Chris Wallace has long been one of the more freethinking members of Fox News, holding onto his job despite his penchant for asking folks like Donald Trump the tough questions they never get from anyone else at the right-wing network. But recently he may have gone too far. While his colleague Peter Doocy regularly clashes with press secretary Jen Psaki — and more often than not humiliates himself in the process — Wallace has no problem showering her with praise.
On Friday, Psaki and Doocy had a testier-than-usual duel, with the Fox News correspondent grilling her about whether Biden had visited the southern border. Doocy accused him of not doing his job; Psaki said he didn’t need to go down there simply for a “photo op.” It got ugly. But Wallace didn’t see it that way. In fact, he praised both of them.
“Honestly, as somebody who’s spent six years in the White House, my immediate reaction was those are two people at the top of their game,” Wallace said. He singled out Doocy. “I mean this as a compliment. I think he has become the Sam Donaldson of this White House press corps,” jokingly adding, “And since I was working in the press corps when Sam Donaldson was there, that’s a very grudging compliment on my part.”
He then called Psaki “one of the best press secretaries ever.”
Conservatives often bristle at Wallace for daring to question GOP officials as though he was a real journalist. But even when he paired his Psaki praise with adulation for Doocy as well, rightwing pundits still lost their minds. We don’t need to embed tweets from these folks, whose views you don’t need to read. But they were numerous enough to make Wallace’s name go viral. And they were mostly all along the lines of radio host Seb Gorka, who called Wallace a “clown,” and over-tweeter Brigitte Gabriel, who wrote an all-caps “TURN OFF FOX NEWS.”
But Wallace? If he’s lasted this long, he almost certainly doesn’t have to worry about losing his job.
(Via Mediaite)