It’s the next chapter in Fox & Friends’ War on Reading.
The Fox News morning crew was having a field day with headlines from some of first fan President Trump’s “enemies” in the press about Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of what turns out to be a 300-page Russia investigation report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“You never heard of summarizing?” a put-upon Brian Kilmeade said.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The headlines are so negative on a positive story for the president,” Kilmeade said over a screenshot of several less-than-20-word headlines from The New York Times, HuffPost and NBC News. “They can’t handle it.”
Co-host Ainsley Earhardt quickly chimed in to back her couch mate. “And Brian, like you said, the summary thing, everyone is probably thankful they don’t have to read the 300 pages,” she said. “We all will, probably, but you at home, you’re probably not going to sit down and read 300 pages, you want the summary.”
Kilmeade then provided what he thought might be the perfect analogy for why reading a summary is better than reading the full 300-page report about an investigation into whether the president of the United States colluded with a foreign state.
“I have a confession,” Kilmeade said. “I never ready the Odyssey. I only read the Monarch notes. I still got a very good, uh, I still got a very good grade.”
At that point, top Friend Steve Doocy offered a word of warning. “I wouldn’t say that on TV, your teacher could be watching.”
Kilmeade, looking a little uncomfortable, then quipped, “We’re not live are we?”
The Fox News crew recently mocked Democratic 2020 candidate Beto O’Rourke for the amount of books shown in a video announcing his run, with Kilmeade scoffing “As if it’s a big plus that he reads books.”
Unlike his seven predecessors who received thick binders of reading material, the most famous fan of the morning show has been reported by The Washington Post to have had his daily intelligence briefings slimmed down to “photos, videos and graphics” or delivered orally to cater to his “style of learning.”
Back on the couch, the hosts scrutinized the length of previous special counsel investigations that were released in full to the public.
“By the way, the Ken Starr report was 445 and it went out there and the Democrats said, ‘My goodness, we can’t do this again, it’s so salacious, it’s on the permanent record and a lot of stuff we still can’t explain to children,’” Kilmeade said.
He then listed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack inquiry at 567 pages and the Watergate report at 60 pages.
“So 300 is pretty much the sweet spot,” he said. “There’s still going to be some things negative on the president, we know about some ill-timed meetings, we know all about it.”
