Fox News' Chris Wallace interview with Donald Trump was tough and fair

Fox News' Chris Wallace finally gave Americans the Donald Trump interview they deserve

In an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” President Donald Trump told lies, made bizarre accusations and wouldn’t say whether he would accept results of the 2020 election if he lost.

In other words, a typical Trump interview with Fox News — or any other media outlet.

It was the interview we’ve waited nearly four years to see, and it happened on the network that employs some commentators who at times seem to consider getting Trump re-elected part of its mission statement. But Wallace isn’t Sean Hannity or the hosts of “Fox & Friends.” “I like to think I treat everybody the same,” he told Trump at one point.

Why Chris Wallace's Trump interview was so powerful

Wallace wasn’t perfect. At times, even he was overwhelmed by the sheer wave of words Trump threw at him, and couldn’t counter everything. Still, there’s no question that it was a good interview, conducted with great skill.

There is, of course, some question whether it will matter. Trump loyalists are a, well, loyal bunch. But Wallace at least got Trump on the record on a lot of subjects, and he put those answers into a larger picture of Trump’s presidency and its effectiveness.

Often the media are accused of stenography, of just writing down what Trump or others say, or engaging in false equivalencies in attempts to appear unbiased.

Count Wallace as not guilty on those fronts. When Wallace asked Trump about the surging COVID-19 numbers, Trump again fell back on the “the numbers are up because we test more” response. Wallace wasn’t having it. Testing is up 37%, he said — and cases are up 194%.

“I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates,” Trump said.

“That’s not true, sir,” Wallace said.

How Wallace countered Trump's false claims

In a buzzed-about moment teased by the network all weekend, Wallace told Trump that likely Democratic nominee Joe Biden does not want to defund the police, despite Trump’s near-constant claims otherwise — including in this interview.

“No sir, he does not,” Wallace said. Trump said Biden had signed a charter saying he did, and sent someone to get it. Trump found things in the document he disagreed with Biden over, but no indication Biden wanted to defund police.

In a voiceover, Wallace said, “The White House never sent us evidence the Bernie-Biden platform calls for defunding or abolishing police — because there is none.”

More on Trump and Wallace: Trump doesn't like Fox News' Chris Wallace. But he's not the liberal hero you might think

No shortage of headlines emerged from the one-hour interview, conducted Friday and aired Sunday. Among them were Trump’s answer to Wallace, who asked, “But can you give a direct answer, you will accept the election?”

“I have to see,” Trump said. “Look, I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either.”

Trump trashed Biden several times (“Joe doesn’t know he’s alive”) and said Biden wasn’t competent to serve as president. He also said Dr. Anthony Fauci was “a little bit of an alarmist,” that “many whites are killed, also” by police in answering a Black Lives Matter question, told Wallace at one point he was “fake news” (but also said he respected him) and discussed the cognitive test he bragged about passing.

Oops. Wallace took the same test.

Speaking truth to power is the media doing its job

So, at one point in an interview with the President of the United States on a Sunday morning news show we were treated to a graphic of line drawings of animals and Wallace saying, “It’s not the hardest test. They have a picture and it says ‘what’s that’ and it’s an elephant.”

This is where we are. But don’t mistake this as Trump bashing. It’s Wallace praising.

Trump digs his own holes, and it’s not Wallace’s job to stop him, or to help him out of them.

It is his job to report on the shoveling.

You may be among those who think it’s dignified or clever for the president to say things like, “Let Biden sit through an interview like this, he’ll be on the ground crying for mommy, he’ll say, ‘Mommy, mommy, please take me home.’” (Wallace simply said he had asked Biden for an interview.)

But when the president is making false claims about COVID-19 numbers, for instance, that’s different, and it’s the media's duty to tell him so.

As Trump started to list the things he says Fauci has been wrong about, Wallace said, “But you’ve made mistakes, too.”

“I guess everybody makes mistakes,” Trump said.

Wallace then played several clips of Trump downplaying the virus, saying it would go away, that the numbers would dwindle to nothing. When they came back to the interview, what Trump said was … well, decide for yourself: “I’ll be right eventually.”

It was a remarkable answer in a remarkable interview. Given what it revealed about Trump and how he sees himself and his office, you wonder if there will ever be another one.

Reach Goodykoontz at [email protected]. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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