The Five has deteriorated over the years into a sewer of Trumpism affirmation. Two of its regular co-hosts, Gutfeld and Watters, first made names for themselves as funnymen, and before the Right was septically infected by the cult around the Very Stable Genius, they often displayed the capacity for sharp wit borne of actual insight.
That was a long time ago. They now are nothing but Tucker Carlson/Laura Ingraham/Sean Hannity-level lieutenants of populism-nationalism. And consider that Kennedy started her career in the 1980s as one of MTV's original video jockeys.
Fox News National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin had some sobering words for hosts of The Five who suggested the Biden administration is overhyping the crisis in eastern Europe for political purposes.
President Joe Biden delivered remarks about the situation on Friday, saying he’s “convinced” that Vladimir Putin has already “made the decision” to invade.
After the president’s speech, Five cohosts Greg Gutfeld and Kennedy suggested the administration is hyping or even faking the threat of war in eastern Europe because of the Durham investigation. In that affair, conservative media has seized upon technical jargon in a motion filed in federal court in order to claim that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign hacked and spied on Donald Trump. That claim is unfounded.
“There’s something else going on here that is–that feels very, very manufactured,” said Gutfeld. “And I don’t know what it is.”
“I know what it is,” Kennedy interjected. “It’s Jake Sullivan,” she said, referring to Biden’s National Security Advisor who also worked on Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Fox News has reported that Sullivan is the unnamed “foreign policy advisor” mentioned in the indictment of Michael Sussmann who was a Clinton campaign attorney. Sussmann is under indictment as part of the Durham probe for making false statements to the FBI.
“Jake Sullivan is the national security adviser,” Kennedy continued. “And he is in deep yogurt in the Durham probe, and he’s been the one saying, ‘We have so much intelligence an invasion is imminent.’ He said that last Friday. It’s the next Friday, here we are. I don’t think Putin is going to invade.”
Kennedy then accused “point person” Vice President Kamala Harris of having a “lack of knowledge on the entire situation.”
Eventually, Griffin joined the show from the Pentagon and proceeded to bury the idea that the situation in eastern Europe is being overplayed by the Biden administration to distract from the Durham investigation.
“First of all, I need to level set with the conversation I’ve just been listening to,” Griffin began. “What we are witnessing right now is not something that’s changed in the last 24 hours. If you go back to notes that I’ve been sending out for the last two weeks, this is something we’ve been watching in terms of you–have commercial satellite imagery, you have the buildup of forces, the type of forces, the numbers of forces, things that we’ve been told in advance to look for in terms of some of the disinformation that is already starting to appear, the false flag operations in the Donbas region. All of that is ticking up.”
Griffin later addressed those who are skeptical of the intelligence assessments being promulgated by the Biden administration.
“I’ve heard comparisons to the Iraq war, and WMD, and how do we know? We’re seeing it with our own eyes,” she said. “If you can’t look at the kind of the Iskandermissile battalions that are now in Belarus [and] 30,000 Russian troops there. Half of [Putin’s] air force has now been deployed toward Ukraine. I am told just moments ago from a senior defense official that 40% of his 190,000 troops who are on the border with Ukraine are now in attack positions. That is something we have been waiting for.”
She went on to explain the potentially devastating and “bloody” consequences of war, and scolded the idea that Biden’s rhetoric about the situation is rooted in domestic political considerations:
“Right now, every American should be watching this and knowing that this is deadly serious,” Griffin said. “This is not some wag-the-dog situation. To even mention the Durham probe in the same sentence as what we know, and what we can see with our own eyes in terms of the military buildup and knowing what Vladimir Putin is capable of–I served in Moscow from 1996 to ’99. I watched as Vladimir Putin rose. I remember the apartment blocks that were blown up by his KGB, his FSB as a pretext to go into Chechnya. Go look at those images of Chechnya and how carpet-bombed Chechnya was when the Russian military moves in. This is not a precision, small pinpointed strike. This will be the full weight of the Russian military going into Ukraine if someone doesn’t stop it in the coming days.”
With that, Griffin’s assessment was complete.
“Jennifer Griffin, thank you so much,” said Jesse Watters. “We appreciate it.”
The cohosts did not address her admonition about the Durham probe.
I'd like to think that there was some man-did-we-ever-blow-it conversation among the co-hosts after the network went to Special Report, but this is a crowd with its eyeballs floating in Kool-Aid.
Still, we have the documentation of an adult setting the record straight.
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