Fox News Guest Threatens To ‘Choke’ Barack Obama During Appearance, Gets Reprimanded By Host, Pete Hegseth
Fox News guest Kris Paronto threatened Barack Obama on live television, drawing a rebuke from the host of one of Donald Trump’s favorite shows.
The threat came on Sunday’s episode of Fox & Friends, where the former CIA analyst lashed out at the former president for his series of speeches trying to rile up the Democratic base. As Raw Story noted, Paronto said he couldn’t stomach the former president taking aim at Donald Trump, saying he didn’t want to stand by and not say anything about it.
“It’s disgusting,” Paronto said of Obama’s campaign speeches. “It just raises the bile inside of me. I had a hard time just watching the speeches. I just wanted to see what he had to say. And when that came across, I just wanted to reach through the screen and just grab him — grab him and choke him.”
Paronto went on to say that he wished he had Obama “sitting in front of me right now without his Secret Service.”
The threat was a bit too much for host Pete Hegseth, who gave a warning to his guest.
“We’ll be careful with that,” Hegseth said. “Because he’s a former president.”
Paronto went on to say that he gets riled up because he saw his friends “die in front of me,” referencing the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi during Obama’s presidency.
As Newsweek noted, Paronto has been vocal in blaming Obama for the death of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya. But Stevens’ own sister, Dr. Anne Stevens, has said that she disagrees with those looking to make the attack on the embassy into a political issue and says she does not blame Barack Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“They were balancing security efforts at embassies and missions around the world. And their staffs were doing their best to provide what they could with the resources they had. The Benghazi Mission was understaffed,” said Anne Stevens, who has served as the family’s unofficial spokesperson. “We know that now. But, again, Chris knew that. It wasn’t a secret to him. He decided to take the risk to go there. It is not something they did to him. It is something he took on himself.”
Paronto faced other consequences, with right-wing outlets reporting that he was suspended from Twitter.
Here's Benghazi survivor @KrisParonto's message to Barack Obama after he mentioned Benghazi in a political speech.
Here's some free advice for the former president: Don't use Benghazi in a political speech. https://t.co/L5CeWrvkgs
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 8, 2018
The threat to Barack Obama came during one of Donald Trump’s favorite shows, one he often tweets about — though the president had nothing to say on Sunday about Kris Paronto’s desire to “choke” Barack Obama.
