A Fox News segment on Tuesday went off the rails when a contributor suggested that President Trump is actually complimenting women when he publicly calls them “dogs.”
The discussion on America’s Newsroom originally focused on how Monday evening’s MTV Video Music Awards took aim at Trump, but quickly pivoted when Fox News liberal commentator Marie Harf argued that the show proves how “young voters are fired up like we haven’t seen them, over guns, over immigration.”
She continued: “And look, Donald Trump says incredibly offensive things. Suddenly we want standards for everybody else but not the president, who calls women dogs.”
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Fox News contributor and Washington Times opinion editor Charlie Hurt quickly came to the president's defense, however, saying Trump’s infamous comparison of former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman to a dog was actually a friendly gesture.
“He called her a dog as a compliment,” Hurt said before seemingly suggesting that it was similar to referring to a friend as “my dog.”
Fox anchor Eric Shawn immediately shut down Hurt, who, while swiveling in his chair, let out a self-satisfied laugh as the panel derailed.
“That’s not a compliment, Charlie,” Shawn said. “That’s not a compliment.”
Last week, President Trump praised his chief of staff John Kelly for firing “that dog” Omarosa after the former aide began releasing audio of secretly recorded conversations in the White House Situation Room.
It was far from the first time Trump referred to a woman as a dog. In the past, the president called Arianna Huffington a “dog who wrongfully comments on me,” and referred to actress Kristen Stewart as having “cheated on [Robert Pattinson] like a dog.”
