"Fox & Friends," Trump's favorite show, encourages firing of FBI deputy director

Following a report that Jeff Sessions tried to get FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe fired, Fox News tries the same

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published January 23, 2018 12:39PM (EST)

 (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
(AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

President Donald Trump is well-known to be an avid follower of the Fox News talk show "Fox & Friends," which makes it all the more troubling that the cable news hosts went out of their way on Tuesday to encourage the president to fire members of the FBI who have been deemed insufficiently loyal to him.

After opening by discussing missing text messages between FBI agents who the hosts accused of being "anti-Trumpers" — namely FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page — co-hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade began to discuss the recent report that Trump's attorney general Jeff Sessions, at the president's urging, tried to pressure FBI Director Christopher Wray into firing FBI Deputy Director Michael McCabe.

"The strange thing is [Deputy FBI Director] Andrew McCabe, who seems to be in the middle of this — and they [Strzok and Page] were certainly working under him, evidently there's been pressure on Christopher Wray, 'Can you get rid of this guy? You know, he seems to be a little bit of a problem,'" Kilmeade complained. "And Christopher Wray says not only am I not going to get rid of him, if you make me, I'm going to quit. So everything — I guess he's backed off. Why does he have an allegiance to McCabe? Why wouldn't you want a fresh start?"

Earhardt chimed in, "Why are these two officials from the FBI, these two lovebirds, why do they still work there?"

Doocy concurred with Kilmeade and Earhardt, proclaiming "that's such a good question. You've got to hope the inspector general is talking to them."

[H/T: Media Matters]


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

MORE FROM Matthew Rozsa


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Ainsley Earhardt Andrew Mccabe Brian Kilmeade Christopher Wray Donald Trump "fox & Friends" Jeff Sessions