Fox Business isn’t really the kind of place one would go to be intellectually stimulated, but regardless, the network’s Stuart Varney said something so ridiculous the other day that it left even former Tea Party Republican and Trump challenger Joe Walsh speechless.
Walsh, who recently announced he will primary Trump in 2020, was on Varney’s show to complain about how much Trump lies, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 times since taking office. And the former Tea Party lawmaker from Illinois, who used to claim that President Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn’t born in the U.S., certainly knows a thing or two about lying.
I would assume that Varney is familiar with lies, too, because he works at Fox. Nevertheless, he wasn’t letting on.
“I do believe we’ve never had a situation like this, where we have a president who we fundamentally can’t believe,” Walsh said, truthfully. “I do believe he lies virtually every time he opens mouth.” Accurate.
However, Varney was incredulous at this point and tried to put Walsh in his place—or at least remind him how a good Republican is supposed to act—by demanding an example of Trump telling a lie, which honestly, isn’t very hard to do.
Walsh cited an example from members of Trump’s own staff, who acknowledged earlier this week that the president had lied about nonexistent high-level phone conversations with China about the trade war. Trump told this lie to manipulate the markets, they said. Now, one might think that this type of lie might be of some interest to a person that, I don’t know, hosts a show on a business network. One would be wrong.
“No they didn’t. No. No,” Varney said, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s not a lie.”
What?
Varney demanded another example of Trump lying. Walsh responded by asking if Varney believes that Trump lies.
“No.”
Double what?
“He exaggerates and spins,” Varney said. Ok. We’re moving the goal posts.
Walsh asked again: “Do you believe he’s ever told the American people a lie?”
Varney answered again: “No.”
You should watch Walsh’s reaction, because frankly, what else is he supposed to do at that point:
As Eric Kleefeld of Media Matters for America pointed out, Varney also lied to Walsh by telling him they had to end the segment because they had a hard commercial break to do. And then Varney and his panel continued trashing Walsh for another solid minute.
Watch more of the exchange: