As his chief of staff defended him against charges of Islamophobia on Sunday, President Donald Trump defended a Fox News anchor who was reportedly suspended for Islamophobic remarks.
Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox …..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
….must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
….to the people that got you there. Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for @JudgeJeanine. Your competitors are jealous – they all want what you’ve got – NUMBER ONE. Don’t hand it to them on a silver platter. They can’t beat you, you can only beat yourselves!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
The tweets referenced Jeanine Pirro’s Fox News show, which didn’t air on Saturday due to what one unnamed source familiar with the matter told CNN was a suspension.
Pirro implied on her show last weekend that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) hijab was “antithetical to the United States Constitution.”
The New York Times also reported that Pirro had been suspended because of her remarks, citing an unnamed source “told of the decision.”
A Fox News spokesperson issued two statements in response to the uproar that followed Pirro’s commentary last week: One was attributed to the network, which “strongly condemn[ed]” the comments, and another was attributed to Pirro herself, who said “my intention was to ask a question and start a debate.”
The spokesperson did not respond at the time to TPM’s questions about how the network justified employing Pirro, given the clashing statements. A Fox News spokesperson told NBC News and the Times: “We’re not commenting on internal scheduling matters.”
Trump’s defense of Pirro came as his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, argued on “Fox News Sunday” that he was not a white supremacist, and two days after a white nationalist terrorist attack killed 50 Mosque-goers in Christchurch, New Zealand.
In a separate interview Sunday, Mulvaney told CBS’s Margaret Brennan that “I don’t think anybody can say that the President is anti-Muslim.”
“Well, the President’s tweeting now about a TV host who was suspended for anti-Muslim rhetoric,” Brennan responded. “So I think it’s a fair question to ask you about this.”
