Brit Hume says criticism of Trump's Mount Rushmore speech 'could be a turning point' for the president
I've rarely seen such biased and misleading coverage, says Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume on 'Fox News @ Night.'
Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume told “Fox News @ Night” on Monday that the mainstream media’s criticism of President Trump's Mount Rushmore speech “could be a turning point” for the president if he “has the good sense to respond to it effectively.”
The mainstream media bent over backward to paint Trump’s Mount Rushmore Friday evening speech as dark and divisive, while the polarizing speech was praised by conservatives and Trump supporters alike.
Liberal media members all used similar rhetoric when condemning the president’s remarks.
The New York Times called the speech “dark and divisive,” reporting that it cast Trump’s “struggling effort to win a second term as a battle against a ‘new far-left fascism’ seeking to wipe out the nation’s values and history.”
The Washington Post reported that Trump “delivered a dark speech ahead of Independence Day in which he sought to exploit the nation’s racial and social divisions.” A quick search of the term “dark and divisive” on Twitter shows that liberal pundits ranging from CNN’s Brian Stelter to NBC News’ Claire McCaskill used the same adjectives to describe Trump’s speech.
The Los Angeles Times said the president used the Fourth of July celebration to “stoke a culture war.”
During his Mount Rushmore speech, Trump called on Americans to live up to the principles of our Founding Fathers while calling out those on the left who are cultivating what he calls a cultural revolution.
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“There is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras and follow its commandments then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished,” Trump said.
One of the Democrats considered to be in the running to join Joe Biden on the party’s 2020 presidential ticket, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., weighed in on Trump’s speech speaking on CNN.
“Remember the president at Mount Rushmore was standing on ground that was stolen from Native Americans who had actually been given that land during a treaty,” Duckworth said.
“I don’t think that the public is on the side of these editorial writers and people like Tammy Duckworth,” Hume said on Monday. “I think the public would like to see America’s tradition and heroes and history defended.”
Host Shannon Bream pointed to a tweet from Duckworth in July 2015 where she wrote, “I just covered myself in Stars&Stripes. Next year I’m going as Mt. Rushmore”.
Bream then noted that Mount Rushmore “is no longer en vogue and neither was the president’s speech.”
“And neither apparently are the values and traditions of this country, which is what the president spent most of his speech defending in a very sort of full-hearted, full-throated way and at some length,” Hume said.
He went on to say that what critics have been saying about the speech “is utterly mystifying.”
“He never spoke about traitors dead or alive,” Hume explained. “He mentions no Confederates, although there are some who claim that he did.”
“And some of the news coverage of the speech, with opinions expressed in the story, is every bit nearly as strong at least, as those on the editorial pages, was something I don’t think I have ever quite seen before,” he continued.
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Hume added, “I have rarely seen such biased and misleading coverage and such extravagant opinion reaction to this than I saw this weekend."
Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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