Fox News' Chris Wallace calls out Trump defenders for 'astonishing' and 'deeply misleading' whistleblower spin

Fox News' Chris Wallace thinks President Trump's defenders have been "deeply misleading" over the past 24 hours — presumably, including his own colleagues.

Wallace in a Friday segment said the "spinning that's been done by the president's defenders" since the "damaging" whistleblower complaint was released has been "astonishing" and "deeply misleading," although "not surprising."

Wallace went on to dismantle arguments from Trump allies about the whistleblower complaint, saying its description of the Ukraine phone call, on which Trump pushed for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden's son, is "exactly what happened." He also pointed to the fact that the whistleblower didn't leak anything but went through the "approved legal processes" and that the inspector general found the complaint credible.

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This stood in stark contrast to some of the other commentary on Fox News in the past 24 hours. Even Wallace's interviewer, host Sandra Smith, objected to his comments by claiming the complaint contradicts the transcript since Trump didn't explicitly tell the Ukrainian president he would release American weaponry the administration was withholding if Ukraine investigated Biden. Wallace pushed back, asking her, "You don't think dirt on the vice president and his son's activities would be of value to a president seeking re-election?"

Wallace did say that he's not suggesting there's a "hot solid case" for impeachment, only that "to dismiss this as a political act seems to me to be an effort by the president's defenders to make nothing out of something, and there is something here." He also said Trump likening the whistleblower's sources to spies and alluding to punishment for them was "deeply troubling."

The war among Fox News talent rages on. Brendan Morrow