The hosts of the Fox News programme The Five didn’t seem terribly interested in hearing about the federal charges against Donald Trump after he was arraigned in Miami on 37 counts in relation to his alleged mishandling of national defence information.
Jessica Tarlov, described by Fox News observer Katherine Abughazaleh as the network’s “token liberal,” attempted to explain the allegations against the former president on Tuesday afternoon.
“So the Presidential Records Act ... it doesn't apply to agency documents. So the way that people are using this to say ... ‘oh, you know, he's allowed to do this’. He's not allowed to do it,” she said.
Following a seemingly mocking interruption from her co-hosts, Ms Tarlov went on to say, “He can't decide when he classifies them, he admitted that on tape, which is going to be a huge piece of evidence in this. So stop using the Presidential Records [Act]”.
After she was cut off a second time, she said pundits could continue to use the law as a reason to claim Mr Trump did nothing wrong but that they would be doing so “inaccurately”.
“Thank god I printed it out!” co-host Jesse Waters shouted over Ms Tarlov. “I’m about to smack you with the Act in a second.”
“Fox News’ token liberal Jessica Tarlov tried to bring level-headed analysis about Trump’s arraignment to the table. Her fellow co-hosts were not having it,” Ms Abughazaleh tweeted.
“Let me talk about the Espionage Act. So this isn't classic espionage within the Espionage Act. There are a lot of things included, most importantly, unauthorised retention of documents and obstruction of justice, which it seems pretty clear that they have him on,” Ms Tarlov said.
“Is this a sad day? Yes, in one sense. It's always sad, I guess, to see a president in this position. But what's more sad, I think, is that we had a president who did these things. And when everyone says ‘this is unprecedented’. The problem is that Donald Trump is doing things that are unprecedented, and we don't know that these documents weren't compromised,” she added.
“We heard about that there were two Chinese national intruders,” she said.
“Now you care about Chinese nationals!” one co-host shouted.
“The amount of deflection that goes on when I say something about China and you go ‘FangFang,’ or I say something about this, and then you just throw out ‘Hunter Biden's a crack addict’. Who cares? Talk about what happened today, talk about the indictment and don't make up things, use legal experts,” she told her colleagues.
The Independent has contacted Fox News for comment.
FangFang is a reference to a Chinese spy who had contact with US politicians.
“I don’t think people on the left should lend their credibility to Fox News,” Ms Abughazaleh tweeted. “But I really hope Jessica finds a new job one day where she isn’t berated and mocked by her coworkers on national television every single week.”
“She’s me trying to explain the nuance of a subject around a bunch of half drunk people who interject with inane comments because they can’t grasp the subject or don’t care,” one Twitter user responded.
“I understand the sentiment, but it’s still the most watched cable news network in America. Ignoring it won’t starve the network of any oxygen it’s already getting- and while I wish this wasn’t the case, there still remains a slither of an opportunity,” Francis Maxwell said.
“She is really really good at what she does and while, sure, she deserves a better work environment than The Five, it feels like her sound logic is reaching more of the ears that desperately need to hear it,” Nate Zimmer said.
“Lol that’s not why she’s there, she’s a whipping boy plain and simple,” Ms Abughazaleh responded.
