Fresh off his surprising public announcement that he favored the Democrats’ approach to immigration reform—a position that was quickly “clarified” by other Republicans in the room—President Trump tweeted this after getting confused by a Fox & Friends segment:
“House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.” This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018
This was a little peculiar since Trump supports the extension of FISA. Josh Marshall:
“Two hours later at 9:14 AM, apparently after someone explained to him that he was attacking his own bill, the President tweeted this. “With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!” There is of course a rather intense debate about whether these powers should exist at all. But President Trump is misstating what the law actually does. More importantly, he just made policy, or temporarily changed his policy without his staff knowing, based on something he watched on Fox and Friends.
Trump’s initial tweet sent Congress into a temporary tizzy, but I think everyone is drawing the wrong conclusions from this. Sure, it’s yet more evidence that Trump is a moron, but more importantly it shows that Fox & Friends is not taking its constitutional role seriously.
These guys know that Trump is watching, and they know that Trump is easily confused. We all understand that he’s declined over the past couple of years, and America’s well-being depends on Fox & Friends switching to a simpler format and being more careful to explain to Trump what he does and doesn’t support. We all have patriotic duties in these difficult times, and Fox & Friends needs to make sure it doesn’t confuse the commander-in-chief early in the morning before his staff is ready to take over that job.
