HUME-ILIATION

Fox News Star Humiliates Trump by Detailing All His Problems

The veteran anchor said the president’s campaign blitz is falling flat, among other issues.

Brit Hume has sounded the alarm on Donald Trump’s midterm sprint, and he doesn’t appear to be impressed.

Election Day is two weeks away, and Fox News’ 83-year-old senior political analyst used his Monday appearance on Special Report with Bret Baier to list the mounting problems facing the 80-year-old president’s haphazard attempt to save the GOP from tanking in the midterms.

Hume’s got the numbers on his side. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday found Trump’s approval rating has sunk to 31 percent, a new low for his political career, with Democrats holding a 12-point edge on the generic congressional ballot. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos survey conducted Oct. 9–13 and published Sunday put his approval at 33 percent.

“The president has been out campaigning vigorously, but I’m not sure it’s making any difference, and what difference it makes, I’m not sure is helping,” Hume said, in his trademark deadpan.

Exhibit A: Texas.

“He’s calling James Talarico, ‘Tala-freak-o,’” Hume told Baier, 56.

Talarico is a former teacher and Austin-area state lawmaker. Facing off against Trump-endorsed Republican nominee Ken Paxton, he is a rising star Democrat and a proud progressive populist. Both are vying for the Senate seat vacated by Sen. John Cornyn, whom Paxton ousted in May. A Fox 7 survey shows a tight contest, with Talarico holding a wafer-thin lead. Trump has explained the nickname by claiming Talarico is “a little freaky.”

Hume said, “Now look, it’s true that James Talarico has endorsed some pretty exotic positions in his years in public life, and that he is not on paper, at least, a very good fit for the state of Texas. However, what he does not seem to be is a freak.”

“You see him, he seems mild-mannered, he seems pleasant, he’s not an unattractive candidate, whether you agree with him or not,” he added.

Hume then turned to foreign policy, saying, “This cuddling up to Vladimir Putin at this moment, and his turning his back seemingly once again on Volodymyr Zelensky, I don’t think that plays well.”

Late Friday night, Trump suspended a sweeping package of Russia sanctions that Congress passed just last month. This drew fire from both parties. It came days after he agreed to buy Russian diesel to bring down fuel prices, which have soared since he went to war with Iran.

Trump turned on Zelensky over the weekend, claiming the Ukrainian leader “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” before telling reporters Monday he’d be open to peace talks with Putin and Xi Jinping without Zelensky at the table.

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“The American public isn’t really sold on Zelensky, but it favors him... by some margin,” Hume said. “They can’t stand Putin. I mean, the polling on Putin is just terrible.”

He also pointed to the White House’s press secretary debacle, calling it a “fiasco.”

“They sent the poor person out there with no time to prepare, really, only a matter of a day or two, and it didn’t go well,” Hume said. “Well, of course it didn’t. It was crazy to send her out like that.”

Hume didn’t name her, but he was referring to Katie Zacharia, who left the role on Oct. 16 after less than a week in the job. Her exit is the shortest tenure of any U.S. press secretary on record.

Zacharia had blamed her disastrous debut briefing on having “very little prep time,” telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity, “I received briefing materials in the morning.”

Hume concluded, “So I don’t see this White House and this campaigning by the president as having made much headway so far,” Hume concluded.

Host Baier then turned to the riots engulfing France, where student protests over school conditions have spiraled into the country’s worst unrest in years, CNN reported.

Hume said the chaos “might change the political atmosphere” if it reached American soil, but added: “If it doesn’t spread here... I’m not sure how much of an effect it will have on this election.”

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.

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