Fox & Friends Airs Jeanine Pirro Hitting Back at Psaki — And Cuts Out Part Where She Blames Biden for Trump Unrest

Fox & Friends stepped into the current back and forth between Jen Psaki and Jeanine Pirro but inserted themselves in a manner that was so charitable to their Fox News colleague that it verged on disingenuous.

At issue is the Press Secretary’s recent derision of Fox News coverage while sitting for a Pod Save America podcast (which is hosted by her former Obama administration colleagues).

During the podcast, she called out Fox News’s seemingly obsessive coverage of an alleged crime wave that has hit the United States under Biden, though national crime rates for 2021 are not yet available. She cited Pirro specifically, who when given the chance, effectively opened Monday’s episode of The Five to hit back.

Fox & Friends did Pirro a solid and aired the following portion of her retort in which she said the following…

She wants to know why I’m talking about the consequences of soft on crime. Well, I’m talking about the consequences of the Democrat liberal Progressive leftist soft on crime criminal loving victim-hating group that has made a decision that no bail, no jail, and that criminals are — should be privileged and that social justice and rogue prosecutors should not be a part of the criminal justice. Jen, you are so locked up in your Ivory Tower that you have no idea what the American people are concerned about. You don’t stand up for law and order. We do.

Fox & Friends viewers who had missed Monday’s episode of The Five probably considered Pirro’s retort as pretty thorough and complete. It wasn’t however because editors cut out the following portion:

“Joe Biden ignored all this. Joe Biden ignored the looting, the burning, the rioting, and he ignored the burning of a federal courthouse, and police precincts.”

As Mediaite’s own Michael Luciano wrote “Pirro appeared to be referencing the civil unrest that took place after the shooting of George Floyd in 2020. A federal courthouse was indeed set alight, as was at least one police station.”

“Biden was not president when those incidents occurred.”

2020 saw a huge spike in the national murder rate — more than 27% —though it’s not clear that Fox News opinion programming was as obsessed with blaming the sitting president for that during the final year of the Trump administration as they are with what is going on in Biden’s first year. According to FBI estimates, the murder rate has also gone up in 2021, but not close to the degree in 2020.

It is also not clear where Fox & Friends is getting their data in support of the huge crime wave, as the most recent national data released appears to cover the first quarter of 2021. There is an increased crime rate in some major cities, but the statistic cited by host Brian Kilmeade is that 81% of Americans are very concerned about crime.  Of course, those are people’s feelings, not facts, which might be an issue for some viewers.

Is the crime rate going up? Well, it sure feels like that if you are watching Fox News and seeing a torrent of what critics call fear-mongering. And there is likely evidence that supports that, namely this report from the Public Policy Institue of California that shows rising rates in violent and property crimes in the four largest cities in California.

But President Biden isn’t to blame for ignoring the looting and burning and rioting or the burning of a federal courthouse and police precincts. In fact, as a candidate, he spoke to these events while dismissing the idea of defunding the police, repeatedly.

But that does not help make Pirro’s political point, so she falsely accused Biden of something he didn’t do. Fox & Friends assisted her by cutting that part out. Probably for time.

Watch above via Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!