Fox News commentators and hosts have been pretty effusive about President Trump's diplomatic overtures to and warm relationship with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, as The Daily Show playfully pointed out on Monday. They were not similarly effusive about similar but less grandiloquent efforts in the previous administration, as CNN media critic Brian Stelter noted more pointedly Monday afternoon.
"The coverage of Trump and Kim versus the coverage in the past, when former President Barack Obama would be willing to reach out to some rogue states or autocratic regimes, the hypocrisy burns," he said, playing some back-to-back examples. "You mash it up together, it looks especially bad for Fox, but on a daily basis, some of these talk shows, this is why it sounds like propaganda, this is why it sounds like something out of North Korea, because it is so dependent on who's in charge and what party they're in." Host Brooke Baldwin agreed: "If this were a Democrat stepping foot into North Korea, he or she would be excoriated."
CNN criticizing Fox News is not all that surprising. But Fox News hosts agreeing with the critique is something different. On Monday evening's The Five, Jesse Watters praised Trump for moving the Korean peninsula toward peace. "Historians will acknowledge that this step across the DMZ was a very powerful and important moment," he said. Greg Gutfeld said of course Democrats are attacking Trump, because in an election year "that's what you would do. And let's be honest, if it were the adversary, an adversary from your party on the other side, we would do the same thing." Watters laughed and added: "How dare Obama meet with a dictator and no preconditions!" "Exactly," Gutfeld said.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The five hosts make some good points — Juan Williams argued that Trump is doing nothing to actually denuclearize North Korea — and you can watch the entire conversation, self-awareness and all, below. Peter Weber
-
A TikTok trend has Gen Z men leaving streetwear behind for more preppy attireThe Explainer More than a zipper: Young Black men embrace the ‘quarter-zip movement‘
-
Codeword: December 12, 2025The daily codeword puzzle from The Week
-
Sudoku medium: December 12, 2025The daily medium sudoku puzzle from The Week
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
$1M ‘Trump Gold Card’ goes live amid travel rule furorSpeed Read The new gold card visa offers an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for $1 million
-
US seizes oil tanker off VenezuelaSpeed Read The seizure was a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
-
Miami elects first Democratic mayor in 28 yearsSpeed Read Eileen Higgins, Miami’s first woman mayor, focused on affordability and Trump’s immigration crackdown in her campaign
-
Ex-FBI agents sue Patel over protest firingspeed read The former FBI agents were fired for kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest for ‘apolitical tactical reasons’
-
Trump unveils $12B bailout for tariff-hit farmersSpeed Read The president continues to insist that his tariff policy is working
-
Trump’s Comey case dealt new setbackspeed read A federal judge ruled that key evidence could not be used in an effort to reindict former FBI Director James Comey
