Fox News published an article that depicts Hillary Clinton as a “fiery” potential 2020 challenger to Donald Trump, Judi McLeod of the Canada Free Press writes.
The subject of the article was Clinton’s widely reported response to Donald Trump after the president shared an edited video of Nancy Pelosi stammering through a news conference. Clinton slammed the president’s “sexist” gambit Friday, but Fox more or less buried the lede under speculation about Clinton mounting a 2020 bid.
Fox publishes Clinton 2020 puff piece?
The article’s headline — “Hillary Clinton blasts Trump, says president is ‘running scared,’ claims Pelosi video is ‘sexist trash'” — leaves out its primary theme: that the former secretary of State may still be entertaining a 2020 bid. More surprising is the positive spin in which that possibility is presented.
Clinton’s clapback at Trump was widely reported, but few media outlets framed Clinton’s speech as a 2020 campaign teaser. Although Clinton dropped out of consideration weeks ago, Fox wrote in the present tense that Clinton “hasn’t announced a 2020 run” and noted that her speech “may have sounded like a campaign speech” to some.
Fox’s piece is oddly sympathetic to Clinton and could be seen as hyping up presidential ambitions that Clinton has already publicly ruled out. The piece presents Clinton’s angle, quoting the “fiery” Democrat verbatim, while failing to note that the video of Pelosi, though edited, merely highlighted moments in her news conference last week when the speaker stammered.
Moreover, the article quotes Clinton as declaring that President Trump has caused a constitutional crisis while noting that Democrats are investigating still “possible collusion” between Trump and Russia, and that Robert Mueller’s report merely “claimed” that no evidence of collusion was uncovered.
“We have to remind Americans we are the party that can deliver for them,” Clinton said. “But we also are the party that will stand up and protect the Constitution and address what is a very real constitutional crisis that this president has put us in.”
Biden has baggage, but Clinton doesn’t?
The article goes on to suggest that the current frontrunner in the Democratic primary, Joe Biden, may have too much “baggage” and that Clinton could mount a bid instead. The piece mentions Biden’s groping scandal — which in truth, he seems to have survived — and emerging conflict-of-interest scandal involving his son’s business dealings in China and Ukraine.
“Some political observers have suggested that Clinton could make a third bid for the presidency in 2020 if none of the more than 20 Democrats currently in the running emerges as a clear threat to deny Trump a second term,” the network reported. They went on to cite a New York Times article based on one anonymous source that claimed Clinton had not “closed the door” in March when she said she wouldn’t run.
Fox continues: “A sudden loss of confidence in Biden among Democratic voters, coupled with the failure of any of the other Democrats to fill the void, could motivate Clinton – who attracted nearly 66 million votes in 2016 – to make another run at the White House, some argue.” But is anyone really talking about Clinton as a serious threat to Trump? Doesn’t losing in the worst electoral upset in American history count for “baggage?”
Fox sliding away from conservatives?
The article follows in a trend of what some Fox viewers consider to be a slide away from conservatism by the network. Many Fox viewers were surprised when Fox hired Democrat Donna Brazile as a contributor in March just after suspending Judge Jeanine Pirro over controversial remarks she made about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
Additionally, Fox has been criticized by some, including President Trump, in recent weeks for providing a platform to Democrats seeking to take back the White House. Fox has now hosted town halls with three Democratic 2020 candidates: Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT), Amy Klobuchar (MN), and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
While Fox’s roster of opinion pundits is generally pro-Trump, the networks’ “hard news” division, which includes Chris Wallace and Bret Baier, is noticeably more moderate. McLeod notes that Wallace gave Pelosi credit for “getting under Trump’s skin” last week by accusing Trump of a “cover-up,” echoing the Washington Post, which wrote that “Pelosi scored a political victory over President Donald Trump this week, making him so incensed that he hurled insults at her and blew up negotiations” on infrastructure.
We might expect pro-Democrat puff pieces from CNN and MSNBC, but Fox? This one was a let-down.
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