Donald Trump held yet another taxpayer-funded campaign rally at the White House on Thursday, this time using pickup trucks and cranes to represent Obama-era regulations that have been eliminated since he took office in 2017.
Trump characterized the previous administration’s policies as a disaster for the economy, which was such a blatant lie that even Fox News had to cut off the campaign event and pummel the president with a fact check.
The network’s Neil Cavuto explained that most of the regulations enacted under Obama were meant to rein in banks and other financial institutions so the American people wouldn’t have to endure a reboot of the Great Recession.
He also pointed out that under Obama, the unemployment rate came down, the stock market soared and many Americans did well.
“When the president referred to the … disappointing results of the prior administration for adding those regulations, be that as it may, the unemployment rate did under Barack Obama go down from a high of 10 percent to around 4.7 percent,” Cavuto said.
He added, “It was not a disaster under Barack Obama. Not only did the Dow essentially triple during his tenure, but … Americans did very, very well.”
Video:
Fox News cuts coverage of the President’s speech and Cavuto fact checks the President’s speech pic.twitter.com/pjzETXWJtx
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) July 16, 2020
Trump’s free ride on Fox News is hitting some roadblocks
To be sure, Fox News – particularly its primetime lineup – is full of talking heads that do nothing but stroke Trump’s ego and create an alternate reality for him and his supporters.
But a handful of commentators on the network are going out of their way to call out Trump and his defenders when they tell blatant lies (which is quite a lot). Neil Cavuto is just one of those voices.
Earlier this week, when Trump held a fake press conference in the Rose Garden to attack former Vice President Joe Biden, Fox News’ Brett Baier pointed out that the GOP would “have been up in arms” if Obama pulled that type of stunt when he was in office.
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace has also demonstrated that he is willing to hold the president and administration officials’ feet to the fire.
Overall, the network is still in the tank for Donald Trump, but a few key voices holding his feet to the fire – and polling from the network showing him getting trounced by Joe Biden – has made his Fox News safe space just a little less safe.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.