The 13 Craziest Takes on Fox News After FBI Trump Raid: ‘You Used the Flag as Toilet Paper’
Let’s be honest about the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence: we know little to nothing about it.
That didn’t stop a series of Fox News hosts and pundits from melting down on Monday night, declaring the raid a corrupt coup marking the end of America’s position as a first world country.
In a brief spell of sanity for the network, Fox News anchor Shannon Bream spelled out what we do know about the raid: “This doesn’t just happen overnight,” she said. “Any DOJ or FBI, any administration is going to want to be exceptionally careful.”
“This FBI has clearly made, and this attorney general has the made, the calculation that they think they have enough [evidence] to move forward and risk the political optics of this,” she said.
The rest of Fox News prime time was a fantasyland, where there was no chance the raid was justified by evidence of wrongdoing the FBI had to present to a judge to get it approved.
No matter that the FBI is run by a Republican appointed by Trump. This had to be the work of the deep state seeking to destroy the former president, and it had to have been approved by Biden as a plot to take him down, regardless of the complete lack of evidence supporting those assumptions.
As conservative writer David French noted on Twitter: “A lot of people are losing their minds tonight without seeing the warrant, the warrant application, or the supporting materials. Neither the former president nor the FBI are above the law. Take a breath and wait until we see the basis for the warrant before judging its merits.”
No judgment was withheld on Fox News Monday night. I am aware that nuance is not a trait rewarded in punditry, but the takes on Fox have been truly deranged. Here are the craziest.
Worst attack on the United States in modern history
Move over Pearl Harbor and 9/11: Mark Levin called into Hannity on Monday night and declared the Mar-a-Lago raid “the worst attack on this republic in modern history.”
He declared the FBI “corrupt” and added:
And it’s not just an attack on Donald Trump. It’s an attack on everybody who supports him. It’s an attack on anybody who dares to raise serious questions about Washington, D.C., and the establishment in both parties. I haven’t heard a damn thing from the Republican leadership in the Senate! Have you? Not one of those guys has put out a statement. Because they’re weak. That’s why.
Abolish the FBI
Dan Bongino called on Trump to dismantle the entire FBI if he wins the presidential election in 2024:
You used the flag as toilet paper last night! Don’t give me this rank and file crap! I don’t buy any of it! Every single person involved in this needs to be fired immediately. When President Trump hopefully runs again and takes the White House, every single person at the top of the DOJ and the FBI who cannot raise their right hand and pledge allegiance to the Constitution needs to be fired yesterday! And then when the Left starts whining and the media, fire 100 more the next day. Do not even let them breathe! Everyone has to go! You do not live in a constitutional republic anymore! There is no fixing this, only rebuilding it.
We’re at war, the FBI is the Gestapo, “we need to choke down the FBI and choke down the Justice Department”
“We’re at war,” Steve Bannon told Fox News host Will Cain on Monday night (to be fair he says this all the time).
But he went a step further in his latest rant, claiming without evidence that Biden chief of staff Ron Klain approved the raid, calling the FBI “the Gestapo,” and declaring “We need to choke down the FBI and choke down the Justice Department.”
Fire Christopher Wray
Christopher Wray, the Republican appointed by Trump to run the FBI, has been the target of continuous outrage on Fox News.
Jesse Watters called for him to be fired on Monday night, declaring him “corrupt.”
“This is going to absolutely enrage the country, especially the Republican base, a base that is clearly behind the ex-president,” Watters said, before landing on an ominous conclusion: “The people of this country are not going to go for this.”
A pre-emptive coup
Pro-Trump radio host Buck Sexton told Jesse Watters the raid was part of a “preemptive coup” to stop Trump from running for office in 2024:
Jesse, it almost feels like a preemptive coup. We’ve heard so much about the insurrection and the coup, but this is preventing this is meant to prevent Donald Trump from being able to run again. I think everyone’s very aware of the fact that Democrats have been preparing, and they’ve been talking about this for quite some time. And the notion that somehow suddenly there’s this great need to go around all the cooperation, all the agreements, all the documents, everything that has been given up to this point for a raid on the former president’s residence.
I mean, I don’t get upset or rattled easily about politics in this country. I know you don’t, either. This is the Rubicon being crossed. This is something we’ve never seen before. This is something that is outrageous. And the usage of the FBI in this way is really the nail in the coffin for so many Americans as to whether you can trust the FBI or trust the DOJ. Clearly not on political matters.
America is Russia and the FBI is the KGB
Former Trump administration official Michael Caputo told Fox America is now Russia (also that Joe Biden, his son, and his brother will be indicted in 2025):
America is in a full-blown constitutional crisis. The American people have endured a slow, creeping attack on our nation. I had a front row seat in the Russia hoax, and I’ve watched it get steadily and methodically worse ever since, with this militant raid on President Trump’s home, we have become Russia.
The FBI is the KGB. I should know. I’ve seen them both in action and I see no difference at all. With all the disagreements over presidential documents across almost ever single presidency in history, there was never a military-style raid on a former president’s home. Today Joe Biden just guaranteed he will be indicted in 2025. And his son. And his brother.
A dark day for our republic
Sean Hannity declared Monday “a dark day for our republic, the Department of Justice, the rule of law.”
He added the caveat that the raid “looks to be potentially a shocking overreach – we’ll find out in due time,” but still managed to conclude that the “DOJ is now being used as a weapon against Biden’s top political rival, that’s the former president of the United States of America, Donald Trump.”
Purge the government
Laura Ingraham called on Republicans to “hold everyone accountable” for undermining the former president if they retake Congress after November’s midterms:
When we get power back, it’s time to hold everyone accountable: the military leadership, the civilian leadership, the civil service, those in Congress who’ve abused their power. All of them have to be held accountable. All of them. It can’t be this nice guy routine where we just, “Oh, let’s be friends.”
Defund and dismantle the FBI
Russ Vought, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump, appeared on Ingraham to demand the FBI be defunded and dismantled:
This is a wake-up call for those in Congress to be able to use the tools at their disposal to defund the FBI, to ask the right questions, and to prepare for a Church-style commission next year if given a Republican majority to dismantle the FBI into a thousand bits.
This is the deep state’s revenge
Ingraham declared on her show that the “real target of this investigation” — again, an investigation we currently know nothing about — is “you.”
She explained:
Well, the search warrant served on Mar-a-Lago this morning had Donald Trump’s name on it. But the real target of this investigation isn’t Trump. The real target of this investigation is you or anyone who dares to call out and take on the rank corruption of the D.C. establishment. This is the deep state’s revenge. They’re trying to show all of us that we’ll be destroyed if we fight them.
America is worse than a banana republic
Kayleigh McEnany, the Trump press secretary turned Fox News host, said calling the U.S. a banana republic is an understatement:
This is very scary. There’s a trend. Never-before-used statutes used in a fashion to go after who? Political enemies. Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, and then the former President of the United States himself. Wow. They say banana republic — I think it’s an understatement because it really feels like we are there and beyond.
The woke socialist Left will stop at nothing to destroy our nation. Buy tickets to CPAC to save it.
CPAC head Matt Schlapp rushed up an op-ed for Fox News in which he said:
“The woke, socialist Left will stop at nothing to destroy our nation, but after gathering with thousands of patriots at CPAC in Dallas this past weekend, I’m confident that freedom will prevail, and we will save America,” Schlapp said.
He argued the U.S. is now a “third-world country” and said the raid is part of a coup, and concluded his op-ed by asking readers to buy tickets to the next CPAC:
Will we as a nation stand and fight against the insidious tactics of the Left? Join us at CPAC 2023 and make your voice heard.
Third-world bullshit!
One more Bongino for the road. The Fox News host ranted on Monday night that the FBI investigating Trump for potential wrongdoing is “third-world bullshit.”
“Let me say it again: third-world bullshit,” he told Jesse Watters. “I mean every word of that I don’t care that it’s cable news.”
“This is a freaking disgrace,” he added. “A disgrace. We don’t live in Cuba. We don’t live under Kim Jong-Un. We live in a constitutional republic, a representative democracy. You have a bunch of FBI agents raiding the home of a former president because they don’t like his politics? Are you kidding me?”
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This cannot be emphasized enough: none of these pundits calling for the corrupt FBI to be abolished and the government to be purged have any idea whether Trump is actually innocent.
The former president has a long history of subverting the rule of law — from his days as a businessman through to his presidency — and is currently facing five criminal investigations.
Maybe hold your fire for more information before declaring the U.S. a banana republic and this raid worse than 9/11.
Additional reporting by Benjamin Kirsch.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
