Fox “news” anchor poses absurd Trump defenses in Buttigieg interview

Written by Eric Kleefeld

Published

One of Fox’s purported “news”-side anchors interviewed Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on the morning of the Iowa caucuses, making a few partisan and easily debunked claims in defense of President Donald Trump.

In a discussion over how Buttigieg is reaching out to rural areas, the candidate said farmers are being hurt by Trump’s trade war. But wait, Henry asked, what about Trump’s recent passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)?

From the January 3, 2020, edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom

ED HENRY (ANCHOR): What is your appeal to Trump voters, particularly in rural areas?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, it's that this is going to be a campaign that invites everybody in to be part of the solution. It's not saying we're going to agree on everything, but at a time when farmers are getting killed as a result of the trade war, consumers are feeling the impacts of that, the policies —

HENRY: Pardon me, are farmers being killed by the trade war, when the president just signed USMCA into law, and basically that's going to mean jobs for —

BUTTIGIEG: Let's say it's certainly helpful, the USMCA, especially after the Democrats insisted on some improvements. I think it's a good package. But the trade war never should have happened in the first place. Anyway, my point is when you see tax policies favoring corporations over the middle class, when you see refinery waivers at the expense of farmers here in the Midwest, there is an opportunity to talk to voters who maybe haven't really connected with the Democratic message in a long time.

Farm bankruptcies are, in fact, going up. And of course, Trump’s trade war is with China, which Trump’s much-hyped “Phase 1” trade deal has done very little to resolve, and tariffs are still in place. The USMCA is an update of the existing NAFTA framework with Mexico and Canada, and while it is indeed expected to provide a real (but small) net benefit to the economy, including for the agriculture sector, it does not resolve a completely different trade war.

Henry also replayed Trump’s reelection campaign ad from the Super Bowl featuring an African American woman, Alice Marie Johnson, who was freed from prison in 2018 after the president commuted her sentence. Henry cited the ad to ask how Buttigieg could accuse Trump and his supporters of racism:

From the January 3, 2020, edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom

ED HENRY (ANCHOR): How can you attack not just the president, but 63 million people in America who voted for him, when you have African American women like Alice Johnson saying, “This is a president who gave me a second chance?”

PETE BUTTIGIEG: You know, I think that President Trump's decision to sign the First Step Act when it came to his desk is one of the handful of things I could actually agree with him on. It doesn't change the incredibly cruel and divisive racial rhetoric that comes out of this White House. That is one of the many reasons that I'm meeting not only Democrats, but Republicans, who tell me that they struggle to look their children in the eye and explain to them how this is the president of the United States.

Of course, Trump has a long and well-documented history of racism, going back to housing discrimination in the 1970s, his campaign for the death penalty against the (later exonerated) Central Park Five in the 1980s, employment discrimination in the 1990s, a racially divisive TV pitch in the 2000s, and building his political following in the 2010s by championing the “birther” conspiracy theory against President Barack Obama — and that was all before he even ran for president.