Second time’s the charm?
Fox & Friends opened up for its second live studio audience Friday, bringing on a parade of Fox News all-stars to dissect everything from the Michael Cohen hearing to the Green New Deal to what the Founding Fathers might have had to say about the word “token.”
To make things more interesting this time around, each audience member was given an awfully familiar red “Fox News” hat to wear during the three-hour program.
Among the bits of what can only be deemed “peak Fox & Friends”: Diamond and Silk, the right-wing vloggers who recently got a job on Fox’s streaming platform, shocked the audience with their take on the spat between Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) at Cohen’s Wednesday hearing.
“It’s very sickening to see somebody like” Tlaib in Congress, Diamond (neé Lynnette Hardaway) told the co-hosts. “Where is it in the Constitution for you to disparage somebody and claim that they are a token?”
Here, a quick look at the other moments that sent Friday’s Fox & Friends completely off the rails:
Audience Butchers AOC’s Green New Deal—and Her Name
In an attempt to interact with the live audience, co-host Ainsley Earhardt ventured into the seats to ask how “Fox & Friends viewers” feel about the Green New Deal spearheaded by Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
"Many environmentalists, and OAC being one of them, do not realize that America is covered in grass,” said “Fox farmer friend” Gary, not receiving a correction on the Bronx congresswoman’s moniker. “And 75 percent of a cow or a beef animal’s body weight is made up of grass, which we cannot eat.”
Deemed “civilizational suicide” by the Friends earlier this week, the proposal is a non-binding and vague climate-change plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that a global scientific consensus has warned are threatening life as humans know it.
Diamond & Silk Go After Rashida Tlaib
In the debate over a racially fueled feud between two lawmakers during the Cohen testimony, Trump White House favorites Diamond and Silk have their answer: Everyone is racist.
Responding to Mark Meadows’ attempt to prove that the president “is not racist”—by showcasing his former Trump Organization employee-turned Housing and Urban Development official Lynne Patton, who is black— Rashida Tlaib called out the white lawmaker: It was racist to use Patton as a “a prop.”
"It’s very sickening to see somebody like” Tlaib in Congress, Diamond declared.
The duo argued to the all-white co-hosts that actually it’s the Democrats who are using Tlaib as a token, as she is the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress.
“Where is it in the Constitution for you to disparage somebody and claim that they are a token?” Diamond asked. “With her being a woman of color, was she being a token for the Democrats? Duh.”
Chris Christie to Sessions: But Hillary’s Emails!
During a Q&A session with the live audience, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie went back to a favorite conservative talking point: Hillary Clinton’s emails.
But instead of going after former FBI Director James Comey—who is often disparaged for opening and closing an investigation of the former secretary of state’s emails days before the 2016 election—Christie went after Jeff Sessions, the now-ousted attorney general.
“As far as the Hillary Clinton investigation, the fact is that this was Jeff Sessions’ responsibility when he became attorney general and he didn’t do it,” Christie said. “You know if you are going to take the responsibility and be the attorney general of the United States, you have to do not just the easy things, you have to do the hard things.”
Christie went further, saying Sessions and his team “let us down” by not launching a second investigation into Clinton and her use of a private email server—a move that he suggested new Attorney General William Barr might not be able to do.
“I believe in Bill, I think he is a good man and I think he is a much better choice for the president than Jeff Sessions was,” Christie said. “I think that we may have missed our window.”
Lara Trump Claims Secret New Yorkers Love Trump
The president’s daughter-in-law (and wife to Eric), Lara Trump, revealed to the Fox & Friends crew that despite Trump’s very low approval rating, he is beloved in his hometown, New York City.
“New York is not the easiest place,” the North Carolina native admitted. “But honestly the number of people even here in New York who come up to me—I can’t tell you—on a daily basis, and saying ‘We support the president, we love your family.’ It’s really more often than you think.”
A senior adviser for the president’s 2020 re-election campaign, Lara added that “even here in New York” (a deep-blue city), voters are allegedly aligning their support with the MAGA message.
“People are getting it, people are seeing what this president has done, they are feeling the results,” she said. “You can’t deny that.”
Jesse Watters Brings Back a Classic: Thanks Obama
Nighttime host Jesse Watters slammed Cohen’s assertion this week that Trump won’t accept defeat in the upcoming election, stating that Democrats were just as unwilling to hand over power in 2016.
“He said if Trump loses in 2020, he will not give up the White House peacefully,” the Fox host said. “And that reminded me: That’s kind of what the Democrats did last time. Has there been a peaceful transfer of power to Trump? No.”
To guarantee the transition of power is smooth, the Fox News host claimed, Democrats are using “liar” Cohen and his “puppet master” lawyer Lanny Davis to start an impeachment process against Donald Trump.
“I think he’s a total liar and he’s a fraud,” Watters said. “And that’s the Democrats’ best shot at impeachment… It’s Clinton’s fixer now representing Trump’s fixer. The fix is in.”
Who Would Win? Kim vs. Kim
Promoting the conservative cable channel’s continuing coverage of Trump’s summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, buttoned-up Friend Steve Doocy let his hair down for an anything-goes round by announcing a poll: Fox News will rank the most “famous Kims.”
Garnering applause from the audience, Earhardt couldn’t help but start the poll.
“Who’s more famous, Kim Kardashian or Kim Jong Un?” she asked.
“I know one is in better shape,” co-host Brian Kilmeade answered.