There’s another apparent crack in the Fox & Friends firewall.
After daring to criticize Donald Trump’s comments about the NFL last fall and calling the president’s military parade idea a “waste of money” last week, Brian Kilmeade seemed to break with the show’s biggest fan yet again on Monday.
During a conversation with White House Deputy Press Secretary J. Hogan Gidley, Kilmeade brought up a new report from Axios claiming that President Trump is defending his ex-aide Rob Porter against domestic violence charges in public, “even though, privately, he says he’s guilty.”
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“So the president is just as outraged as many Americans about the alleged domestic abuse, which looks pretty strong, the evidence, against Porter,” Kilmeade said, before asking, “Why won’t he say that publicly?”
Gidley said he doesn’t know if or when Trump was condemn Porter, but did assert that the president “has been very clear that all forms of abuse, all forms of battery against women, is deplorable and disgusting.”
Before the spokesperson could get out his full answer, Kilmeade interrupted him with: “But he hasn’t said that.”
Instead of making any sympathetic comments towards the women who say they were assaulted by Porter, Trump instead wished him well and stressed to reporters that Porter claims he’s “innocent.” It’s the same defense Trump gave of accused pedophile Roy Moore during his Senate run last year. Trump later seemed to suggest in a tweet that Porter has been “falsely accused.”
Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt ended the segment by urging Gidley to get together with his boss Sarah Huckabee Sanders and convince Trump to take the “opportunity” of the Porter case to “come out against domestic violence” in a forceful way. “I mean, those pictures are horrific,” she added of the black eye Porter allegedly gave his ex-wife.
“The president deplores—he thinks that domestic violence is grotesque. He’s said that on multiple occasions,” Gidley replied. “There’s no place for it in this country, there’s no place for it in the White House and the president won’t stand for it.”
If Trump “deplores” domestic abuse so much, then why does he keep publicly siding with men accused of it?
