THE HUNDRED DAYS: Tarlov lowered the boom on The Four!

TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2025

The bell should be tolling for these: A wonderfully comical, pitiful moment occurred on last Thursday's The Five. 

First, let's say their names! It wasn't the usual lineup this day. The five performers were these:

Panelists, The Five—April 24, 2025
Kayleigh McEnany: co-host, Outnumbered 
Jessica Tarlov: twice-weekly co-host, The Five
Brian Kilmeade: co-host, Fox & Friends
Dana Perino: co-host, The Five
Greg Gutfeld: co-host, The Five

Jesse Watters wasn't present this day; neither was Judge Jeanine. The judge's absence reduced the likelihood that viewers would hear repeated references to the man she calls "Tampon Tim."

(To see her mock Walz that way on last Wednesday's edition of The Five, you can just click here. The judge is 73 rears old. This is the conduct she's chosen.)

Back to last Thursday's program! Midway through the show's second segment, Tarlov lowered the boom. 

The latest poll by the Fox News polling unit had been released to the public one day before. All in all, the numbers in this new Fox poll weren't especially good for President Trump.

After the poll had been released, Tarlov had broken every rule in the book. Plainly, she had actually reviewed the contents of her channel's new poll. 

True to form, it seems that the other four hadn't.

The other four tend to work from the stapled packet of papers they get handed by their producers each day, the better to message from. And so, it came to pass this day:

At 5:23 p.m., Tarlov lowered the boom.

As you can see by clicking this link, the other four had been chortling about the way the Democratic Party had doomed itself by seeking the return of Kilmar Abrego Garia from a Central American prison. With Kilmeade serving as moderator for the segment, the foolishness started like this:

KILMEADE (5/24/25): Jessica, do you think this is the dry hole we're portraying this as, or do you see some benefit for the Democrats continuing to get behind this guy?

TARLOV: Well, there's definitely benefit to it, and that doesn't mean that I don't think the majority of the emphasis should be on the economy. But if you look at our own latest polling—Fox poll, which came out yesterday—Reuters, YouGov, Quinnipiac—now Donald Trump is under water on immigration, which was his strongest issue...

Two-to-one margin, in the YouGov poll, that Americans think that Abrego Garcia should be brought back here.

Say what? Trump is under water on immigration, Tarlov said. Also, Americans favor the return of Abrego Garcia!

So the liberal punching bag said. Inevitably, Gutfeld knew how to respond. Instantly, he broke in with this:

GUTFELD (continuing directly): Because they're not getting the information!

Gutfeld understands the rule which prevails on his channel's programs. If respondents don't support the company line, respondents have been misled!

On Olympus, the gods roared with pleasure at the fellow's instant response. Even better, it soon became clear that he had no idea what was in his own Fox News poll. 

To appearances, neither did Kilmeade. At Fox, they seem to read off the talking points presented to them in their stapled packets. No further research required!

Tarlov had actually looked at the results reported in the latest Fox poll! There was no sign that her four companions had bothered.

Regarding Abrego Garcia, Gutfeld seemed to be sure that something had to be wrong with the question on the YouGov poll. As Tarlov tried to explain why people feel the way they do, the fellow, his annoyance showing, broke in again with this:

GUTFELD: What was the question? I guarantee you—

TARLOV (sarcastically): Oh, so now you're a pollster?

GUTFELD: No, I'm just saying, I guarantee it was worded in a way to get the intended answer.

Everything is possible. But on the clown car shows of this clown car "news channel," certain things are automatically true.

Gutfeld was assuring this program's very large audience that what they were hearing was bunk. Tarlov responded in the following way, and things spiraled down from there:

TARLOV (continuing directly): Well, I can guarantee you that our own [Fox News] polling, which showed him underwater on immigration, was fair...

Oof! There was no obvious pushback available there.

Quickly, a bit of embarrassment followed. When Tarlov mentioned "the Turkish Ph.D. student in Boston," Gutfeld interrupted with this:

GUTFELD: Not him!

The fellow didn't seem to know that the Ph.D. student in question was actually a young woman. 

Upon correction, he tried to slide away from his apparent error by transitioning to familiar clowning mode, complaining about the question of pronouns and saying that Tarlov spends too much time focused on who's gay.

As you can see by clicking those links, Gutfeld's insistence persisted. "None of these stories are real," he eventually insisted, trying to fight off Tarlov's claims.

By now, Kilmeade seemed to have accessed the results of the Fox News poll on his pad. Could Trump possibly be underwater on immigration? As he struggled to puzzle it out, this exchange occurred:

KILMEADE (looking at his pad): On "border security," he gets 55 percent approval.

TARLOV: Hit "immigration," where—Brian, I'm not making it up!

Indeed, she wasn't making it up! On the new Fox poll, Trump wasn't underwater on immigration by much—but he was underwater. 

That said, the resistance continued. Eventually, Kilmeade said this:

KILMEADE: I don't know how he could be under water on immigration. He might be under 50 percent, but he's not under water on immigration.

Except, on various polls, he actually is. Tarlov rattled the names of the polls again, but Gutfeld finally said this:

GUTFELD: Keep defending a gangbanger all you want.

So it goes when these messenger children run into bad poll results.

We'll suggest that you watch the whole segment. What you'll see is a corporate-fueled cancer on the society—indeed, on the human experiment.

This week, the bell is tolling for President Trump's first hundred days. The numbers aren't especially good. 

In fairness, they could get better—or they could always get worse.

We'd suggest that the bell should also be tolling for the Fox News Channel. Also, for the New York Times, which refuses to report or discuss the misinformation and misdirection which get dragged out, around the clock, on this powerful "cable news" channel.

That said, should the bell be tolling for our own Blue America in a more general way? Is there conduct for which we Blues should atone? 

Are there things we Blues have been doing wrong? Should the bell be tolling for us?

Tomorrow: Possible sources of President Trump's support (a report on Fox & Friends Weekend)

The wording of the question: As you can see by clicking this link, here's the way that question was worded on that YouGov poll:

The Trump administration recently deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador despite a court order prohibiting his deportation. Do you believe Trump should bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.?

Fifty percent of respondents said yes. Twenty-eight percent said no.