the internecine strife before it carried into a third day, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace communicated to Smith this morning to stop attacking Carlson, a person briefed on the conversation said. “They said if he does it again, he’s off the air,” the source said. (Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti denied that management had any direct conversation with Smith).
Apparently no one had a talk with Carlson because that night he had DiGenova back on and they enjoyed a good laugh at the expense of Shep and the Judge. You can watch that here:
Bottom line: Stay out of the way, Paul Ryan. Fox News is bad enough without you trying to get rid of the conservative hosts we love.
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