Fox Business Host Calls Trump 'Big Dumb Baby' For Attacking Yovanovitch
Fox Business Network host Lisa Kennedy condemned President Donald Trump’s Twitter attack on former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who testified in the House impeachment inquiry Friday.
“Should the president be tweeting at her mid-hearing? No,” Kennedy said during an appearance on “The Five” shortly after the hearing ended. “It makes him look like a big dumb baby.”
As Yovanovitch appeared before the Intelligence Committee, Trump castigated her diplomatic service on social media, claiming that “everywhere” she “went turned bad.”
Instead of bolstering his case, Kennedy said Trump’s real-time reproach “makes her look like a victim,” adding, “if he had just let it go, the last two days of hearings and testimony would have been a snooze fest.”
Yovanovitch, who was recalled from her post in early May, told lawmakers her ouster followed a “smear campaign” waged by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and other of the president’s allies.
Responding to Trump’s tweet during the hearing, Yovanovitch called it “very intimidating,” noting that “where I’ve served over the years, I and others demonstrably made things better.”
Trump later defended his remarks, describing impeachment as a political process, not a legal one, and asserting, “I’m allowed to speak up.”
On July 25, nearly three months after her dismissal, Trump’s now-infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took place. A rough transcript of the exchange shows that Trump pressed Zelensky repeatedly to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, based on unfounded allegations.
Yovanovitch said she was “shocked and devastated” upon learning of that conversation, and that “the color drained from my face.”
The call is a central focus of impeachment proceedings as U.S. military aid to Ukraine was being withheld at the time of the discussion, raising questions over whether there was a quid pro quo.
Kennedy’s rebuke of Trump’s behavior is an uncommon sign of differing viewpoints in the Fox media empire, where coverage of his presidency has been largely favorable, especially among opinion hosts who have sought to defend his administration against impeachment.
But in another break with the outlet’s primary point of view, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace stated Friday that if people “were not moved by” Yovanovitch’s testimony, they “don’t have a pulse.”
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.