In an exchange with “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC Thursday morning, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw accused Fox News of launching a “jihad” in defense of President Donald Trump and against American “institutions.”
“Fox News, after Shepard Smith in the late afternoon, is on a jihad right now on the whole question about whether there’s a fairness about this or not, the transfer of uranium, for example, to Iran,” Brokaw told Brzezinski.
He suggested that Fox anchor Shepard Smith represents the last reasonable voice on Fox News, and that after his show the network engages in this “jihad.”
“The whole assault is on the institutions,” Brokaw charged. “Newt Gingrich looking in the camera and saying the FBI is a corrupt organization. Three months earlier he said Bob Mueller is one of the great distinguished public servants that we have.”
Brokaw concluded, “So we’re at, you know, we’re at war here and it’s going to be sorted out in the final analysis.”
In terms of Newt Gingrich’s comments, Brokaw was referring to the former House speaker’s segment with Sean Hannity earlier in December following revelations that FBI counter-intelligence agent Peter Strzok sent private texts to FBI lawyer Lisa Page discussing an “insurance plan” against Donald Trump’s election in 2016.
Strzok was fired early this month for the anti-Trump tweets and the bias they suggested he harbored against Trump. Even so, Strzok proved pivotal to the Mueller investigation into Trump-Russia connections, having interviewed former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. He also interviewed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her email scandal.
In light of this news, Gingrich’s concerns seem quite valid.
Furthermore, recent revelations showed that the FBI kept an investigation into Russian uranium corruption in the United States secret, just as Hillary Clinton was approving the sale of Uranium One (and with it 20 percent of U.S. uranium) to a Russian company, just after her husband Bill Clinton had given a $500,000 speech to pro-Uranium One clients in Moscow. To make matters worse, the FBI rushed to arrest Russian spies who were getting close to Clinton at the same time.
Furthermore, Brokaw’s use of the term “jihad” is particularly concerning, as it clearly evokes the Islamic term for holy war. This term has often been defended by liberals for its secondary meaning — a spiritual struggle in the soul of a Muslim against the forces of rebellion against Allah.
Most notoriously, Muslim Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour — now under fire for allegedly fostering sexual assault against a co-worker — publicly called for a political “jihad” against President Donald Trump.
Liberals might defend Sarsour’s “jihad” as non-violent, while arguing that Fox News’ “jihad” constitutes violence. As Brokaw added, “We’re at war here.”
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