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“You want people to feel at home when they turn on the TV,” Berry said.
Generally, The Five is like a dinner table conversation for a home flabbergasted that the country re-elected President Barack Obama. Williams rarely appears unless Beckel is absent. Although it’s not consistent on every issue, Beckel often finds himself outnumbered 4-to-1 ideologically. That’s a signature Ailes approach: An opposing point of view is not ignored, it’s just overwhelmed.
A show that aired the day Obama outlined a strategy for dealing with global warming illustrated the dynamic. Gutfeld opened with a denunciation of “our incredible shrinking president” and his “hilarious” strategy to fight Mother Nature. “Every major press outlet has admitted world temperatures haven’t changed in 16 years and that climate predictions were wildly exaggerated,” he said.
Bolling backed him. The others nibbled around the edges. Tantaros ridiculed Obama for talking about the weather when there were more important things to do. Perino said Obama lacked guts for speaking at a friendly political setting at Georgetown University.
“If you guys think there’s no global warming, then you really lost it,” Beckel said.
He didn’t press the matter, though, and even said he supported fracking, a process opposed by many environmentalists.
Beckel jokes about being the “crazy uncle” included in the dinner table conversation, and said producers never let him kick off the show because it would cut the audience in half. In a serious vein, he said there was some tension last fall when he was the only Obama supporter in a sea of Mitt Romney fans.
He seems to be having fun, though, enjoying the life of a TV star after many years in the political trenches.
“It took the sharp elbows out of some of the conversations you can hear in other places on cable news,” he said. “We actually get along and laugh about things.”
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