In her first interview as a Fox News contributor, McEnany complained about the criticisms leveled at her. “It was very personal and that’s why when people want to slander your character and say that you lied and those horrible things… accusations that they make against the people behind the podium – me – they have made those accusations. We have carefully noted our sources, discussed what is important, what message do we want to share today, ”she told Faulkner in the interview.
For someone bristling at being called a liar, maybe McEnany should have thought twice before promoting the Big Lie.
As previously reported in this space, McEnany appeared on Fox News flagship “Hannity” at least 23 times after the November 3 presidential election, supercharging then-President Donald Trump’s campaign to reverse the results. of the election he fairly lost. “Right here, Sean, 234 pages of affidavits under oath,” McEnany said in the Nov. 10 edition of Sean Hannity’s program. “These are real and anyone who cares about the transparency and integrity of the system should want this to continue until the discovery phase,” she said.
Over the next month or so, McEnany continued to make specious claims of voter fraud and irregularities in his unmistakable rapid-fire delivery. In a Dec. 9 discussion of the Texas lawsuit that sought to strike down Electoral College results in four battlefield states, she said, “This is important, which is why you have 18 states signing this very lawsuit. well done by the state of Texas. “The hype also took place on Fox:” This election is not over, far from it, “McEnany said at a Nov. 9 press conference. with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel “We have just started the process of getting an accurate and honest vote count.”
As if all that weren’t enough to keep her busy, McEnany was also negotiating with Fox News for a contributor position, as clarified in a document that surfaced in late January. A Fox News source told this blog that there had been discussions after the election, but the network had “paused on them” for unspecified reasons. We asked Fox News to describe these reasons. In the meantime, the Erik Wemple blog will note that the network waited just long enough for the events of January 6 to recede a bit before rolling out the McEnany rental. After all: the very brand of disinformation coming from McEnany – and Hannity, as well as other Fox hosts – served as the motivating premise for the Capitol Riots.
There is no more valid cause in the media right now than to stop the world from “moving” after January 6 – demanding that people remember the helpers and accomplices in the riots. Matt Negrin, a senior producer to “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”, a used his Twitter account to do just that, citing the tendency for major news organizations to engage with Big Lie supporters on new issues, as if all is now forgiven.
With his move to McEnany, Fox News isn’t content to overlook McEnany’s involvement in Big Lie; it is also to reward her with a job. The move is part of other changes within the network to compete with extreme networks such as One America News and Newsmax. To this end, he converted two evening time slots, from what is known as direct information into opinion content.
In her interview with McEnany, Faulkner asked if she thought Trump was responsible for the Capitol riots. “No, I’m not,” replied McEnany, who said the rioters did “the exact opposite” of what Trump advised them to do. There was no refusal from Faulkner. There was also no question as to how McEnany had inspired the rioters with all the misinformation she had presented on Fox News.
Perhaps looking for insider material, Faulkner asked McEnany about his last day in the White House. McEnany replied that she wanted to do a briefing highlighting the president’s “great accomplishments”, but the riots made such a presentation “untenable”. “The last few days have been sad, we were packing, we were sad that this was one of the last things to happen as we walked out of the gate,” said McEnany. Fox News viewers could have passed by not knowing that McEnany had in fact evacuated his things from the White House several days before Trump left and worked from Tampa during the last days of the administration. But that’s what you get with McEnany: little dishonesty punctuated by the occasional big lie.
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