President Donald Trump praised “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday, tweeting out his gratitude to the Fox News morning show over a segment focusing on President Obama’s handling of the Russia threat prior to the 2016 election.
“Thank you to @foxandfriends for the great timeline on all of the failures the Obama Administration had against Russia, including Crimea, Syria and so much more. We are now starting to win again!” said Trump.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965925223949357056
Trump added the following attack on Obama, which he pulled word-for-word from “Fox & Friends.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965928352614965248
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965930611272712192
The tweets came after show co-hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade all but addressed Trump directly on Tuesday with an extended case arguing that President Obama had not been tough enough about confronting the Russia threat.
“If you look at the president’s track record, it’s been anything but strong when it comes to Russia,” said Kilmeade. “Then, of course, he made that statement to win re-election against Mitt Romney, ‘Hey the 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back.’”
Doocy agreed.
“Barack Obama was the president of the United States when Russia was meddling with our election,” he said.
The moment illustrates the intertwined relationship between the president and the television show. The segment was designed to put support a President’s Day tweet from Trump, which asked why his predecessor did not do more on Russia.
“Obama was President up to, and beyond, the 2016 Election. So why didn’t he do something about Russian meddling?” said Trump.
Obama was President up to, and beyond, the 2016 Election. So why didn’t he do something about Russian meddling?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2018
In addition to “Fox & Friends,” that point also received praise on MSNBC from a surprising quarter — Joe Scarborough. On his Tuesday show, the morning host said questions about why Obama didn’t do more on Russia were “legitimate.”