You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. That's essentially the relationship between Donald Trump, American president, and his State TV network, Fox News. Normally, the propaganda arm of an authoritarian regime is run in-house, but in the U-S-of-A, none of that is necessary. The profit motive is enough to power the cable network's absolute allegiance to Trump and his movement, as the two engage in a Symbiosis of Stupid and keep millions of American eyeballs glued to the screen as viewers are fed a steady diet of resentment and all-American mythology. Fox gets advertiser cash. Trump gets a dependable political base rarely exposed to information which might pop his balloon.

Trump also gets cash, of course, if a little less directly. The president is monetizing his office on a daunting scale, as he maintains his business interests while running the country. Trump resigned from the Trump Organization and put his holdings in a trust, but it's controlled by his family and a close associate and they give him regular updates on the business—including, presumably, who's putting money into it. This has produced a constant stream of conflicts of interest, where the public cannot be sure that a decision on, say, our policy towards Saudi Arabia was made because it's in the American people's interest or because the Saudis are putting money in Trump's pocket.

The folks at the Fox News Channel normally just ignore this state of affairs as part of The Back Scratch, but after the president brazenly campaigned for the next G7 to be held at his resort outside Miami, the Fox & Friends went on the offensive. After all, here was the president essentially demanding that foreign leaders—not to mention their hundreds of staff members and all the media types who will come along—spend money at his failing business. Did you know Doral's net operating income has dropped 69 percent in two years? No wonder Trump wants Boris Johnson to hit the buffet. Anyway, here are the Friends defending all this:

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Brian Kilmeade says the Trump Doral resort is "the perfect site" for the next G7 summit. pic.twitter.com/NriuxbisQW — Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) August 27, 2019

Why is it "the perfect site"? Because the president said so, I guess. Yesterday, our fearless leader argued the resort has "tremendous acreage," and a lot of rooms, and it's close to the airport, although he had to sneak in a lie about that last part. "You’ll only have a five-minute drive, which is good," he whispered to Angela Merkel, even if, according to MarketWatch, it's actually a 16-to-30-minute drive, depending on traffic. He just couldn't resist. Had to make the sale. He is right about one thing, though: Miami International Airport does indeed "take planes from everywhere."

Brian Kilmeade pointed out, "He would want to do it there anyway, whether he owned it or not," then, after five seconds, joked (?) "Trump Tower is not available." This might be funny if the president did not pretty much exclusively travel to places with his name on them, a giant advertisement paid for with taxpayer cash.

The Fox & Friends seem to think this state of affairs is tip-top, maybe because they accept anything Trump says because he's the one saying it. Ainsley Earhardt took Trump's claim—that there was a legitimate procurement process in which 12 sites were considered—at face value, and Doocy thought he was backing it up when he shared that "the Secret Service did inform the Doral, Florida, police department two months ago that the resort was one of about a dozen potential venues for the summit." This does not actually prove that any other sites were seriously considered, but it does operate on the premise we're supposed to believe it's merely a coincidence that Trump's government ended up settling on Trump's struggling business. And we haven't even gotten into the president's obligation to avoid even the appearance of impropriety or corruption.

All of that is just window dressing, though. Doocy made it crystal clear how this works elsewhere:

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Steve Doocy dismisses criticism that Trump is violating the emoluments clause: "I'm sure the president has asked the lawyers, 'hey, how can I donate this, how can we possibly work around it?'" pic.twitter.com/DfeT3gjh6P — Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) August 27, 2019

That's Journalism 101: Assume powerful people are doing the right thing. No need to look into it. Also, even if he were to donate the immediate proceeds, the whole thing would be an advertisement for his private business specifically aimed at foreign actors. One fairly straightforward way out of this would be to hold the event at a property that is not owned by the president.

But Doocy could not resist making the opposite of his intended argument in the next breath. The fact that it will be insufferably hot in Miami around the time Trump wants to hold the event there is evidence the decision was made without regard to the suitability of the conditions. This is like when FIFA, a fantastically corrupt organization that ran on bribes and payoffs for decades, awarded the 2022 World Cup—an event held in summertime—to Qatar, where the average high is 106 degrees in July. They are probably going to have to move the tournament to the winter, which will disrupt the world's major club leagues. The comically ill-suited features of the venue suggest there was impropriety for anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex.

Of course, the explanation for the performative obliviousness from these three might well have been summed up long ago by Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

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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