In a speech before an audience at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Fox News’ Chris Wallace said that, as president, Donald Trump is “engaged in the most direct, sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history,” Mediaite reports. He said that Trump’s attacks “have done some damage.”
The Fox News anchor’s comments come after years of Trump’s relentless attacks on everyone not completely lying about his corruption and policies and racism and anti-Semitism and xenophobia and authoritarian behavior and abuses of power.
Wallace has made headlines outside of his normal right-wing fascistic propaganda sphere of late because he has had the gall to try and simply point out factual information in the face of dime-store science-fiction-level Republican propaganda. When you tell someone as ridiculous as Rep. Steve Scalise that he needs to stop straight-up lying about verifiable facts, you are bound to find yourself considered something of a rebel in conservative circles.
The exchange with Rep. Scalise got Wallace noticed by our white supremacist in chief, who subsequently tweeted out:
. [sic]
blew the nasty & obnoxious Chris Wallace (will never be his father, Mike!) away on Chris’s lowest rated (unless I’m on) morning show. This kind of dumb and unfair interview would never have happened in the
past. Great job Steve!
But Wallace has tried to play the part of the sane presence on Fox News for some time, and while he may not have completely drunk the Kool-Aid, these lines from his speech at the Newseum show a certain cynicism that is scary in any of our media personalities: “I think many of our colleagues see the president’s attacks, his constant bashing of the media as a rationale, as an excuse to cross the line themselves, to push back, and that is a big mistake.”
Wallace tries to quiet the crowd during 2016 presidential debate
What that line is exactly, Wallace wasn’t particularly clear about. He talked about headlines using terms like “bombshell” and “scandal” as symptoms of this crossing of the line. However, Wallace and his cohorts at Fox News have done more work than almost anyone on the planet in twisting and rationalizing the Republican administration and leadership’s abject corruption for the past 40 months.
Wallace finished by saying that presidents “come and go,” and that this means the press will endure, and that he is confident in that conviction. He’d better be, because fascists brook no dissent.