Fox host: Conservative heads would've exploded if Obama claimed Trump's total authority
Fox News host Bret Baier imagined how conservatives would have responded had former POTUS Barack Obama declared that the president’s “authority is total,” as President Donald Trump did earlier this week.
Speaking on Tuesday’s broadcast of “The Daily Briefing,” Baier noted the hypocrisy of “if President Obama had said those words that you heard from President Trump, that the authority is total with the presidency, you know, conservatives’ heads would’ve exploded across the board.”
Check out the clip here:
WOW! Fox News' Bret Baier just called Republicans out on their hypocrisy, saying "conservatives’ heads would've exploded" if Obama claimed "total authority".#KingTrump would hate it if this went viral! pic.twitter.com/sYUzopiQgu
— Mrs. Krassenstein (@HKrassenstein) April 14, 2020
Trump’s outlandish, and false, claim came during Monday’s daily White House coronavirus task force briefing after reporters asked how he would make governors kickstart their economies that have effectively been shuttered during the public health crisis.
Baier noted how there’d been “a lot of coverage” and criticism of why Trump hadn’t called for or implemented a nationwide stay-at-home order but said the coverage had now changed to ”‘No, he can’t open up.’”
“The bottom line is that the president can really influence these governors and work with them,” he added. “As far as the top-down order, by the Constitution, you can’t do that. So it’s working with these governors to open it up in a rolling kind of open is what I imagine would happen.”
Trump’s claim about authority attracted its fair share of criticism, but Baier’s Fox colleague Brit Hume described it as just “another of his serial exaggerations.”
POTUS claims of absolute power in Covid 19 emergency are constitutional nonsense, another of his serial exaggerations. The reaction to them are another case of media’s insistent focus on the stuff he says, as if that is more important than what he actually does. (cont’d)
— Brit Hume (@brithume) April 14, 2020
He constantly blusters and threatens all sorts of things, most of which never come to pass. In this instance, he is claiming supreme executive authority, but there is no sign he will try to exercise it. Indeed, he actions so far have been highly deferential to governors & mayors.
— Brit Hume (@brithume) April 14, 2020
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