Brian Stelter, S.E. Cupp Knock Trump-Russia Defenses from Fox: ‘Default Is Always to Bash the Media’

HLN’s S.E. Cupp spoke with Brian Stelter earlier tonight about President Trump‘s newest interview and the way Fox News covered his Putin presser.

As Cupp noted at the top, multiple Fox Newsers were varying degrees of critical, and she praised it as a “welcome show of independence, fairness, and backbone from a network that has been Trump’s most reliable defender throughout his presidency.”

She added, “It lasted about a minute.”

Some of the network’s pro-Trump hosts have been defending him over the press conference and deriding the media overreaction.

After tackling Trump’s comments to CBS News’ Jeff Glor, Stelter said it seemed like the Fox & Friends hosts were trying to “coach” him.

Cupp said, “It’s really odd the choice among some to defend him, because they really didn’t have to. And the evidence of that is that Trump is walking it back… Everyone was against this, everyone universally condemned this. It was an odd decision, I thought, to sort of die on this hill.”

Stelter said of Sean Hannity in particular, “I think Hannity has chosen to be blindfolded… He wants to be blinded. He does not want to know what Mueller’s finding, he does not want to know what Russia did to this country and what Russia may be doing now. He wants the rest of us to be blindfolded too.”

“The default is always to bash the media,” he added. “It’s Hannity’s safe space, it’s where he goes, it’s where he went this week. When in doubt, just saying the media was overreacting and hysterical.”

Watch above, via HLN.

[image via screengrab]

— —

Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!