Anchors grew visibly uncomfortable as they listened to the president undermine his own legal defense.

In what is surely a first for a news network, the hosts of Donald Trump’s favorite variety show, Fox & Friends, hurriedly ended an interview with the president Thursday morning as Trump began ranting about Robert Mueller and threatening to seize control of the Justice Department. The phoner began pleasantly enough, with Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Ainsley Earnhardt tossing the president a softball question about his wife: April 26 is Melania Trump’s birthday, a “very, very special day,” the president explained, though the First Lady apparently didn’t get much beyond the shout-out she received on air. “Maybe I didn’t get her much,” Trump admitted nervously, when Kilmeade asked. “I got her a beautiful card. You know, I’m very busy.”

The conversation went downhill from there, slowly devolving into ever-longer bouts of furious ranting, as the president was asked about the scandal surrounding his prescription-happy personal doctor, Ronny Jackson (an “unblemished record,” he said); conservative YouTube celebrities Diamond and Silk (“beautiful women”); and James Comey (“a leaker and liar”). He praised Kanye West, lamented that Shania Twain had backed away from defending him, congratulated the Republican Party on doing “the thing” in the Civil War, and complained about his treatment on CNN (“I don’t watch them at all,” Trump insisted).

Doocy, Kilmeade, and Earnhart endured the deluge heroically, fidgeting slightly at times and offering small laughs as they encouraged the president and tried to keep him on track. The interview went off the rails, however, when the Fox hosts asked Trump about the Russia investigation dogging his presidency, and whether he would agree to testify with Mueller:

“Well I can. The problem is, that it’s such a, if you take a look, they’re so conflicted, the people who are doing the investigation—you have 13 people who are Democrats, you have Hillary Clinton people, you have people who worked on Hillary Clinton’s foundation, they’re all, I don’t mean Democrats, they’re like, the real deal. And then you look at the phony Lisa Page and Strzok and the memos back and forth and the F.B.I. and by the way, you take a poll at the F.B.I., I love the F.B.I., the F.B.I. loves me, but the top people at the F.B.I., headed by Comey, were crooked.”

“You look at the corruption at the top of the F.B.I., it’s a disgrace,” Trump continued, practically yelling, as the Fox hosts stared ahead nervously. “And our Justice Department—which I try and stay away from, but at some point I won’t—our Justice Department should be looking at that kind of stuff, not the nonsense of collusion with Russia. There is no collusion with me and everyone knows it.”

Doocy, Kilmeade, and Earnhardt exchanged furtive glances as they simultaneously began interrupting the president, insisting that they were out of time, even as Trump continued to shout over them. “Right, alright” Kilmeade said. “Alright,” Earnhardt interjected. “OK.” “We’d talk to you all day but it looks like you have a million things to do,” Kilmeade added. Earnhardt smiled: “Thank you so much, Mr. President.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3960677&forum_id=2#35925927)

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/04/26/president_trump_live_on_fox__friends_ronny_jackson_michael_cohen_north_korea_comey_kanye.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3960677&forum_id=2#35929633)