Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace have never been President Donald Trump’s biggest fans at Fox News, but rarely have this seemed as fed up as they did Friday.
“I have to say, it’s kind of been a 1-2-3 punch for Donald Trump this week,” Wallace said on on the network Friday afternoon. “First you had the Bob Woodward book, and as if that weren’t bad enough you had the anonymous op-ed piece in The New York Times. And now you have Barack Obama getting off the political sidelines and back into the arena, taking some powerful shots, unusually powerful shots for a former president against the current president.”
“If Donald Trump thinks he’s under fire, it’s because he is,” Wallace added.
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After playing a clip in which Obama called out Trump for trying to use the Justice Department to punish opponents and protect allies, Smith said the former president is “right.” Wallace then said he found Trump’s tweet castigating Attorney General Jeff Sessions for allowing the prosecution of sitting Republican congressmen “disturbing.”
Now, Trump is floating the possibility of prosecuting the author of the critical New York Times op-ed. “I’d like someone to point out what the violation of federal law is here,” Wallace said. “Clearly, it’s embarrassing to the president, it’s disturbing to the president. You can argue it’s anti-democratic, but I’m not sure that writing that essay was illegal.”
Smith quickly agreed, saying that the op-ed like this one is “protected under the First Amendment.” So “unless they can come up with something else,” he or she should have nothing to worry about.
