Former Trump spokes-liar Kayleigh McEnany continues her work for her former boss, even though she's no longer on his payroll, with this gaslighting about the dangerous rhetoric we've all heard come out of his mouth.
It looks like Fox is in full damage control mode after a couple of interviews Trump did this past week, one with Sean Hannity and the other with Dr. Phil, both of which tried desperately to get Trump to back off of his fantasies of revenge against Biden and others with no luck.
Here's McEnany on this Friday's Outnumbered, with McEnany showing a couple of short snippets of Trump's interview with Hannity earlier in the week, and another edited version of his interview with Phil McGraw prior to going into this rant:
MCENANY: Well, first, there was dictator on day one in the bloodbath narrative, and now there's another disinformation stunt from the media. Donald Trump is out for revenge. Well, after his interview with Sean Hannity this week, the media ran with these headlines.
Take a look. Washington Post, Trump says he'd have every right to seek prosecutions of political foes, and there's CNN, Trump again suggests he would try to prosecute his political opponents. But Trump didn't say that.
This is actually what he said.
HANNITY: Focus on those that want people to believe that you want retribution, that you will use the system of justice to go after your political enemies.
TRUMP: So, number one, they're wrong. It has to stop, because otherwise we're not going to have a country. Look, when this election is over, based on what they've done, I would have every right to go after them.
[…]
We can't have this stuff go on. Because you know what? When Biden goes out, everyone says bye -bye, and then he gets indicted two days later and they go after him.
See AlsoThe Fallout Between Donald Trump And Kayleigh McEnany Explained - Nicki SwiftKayleigh McEnany claims Trump "will win," despite election being called for Joe BidenWhy did Donald Trump turn on Kayleigh McEnany?Jan. 6 hearings day 7MCENANY: Yeah, he said it's a terrible thing. And then immediately after Dr. Phil's interview with Trump that aired last night, the media ran with these headlines. Sometimes revenge can be justified, Trump issues chilling threat. Then the New York Times had this to say, Trump says, sometimes revenge can be justified, and so on and so forth. You know how it goes.
But once again, they left out context. Shocking.
TRUMP: The word revenge is a very strong word, but maybe we have revenge through success.
[…]
Revenge does take time. I will say that.
MCGRAW: It does.
TRUMP: And sometimes revenge can be justified, but I have to be honest, sometimes it can.
MCGRAW: What if when you win this election, you said, enough is enough? Too much is too much. This is a race to the bottom and it stops here. It stops now. They've made a half a dozen or more. major attempts to take you off the playing board, and you just said, it stops now.
[…]
I'll forgive, I'll not ever forget, but I am not gonna play this retribution game.
TRUMP: I'm okay with that, I am, I'm okay with that.
MCENANY: But just throw the facts aside. They just simply don't matter because Democrats want to stoke fear.
The clips they aired were obviously edited and the one they really don't want their viewers to pay much attention to is Hannity desperately trying once again to get Trump to quit digging during their interview this Wednesday.
As Phil Bump at the Washington Post noted, prior to this, the best example of this sort of exchange between Trump and Hannity would have been the "dictator on day one" nonsense.
Then came the interview that aired Wednesday. Again, Hannity overtly wanted Trump to assure viewers and America that he wasn’t going to target his political opponents if reelected — an assurance, in effect, that he would close the barn door even though the horse was well over the horizon.
“My question is a very serious one,” Hannity said. “People are claiming you want retribution. People are claiming you want what has happened to you done to Democrats. Would you do that ever?”
“Look, what’s happened to me has never happened in this country before,” Trump replied, “and it has to stop, because—”
Hannity jumped in.“Wait a minute!” he interjected. “I want to hear that again. It has to stop.”
There you go! Trump said the thing that will give him enough cover for the next few months. Whew. But then, as when Trump was asked about Jeffrey Epstein this month, the former president kept talking.
“Focus on those that want people to believe that you want retribution, that you will use the system of justice to go after your political enemies,” Hannity repeated after Trump had gone on a tangent about how he’s “a very legitimate person.”
They’re wrong, Trump said, repeating the line Hannity enjoyed that it had to stop. Uh, but!
“I would have every right to go after them,” Trump continued. “And it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden, and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine.”
Another tangent, this time accusing Biden’s family of taking money from a Russian woman, which isn’t true. (“Turned out to be true,” Trump said of the story, without Hannity offering any objection.)
More riffing from Trump and then Hannity tried again.
“Will you pledge to restore equal justice, equal application of our laws, end this practice of weaponization?” he asked.
“Is that a promise you’re going to make?”
“Well, you have to do it,” Trump replied. “But it’s awful.”
Then he gave the game away.
“Look,” Trump continued, “I know you want me to say something so nice.”
“No, I don’t want you to say!” Hannity objected, a claim that you may evaluate for yourself. “I’m asking.”
“But I don’t want to look naive,” Trump continued. “What they have done to the Republican Party, they want to arrest on no crime. They want to arrest the person that won the nomination in a landslide.”
He’s popular, the indictments are bad, etc., for a while. And then:
“I will do everything in my power not to let — but there’s tremendous criminality here,” Trump said. “What they’re doing to me, if it’s going to continue, we’re really not going to have much of a country left. It’s really — it is weaponization.
You call it ‘lawfare.’ You call it — some people call it just ‘warfare.’”
It's obvious if you listen to what's actually come out of Trump's mouth that he intends to seek revenge on his political opponents if he's allowed back in office, no matter what the gaslighting liars at Fox would have you believe. They know it's not good for his hopes of being reelected to say the quiet part out loud, but Trump can't help himself.
