Individual 1 is seething as Michael Cohen flips, implicating his former boss in a felony. Onetime national security adviser Michael Flynn moves prosecutors closer toward obstruction of justice inside the White House, Trump ally Roger Stone has taken the Fifth, and former campaign chair Paul Manafort got caught lying to prosecutors—again. This is all happening while House Democrats get ready to wield subpoena power come January. The walls are closing in on Donald Trump, and there's likely nothing Fox News or its band of feeble defenders will be able to do to stop the legal onslaught in the weeks and months to come.
As the rat-tat-tat of revelations continues via Robert Mueller court filings, with each new document dump producing more bad news for the White House, the conservative hope that Fox News and the right-wing media would be able to spin away the torrent of shocking developments is looking more fantastic each day.
Since last year, a conservative mythology has been built up and widely shared within the D.C. media that if and when Mueller releases his final Russia report, Fox News and the GOP media will effectively debunk it—or at least raise enough doubts about it, thereby diminishing the political pain for Trump's White House.
Remember, that's the whole point of creating a conservative media echo chamber via cable news, talk radio, syndicated columnists, and an army of Twitter loyalists. The goal is to build a sustainable information bubble where Republicans can exist with their own alternative facts. And that's where they have presided on a daily basis since Trump was inaugurated, as Fox News has faithfully delivered a view of the world that only the likes of Sarah Huckabee Sanders would consider to be realistic.
As the Mueller reckoning gains momentum and the drama unfolds in the legal realm, there's very little Fox News and their lineup of sophomoric analysts can do to debunk the findings. Quite simply, Fox News is completely out of its element when it comes to trying to offer up a counter-narrative to Mueller's serious and detailed Russia investigation. That very difficult job would require a team of extremely talented and adroit legal and political minds who would sift through the Mueller evidence and do their best to try to raise legitimate doubts about the unfolding allegations.
Honestly, that task wouldn’t even be possible at this point, considering the mountain of evidence that exists with regards to the criminality surrounding Trump and his team. But even if it were possible, Fox News doesn't employ a stable of extremely talented legal and political minds. Instead, they employ Trump loyalists who have trouble responding to the White House's mounting woes. Fox News just doesn't have the intellectual firepower that's required.
Note that host Tucker Carlson recently lashed out at Mueller for "threatening elderly men with life in prison for petty crimes" (he meant Manafort), and denounced the ongoing probe as a "grotesque joke." Others assured GOP cable viewers that Cohen's shocking admission of guilt with regard to lying about Trump being in negotiations with Russians during the 2016 campaign means "absolutely nothing."
And Fox News favorite Matt Schlapp recently insisted Mueller was "blackmailing people into saying things and doing things, because they might have had a scummy part of their past." That's just a small sampling of the incoherent defenses being offered up on Fox News these days—when the propaganda channel isn't simply ignoring Trump's unfolding crises.
As a rule, Fox News does not play defense well. It's much more effective (and dangerous) when it's on the offensive and launching ugly smear campaigns, whether it's against refugees approaching the U.S. border, or Democratic Party leaders. And running interference for Trump hasn't produced results for Fox News beyond its cable news bubble.
Following Trump's frantic Twitter lead, Fox News has already spent more than a year relentlessly attacking Mueller's probe, trying to delegitimize the FBI (Comey! The dossier! The texts!), and hosting hundreds of discussions featuring House Republicans unfurling conspiratorial and incoherent attacks against law enforcement.
Yet none of it has worked. Mueller, who enjoys increasing public support, is stacking up convictions at a dizzying pace, and virtually none of the hollow allegations the White House and Fox News have waged against the Russia inquiry have been borne out. Fox News will keep screaming about Mueller's Russia probe. But is anybody in the real world listening?
Eric Boehlert is a veteran progressive writer and media analyst, formerly with Media Matters and Salon. He is the author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush and Bloggers on the Bus. You can follow him on Twitter @EricBoehlert.
This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.
