F ox News is struggling to come to grips with Thursday night's New York Times report that President Trump tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller last June. The allegation, based on accounts from four sources, is that the Enormously Consensual President tried to stage his very own Saturday Night Massacre. That "massacre" refers to the night when, in 1973, Richard Nixon ordered the firing of the special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation and his attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned in protest. Trump, too, considered getting rid of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe. But the whole thing was stopped in its tracks by White House Counsel Don McGahn, who threatened to resign rather than carry out Trump's orders. As of this morning, Mueller has not been fired.

One of the first True American Patriots to handle the report was Sean Hannity, who has traveled the short road from partisan hack to shameless propagandist in the year Trump has occupied the White House. Hannity had an intriguing strategy: scream "fake news" at first, then, when his own network confirmed the report, wonder what the big deal is. Hannity then showed footage of a car chase—all after initially saying the Times report was an attempt to "change the story" and "distract you."

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Sean Hannity: The New York Times is trying to distract you. They say Trump tried to fire Mueller, but our sources aren’t confirming that!



Sean Hannity, minutes later: Alright, yeah, maybe our sources confirm Trump wanted to fire Mueller. But so what? That’s his right. Anywho... pic.twitter.com/yUIt7Un56d — Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) January 26, 2018

It's a perverse privilege to see the complete collapse of American civil discourse in real time. The political world is now divided into people who deal with objective reality and are genuinely concerned with the future of this country—and, on the other side, the president's brownshirts.

Just check out how the hosts of Fox and Friends, who spend each morning whispering sweet nothings in the president's ear, tried to process this.

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Fox & Friends on Trump trying to fire Mueller: "Well, the president says it's fake news, that happened last June, it's something we have to tell you about because it's a headline on the NY Times. What do you think about that? Do you even care?" pic.twitter.com/4nPB5sv6Fs — Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) January 26, 2018

It was useful of them to play the clip of Trump hissing "fake news" at a scrum of reporters in Davos. We were then treated to entirely baseless speculation from Pete Hegseth, a substitute denizen of the F&F couch, who dismissed the four sources the Times used for their story by suggesting the story was really leaked by the special counsel's office. He offered no sourcing for his version of events. But it was Ainsley Earhardt who really cut to the chase, addressing the zombies tuning in:

Yeah, the president might be waging a dangerous assault on the rule of law, but "do you even care?"

Meanwhile, in the real world, people actually concerned with the future of this country were taking stock of what this president has actually done in his protracted attempt to sink the Russia probe:

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To recap: Trump asked Comey for loyalty; asked him to drop the Flynn probe; fired Comey; pressured Sessions not to recuse; pressured Sessions to fire McCabe; pressured Coats, Rogers, Pompeo &multiple congressmen to say he wasn’t under FBI investigation; and tried to fire Mueller. — Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) January 26, 2018

As a reminder, the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were ultimately drawn up on the basis of obstruction of justice.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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