Fox News Feud – Sean Hannity Angry That Other Hosts Aren’t Blindly Supporting Trump

You always miss these things, it runs counter to your belief.

Shep Smith

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Sunday repeated a false claim put forth by her and other Trump administration officials about the number of suspected terrorists apprehended at the southern border, one that is contradicted by the administration's own data on the topic.

Sanders appeared on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace and was asked about comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last week. Nielsen said Customs and Border Protection "has stopped over 3,000 what we call 'special-interest aliens' trying to come into the country in the southern border. Those are aliens who the intel community has identified are of concern."

Wallace pointed out that special-interest aliens are those hailing from "countries that have ever produced a terrorist. They're not terrorists themselves." Wallace cited a State Department report stating there is "no credible evidence" of terrorists crossing the border with Mexico.

Sanders responded by connecting the issue of terrorism with the fight over border security.

"We know that roughly, nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally, and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry is at our southern border," Sanders said. In an appearance on "Fox and Friends" on Friday, Sanders falsely said last year there were "nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists that CPB picked up that came across our southern border."

Wallace interjected on Sunday, saying he had "studied up" on the statistic.

"Do you know where those 4,000 people come [from], where they're captured? Airports," Wallace said.

"I'm saying that they come by air, by land and by sea," Sanders replied. "I'm not disagreeing with you that they're coming through airports."

According to statistics from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, 2,554 people on the FBI's terrorist screening list were stopped trying to enter the U.S. in fiscal year 2017, the most recent year for which data is available. The majority — 2,170 — were attempting to enter through airports, and 49 were attempting to enter by sea.

The report found 335 were attempting to enter by land. The State Department said in September it had no indication that any terrorists had tried entering the U.S. through Mexico.

"At year's end there was no credible evidence indicating that international terrorist groups have established bases in Mexico, worked with Mexican drug cartels, or sent operatives via Mexico into the United States," the State Department report said. "Terrorist groups likely seek other means of trying to enter the United States."

The claim that the southern border is vulnerable to terrorists has been repeated by top Trump officials for months. Vice President Mike Pence told the Washington Post in October the U.S. apprehended more than 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists per day at the southern border in the last fiscal year.

And President Trump repeated the claim of a terrorist threat in a Rose Garden press conference Friday.

"The border is a much more dangerous problem. It's a problem of national security. It's a problem of terrorists," Mr. Trump said. "They find it's the easiest place to come through. They drive right in and make a left. It's not going to happen."

Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity represent two types of President Trump supporters.

The Coulter faction's principal loyalty is to the ideas Trump embodied during the campaign.

The Hannity group's primary allegiance is to Trump himself.

The split has always been there, but now it is widening as Coulter and those in her camp grow impatient for Trump to make good on his promises, and become frustrated by the Hannity bloc's lack of interest in holding the president accountable.

Tensions erupted on Wednesday when Coulter ripped Hannity for editing an interview that aired on his Fox News show last Thursday in which Coulter criticized Trump's inclusion of Goldman Sachs alumni such as chief economic adviser Gary Cohn in his administration. Here's some of what Coulter wrote in a column published by Breitbart News.

Sean Hannity, bless his heart, has the zeal of the late Trump convert. He would endorse communism if Trump decided to implement the policies of “The Communist Manifesto.” (Which the GOP’s health care bill actually does!)

On his show last Thursday, he tried to get me to defend Trump’s “rich person” remarks about Cohn. I wish you could see the segment, but, unfortunately, Hannity decided no one would ever see it — NOT, I hasten to add, because he would ever censor criticism of Trump, but simply because he ran out of time.

In a pretaped interview. It was a time problem. (It may not be evident to most viewers, but three minutes MUST be left at the end of every Hannity show for Nerf ball throwing.)

With the zealotry of those who came late to the Trump party, Hannity fully endorsed Trump’s faith in Cohn, adding, “I never got a job from a poor man!”

Those of us who have been here for a while — unlike Cruz- and Rubio-supporting Hannity — know how to party responsibly. The best way we serve the people we admire is to tell them the truth. (Someday, no doubt, Nancy Pelosi will wish she had been surrounded by fewer Yes Men.)

The motto of we longtime Trump supporters is: NO TREATS FOR DOING NOTHING!

Hannity, who called Coulter a “friend” and said “we love having you on” during the part of the interview that made air last week, quickly returned fire on Twitter.

Ann, u fall in and out of love with Christie Romney Trump and how many others. Frankly you just bore me.

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) June 28, 2017

Hannity added that he was “not late” to what Coulter called the “Trump party.” “Late” is a subjective term, but recall that Hannity strongly protested Ted Cruz's accusation, during the Republican presidential primary, that Hannity favored Trump over the rest of the GOP field.

Hannity did not formally endorse Trump until the billionaire was the last Republican standing. He wanted to be seen as neutral while the race was in progress, but now he wants to be seen as a longtime Trump backer.

Anyway, the nature of Trump support — not the duration — is at the heart of this feud. Coulter might not be ready to jump off the Trump Train, but she has publicly vented her dismay at the president's lack of progress on his populist, nationalist agenda.

Meanwhile, Hannity seems to value Trump's personal qualities so highly that he is not bothered by the absence of funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the presence of Wall Street bankers in high-ranking jobs or the details of a GOP health-care plan that does not amount to a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Unless Trump starts delivering more of what he pledged on the campaign trail, the segments of his base that supported him for different reasons — represented by Coulter and Hannity — are likely to drift further apart.

Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano has argued that Donald Trump did obstruct justice, with “unlawful, defenseless and condemnable” behavior related to the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In the opinion column Did President Trump obstruct justice?, the host of the Liberty File on Fox Nation argued that the Mueller report illustrates clear and intentional obstruction of justice, constituting legal grounds for impeachment.

Napolitano, a former superior court judge in New Jersey, thereby contradicted the attorney general, William Barr, who decided there was insufficient evidence to establish that the president had committed obstruction of justice.

Napolitano’s column was accompanied by a video, shot outside Fox News HQ in New York, which spread rapidly on social media. Trump is an avid viewer of the network and user of Twitter. He did not immediately respond.

An FBI investigation into contacts between Trump aides and Russia began before Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. Mueller’s investigation expanded to include instances of possible obstruction, among them the firing of FBI director James Comey, who told investigators he believed Trump fired him after he refused to call off an investigation into the former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

In his Fox News column, Napolitano argued that with the release this month of the redacted version of Mueller’s report, we “now know why Trump was so anxious for the FBI to leave Flynn alone”.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about discussing sanctions with the then Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, a communication Napolitano said “could have been unlawful if it interfered with American foreign policy”.

Trump fired Flynn but, Napolitano wrote, “in his plea negotiations with Mueller, Flynn revealed why he discussed sanctions with Kislyak – because the pre-presidential Trump asked him to do so.

“An honest revelation by Trump could have negated Flynn’s prosecution. But the revelation never came.”

Napolitano said Trump’s attempt to steer the FBI away from Flynn, successful or not, constituted obstruction, which he defined as attempts “to impede or interfere with any government proceeding for a corrupt or self-serving purpose”.

Napolitano disagreed with the special counsel’s decision not to make a determination on obstruction of justice.

“Mueller laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump,” he wrote, “from asking former deputy national security adviser KT McFarland to write an untruthful letter about the reason for Flynn’s chat with Kislyak, to asking [former campaign aide] Corey Lewandowski and then White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller and McGahn to lie about it, to firing Comey to impede the FBI’s investigations, to dangling a pardon in front of Michael Cohen to stay silent, to ordering his aides to hide and delete records.”

“The essence of obstruction,” he wrote, “is deception or diversion – to prevent the government from finding the truth.”

Napolitano also claimed Mueller knew Barr would block any indictment of Trump along obstruction grounds because the attorney general “has a personal view of obstruction at odds with the statute itself”.

Barr’s view, according to Napolitano, is that obstruction can only occur if someone is impeding an investigation into a crime they committed.

“Thus, in this narrow view, because Trump did not commit the crime of conspiracy with the Russians, it was legally impossible for Trump to have obstructed the FBI investigation of that crime,” Napolitano wrote.

He concluded that though such a position is at odds with broad law enforcement opinion and “wrong”, it provides Congress the opportunity to use Mueller’s report as grounds for impeachment, which would be a question of political viability, not evidence.

Fox News analyst says Mueller report proves Trump did obstruct justice.

Fox News host Bret Baier on Monday called out President Trump over his continued criticism of the network's polling, rejecting the claim that the results indicated that something had "changed" at the network.

The comments from Baier came just a day after Trump lambasted Fox News over a new poll showing him losing to four Democratic presidential candidates in a hypothetical 2020 presidential election.

"I don't know what's happening with Fox," Trump said Sunday, before asserting that the network favored by conservatives had "changed."

"Okay, well, Fox has not changed," Baier said on Fox News' "Special Report," pointing out that the network's news branch conducts polls and that the results of the latest survey "matches what we are seeing out there."

He then appeared to send a direct invite to the president to appear on his daily news program, noting that Trump had agreed to interviews with ABC and NBC earlier this year.

"Mr. President, we've invited you on 'Special Report' many times. We'd love to have you back on. You've talked to George Stephanopoulos and Chuck Todd, come on back," he said, adding that he and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, cover the news "fair, balanced and unafraid."

Trump has repeatedly decried the news media during his two-plus years in the White House, often referring to it as "fake news" and the "enemy of the people." Though he mainly reserved praise for Fox News up until recently.

In July, he lashed out at the network after it released a poll showing him losing to former Vice President Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2020 matchup.

"Fox News is at it again," he tweeted. "So different from what they used to be."

He reiterated the same criticism just days after a new survey from Fox showed him losing to Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

"Fox has changed. My worst polls have always been from Fox," he said.

In addition to voicing his problems with polls, Trump has also attacked multiple network personalities this month. He claimed earlier this month that watching "fake news CNN" was better than watching anchor Shepard Smith.

On Sunday, he lashed out at Fox News political analyst Juan Williams, saying that the commentator was "nasty."

Baier pushed back, tweeting Monday night that Williams was a "solid guy" and "good friend."

President Trump reportedly called Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to complain about the negative coverage he is getting from the network's programming, according to an article in The Atlantic published Monday morning.

Trump and Fox News, one of his friendliest media outlets, have been at odds in recent months with the president expressing frustration with getting negative coverage from the network.

The Atlantic granted anonymity to a Fox News employee who spoke about the calls, “I’m not sure she tells him what he wants to hear. If you think about Suzanne, it’s like, I’m running the network. The president is not running the network. And if you’re Donald Trump, it’s like, Damn if you are — I’m running the network. And, to be candid, there have been times when the network probably gave Trump too much of the idea that he was running the network.”

Just two weeks ago, the president ridiculed the network for an interview with Democratic National Committee Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa and he felt that America's Newsroom host Sandra Smith let her say "whatever she wanted with zero pushback." He went as far as to say that Fox News is no longer "working for us anymore."

He has also repeatedly attacked former DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile, Shep Smith, and Juan Williams, all of whom work for the network. Fox News generally does not issue responses when their personalities face the ire of the president.

Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano is arguing that President Trump committed an impeachable offense during a July 25 phone call in which he pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son.

"That conversation manifested both criminal and impeachable behavior," Napolitano writes in a Fox News column focused on a whistleblower complaint that accuses Trump of enlisting Ukraine's help in his 2020 reelection efforts.

Napolitano goes on to assert that "the criminal behavior to which Trump has admitted is much more grave than anything alleged or unearthed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller."

The column is accompanied by a web video in which Napolitano summarizes the revelations from a White House memorandum of Trump's conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The White House issued the memo just a day before the public disclosure of the intelligence community whistleblower complaint.

Napolitano zeroes in on a portion of the White House readout in which Trump asks for a "favor" from Zelensky after the Ukrainian leader talks about the prospect of buying U.S. anti-tank missiles.

Trump's request occurred around the same time that the U.S. delayed nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, raising speculation from many Democratic lawmakers as to whether the president was looking to use the aid as leverage in the talks.

"He held up that aid and instead asked for a favor, which arguably was for his political campaign," Napolitano says. "That was a violation of federal law. That is an impeachable offense."

Trump has denied holding up military aid to Ukraine as part of an effort to persuade the nation into investigating the Biden family. But Napolitano asserts that Trump's request for a "favor" is evidence of a quid pro quo.

"In the Zelensky phone call, he told the Ukrainian president that he needed a personal 'favor,' " Napolitano writes in the column. "The clear unmistakable inference is that the $391 million in aid would be held up until the favor was delivered. The favor he sought was dirt on Biden."

The former New Jersey Superior Court judge's remarks come as Trump faces escalating scrutiny regarding his efforts to get a foreign nation to find dirt on a top political opponent. The revelations prompted Speaker Nancy Pelosi

(D-Calif.) to announce a formal impeachment inquiry of Trump in the House.

Before the memo's release, Napolitano had said that Trump had already confessed to "a crime" by acknowledging that he'd asked the Ukrainian leader to look into Biden.

Trump has repeatedly defended his interactions with Zelensky, going so far as to call the July 25 phone call "perfect." He's also decried the impeachment inquiry as a "coup" and accused the whistleblower of being a spy.