Dear Commons Community,
Two of the biggest celebrities on Fox News are feuding over remarks made by Shepard Smith about President Donald Trump being a liar. Smith broke with network orthodoxy last Friday, issuing a sharp denunciation of the Trump administration’s handling of investigations into its links with Russia. Smith described White House “deception” as “mind-boggling”.
“Why all these lies?” he asked fellow anchor Chris Wallace. “Why is it lie after lie after lie?”
The outburst came after it was reported that more people attended a meeting between Donald Trump Jr and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New York in June 2016 than had previously been disclosed.
Yesterday, as reported by The Huffington Post, Sean Hannity used his radio show to blow back Shepard Smith.
“Shep is a friend. I like him,” Hannity said, according to The Hill. “But he’s so anti-Trump. I mean, he went off on a rant last week.”
According to CNN, Hannity said at another point in his show:
“I’ll say this about the Fox News Channel, there are voices on Fox that drive me nuts. Like, Shep and I been friends for years. We just respect we don’t agree. And the media was praising Shep, and he’s not the biggest fan of Trump. Fine! We don’t talk politics when we hang out. When I see him we have the best time, and we just have this mutual respect.”
Smith fired back at Hannity later in the day.
“Sometimes facts are displeasing,” he told Mediaite. “Journalists report them without fear or favor.”
Smith may have been channeling former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who made headlines when she appeared to throw a barb at Hannity last year with the j-word.
“We’ve got Trump speaking to our own Sean Hannity,” she said after a debate in September. “We’ll see whether he speaks to the journalists in this room after that interview.”
Hannity, however, has said he is not a journalist.
Several other Fox News personalities including Chris Wallace, Chris Stirewalt and Charles Krauthammer have lambasted Trump for his handling of the Don Jr. controversy.
Tony
