Fox & Friends hosts defend record of Trump's Venezuela envoy in Latin America: “You had to do some extreme work”

Brian Kilmeade: “Elliott Abrams should take great pride in what Ronald Reagan did.” 

From the February 14 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

Video file

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Elliott Abrams, recently named to be an envoy for President Trump as he works with John Bolton and the secretary of state to try to get a legitimate government in Venezuela, was brought to Capitol Hill to answer some questions in front of the Foreign Relations Committee. Guess who is on that? Freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar. She decides to go back to Elliott Abrams's resume, to the 1980s, where Elliott Abrams should take great pride in what Ronald Reagan did, has made sure Central and South America didn't become a communist haven, especially as it had to do with El Salvador. Listen to this insulting exchange. 

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STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): You have got to watch the whole thing because it is extraordinary. It's like something you've never seen in a committee hearing. You know, when she said it was not a question, clearly it was a political statement she was making. But he was getting frustrated because he's been around Capitol Hill for decades and he'd never seen anybody like this.

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): He wasn't there to talk about that. She is accusing him of being a liar and wanted to know about the Iran-Contra affair. 

KILMEADE: Well, she was -- listen, in El Salvador, in Nicaragua, in that region, Bolivia, there was a communist infiltration in the 1980s. And Donald (sic) -- President Reagan wasn't going to have it. He was going to make sure that the Russians, and then the Soviets, were not going to infiltrate and take over our hemisphere. So to do that you had to do some extreme work. He's part of that work. And the effort of that gave us El Salvador, which is closer to a democracy than not, and Central and South America are -- the president should be very proud of his foreign policy. For this 20 -- for this freshman congresswoman to be that dismissive and condescending to someone like Elliott Abrams is beyond the pale. Democrats should all be embarrassed by her.

Related:

Business Insider: Trump's man to handle Venezuela crisis was convicted in Iran-Contra affair and fought to cover-up worst massacre in recent Latin American history

The Intercept: Elliott Abrams, Trump's pick to bring “democracy” to Venezuela, has spent his life crushing democracy

Previously:

Fox guest: “What you have in Ocasio-Cortez are Latin American values. Instead of us assimilating them, they are assimilating us.”

Fox host: “Mexico would be paying for” the border wall if Trump used money seized from Mexican drug lord El Chapo

Fox & Friends hosts: Funding border wall with seized drug money “would be an indirect way to make Mexico pay for it”