The whistleblower scandal spilled over into a heated standoff on the set of Fox News show The Five on Wednesday after Juan Williams accused his co-anchors of rehashing Republican “talking points.”
Williams’ comment came after the White House accidentally e-mailed talking points about President Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine to the Democrats. Greg Gutfeld became irate and fired back, accusing Williams of getting his narrative directly from progressive activist group Media Matters.
Panel meldown over Ukraine
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) unilaterally launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump on Tuesday over a July phone call in which Trump asked Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The former vice president himself had bragged last year about pressuring Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who had investigated a nuclear energy company in which Hunter was a stake-holder. The allegation from an anonymous “whistleblower” that Trump was soliciting election help from Ukraine has had the awkward side effect of exposing the Bidens’ dealings to public scrutiny like never before.
As Republicans seek to keep the focus on the Bidens, Williams and other Democrats have circled the wagons around the former VP while insisting that Trump is the real criminal. Following reports that the White House accidentally e-mailed “talking points” to Pelosi, Williams suggested that his co-hosts were simply regurgitating White House propaganda.
“But, I think ah, just listening here,” said Williams, “I think boy those talking points, they’ve made the rounds, because, the reality is….” Williams said.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Gutfeld interjected. “What does that mean? Are you saying that I got talking points, Juan?”
“Here we go, asking a foreign government to investigate a political rival is illegal,” Williams continued. “It’s illegal, it’s a violation of the constitutional oath.”
“Unbelievable,” Gutfeld shot back. “You get that from Media Matters, Juan?”
Ongoing network drama
The flap was received positively on the left, which often cheers anti-Trump Fox anchors for regurgitating their talking points. Liberals on Twitter praised Williams for speaking “the truth” and rustling his co-anchors.
Fox show completely implodes when Juan Williams notes that conservative media is regurgitating talking points from the White House pic.twitter.com/EZ13ChimO6
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) September 25, 2019
The whistleblower scandal has caused considerable intra-network drama at Fox this week. After Joe DiGenova called Fox analyst Andrew Napolitano a “fool” for claiming that Trump committed a crime, anti-Trump Fox anchor Shepard Smith defended Napolitano against the “repugnant” attack.
President Trump released the transcript of the phone call Wednesday, which showed that he did not discuss a quid pro quo with Ukraine’s president as Democrats claimed. The whistleblower complaint, released Thursday, brought little new information besides a claim that Trump had the call transcript “locked down.” Williams insisted in the standoff that no quid pro quo was necessary to establish a crime, citing an argument from Napolitano.
Meanwhile, Republicans have accused Democrats of protecting the Bidens. Williams has joined many Democrats in dismissing accusations of criminality by the Bidens, calling such claims nothing more than an attempt at distraction from Trump’s supposed treason.
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