Fox News’ Chris Wallace: Whistleblower Spin From Donald Trump Defenders “Astonishing” And “Misleading”

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Fox News host Chris Wallace said on America’s Newsroom on Friday that the way President Donald Trump’s defenders have been spinning the whistleblower complaint is “astonishing” and “deeply misleading.”

“The spinning is not surprising, but it is astonishing and I think deeply misleading,” Wallace said. A source close to Wallace said he was not referring to his colleagues.

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Wallace also noted that attacks on the whistleblower as a political hack are countered by what Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said at a Thursday hearing. He said that the whistleblower “exactly followed the procedure that a whistleblower is supposed to follow,” Wallace said.

Wallace was appearing with anchor Sandra Smith. She tried to ask Wallace about “major inconsistencies” between the whistleblower complaint and the transcript memo of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president. For instance, she said that the complaint claimed there was some kind of “quid pro quo” involved in Trump’s conversation, but that did not appear in the transcript memo.

“You don’t think that dirt on Joe Biden and Joe Biden’s son would be of value?” Wallace asked her.

Smith, though, said that Ukrainian foreign aid was never brought up on the call, according to the transcript memo.

Wallace said that “To dismiss this as a political hack seems to be an effort by the president’s defenders to try to make nothing out of something, and there is something here.”

He called it a “credible complaint.” He said that he was not saying that there was a “hot solid case” and Trump should be impeached, but that the whistleblower complaint was a “serious allegation” and a “lot has been borne out already.”

“For all of the efforts of a lot of people defending the president pretending this is nothing, it isn’t nothing. It’s something,” Wallace said.

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