Fox’s Ingraham: Media using Bush’s death as a ‘political battering ram’ against Trump

Laura Ingraham said Monday night that the media “embraces a Republican in death, but [doesn’t] treat them fairly in life” in reference to coverage of former President George H.W. Bush’s death.

{mosads}The Fox News host slammed “media and politicians from both parties [for] abusing this moment to trash” President Trump, saying some in the media are using a death as a “political battering ram.”

She specifically called out MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and Mika Brzezinski.

Bush’s state funeral and ongoing memorial events have been covered extensively on the cable news networks for the past two days. Bush’s casket was flown to Washington on Monday and paraded with full military honors to the Capitol Rotunda where it will lie in state until Wednesday afternoon.

“When a former president passes away, it’s appropriate to celebrate his life, his achievements and to remind the public of his record and his legacy,” Ingraham began in her opening monologue on Monday.

“Sadly, though, with the death of George H.W. Bush, some in the media and politicians from both parties are abusing this moment to trash, instead, the sitting president,” she continued. “As the Bush motorcade was making its way to the capitol for the last time, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide herself, could not restrain herself.”

Ingraham tossed to a clip of Wallace on MSNBC earlier Monday, where the ex-communications director for former President George W. Bush argued that President Trump had “debased” the office “in a way that’s unimaginable for people who served the last president.”

“I think what’s lost in this moment is our reverence and our dependence and the way we need and rely upon the elegance and the traditions of the presidency,” Wallace added off-camera while video of Bush’s motorcade was heading to the capitol was shown.

“Let’s get this straight. She’s talking about reverence and she’s trashing the current president as the motorcade is inching its way up Capitol Hill,” Ingraham noted before tossing to a “gem” from another MSNBC host, Mika Brzezinski.

“My prediction is that Trump fakes more respect for a family whose unprecedented history of public service has repeatedly belittled, then he goes back to making a mockery of the very office George Bush and this nation long revered,” Brzezinski declared on Monday’s “Morning Joe.”

“Well think about it this way, President Bush was a man who loved his country, loved his family, his faith and his friends. He was a war hero and a dedicated public servant throughout most of his life,” commented Ingraham, who worked as a law clerk under Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a nominee of George H.W. Bush. “So are these folks really honoring that legacy and his innate sense of decency and kindness by slashing the man who entered the White House 25 years after him?”

The media “embraces a Republican in death, but don’t treat them fairly in life,” Ingraham concluded later in the segment.

Wallace and Brzezinski earlier on Monday hit back at Ingraham’s argument on Twitter, where she made similar comments to her program. The latter referred to Ingraham as “serving as the president’s panderer.”

“If describing reality is sniping then ok .. but I’m not sure where you think this is going except REALLY badly,” Brzezinski wrote. “[Nicolle Wallace] is right on.. you are as usual serving as the president’s panderer. I’m not sure that ends well but hey good luck!”

If describing reality is sniping then ok .. but I’m not sure where you think this is going except REALLY badly. @NicolleDWallace is right on.. you are as usual serving as the president’s panderer. I’m not sure that ends well but hey good luck! https://t.co/pPxkC6qJcA

— Mika Brzezinski (@morningmika) December 4, 2018

Brzezinski, along with co-host Joe Scarborough, were once on friendly terms with then-candidate Trump during the presidential primaries in 2016. On many occasions, the pair had Trump, a former NBC employee as host of “The Apprentice,” on their morning program for extensive phone interviews.

At the time, critics from the left called Scarborough and Brzezinski’s relationship with Trump a “bromance of convenience” and accused them of being “Trump’s lapdogs.”

The relationship quickly went south after Trump captured the Republican nomination in May 2016, with the co-hosts and Trump taking personal shots at each other since that time.