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Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov has mocked Donald Trump's claims that other people could be the victim of unwarranted investigations.
Tarlov, a co-host of Fox News' The Five, offers a more liberal and opposing voice as a Democrat on the conservative news network. She hit out at Trump's claims that the investigations against him are politically motivated, and that normal citizens could also be persecuted.
The former president has pleaded not guilty to 91 charges across four criminal investigations, and has accused each one of being a witch hunt that aims to stop him winning the 2024 election.
In a June 2023 speech after he was indicted in the federal classified documents case, Trump told a crowd at the Georgia Republican Party's annual convention: "They're not coming after me. They're coming after you—and I'm just standing in their way." Newsweek has contacted Trump's office for comment via email on Tuesday.
During Monday's episode of The Five, Tarlov rejected Trump's suggestion. He was also the subject of fraud and sexual battery civil cases that New York Attorney General Letitia James and writer E. Jean Carroll respectively won against him.
"Since Donald Trump ran the first time, he has been making this argument, 'If they could do this to me, they could do this to you,'" Tarlov said.
"The average person is not inflating their wealth by $800 million to $2.2 billion, not sexually assaulting women; they are not storing classified documents in the toilet; they're not fomenting an insurrection."
Tarlov was then interrupted by her fellow co-presenters of The Five as they continued to argue about Judge Arthur Engoron ordering Trump to pay a $355 million penalty. He ruled that the former president committed fraud by inflating the value of his properties and assets in financial statements for years.
The former president has previously criticized Tarlov after she attacked him on air.
In a January 2023 post on Truth Social, Trump said Tarlov's "facts are knowingly wrong" and that her voice is "grating and unendurable." She had gotten into an argument with fellow The Five co-host Jeanine Pirro about the manner of how Trump stored classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
"I find her impossible to take in large doses, & put out this 'REVIEW' because it is important to expose Fake News, & Fake People!" Trump wrote.
The heated discussion between Tarlov and Pirro arrived after sensitive materials were found at President Joe Biden's private residence in Delaware and his former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. It prompted an inquiry and subsequent report from Special Counsel Robert Hur, but the Democrat was found not guilty of wrongdoing.
In a September 2022 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Tarlov said part of the appeal of The Five is the arguments she often gets into with her conservative co-hosts.
"The point of the show is that it mimics real life," Tarlov said. "And when you're talking to people in your life, whether it's family or friends, especially people with different points of views, all aspects of your personality are heaped into it."
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About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more