GOP anchor shuts down Fox News host who tried to intimidate the press

Fox News host and Trump booster Laura Ingraham tried to attack the free press on Donald Trump’s behalf, but she was immediately rebutted by MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace.

Ingraham, responding to a series of Trump scandals and his anemic approval rating, complained, “The American media is 90 percent so in the tank for Leftist policies they simply cannot fairly assess @realDonaldTrump no matter what he does.”

The American media is 90 percent so in the tank for Leftist policies they simply cannot fairly assess @realDonaldTrump no matter what he does.

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) January 26, 2018

It was a line of attack that echoed Trump’s own strategy of blaming the “fake news” for the very real abuses of power and bigotry he has espoused while in the Oval Office.

A minute after Ingraham’s outburst, Wallace — a former GOP strategist — laid out the reality of what is happening in America.

“The right wing media is so 100 percent in the tank for a president who lies, pays porn stars hush money, smears the Intelligence community, the FBI and the judiciary that it can’t fairly assess the debasement of the presidency.”

The right wing media is so 100 percent in the tank for a president who lies, pays porn stars hush money, smears the Intelligence community, the FBI and the judiciary that it can’t fairly assess the debasement of the presidency. https://t.co/owZAc3o3y4

— Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) January 27, 2018

Wallace served in the George W. Bush administration and on Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, but she has been very up front about calling out Trump and his enablers for their over-the-top and anti-democratic rhetoric.

Her tweet is a clear reference to Ingraham’s employer, Fox News, which incubates racism and bigotry, shills for Trump, and was exposed for its role in covering up the story of Trump’s pre-election payoffs to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Ingraham’s attempt to attack the free press is undemocratic and an embrace of authoritarianism. The conservative movement, and especially Fox News, has tried to amplify Trump’s impulses in that regard — but has thankfully failed to convince the vast majority of Americans.

Now, Trump and his apologists like Ingraham have been reduced to complaining about journalists doing their jobs. The administration wants everybody to suck up to them like Fox News does.

It isn’t happening.