Fox News host Steve Doocy implored former President Trump to publicly call on his supporters to “tamp down the rhetoric” against federal law enforcement amid a flurry of threats to agents and officers following the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago one week ago.
“We just know there are a lot of very specific threats against very specific agents at the FBI and what not,” Doocy said. “It would be great if everybody would tamp down the rhetoric against the FBI, because the FBI was simply doing what the DOJ asked them to do.”
Not long after Doocy’s remarks, Trump put out a statement saying the temperature “has to be brought down” after the search on Aug. 8.
The FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) have expressed alarm at the possibility of attacks on law enforcement given the furor over the search. A man in Cincinnati was shot and killed after an attempted breach of an FBI field office there.
“With all of these threats going around it would ultimately be great if the former president, who has always been a great supporter of law enforcement, it would be great if he called for an end to the violent rhetoric against federal law enforcement,” Doocy said.
Trump is known as a regular watcher of Fox News and “Fox & Friends,” the network’s morning show, in particular.
The search executed at Trump’s Florida residence last week, apparently carried out in connection with an investigation into classified materials taken from the White House, has unleashed an explosion of speculation about what the ramifications of the investigation might be for the former president and why the search was necessary for the government to retain the documents.
In the days following the search, Trump himself and his staunchest supporters in Congress and in conservative media, including at Fox News, have blasted leadership at the DOJ and FBI suggesting the departments are being “weaponized” by Democrats in control of the executive branch.
On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland defended the FBI and DOJ while saying he would move to unseal a federal judge’s warrant authorizing the search. Trump’s lawyers also agreed to unseal the warrant, which was publicly released on Friday.
“The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants,” Garland said, adding he would not “stand by,” while such attacks are levied against the people in his department.
Doocy echoed this sentiment, saying the FBI agents who executed the search at Mar-a-Lago “were just doing their job.”
“But … for you to look at this situation and think that Democrats and Republicans have been treated the same over the last few years, you’d have to be looking at a different situation,” co-host Brian Kilmeade chimed in.
“No one is for the violence of FBI agents or any of these individuals,” Ainsley Earnhardt, the show’s third co-host added.
Doocy suggested critics of the DOJ should instead focus their anger on Garland himself.
“Garland is the one who has staked his entire reputation on it,” he said. “If there’s not something really big there, he is done.”