Jessica Tarlov, co-host of Fox News’s “The Five,” couldn’t seem to understand why Democrats weren’t “leading with” a baseless attack against the GOP in the days leading up to the midterms and Jesse Watters happily broke it down before dropping the mic, “conversation over!”
(Video: Fox News)
Former President Barack Obama built a reputation around his oratory performances, drumming up crowds, often relying on readily debunked talking points and, after another such display in Wisconsin over the weekend, Tarlov was demonstrating firsthand why the term ‘Obama Zombie’ was coined.
Leading into the exchange on Monday’s edition of the program, the panel was discussing the left’s endeavor to portray Republicans’ concern with crime and inflation as overblown, bringing Watters to ask, “Is the country angry because Greg Gutfeld has made them angry? Or Lindsey Graham has made them angry? Or are they angry because there’s a crime wave, an open border, and everything costs too much?”
Tarlov readily admitted, “Well, mostly about the inflation part and the crime part, which is factoring heavily into a lot of races that Democrats would be putting away. We’re going to talk about the governor’s race here in New York; Pennsylvania, it’s obviously a huge issue; Wisconsin, where President Obama was featured.”
“But I watched both rallies. I was actually in Georgia over the weekend. And the energy is huge, both for Walker and for Warnock, and Abrams and Kemp. People are fired up and it’s always exciting to be in a swing state where your vote actually matters. I don’t have that happen that often.”
“This year it’s a swing state,” Watters interjected before she quipped, “We’ll see how swingy it is.”
She then landed on her praise of Obama, saying he avoided “the woke stuff” and instead “talked about a lot of bread and butter issues that the administration hasn’t been talking about. He acknowledged inflation and he said it’s bad. It is bad all over the world, but it’s bad. Don’t say that it isn’t bad.”
Then Tarlov set herself up for failure when she raised the president’s attack against Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) unadopted proposal to sunset all legislation after five years, requiring all policies to be voted on again to be maintained.
“And the one thing that he had that I do not understand why it isn’t the core of the Democratic message is what happens if Rick Scott’s plan goes into effect to Medicare and Social Security,” she said. “And you should all–it’s about a minute-and-a-half clip of him talking about Social Security and how people in Wisconsin worked their whole lives to get that money and that if Republicans get into office, they’re going to means test things. They’re going to scale back entitlements that you’ve worked for.”
In Wisconsin stumping for Democratic Senate candidate Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes against incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, Obama misrepresented the plan saying, “each year you’d have to vote to renew this thing” before dismissing attacks on the entitlement program that dub it “a Ponzi scheme.”
Obama throws the kitchen sink at Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), saying he fought for tax write-offs for private jets, voted to raise the retirement age to 70 and supported a plan to cut Social Security and Medicare:
“He should not be your Senator from Wisconsin.” pic.twitter.com/PTBCZOkAPh
— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) October 29, 2022
“And I do not know why Democrats aren’t leading with that,” Tarlov stated before co-host Katie Pavlich fired back, “Because it doesn’t work.”
Watters cut through the performative speech right to the facts and asked, “Can I ask you a serious question? What Republican president recently has attacked and gone after and reduced Social Security?”
“No one has been able to,” she replied.
“And how many Republican presidents have we had in the last 50 years? We’ve had quite a lot, but they’ve never actually done what they’re always being accused of,” he followed.
“Is it in Rick Scott’s plan,” she defended before mischaracterizing his proposal as the Republican platform, “in his Commitment to America?”
“The one Republican in the entire Senate. Yes, the one,” Pavlich offered.
“Well, but he’s the only one who put out a plan, to the point of what are Republicans going to do. He’s the only one,” Tarlov tried before immediately acknowledging the rest of the caucus wasn’t on board. “And Mitch McConnell came out and said, I have nothing to do with that. But he didn’t put his plan forward. Right. So you guys tell me.”
“Kevin McCarthy laminated, a really nice plan, what’s it called again, Dana?” Watters asked co-host Dana Perino who answered, properly identifying the source of, “The Commitment to America.”
“Have you read the commitment?” he asked Tarlov directly who seemed to suggest that she had. “It takes four seconds by the way.”
“Does it slash Social Security? It does not,” Watters concluded. “Conversation over!”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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