President Donald Trump’s favorite morning cable program, Fox & Friends, is continuing its longstanding model of ignoring important reporting on potential legal troubles for the Trump administration. On June 1, the show chose not to cover a new report from Axios that the president “pressured Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reclaim control of the Russia investigation on at least four separate occasions.”
On May 31, Axios’ Jonathan Swan reported that in “multiple conversations” with the attorney general, Trump “pressured” Sessions “to reclaim control of the Russia investigation” into possible coordination between the country and the Trump campaign. According to Swan, “The sustained pressure made several officials uncomfortable, because they viewed it as improper and worry that it could be politically and legally problematic.” The New York Times had reported two days earlier about one of those conversations, and the piece noted that special counsel Robert Mueller regarded Sessions as “a key witness in the investigation into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry itself.”
Indeed, multiple political and legal analysts have suggested that such a request would be further evidence of the president attempting to obstruct justice.
But Trump’s favorite morning cable news program, Fox & Friends, has all but ignored the news. A Media Matters review found that on the morning of June 1, Fox & Friends did not mention Sessions or Trump’s multiple requests that he “unrecuse” himself from the investigation, which follows the show’s transparent and well-documented trend of all but ignoring negative reporting regarding the Trump administration.