Fox News host Gillian Turner threw a bit of shade at a couple of her overtly pro-Trump colleagues on Wednesday, pointing out that their analysis of the ex-president’s bizarre Big Tech class action lawsuits may be colored by the fact they “love” Trump “like family.”
On Wednesday morning, twice-impeached former President Donald Trump announced at his New Jersey golf club that he was filing lawsuits against the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google over his social media bans. The complaints not only call for punitive damages and a reinstatement of his accounts but demands that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act be thrown out by the courts as “an unconstitutional delegation of authority.”
While Trump hyped the pending suits as “the biggest class-action ever filed because thousands of people want to join,” a former Facebook official told The Daily Beast that it was “a desperate fundraising appeal disguised as a lawsuit.” Almost as if to prove the official’s case, Team Trump immediately sent out a text message appealing to supporters for money.
During Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News’ midday roundtable show Outnumbered, however, the Trump-boosting panelists were absolutely overjoyed at the prospect of Trump’s lawsuit, none more so than Jesse Watters.
Serving as the female-centric program’s lone male host, Watters—who has dined with Trump at the White House in the past—gushed over the “very presidential presentation” at Bedminster, saying he even forgot “who was president all of a sudden.” He then likened Trump to an “avenger” who is suing Big Tech on “behalf of the American people.”
The Watters’ World host went on to accuse social media platforms of a “conspiracy” to bring down Trump before the election by suppressing “the Republican October surprise” against President Joe Biden, namely the Hunter Biden laptop story.
“They are engaged in a ton of anti-competitive practices, anti-business practices, and need to be held accountable. That’s what the president is doing,” Watters continued. “They just ripped this guy’s vocal cords out of his throat in a very critical time in our nation’s history.”
Former Trump spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany, who now serves as a permanent co-host of Outnumbered, also heaped praise upon the president for his lawsuit.
Stating that Trump’s suit “lays out well” his case that Big Tech corporations are acting as arms of the government and not as private companies, McEnany declared that the ex-president was “giving a megaphone to thousands of Americans across the country” and “fighting for everyday Americans.”
Turner, however, saw things just a bit more cynically.
“Former President Trump kind of beat a dead horse a little bit today when he brought up Section 230 again,” she noted. “During the last months of his presidency, we heard over and over again that Section 230, from him, is a special favor that Congress essentially grants to social media giants. It’s not enough to rejigger the law, it’s not enough to reword it, he wants a complete and total repeal of that section. He put that on the line, Congress did not go for it, even when his party was in the majority.”
After stating that Congress also hasn’t taken up a Section 230 repeal in the six months since Trump left office and has done “nothing to rein in the power” of Big Tech, Turner then turned her attention to McEnany and Watters. And she seemed to tweak them over their unrestrained Trump sycophancy.
“I think this lawsuit’s a little more self-serving than maybe Jesse and Kayleigh laid out for us a moment ago,” she said. “We know you love the guy, the former president, like family. I think this is more about his political prospects going into the next election.”
She continued: “He wants to keep this issue front and center. He opens, by the way, not by saying it’s for the American people, but by saying, ‘I want to fight back because they banned me after January 6 when they unilaterally declared me a public safety threat.’ I think it’s about a personal beef with the companies, but some good things may come of it despite that.”
Watters, for his part, seemed to take Turner’s teasing remarks in stride, acknowledging that “it’s personal” for Trump before once again insisting that “he’s acting on behalf of the millions of Americans that feel basically shaken down by these large corporations.”
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