Hillary Clinton has blasted Fox News for becoming a “superb propaganda” tool for President Trump and the GOP, arguing that the cable news network distorts reality for its viewers in a way that is politically helpful for the White House and administration.
“[Trump] doesn’t attack Fox News, because they’re like a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump and the Republican Party now,” Clinton told The Guardian in an interview published Friday. “So he attacks the press and the broadcast media that raise questions about him, that don’t give him fidelity and loyalty.”
“You watch Fox News, it’s always, ‘Something terrible is about to happen,’ ‘Something terrible did happen,’ ‘These people are doing all these awful things,'” she continued. “It is totally divorced from reality, but it is superb propaganda. I don’t know the best way to puncture that. You have to hope that reality catches up with politics and entertainment at some point.”
Clinton made the comments in context of discussing the rise of right-wing populism in the the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Europe as a whole, saying how the movement and its leaders tend to “destroy a common base of fact and evidence, creating an ‘alternative reality.’”
The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and Obama-era secretary of state also had some harsh words for another news operation, criticizing CBS News’ “60 Minutes” program for its October interview with Trump because journalist Lesley Stahl did not press the president on a New York Times report about his tax returns.
“At some point, the press has to get smarter because that’s basically how most voters get their information,” Clinton said. “If you’re into both-side-ism — so, you know, on the one hand this, and on the other hand that — really there’s no factual basis, there’s no evidence, there’s no record. Everybody lies, everybody gilds the lily. It doesn’t really matter. That just opens a door to somebody like [Trump].”
