On Wednesday night, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared within the friendly confines of Fox News for a pre-taped town hall with fellow conservative Sean Hannity. The question and answer session with Hannity, whose close relationship with Trump involves reported late-night advisory phone calls and texts, led to several cringe-inducing movements.
Asked about the mass shooting on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Georgia that led to four deaths (including two children) and multiple injuries, Trump instead talked about the support he has received from Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán.
“It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons, we’re going to heal our world, we’re going to get rid of all these wars that are starting all over the place because of incompetent American leadership,” Trump said.
“And we’re going to make it better, you know, Viktor Orban made a statement, he said, ‘bring Trump back and we won’t have any problems.’ He was very strong about that.”
In her first public response to the shooting at a campaign rally in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris expressed sympathy for the victims and said, “It does not have to be this way.”
At another moment during the Fox broadcast, Hannity attempted to get Trump to attack Gov. Tim Walz over policies like immigration and providing free college. But Trump quickly went off track and argued that Walz’s brother had endorsed Trump.
That isn’t true. While Jeff Walz, the governor’s older brother, is a conservative who is being courted by the Trump campaign for his support, he has not formally backed Trump.
Trump also alleged that Walz’s “whole family endorsed me,” but the purported evidence of this is a photo of distant Walz relatives who support Trump. Walz’s sister, Sandy Dietrich, told the Associated Press, “We weren’t close with them. We didn’t know them,” and reaffirmed her support for her brother’s candidacy.
As Hannity tried to keep Trump on track to bash the Democratic ticket, he again veered off and complained about how Walz calls him “weird.”
“There’s something weird with that guy, he’s a weird guy. JD [Vance] is not weird, he’s a solid rock,” Trump said.
“We’re not weird. We’re other things, perhaps, but we’re not weird. But he is a weird guy.”
Despite Trump’s support of his running mate, recent polling has shown that Walz has an edge with the public. A Suffolk University poll released on Thursday showed that 48% of likely voters have a positive impression of Walz. Only 37% of voters expressed similar sentiment for Vance.
Trump, famous for conspiracy theories like the racist birther attack against former President Barack Obama and falsely describing climate change as a Chinese “hoax,” used the town hall to promote a new theory. Ahead of the scheduled presidential debate on Sept. 10 on ABC, Trump said Harris would be provided the questions in advance.
“Her husband’s best friend is married to the head of the network, and they’re going to get the questions I’ve already heard. They’re going to get the questions in advance,” Trump claimed. As has often been the case during his time in the public arena, Trump offered no evidence of his conspiracy.
This could be a tricky situation, as Trump conspiracies have not fared well in the past for Fox News. In 2023, the network paid out a settlement of $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems after airing multiple segments amplifying Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. It was not, and he handily lost the race against President Joe Biden.
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