Fox News Defends Barron Trump’s Privacy By Mentioning Him More Than Two-Dozen Times

Pro-Trump personalities exploded with collective outrage on Wednesday night after constitutional law scholar Pamela Karlan brought up the existence of President Donald Trump’s youngest son Barron Trump while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee’s inaugural impeachment hearing.

While Karlan did not criticize Barron and only mentioned the first-son’s name in an innocuous dad-joke pun — quipping that the “Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility, so while the president can name his son Barron, he cannot make him a baron” after a Democratic lawmaker asked the legal expert to differentiate between Trump’s power and that of a feudal king — it was still enough to launch conservatives into absolute hysteria.

Many on Fox News — the same network that hosted a guest who called 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg a “mentally ill Swedish child” — was deeply offended by Karlan’s mention of the Trump teen. Their on-air talent repeatedly argued that acknowledging Barron’s name was a violation of his privacy. In fact, they were so upset about Barron’s lack of privacy that the network’s hosts mentioned his name nearly two dozen times last night. Barron’s name was mentioned twice on Bret Baier’s Special Report, nine times on  Martha MacCallum’s The Story, twice on Tucker Carlson Tonight, six times on Hannity, and four times on Laura Ingraham’s show, per the news monitoring service TVEyes.

If the conservative argument against Karlan, who apologized for the comment, is that just mentioning Barron’s name, even without ascribing any opinions about the 13-year-old, is an attack or an out-of-bounds remark, then clearly dropping his name in nearly every primetime hour of America’s top cable news network did more to hurt the minor’s privacy than Karlan’s one comment — which surely would have been quickly forgotten had it not been for Fox News and other conservative media outlets insistence on bringing it up.

The network’s top personality, Sean Hannity, dramatically framed Karlan’s comment as an “attack against Barron Trump,” adding, “When is enough enough?” Fox News’ #2 host Tucker Carlson called it “petty and dumb,” MacCallum condemned Karlan for her “insensitivity,” and Ingraham claimed Karlan colluded with Democrats to set up the supposedly “planned and choreographed line.” It should be noted that The Ingraham Angle was once a save haven for attacking minors, as the 10 p.m. host infamously mocked teenaged Parkland survivor David Hogg for not getting into some of the Ivy League colleges he applied to.

The hosts over at Fox Business also lashed out at the Democratic witness, as host Trish Reagan called Karlan “pretty mean” and seethed that she has “had enough of the people who think it’s okay to attack first lady, to attack her son,” but failed to explain why simply mentioning Barron’s name was an “attack.” The president’s favorite Fox Business host Lou Dobbs referred to the law scholar as “ignorant.”

Conservative outrage against Karlan was not contained to Fox’s airwaves.

Ingraham took to Twitter to call the Barron pun a “cheap shot” and proof that Democrats have no “shred of hope that they’re going to win this impeachment battle in the court of public opinion.”

Karlan’s cheap shot invoking Baron Trump’s name just lost them any shred of hope that they’re going to win this impeachment battle in the court of public opinion.

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) December 4, 2019

Frequent Fox News guest and Trump-ally Charlie Kirk accused Karlan of “shamelessly attack[ing]” a teenager. Kirk also has a history of shamelessly attacking teens, namely the time he baselessly accused Greta Thunberg of being aligned with “domestic terrorism.”

Congress brought 16 year old Swedish girl Greta Thunberg before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Yesterday

She’s been pictured wearing pro-ANTIFA clothing & raising money for ANTIFA causes in Europe

This is the Democrats’ star witness—a supporter of domestic terrorism?

?

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 20, 2019

Additionally, numerous members of the Trump family, White House, and Trump campaign spent last night fuming online.

Classless move by a Democratic “witness”. Prof Karlan uses a teenage boy who has nothing to do with this joke of a hearing (and deserves privacy) as a punchline. And what’s worse, it’s met by laughter in the hearing room. What is being done to this country is no laughing matter.

— Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) December 4, 2019

A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it.

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 4, 2019

Vice President Pence says the “impeachment hearings reached a new low” when a witness called by Democrats used “the president and first lady’s 13 year old son to justify their partisan impeachment.” “Democrats should be ashamed. Enough is enough,” he says.

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) December 4, 2019

The Karlan joke about Barron Trump was an unforced error, and Republicans are going to be talking about it quite a bit. pic.twitter.com/ir6RqIgfbN

— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) December 4, 2019

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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