Fox News anchor Shepard Smith has had enough and didn’t hide his frustration on Friday at the way President Donald Trump’s administration hasn’t been transparent about its ties to Russia. And while Smith has been known to go his own way in the Fox News channel and criticize the Trump administration in the past, his blistering attack on Friday took things to a new level as he accused the White House of lying and trying to cover up key details about the now-infamous June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower.
“Why is it lie after lie after lie?” Smith asked fellow anchor Chris Wallace. “The deception, Chris, is mind-boggling.” The administration’s insistence that the scandal surrounding the meeting is much ado about nothing doesn’t square away with the way new information about the sit-down keeps being revealed. “There are still people out there who believe we’re making it up, and one day they’re gonna realize we’re not, and look around and go, ‘Where are we? And why are we getting told all these lies?’” Smith could have been uttering those words to some of his coworkers at Fox News who have been eager to dismiss the story since it was first revealed.
Smith’s evident exasperation at the administration came as reports reveled there were more people at the Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer than what officials initially acknowledged. “We’re still not clean on this, Chris. If there’s nothing there, and that’s what they tell us … If all of that, why all these lies?” Smith said.
Wallace was seemingly caught off guard by Smith’s candor. “I don’t know what to say,” Wallace said. “There’s a lot of truth to everything that you’ve said.”
