President Joe Biden’s decision to bestow a prestigious award on former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney left one Fox News host completely outraged.
Jason Chaffetz, a former GOP congressman and frequent network contributor who hosted Thursday night’s broadcast of Hannity, told his guests he was frankly “offended” by the outgoing premier’s decision to grant the former congresswoman the Presidential Citizens Medal.
ADVERTISEMENT
Biden also granted the medal, which is the second-highest honour a president can bestow upon a citizen, to Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who like Cheney sat on the Jan. 6 Committee set up to investigate Donald Trump supporters’ riot at the Capitol in 2021. President-elect Trump has said Cheney and others on the panel should be jailed.
Addressing his guest, Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds, Chaffetz said on Thursday: “I don’t know how you feel, but I was offended that President Biden gave the second-highest medal of honor— it’s not called the Medal of Honour, but a medal honouring these two congressmen ... Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson. What’s your reaction to that?”
“My reaction is I’m highly offended, but I’m not surprised,” Donalds responded. “Joe Biden and his White House have lived in the bizarro land where no Americans really exist. That’s why the presidency under Joe Biden has been an abject disaster. This is just one of the last pieces of icing on that cake.”
He then went on, “Look, everybody knows that the fake January 6 committee, the only purpose was to basically put a lot of propaganda out into the information stream to go after and attack Donald Trump. It failed, completely backfired.”
Donalds’ fellow guest, Kentucky GOP Rep. James Comer, was swift to agree. “It’s a slap in the face to all the good Americans who actually deserve to be recognized for their public service or for their sacrifice or for their community activism,” he said.
Comer added: “You think about all the first responders that risk their lives every day, all the military frontline soldiers who risk their lives every day, all the people that run charitable organizations and do good things at church. And none of them got recognized by Joe Biden, but he recognized Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson.”
The Jan. 6 Committee, which interviewed more than a thousand people and reviewed more than a million documents, unanimously voted in December 2022 to refer Donald Trump for prosecution over his role in the Capitol riot.
Cheney’s participation in the committee, and her criticism of Trump, have repeatedly seen the Republican president-elect take aim at the former representative, even publicly fantasizing about her being shot in the face.
