Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and a pair of Fox News cronies claimed news media outlets are simply "jealous" of the Trump family's success.
"Watters' World" host Jesse Watters said he was "surprised" the media didn't rank higher in a recently released Gallup survey of what Americans see as the country's largest problems today. Lewandowski, Watters and national security analyst Morgan Ortagus fawned over the Trump family Saturday evening and criticized the "sickening blood lust" mainstream media outlets have against the president, his wife and specifically, his children. The Gallup poll showed immigration, dissatisfaction with the government, poor leadership and health care as the top concerns among Americans.
The trio of Fox News pundits said the mainstream media is "going after Trump's kids" because they are worried they "may not be able to get the president" through the Special Counsel and Robert Mueller's ongoing Russian collusion investigation.
"If they can't get the president, they're going to try to get Don Jr. or someone close," Watters suggested, prompting Lewandowski to cite "single-digit" approval ratings among the news media and Congress alike.
"So now they have to go after Don Jr. or Ivanka or somebody else because they can't put their hatred for this president in front of their love for this country. It's so disappointing and disingenuous what they have done to this family," Lewandowski said.
"Look, very candidly, the media is jealous of the Trumps and they have been since the day he came down that escalator," said Lewandowski, who was Trump's campaign manager from January 2015 through June 2016. "All of his success in the real estate world, All the success on television, now his success in politics and his family's success."
"If Ivanka Trump was a Democrat, she'd be on the cover of every magazine as the woman to look to, the woman of the year, the same is true of Melania Trump," he continued. "But the mainstream media does not want to give this family the credit they deserve, including the success in prison reform that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner pushed through the U.S. Senate in a bipartisan manner this time, the first time in a decade to reform the prison system, they did that and the media won't give them any credit for it."
The Gallup poll showed that Americans' concern about immigration/illegal aliens more than doubled from 10 to 21 percent between May 2018 and November 2018. Dissatisfaction with the government held steady with about 1-in-5 saying it's the country's top problem and health care nearly tripled as the top non-economic concern.
Morgan Ortagus, a former intelligence analyst, agreed with Americans complaining about the country's leadership, but placed that blame squarely on the shoulders of the Congress, not the president. She said the House and Senate are filled with "grown adults sniping at each other" over issues such as the border wall and health care. She said people who criticized Melania over her recent Christmas card were just "jealous" of how fabulous the First Lady looked.
She expressed her concern at personal attacks against Trump's children, saying federal authorities may put them through "litigation hell" even after Donald Trump has left office.
"So when the average American is tuning into Fox News and they're watching the congressional leadership just bicker with each other, it looks like a bunch of overgrown, entitled children and that's why the president was elected to disrupt all of this."
Watters played a montage of MSNBC, CNN and other cable network figures criticizing the president's children in an attempt to show the "sad" attacks against Melania, Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric. The Fox News host quipped that journalists wouldn't mind seeing Barron Trump put in a juvenile detention center.
Watters jokingly suggested that the mainstream news media, which includes himself, will try to spin the prison reform bill by suggesting the Trumps themselves will be in prison.
Lewandowski continued to address the concerns laid out in the Gallup poll. "The American people, by and large, here's what they want, they want safety and security at home which means let's protect our country, they want roads they can drive on "so bridges aren't falling down around our country."
Watters and Lewandowski both agreed people should be given "access to health care across state lines." They noted insurance company monopolies and bureaucracy aren't allowing competition that would let prices come down.
Lewandowski also spoke of how he'd like to see more American military troops removed from places such Afghanistan, where the U.S. recently pulled about 7,000 people.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Benjamin Fearnow is a reporter based out of Newsweek's New York City offices. He was previously at CBS and Mediaite ... Read more
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