On One of the Wildest News Days This Year, Fox News’ Harold Ford Was a Waste of a Chair

Why was Harold Ford on television today?

Every weekday on The Five, five Fox News co-hosts occupy five chairs during the 5 pm ET hour to hash out the news of the day. You might think that on a major news day, the network would want to make sure it had its A Team in those five seats.

And yet, on a day when the world’s richest man and the world’s most powerful man engaged in a brutally messy public spat for hours, Fox News rolled out Harold Ford.

The bromance-ending battles between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk were mostly fought via pixels Thursday afternoon, as the two billionaires fired social media posts at each other, but real-world consequences loom large.

Tesla stock took a nasty hit, Musk called for Trump to be impeached, Trump threatened to cancel Musk’s lucrative federal contracts, Musk threatened to mothball SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft that’s currently the only viable transport to the International Space Station, the “Big Beautiful Bill” Trump wants passed is facing stronger headwinds than ever, accusations have flown about the 2024 election and the Epstein files, and who knows what else may have transpired in the last few minutes.

With two of the most famous and influential people on the planet at war, the internet exploded with jokes and memes and the media world was ablaze with fiery reactions.

Ford, on the other hand, kicked off the show by spending nearly three minutes saying basically nothing at all.

After a few minutes of Sandra Smith framing the Musk vs. Trump feud as a “distraction” pushed by the media, she asked Ford, “What are your Democrat friends saying about what looks like a breakup at the moment?”

“So Sandra, good that — I’m glad you’re here, and I’m glad Kayleigh is here,” replied Ford. “My Democrat friends are disappointed, too. No one wants to see this.”

I am not sure what Democrats are included on Ford’s friends list, but either they are radical outliers among their fellow partisans or Ford is telling fibs. “Disappointed” is eleventy bazillion light years away from the sentiments expressed by elected Democrats, official party accounts, and liberal activists Thursday afternoon. Outright unfiltered glee would be more accurate for many.

Ford continued with several minutes of word salads, non sequiturs, and side quests.

“I don’t think this is a Democrat or Republican thing,” he began, but just a situation where “the adults are not in charge.” He then expressed his hope that those two kids would figure out a way to get along:

I’m hoping — I agree with you, this is not a partisan thing — I hope they will repair this. For the richest person in the world, who happens to live in America and has dual citizenship, I think with here and South Africa, and for the President of United States, who had a relationship a year ago, they were the greatest of pals, and for the world to see this, is just simply not a good thing.

Two, he said something, he said two things, Mr. Musk did, and the president said another thing, but Mr. Musk said that he was responsible for this win and responsible for the Senate and House. It was interesting the way he said that. I don’t know if I agree with him on that. I think you make a good point, Kayleigh, but we are going to see what he means by that. Then he said something else: the president’s only around for three and a half years, I’m around for 40 years. Now I take that to mean to those in politics, Democrat and Republican, that I’m going to be a kingmaker, continue to be a kingmaker in politics.

Then the president said he would cancel some of the contracts, that the way to save money, would be to cancel contracts. I’ve never been one to think the president, to think the president was totally consumed by retribution, though others in my party have said it. I think at times he is human, he has flesh, wants to punch back at people who punch him, but why — if you really believe, we said eight weeks ago, 12 weeks ago on this show, but for Elon we wouldn’t have a space program, but for Elon Musk we might not have the ability to communicate around the globe like we do and certainly Ukrainians wouldn’t have been able to do what they did against Russia but for Starlink.

I’ve said on this show and we’ve talked, we’ve bragged about his prowess as a technologist. So I just hope, to Greg’s points, I agree with you, I hope they are able to dial this back and de-escalate because we may be motivated by different reasons, but I don’t like it because it’s not good for the country, not good for how we look around the globe.

Ford wrapped his answer with a strange segue into Trump’s recent travel ban, pondered why Egypt was not included after the Colorado firebombing attack (and then immediately moving past it), and said the government should “start tracking people who want to learn how to build Molotov cocktails online.”

During the rest of the hour, Ford claimed his friends “never stopped” buying Teslas (contrary to the worldwide trend of crashing sales figures and stock prices for Tesla); responded “permission granted” when Greg Gutfeld said he wanted to make a “troubling analogy” about hiring “a really hot girl” as a restaurant hostess; told Jesse Watters “your DEI joke was funny” and said Watters “is not a racist, he just plays one on TV;” agreed with his co-hosts in their criticisms of former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre; said George Clooney should maybe run for president “if he wants to” because “he has a lot of thoughts;” told Gutfeld he agreed with him about President Joe Biden; said it was refreshing that Trump would speak to the cameras “unfiltered;” and told his fellow co-hosts “I’m not disagreeing with anything that you’re saying” regarding Trump’s support from voters on specific issues.

Oh, and he also got to lead a short discussion on security robots Walmart was testing in parking lots.

Let’s be blunt: if Ford’s seat had been occupied by a potted plant, would it have mattered?

To Fox News’s credit, the network has a long history of saving a seat to air a contrary opinion, dating back to Sean Hannity’s previous program he co-hosted with Alan Colmes, the roles played by Bill Schultz and Andy Levy on Gutfeld’s previous semi-unhinged 3 am show Red Eye, to the current “One Lucky Guy” on Outnumbered and the spot reserved for a Democrat on The Five.

But what is the flipping point of having a Democrat on The Five if all he does is pleasantly nod along and say he agrees with all his right-leaning co-hosts?

Jessica Tarlov, the other regular occupant of The Five’s Democratic chair, shows up ready, willing, and able to throw down on the issues of the day, armed not just with her more liberal viewpoint but a pocketful of receipts and a feisty wit. She’s happy to take on the rest of the table at once in a one-vs-four rhetorical brawl, but avoids the nasty ad hominem attacks that tarnish the battles Scott Jennings wages from the other partisan direction over on CNN.

Seeing Tarlov spar with her co-hosts for an hour over the implications of Musk vs. Trump would have been damn good TV. It’s a shame Fox News did not give that to their viewers.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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