On January 6, Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt defended a 2011 sermon from Senator-elect Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), in which he had said that “nobody can serve God and the military.” Responding to her co-host Brian Kilmeade’s claim that “I didn’t like what he said in his sermons” -- a likely reference to that one old sermon which dominated right-wing media leading up to the elections -- Earhardt said that “if you’re a churchgoer, you knew what he meant by that, which was you can’t serve two masters, as the Bible says.”
This admission from the proudly Christian Earhardt -- which came only after Warnock won the election -- is an enormous contrast to the weeks of these misleading attacks she silently allowed on her show.
Fox’s dishonest attacks on Warnock’s faith were part of a broader right-wing media strategy to tear down Warnock’s runoff campaign with misleading, racist nonsense, and with Earhardt’s tacit approval, Fox & Friends played a key role in pushing the lies.
On November 23, Earhardt said nothing when co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed that “Raphael Warnock’s anti-military stance is really not resonating well” with Georgians.
On December 2, Earhardt was silent again when Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) repeated the lie that Warnock attacked the military. Instead, she thanked him for coming on the show.
On December 4, Kilmeade again claimed that “this Raphael Warnock says basically you can’t worship God and the military,” and again Earhardt sat idly by.
On December 7, Earhardt allowed regular Fox & Friends guest Newt Gingrich to complain about Warnock’s “position … against the military,” among other outrageous claims.
And on December 18, in a panel interview with Texas GOP chair Allen West, Earhardt appeared to have no problem with Kilmeade bringing up the false attack, and West replying that his parents “would have never supported a pastor like Rev. Raphael Warnock” because he said you can’t serve God and the military. Instead of refuting false attacks that relied on a distortion of the Bible she holds dear, Earhardt wished West a merry Christmas.
Only now that the election is over has Earhardt found the interest to speak up against partisan attacks that she thought were dishonest all along because earlier, those dishonest attacks were supposed to help Republicans keep control of the Senate -- even though, as Steve Doocy claimed, backlash to those attacks may have actually helped Warnock win.
