THURSDAY: Fox & Friends follies, but also The Five!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2025

The demise of American discourse: Late yesterday afternoon, we didn't know who "Lawrence" was. 

During yesterday's cabinet meeting, the commander had repeated his gloomy tale about the way American kids were now the dumbest kids in the world.  As he'd done on a recent Hannity program, he referred to a devastating international testing program which doesn't quite seem to exist. 

Needless to say, no one asked him what he was talking about. Instead, as you can see at the CNN transcript, the next question went like this:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (2/26/25): They [test] the 40 certain nations that they have done for a long time. It seems to be 40, for whatever reason. And we were ranked number 40. A year ago, we were 38. Then we were 39. We hit 40. And so we're last in that. 

And we're first in cost per pupil. So I would say that's unacceptable.

Lawrence, you have something? Go ahead.

QUESTION: So, Mr. President, I know you like competition. And I know it's early. So which department are you most impressed with?

(LAUGHTER)

Sad! For the record, a silly softball question like that helps explain why the White House is currently changing the list of players who get to be in the press pool.

When we post yesterday's report, we didn't know who the questioner was. This morning, watching Fox & Friends, we were allowed to find out. 

In fact, the questioner was Lawrence Jones, fourth among equals in the Fox & Friends friendship circle! Yesterday, he wanted to know which department President Trump thought was best so far.

The commander gave a long, rambling answer. To peruse it, you can click to the CNN transcript.

Meanwhile, how bad does it get on the Fox News Channel? Yesterday afternoon, the first segment on The Five was about as bad as modern pseudo-journalism gets.

For starters, let's start by saying their names. These were the five co-hosts:

Co-hosts, The Five: Wednesday, 2/26/25
Judge Jeanine
Harold Ford
Jesse Watters
Dana Perino
Greg Gutfeld

Those were the regular four Red American co-hosts, with the wholly defeated Ford strapped in the Blue American chair. 

Inevitably, the subject of the day's first segment was the moral and intellectual greatness of the morally and intellectually great American president, President Donald J. Trump. 

Judge Jeanine was moderating the segment. The segment started like this:

JUDGE JEANINE (2/26/25): President Trump holding a blockbuster first cabinet meeting of his second term as he once again proves that he is the most transparent president in history.

A new analysis shows "47" is absolutely smoking his predecessors when it comes to talking to the media. In just his first month, Trump took a staggering one thousand questions compared to Sleepy Joe's sad, measly one hundred and forty. And that number was before today's hour-long juggernaut session, where he answered more than thirty additional questions.

As Judge Jeanine spoke, the chyron beneath her said this:

TRUMP HOLDS BLOCKBUSTER FIRST CABINET MEETING

The chyron agreed with the jurist! Needless to say, so would each of the other co-hosts as the segment proceeded. 

The most transparent president has been smoking Sleepy Joe! With that, Judge Jeanine had stated the premise for the segment, and the Stepfords would take it from there. 

At 5:05, Perino updated the question count. She said the president has now "answered 1,039 questions, which by the time I say these words might be 1,050." 

It didn't seem to have occurred to Perino that just because you've taken a question, that doesn't mean that you've answered it. And it certainly doesn't mean that you've answered the question in an accurate manner. 

As an example of what we mean, consider what Judge Jeanine said at 5:06 when she threw to the hapless Watters:

JUDGE JEANINE: You know, Jesse, I thought it was fascinating when the president started talking about Zelensky and the mineral deal. And when he talked about the fact that $300 billion that we gave to Ukraine and Zelensky, whereas Europe only gave $100 billion--but the money that Europe gave to Ukraine they gave as a loan! Which meant Ukraine had to pay them back!

The money, the $300 billion that Biden gave, was not a loan! He just gave them the money, like a fool! And now what we've got is a president who says we're gonna get our money back. And from now on, we're not gonna be footing the bill for a country that is paying other people back but not us.

We were struck by the judge's example. Just two days earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had contradicted President Trump, on live TV, concerning those very points. 

The claims which Judge Jeanine found fascinating had been fact-checked about a million times as of yesterday afternoon at 5. For example, here's the beginning and the end of Tuesday's report by ABC News:

Macron warns Trump to 'be careful' on Ukraine, fact-checks him at the White House

French President Emmanuel Macron used his visit to the U.S. to publicly push back on President Donald Trump's repeated attacks on Ukraine, fact-checking his American counterpart in real-time and urging caution in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

During their joint Oval Office appearance on Monday, Macron interrupted Trump when the latter said that Europe was being paid back 60% of the aid it contributed to Kyiv over the last three years of war.

Touching Trump's arm to interject, Macron said, "No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total effort: it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantees, grants," Macron said. "And we provided real money, to be clear."

After Macron's comments, Trump smiled and replied, "If you believe that, it's okay with me."

[...]

The president continued to focus on what he considers Ukraine's unfair approach to U.S. and American aid during Russia's war.

Trump again falsely claimed the U.S. has given Ukraine $350 billion during this period—a figure publicly disputed by Zelenskyy. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that the U.S. has committed about $119 billion. The majority—$67 billion—was in the form of military equipment.

The institute says that European nations—meaning the European Union, the U.K., Iceland, Norway and Switzerland—have collectively contributed around $138 billion to Ukraine, $65 billion of which was military equipment.

The commander's claims about these matters have been unfavorably fact-checked about a million times. Yesterday, on The Five, no one seemed to have heard about any of these contradictions. Instead, the stooges took turns swooning over the greatness of the commander's vast transparency regarding this set of claims.

The fact-checks of these claims have been general over the wider free world. Here at home, at the Fox News Channel, the five co-hosts of our most-watched "cable news" show didn't quite seem to have heard.

At 5:14, Judge Jeanine teased the program's second segment. This is the way she played it:

JUDGE JEANINE: I think he is doing a great job so far. Up next, Greasy goes the Joe Rogan route. Gavin Newsom is launching a podcast.

Among this collection of broken toys. President Biden is known as "Sleepy Joe." Governor Newsom is known as "Greasy." 

This type of behavior seems to make sense to these corporate play toys. Can a nation expect to survive such a childish assault? 

In our view, the night assault is underway; it isn't clear that this "revolt from below" hasn't already been lost. We Blues may have managed to earn our way out in a way which can't quite be repaired.