Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News host who made Islamophobic comments about a Muslim congresswoman, has been unexpectedly yanked off-air. And now one of her most-powerful defenders — the president of the United States — is railing against the network.
Justice With Judge Jeanine was missing from its usual Saturday timeslot at 9 pm on Fox News, coming just one week after Pirro questioned whether Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was loyal to the United States because she wears a hijab.
In response, Fox News took the rare move of publicly condemning one of its own anchors. But Pirro has refused to apologize, saying that she never explicitly called Omar “un-American.”
And now President Donald Trump is injecting himself into the controversy in defense of Pirro. “Fox … must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country,” Trump tweeted on Sunday.
Fox News has not indicated when Pirro will be returning to the network. “We’re not commenting on internal scheduling matters,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Pirro’s program is one of the network’s top weekend shows. But last week’s monologue drew widespread rebuke, even from top producers at the network, after Pirro tried to wade into the recent controversy surrounding Omar, who is accused of making anti-Semitic remarks.
“Omar wears a hijab, which according to the Quran 33:59, tells women to cover so they won’t get molested. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?” Pirro said last week.
Trump is framing Fox News’ recent woes as a left-wing conspiracy
Fox News has had a rough couple of weeks in dealing with the fallout of controversial remarks made by the network’s stars. In addition to Pirro’s bigoted comments, host Tucker Carlson has been on blast for a series of radio interviews he gave on Bubba the Love Sponge’s show in the past.
Media Matters published a series of clips ranging from 2006 to 2011 that feature Carlson making misogynistic and racist comments. In the interviews, Carlson appears to defend child abuser and convicted pedophile Warren Jeffs. At other points he calls Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys.”
A number of advertisers have since bolted from the programs. But Trump on Sunday cast Fox News’ troubles as a left-wing driven crusade, partnered with the “Fake News Media,” that’s out to silence conservative voices.
Trump has long favored Fox News as his preferred television network, establishing an at-times troublingly symbiotic relationship with the news outlet. But now that the network has apparently soured on one of its on-air personalities, Trump is already lobbing some thinly veiled threats.
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