Fox News Calls Canadian PM Justin Trudeau ‘Blackface Enthusiast’ During Segment on ‘Trucker’ Protest

Fox News pronounced Justin Trudeau a “blackface enthusiast” during a segment criticizing how the Canadian prime minister has handled the “Freedom Convoy” trucker protests in Ottawa.

On Thursday, Fox’s Laura Ingraham spoke with Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, who recently denounced Trudeau for initiating a government crackdown on the truckers protesting vaccine mandates. Lantsman, who is Jewish, is demanding Trudeau apologize for lumping her and other conservatives with “people who wave swastikas” and other fringe groups backing the “illegal” trucker protests.

As Lantsman denounced Trudeau’s comments to Ingraham, Fox News ran a caption beneath her that said “BLACKFACE ENTHUSIAST EQUATES SUPPORT OF TRUCKERS WITH SUPPORT OF SWASTIKAS.” This was an obvious reference to Trudeau’s blackface scandal, and the network removed all trace of subtlety by airing photos of Trudeau in his dark make-up while Lantsman was speaking.

Trudeau’s scandal happened back in 2019 when multiple photos emerged of him in blackface at a 2001 costume party. When the news broke, Trudeau admitted he couldn’t recall how many times he wore blackface in the past, but he apologized for his behavior, saying “I should have known better but I didn’t and I’m really sorry

Neither Ingraham nor Lantsman mentioned Trudeau’s blackface scandal themselves during the segment, so there was no explanation for why it was relevant to the topic at hand. A Mediaite review of Fox News’ programming from the last 2 weeks shows Greg Gutfeld, Sean Hannity, and others at the network have repeatedly invoked Trudeau’s scandal as a retort to questions about whether there is a racial or far-right extremist element connected to the anti-vaccine mandate protest.

While Ingraham’s show is driven by right-wing opinion and the chyrons likely may have more editorial freedom, calling Trudeau a “blackface enthusiast” seems hugely hyperbolic, considering the scandal and his apology came years ago.

There is the recurring matter of how many liberal figures are allowed to skate over past instances of blackface, but dredging it up in this scenario looks more like deflection from the here and now.

Watch above, via Fox News.

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