‘A SET-UP’

Fox Host Melts Down at Right-Wing ‘60 Minutes’ Star’s Trump Interview

Emily Compagno accused Ross Douthat of “masquerading as a journalist.”

A Fox News host unraveled over 60 Minutes correspondent Ross Douthat’s interview of Donald Trump, claiming he was “masquerading as a journalist.”

On The Five, Emily Compagno was critical of the Catholic interviewer asking Trump whether he would be able to forgive his “enemies” if that allowed him to get into heaven. After Trump beat around the bush, Douthat said his life was “charmed and remarkable” and suggested he should be able to. But Trump ultimately answered, “I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will.”

Compagno, also a Catholic, launched into a lengthy tirade criticizing Douthat and “the media.”

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“It was such a telling and unsurprising interview, unfortunately, because the question was not about forgiveness. As always, it was just a set-up,” she complained.

“The attempt was trying to extract an answer they can then use against him,” she said. “And the fact that that person masquerading as a journalist framed, somehow, lawfare, prosecutions, two impeachments, a home raid, de-banking, de-platforming, the IRS tax returns being released, being plucked off the ballot and multiple assassination attempts as somehow a charmed existence? And I am supposed to sit alongside him in this place of pretend piety as he then interrupts the president to say no, god is on his throne of judgment? It was rich. It was distasteful, frankly.”

“This is the same media that has spent all of these years constructing someone that they have deemed totally disqualified and outside any kind of standards whatsoever,” Compagno, 46, continued.

“They have elevated every allegation, amplified every investigation. They have normalized the threats to extinction of language that has led to those assassination attempts. So, them trying to be the... moral authority and arbiter on the president, as always, it just spoke volumes not of his capacity to forgive or whether you guys see him as human, but just frankly how the media will always be that righteous, indignant, totally devoid of morality but attempts at moral authority over the president.”

Criticism of Douthat, 46, on The Five wasn’t limited to Compagno; Jesse Watters also took aim at the conservative former New York Times columnist.

“The question from this guy Ross, Ross, whatever his name is, they’re basically like, ‘You are about to die. So you are about to die. You’re probably not getting into heaven. But maybe, the only way you can get in, if you basically say you forgive all of these people that tried to kill you and impeach you and put you in prison,’” Watters, 48, imitated.

“The hell kind of question is that?” he asked. “I mean, the guy is not on his deathbed. They are acting like they are reading him his last rites. He’s a lame duck.”

Douthat’s books include last year’s Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious.

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A representative for CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

In the extended version of his 60 Minutes interview, Douthat asked the 80-year-old president: “100 years from now, while you’re working out your situation in purgatory, what is the line your presidency is remembered with?”

Trump answered: “That I made America great again.”

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