Donald Trump's decision to host the next G7 at his own Doral resort in Miami obviously didn’t sit well with the Trumper cohosts on Fox News’ Outnumbered show. But they didn’t have enough backbone to come out and condemn the flagrant corruption.
The news broke during Outnumbered. Cohost Melissa Francis said sarcastically, “That won’t cause any controversy.” But after guest Josh Holmes, Mitch McConnell’s former chief of staff, called Trump’s Miami resort a “lovely location,” she got in line. “It’s beautiful, it’s near the airport in Miami,” Francis said.
However, Francis clearly had her concerns – for Trump’s welfare if nothing else. “Do you think that maybe having the G7 at his own resort might – he might get a little incoming from the Democrats on that one?” she asked.
“Honestly, I think President Trump does this because he knows his critics will go absolutely crazy,” Holmes said.
“He’s trolling them and trying to drive them bananas – and also say ‘Doral’ 6,000 times.” Francis replied.
“There’s no question. No question,” Holmes agreed. Then he quickly defended Trump’s move with somewhat faint praise: “I mean, one, look, the facility is definitely equipped to handle this event and so it should have been qualified no matter what. But I think the selection – he knows everybody’s going to go absolutely crazy, right? And I think he loves that. I mean, he changes the national discussion all the time with this kind of thing. I think that’s another perfect example of it.”
Cohost Lisa Boothe chimed in: “I hear it’s a beautiful property.”
Francis again slyly highlighted the self-dealing by wrapping it in praise.
She asked cohost Harris Faulkner, “Harris, the master marketer at work? He’s a marketer.”
“He is,” Faulkner concurred. But even Trump-worshiper Faulkner expressed reservation. “I wonder, though, because you talk about some pushback that he might get. So that boundary of running a business and being president. Do you think there’s a problem at all?” she asked Holmes.
Now Holmes revealed his own discomfort. But he was too timid to criticize outright. “Yeah, no, look, I think the optics issues – this president has never been concerned about what your conventional wisdom reaction would be to these kind of things. He just isn’t, right? Would I be concerned? Yeah. I wouldn’t want to do that.”
Faulkner pressed for more. “What would your concern be?” she asked.
“Just the optics of having your name on the door and having some kind of an official business is tough,” Holmes said. “I mean, it’s just a really difficult thing to do.”
But Holmes immediately segued back to defending Trump. “But his point, which I think is a pretty good one, is that let’s just blow through all of this media handwringing because that’s all we get no matter what,” he added.
Faulkner sounded uncertain. “He is the exception to some of the rules I would imagine. I don’t know, I didn’t write them.” She went on to say that Trump’s name is “on a lot of stuff,” including buildings in Turkey, apparently suggesting that Trump’s interest in the Doral resort bears no relation to his decision (he had just threatened sanctions on Turkey and this discussion occurred before he decided against them and to lift the ones already placed).
At that point, the lone Democrat asked, “Can I make a point?”
No, she couldn’t. “They want us to listen in real quick,” Francis said, meaning to acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s defense of Trump's latest corruption.
Watch the hosts pretend Trump didn't commit another impeachable offense in plain sight below, from the October 17, 2019 Outnumbered.
Published with permission of NewsHounds.us
