Steve Doocy desperately tried to get reporter/author Charlie LeDuff to blame Democrats for Detroit’s problems only to watch LeDuff list the corrupt Republicans in the city’s history.
Here is the video from Fox News:
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Transcript:
Doocy: Charlie, What happened in Detroit?
LeDuff: There are a lot of things happened in Detroit. Oil embargo happened to Detroit. We were making bad cars in Detroit. We have racial problems we haven’t acknowledged in Detroit. Trade pacts happened in Detroit.
Doocy: You’ve got your corrupt politicians….
LeDuff: You’ve got your corrupt politicians. We’ve got this new economy that’s out of pieces of paper, credit default swaps being brought in, and boom, pop goes the weasel.
Doocy: How long has Detroit been run by Democrats? Is it related?
LeDuff: Well, I hear that a lot. It’s the liberals running it into the ground, but the last Republican mayor of Detroit went to federal prison for corruption. The three county executives that went to prison in 1942. It’s our culture. By the way, there’s not one Detroit Democrat running Wall Street. Not one Detroit Democrat running Haliburton. This is a national sickness. We’re just corrupt cheaters. That’s what we do now.
Check out the look on Steve Doocy’s face after LeDuff listed the Republicans. Even more telling was how quickly the Fox host changed the subject. Doocy tried to lead LeDuff down a path that he wasn’t going to follow.
This interview was a textbook example of an epic Fox fail. Fox and Friends thought they could use LeDuff and his book to advance the conservative argument that Detroit is an example of what happens when Democrats are in charge. (Notice that when Doocy didn’t like direction LeDuff was going in when he asked what happened in Detroit, he bluntly tried to shift the focus back to his planned blame the Democrats narrative.)
It is always fun to watch Fox News’ propaganda efforts blow up in their faces.
LeDuff refused to stick with Fox’s bash Detroit narrative. He closed the interview by listing all the things that Detroit has going for it. It is easy for the right to bash Detroit. Long before Mitt Romney wrote, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” the right had been trying to bury the Motor City for decades. All Fox News did was revive the tired right wing fantasy that Detroit would become a paradise if Republicans ran everything.
There are a lot of reasons why Detroit has struggled, but Doocy’s ignoring the role of decades of national Republican led economic and manufacturing destruction is an example of why millions of Americans have turned off Fox News.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
