Fox News hosts Harris Faulkner and Jason Chaffetz were outraged on Tuesday after reporters dared ask House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to comment on former President Donald Trump’s dinner with Nick Fuentes, a notorious neo-Nazi, and Kanye West, an antisemitic rapper now known as Ye.
“This is why America hates the national media!” Chaffetz exclaimed at one point.
The indignation over the press grilling a Republican leader to address a growing scandal within his own party comes as Fox News has virtually ignored the controversy—even as some prominent Republicans have denounced Trump for the meet-up.
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Following his meeting with President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders at the White House on Tuesday, McCarthy was finally forced to break his days-long silence on the dinner at Mar-a-Lago. And while the GOP leader said there’s “no place” in the Republican Party for Fuentes, McCarthy gave Trump a pass.
“I think President Trump came out four times and condemned him and didn’t know who he was,” McCarthy asserted, prompting reporters to note in response that Trump has yet to actually condemn Fuentes.
“Well, I condemn his ideology, and it has no place in society. At all,” the Republican lawmaker added. “The president didn’t know who he was. He knew who Kanye West is, he said he didn’t know who Fuentes is.”
Fox News midday panel show Outnumbered had been carrying McCarthy’s press conference live. And so after the congressman wrapped up his remarks, Chaffetz immediately tore into the press corps for focusing any attention on the Fuentes controversy.
“This spending bill that is before Congress—only got one or two questions from the media about that. We don’t have spending in place. We have this rail strike,” he grumbled.
“You know what, I just got to say this, this is why America hates the national media. Three questions about Donald Trump meeting with Ye and whoever that white—you know,” Chaffetz added, dismissively referencing Fuentes.
“They want clicks,” an equally outraged Faulkner interjected.
“That is so irresponsible!” Chaffetz exclaimed. “Before they talked about the rail strike, before they talked about the border, before they did all this, they got to talk about Donald Trump. This is why we hate the national media!”
Prior to the press forcing McCarthy to address the fact that the ex-president dined with a white supremacist leader just days after announcing his 2024 presidential campaign, Fox News had largely gone radio silent on the story.
According to both Mediaite and liberal watchdog Media Matters, the network had only mentioned the ordeal three times on-air since Friday. The network’s top primetime stars—all of whom have served as informal advisers to Trump—have notably not touched the story at all.
While remarking how the network’s “quiet acquiescence points to a quandary” for Fox News, Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz wrote on Tuesday that the channel can’t overtly support the meeting as it would “threaten its relations with advertisers and cable carriers.” At the same time, Fox “has a Tucker Carlson problem” when it comes to criticizing Trump for it.
“Fox personalities condemning Trump for meeting with Ye would amount to a hairpin turn for the network,” Gertz stated. “They were touting Ye’s bravery just weeks ago after Ye talked up Trump in Carlson’s fawning interview with him.”
He added: “But as they lavished praise on the rapper, the network was keeping under wraps some of the anti-Jewish comments West made in the same discussion. When Ye started making similarly antisemitic remarks on social media, some at Fox criticized him – though not Carlson, who pretended that outburst hadn’t happened and continued to laud him.”
