After being accused of leaking CNN debate questions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and questioning the legitimacy of President Donald Trump’s election, former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile has been added to the Fox News political roster as a contributor.
“I fully admit that in my previous lives as a campaign staffer, presidential campaign manager and Democrat Party official, my own lack of civility in the heat of battle has been on full display. And it wasn’t pretty,” Brazile wrote for Fox News on Monday, announcing her new role.
“. . . Will I agree with my fellow commentators at Fox News? Probably not. But I will listen. Will I question some of their assertions about hard-working Americans, low-income people, and issues like climate change? Absolutely. But I will do so with civility and respect.”
Brazile had said after President Trump’s first year she “absolutely” questioned the legitimacy of his election.
“And I didn’t have to wait a year to tell you that,” she told USA Today Network in November 2017. “I was telling people that leading up to election day. How can we trust the data in our system when it had been corrupted. . . . The Russians were in our system, the DNC’s system, for almost a year.”
Brazile admits she is not going to be a friendly face for Fox News viewers and, at the same time, she will be turning off her progressive followers.
“I know I’m going to get criticized from my friends in the progressive movement for being on Fox News,” she wrote in a statement TV News HQ tweeted Monday. “My response is that, if we’ve learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we can’t have a country where we don’t talk to those who disagree with our political views.
“There’s an audience on Fox News that doesn’t hear enough from Democrats. We have to engage that audience and show Americans of every stripe what we stand for rather than retreat into our ‘safe spaces’ where we simply agree with each other.
“For there is no safety in self-limiting numbers. You can be darn sure that I’m still going to be me on Fox News. I’m going to do what I always do: and dish it out straight, exactly as I see it, with just as much New Orleans hot sauce as folks expect.”
As for the controversy of using her CNN access to leak debate questions to the Clinton campaign, it should be noted the DNC has vowed to shut out Fox News from hosting a 2020 Democratic primary debate.
