‘Copping Out’: Fox News Criticizes White House For ‘Refusing’ to Condemn Will Smith Slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars
Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner and Fox host Pete Hegseth expressed disappointment that President Joe Biden and his White House have “refused to comment or condemn” Will Smith’s physical confrontation with Chris Rock during the Oscars.
Things turned surreal at Tuesday’s White House press briefing when Today News Africa White House correspondent Simon Ateba asked White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield about the slap heard ’round the world.
Bedingfield told Ateba that “the president was not able to watch the Oscars,” and so “I don’t have any official comment from him or from the White House on this.”
That did not sit well with Faulkner, who solemnly told viewers of The Faulkner Focus and guest Hegseth that “This is now beyond the Oscars, this is a bigger situation now with Will Smith and Chris Rock.”
“It’s opened the door on, you know, what do we want our kids to see? Who do we want our society to look like? It is a bigger thing,” Faulkner continued, and noted that “The White House now has refused to comment or condemn Will Smith for smacking Chris Rock across the face at the Oscars.”
Faulkner then played the exchange between Mr. Ateba and Ms. Bedingfield, which did, indeed, include no comment or condemnation.
“Meanwhile, Whoopi Goldberg says the academy was likely worried about the optics of punishing Will Smith,” Faulkner said, then showed a clip of Ms. Goldberg intimating that race was a factor in the decision not to remove Mr. Smith from the show, and supporting that decision.
Faulkner then expressed concern over a 2012 clip showing Smith delivering a light backhanded slap to a journalist on a photo line, and recalled “bald jokes” that Smith once told Arsenio Hall, and asked Mr. Hegseth for his thoughts.
“The White House has had no problem condemning issues of less consequence inside our culture, so clearly they’re copping out on this one,” Mr. Hegseth said.
Fox News reporters were called on at Tuesday’s briefing, and at an impromptu press conference that Biden gave on Monday, but did not broach the subject on either occasion.
Watch above via Fox News.
