WATCH: Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade Spar Over Republican Heckling of Biden’s State of the Union
The consistently convivial conversation on the Fox & Friends curvy couch became slightly contentious Wednesday morning over President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech and the Republican heckling he endured.
Biden delivered a speech that seemed both designed to unify the joint member of congress and ignites the untoward behavior of some extreme members of the GOP, which appeared to work perfectly, as the speech was marked by numerous interruptions of heckling and callbacks that evoked the British House of Commons. Curiously, Biden appeared unphased by the verbal jousting and instead seemed energized by the backs and forth, as if he enjoyed it or even expected it.
“If you didn’t watch last night, the headline this morning was there were a lot of back-and-forth moments between Democrats and Republicans,” Ainsley Earhardt noted. “The Republicans started fighting back and booing and chanting and standing up and yelling things, if they disagreed with something that he said. If they thought he wasn’t telling the truth,” to which Steve Doocy interjected, “It was crazy.”
“One of the bigger moments is when he talked about medicare and social security,” Earhardt continued. “We knew he was probably going to say this going to it if you watched any of our shows. He is going to say that Republicans want to get rid of your social security. They want to get rid of your medicare. Well, he did that, and Republicans were prepared.”
A clip of that moment was aired in which Biden noted how some Republicans wanted to “sunset” medicare and social security, to which many assembled Republicans audibly booed.
To Doocy’s credit, he clarified exactly what Biden was referring to. “[Senator] Rick Scott had a suggestion about sunsetting social security and medicare. That was just one suggestion a while back. We knew Joe Biden was going to do this because he does it every ti. He talks about how Republicans want to cut your social security and medicare, which really angers people. It also it’s not true.”
Rick Scott did, in fact, put forth a proposal that called for a budget vote on “entitlements” every five years as a way to manage cost, or, you know, cap or limit the costs.
“Here’s the thing you could tell that was inserted in the speech because he wanted to bait the Republicans,” Doocy explained, “Then he wanted to have some back and forth, and he did.” There is no way that Doocy would know this because they were happening at nearly the exact same time, but he was echoing the very same sentiments put forth by another cable news morning show host, Joe Scarborough, who served three terms as a House Republican in the 90s.
Brian Kilmeade seemed shocked by Doocy’s take, saying, “You think he wanted that?”
Doocy: “Absolutely. Do you know why? Because he had a big smile on his face.”
Kilmeade: “He reacted in the room.”
Doocy: “So happy that the Republicans got ahead and jeered at him.”
Kilmeade: “There is no way he wanted that.”
Earhardt interjected to side with Kilmeade and used Republicans agreeing with Biden that they will not cut social security and medicare as evidence that Biden didn’t want that back and forth, which doesn’t appear to make much sense on the face of things.
“Right. Because he said okay, if that’s off the table now, let’s talk about the seniors,” Doocy pivoted. “The reason I said that was Peter Doocy; nobody has seen Joe Biden give more speeches than Peter Doocy over the last five years. Peter could tell the way that that was written that heated to engage the Republicans. And ultimately, he did. And what did he do he? Got them to essentially say okay. That’s off the table. Now let’s move on to social security.”
Watch above via Fox News.
