Tag: Chris Wallace

Fox News’s Chris Wallace just exposed Trump as very few have

Washington Post logoOne of the greatest frustrations President Trump’s foes have is how infrequently he’s called out — in person — on his bizarre theories and his 20,000 falsehoods and misleading claims. While journalists fact-check Trump relentlessly, there are relatively few instances in which he has received pushback to his face, in part because it takes a certain deftness and, arguably in even larger part, because he submits to so few interviews outside the Fox News and conservative media bubble. (There have been a handful of examples, including NBC’s Peter Alexander on multiple occasions.)

On Sunday, though, Trump was exposed in a way he simply hasn’t been — and by a Fox News host to boot.

Trump’s interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace was a painful affair from start to finish. Wallace is always a good and tough interviewer, unlike the Fox opinion hosts Trump frequents, and he is always prepared, but this was on another level. The interview wasn’t overly adversarial; Wallace was perfectly willing to talk about the things Trump was interested in and to play ball when Trump responded in relatively good faith. It wasn’t slanted; instead it merely raised the very factual counterpoints dealt with frequently in coverage of Trump. And it wasn’t rushed, which meant that Wallace could dig into the points Trump was making without fear of neglecting other topics he wanted to touch on. Continue reading.

Trump mocked after 5 cognitive questions he called ‘very hard’ during Fox News interview are revealed

AlterNet logoDuring his combative interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, Donald Trump defended his boast that he “aced” a test he was given by doctors to test his cognitive abilities by stating that the last five questions were “very hard” and that he doubted the Wallace would be able to answer them.

That led internet sleuths to look up those five questions that the president assigned a high degree of difficulty and, as the Daily Beast’s Julia Davis tweeted (along with an image also published by the Las Vegas Sun), “What day is it?” and “Where are you?” Continue reading.

 

Chris Wallace fact checks Trump to his face as he melts down over COVID death rate: ‘That’s not true’

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump lashed out at Fox News host Chris Wallace after he was challenged on the false premise that the United States has the “lowest” COVID-19 mortality rate in the world.

“I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates,” Trump argued in an interview that aired on Sunday.

“That’s not true,” Wallace pointed out. “We have 900 deaths on a single day this week. You can check it out.” Continue reading.

Chris Wallace deflates Trump’s claim he ‘aced’ a cognitive exam in brutal fashion: ‘I took it — it’s not the hardest test’

AlterNet logoFox News host Chris Wallace batted aside Donald Trump’s boast that he “aced” a cognitive test at Walter Reed hospital, telling the president that he took it too and “It’s not the hardest test.”

With the president challenging presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden to go down and take the test with him, the Fox News host pulled the president up and smiled as he pointed out there is little to be about for passing such a simple series of exercises.

“I took the [cognitive] test too, when I heard you passed it,” Wallace said as a shot of the test scrolled on the screen for the viewers. “It’s not the hardest test. It shows a picture and it says, ‘what’s that,’ and it’s an elephant.” Continue reading.

Fox News host laughs at Trump’s botched attempt to fact-check claims about Joe Biden

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump was not prepared for an interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, one of the few people on the network still willing to challenge his lies.

In a new clip released Friday from a forthcoming interview, Wallace contradicted Trump’s claim that his 2020 opponent Joe Biden wants to defund and abolish the police.

“They want to defund the police, and Biden wants to defund the police,” Trump said. Continue reading.

‘You guys look silly’: Fox News’ Chris Wallace annihilates Trump spokeswoman for ‘denying reality’ in Tulsa debacle

AlterNet logoFox News host Chris Wallace challenged Trump 2020 campaign spokesperson Mercedes Schlapp for making “campaign speeches” during an interview on Sunday.

On his Fox News Sunday program, Wallace noted that President Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally on Saturday had been sparsely attended despite the fact that the president claimed nearly a million people had requested tickets.

“We all saw the pictures last night,” Wallace explained. “The arena was no more than two-thirds full. And the outdoor rally was cancelled because there was no overflow crowd. What happened?” Continue reading.

Chris Wallace Slams Kayleigh McEnany: ‘I Never Saw A W.H. Press Sec. Act Like That’

The Fox News anchor went after the White House press secretary for her behavior at Friday’s press briefing.

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace took aim at White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Sunday, slamming her for going after reporters about their religious faith and for telling them what questions they should be asking.

McEnany had on Friday accused journalists of “desperately” wanting churches and places of worship to stay closed after she was questioned about President Donald Trump’s claim he would “override” governors who ignored his demand to immediately reopen churches amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A reporter was asking what legal authority the president has to do so.
“I spent six years in the White House briefing room covering Ronald Reagan. I have to say, I never — and in the years since too — I never saw a White House press secretary act like that,” Wallace said to a panel on “Fox News Sunday.” Continue reading.

‘Get your facts straight!’ Fox News host blasts conservative guest live on air for bogus claim about impeachment

AlterNet logoFox News’ Chris Wallace slammed conservative pundit Katie Pavlich on air, telling her to “Get your facts straight” after she tried to claim all kinds of made-up facts in her defense of Donald Trump. In question was Pavlich’s revisionist retelling of how the Democratic House’s impeachment inquiry was hampered by obstruction. In Pavlich’s imagineering, the Democratic Party is breaking with impeachment tradition by pushing an incomplete case, “and every impeachment beforehand, the witnesses that were called had been called in the House before being brought to the Senate. So there are questions here about the process.”

That’s not true. It’s not even a little bit true, and Wallace cut Pavlich off to tell her as much: “They hadn’t all been called in the House, and in the Clinton impeachment, they’d been called by the general independent counsel. They had not been called by the House.”

Right-wing pundit Katie Pavlich is just the kind of dumb that Trump’s Republican Party loves: willing to toe any line of misinformation, no matter how many obvious facts and contradictions there are. Appearing on Fox News with conservative luminaries such as Brett Baier, Pavlich was promoting the old conservative trope that the difference between Clinton’s impeachment trial and Trump’s is that the Democratic Party keeps trying to add new things to it, because it’s going so terribly. The basis of this bit of bullshit is that Donald Trump’s White House has refused to allow anyone to testify, while his Department of Justice has done more work trying to cover up his criminal behavior than any of the actual work it’s supposed to do as a department. Continue reading.

Chris Wallace wants journalists to push for the truth. But Fox News often traffics in propaganda.

Washington Post logoIn the new movie “Bombshell,” Chris Wallace’s character has a bit part, striding for a moment alongside Megyn Kelly on their way to a momentous presidential debate in 2015. In real life, though, the veteran Fox News journalist has a more central role in the Washington drama of this historic moment.

Wallace’s Sunday morning interview show is often riveting, creating newsworthy moments — whether he is grilling former FBI director James B. Comey as he did this week or holding White House adviser Stephen Miller’s feet to the fire as he did in late September.

“According to POTUS, Chris Wallace is a partisan hack. In reality, he’s consistently the gold standard for American political interviewers,” Jonathan Swan of Axios noted on Twitter shortly after the Comey interview aired.

Continue reading

Fox News’ Chris Wallace Torches Donald Trump’s Attacks On The Press

Trump “is engaged in the most direct sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history,” said the “Fox News Sunday” host.

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace has delivered a blistering assessment of President Donald Trump’s repeated and sustained attacks on the press that report critically on him and his administration.

“I believe that President Trump is engaged in the most direct sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history,” the host of “Fox News Sunday” said at an event celebrating the First Amendment at the Newseum media museum in Washington on Wednesday.

“He has done everything he can to undercut the media, to try and delegitimize us, and I think his purpose is clear: to raise doubts when we report critically about him and his administration that we can be trusted,” Wallace continued, per The Guardian.