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see bad trinity all in on fascism 6 25 ICE LA? MARTIal law

SEE WATTERS 3 POW

SEE BAD TRINITY ON EXTRA JUDICIAL KILLING

SEE FOX EFFECT FEEDBACK LOOP 6 25 belATED

SEE HANNITY MARK LEVIN IRAN

SEE DEMONIZATION OF DEMS

SEE MISO 4

SEE ACTIV SUPPRESS 5

SEE RENEE GOOD JRNL FAIL

EMERGENCY XO MARTIAL LAW PORTLAND

SEE EXTRA JUD KILLING VENEZ

SEE HYPE FEAR

SEE JRNL FAIL 4 ZELDIN ENDANGERMENT AM REPORTS TULSI BO TREASON RENEE GOOD

SEE GAZA PALESTINE FAIL 8 25

SEE FOX BIZ

SEE BEN STEIN WINNERS NAVARRO MOORE ON HEALTH CARE 2 26

SEE CONSPIRACY EARTH2

RUSSIA-GATE BS OBAMA TREASON

DENIAL = JRNL FAIL

HANNITY BOOST TODD BLANCHE

NO BAK

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MMA

7 26

With Todd Blanche, MAGA media is finally getting its dream AG

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 07/14/26

President Donald Trump’s goal for the Department of Justice is to eliminate its traditional independence in favor of a gangster government in which he and his allies can do what they wish without fear of legal consequences while his enemies face zealous pretextual prosecution. He has been aided every step of the way by MAGA media that demand his federal law enforcement officials privilege personal loyalty to the president over any other ethical or moral standard, and seek their removal when they fail to live up to it.

Trump and his propagandists seem to have finally gotten their man in Todd Blanche, whose attorney general confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee begin Wednesday.

Blanche’s view is that the president — not the United States — should be seen as the Justice Department’s client. In a June interview on Trump shill Sean Hannity’s podcast, he criticized DOJ officials during Trump’s first term for “actively working against” the president by investigating him, saying, “They work for him, and make no mistake, everybody in the executive works for the president of the United States.” And his own record bears that out.

A MAGA made man who established his bona fides representing cronies like Paul Manafort and Boris Epshteyn, Blanche became principal lawyer for Trump himself between his presidential terms. As other Trump attorneys quit in the face of the then-former president’s numerous federal and state prosecutions, Blanche stayed loyal, took on more responsibility, and ultimately helped Trump avoid accountability. Trump, upon his return to the White House, rewarded his personal lawyer by appointing him deputy attorney general and, in April, acting attorney general.

At the DOJ, Blanche oversaw some of the most notoriously political prosecutions of the era. His installment as acting attorney general was followed by the spurious indictments of longtime MAGA targets, including James Comey and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the appointment of MAGA media fixture Joe diGenova at the helm of a sprawling “Grand Conspiracy” inquiry into Trump’s political enemies.

He’s also served as Trump’s all-purpose fixer. It was Blanche who got the call to interview Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in prison; after Maxwell asserted that she never saw Trump “in any inappropriate setting,” she was transferred to a minimum-security prison camp where she reportedly receives special privileges (former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who drew condemnations from MAGA media figures over the Justice Department's Epstein disclosures, later testified that Blanche had overseen their release). And it was Blanche who became the point man for Trump’s scheme to have the DOJ establish a $1.8 billion slush fund that could be used to pay off January 6 insurrectionists.

Blanche and Hannity use the same playbook to target Trump's perceived enemies

As he ascended within the Trump orbit, Blanche became a Fox News regular — with 23 appearances on its weekday programs since the start of the second Trump presidency — and a favorite of MAGA media stars like Hannity, who is now on the cusp of getting the attorney general of his dreams.

The Fox star has spent the last decade leading furious dual efforts by MAGA media to A) defend Trump from federal probes related to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, and his retention of government documents at Mar-a-Lago, and B) seek retaliatory criminal probes of prominent Democrats and law enforcement officials tied in some way to those investigations.

Hannity’s buddy-buddy podcast interview with Blanche featured him asking about the “grand conspiracy, which goes back 11 years of whether or not you had powerful, high-ranking government officials conspiring to take down Donald Trump,” and the would-be attorney general agreeing that such a conspiracy existed and the question is simply whether it was “just a deep state actor who is working within the system that we've created for destruction, or is there a crime that's being committed.”

“We're investigating,” he assured Hannity. “We have a bunch of guys investigating. Anybody, honestly, any prosecutor in this government that raises their hand and says, I want to find out what happened. I want to investigate. We have the tools in place to get them where they need to be to do it.”

The “grand conspiracy” probe is rooted in right-wing media fantasies and will likely fizzle — even Blanche stressed to Hannity that “we know everything you're talking about is true” but “we have to have prosecutors” prove a crime was committed with evidence and “it’s not easy to do that.” But it won’t be for lack of effort from Blanche or his team.

The episode concluded with this disclaimer, presumably written by Fox lawyers nervous about the vast array of figures discussed during the podcast as potential criminal targets:\

...

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MMA

Study: Fox News smeared Alex Pretti dozens of times following his killing by federal agents

In the week following Pretti’s killing by DHS, figures on Fox News made at least 75 claims blaming Pretti for his own death or contradicting video evidence

Written by Harrison Ray & Isabella Sherk

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe & Rob Savillo

Published 02/06/26 9:58 AM EST

On January 24, Customs and Border Protection agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Minnesota intensive care nurse, during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis. In the week that followed, Fox News personalities and guests made at least 75 claims about Pretti that either wrongly alleged that he had been violent toward federal agents or directly blamed him for his own killing.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and figures from the Department of Homeland Security quickly made public statements claiming Pretti had intended to “massacre law enforcement,” commit “an act of domestic terrorism,” and “inflict maximum damage” — despite video evidence directly contradicting their claims.

In the hours following the shooting, Fox News began running with the Trump administration's narrative and parroting its talking points. Network figures and guests quoted or aired the administration's misleading and false statements at least 22 times in 24 hours after the news broke.

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From the January 25, 2026, edition of Fox New's Fox & Friends Weekend

Fox’s weekend shows airing just after the shooting made the most claims attacking Pretti. On January 24 alone, network figures and guests made at least 32 such claims. As video evidence became harder and harder to refute into the week, shows hosted by Will Cain, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham aired the most claims attacking Pretti among all of Fox’s weekday programming.

The number of daily claims against Pretti declined over the following days until footage of a January 13 incident involving Pretti and DHS agents resurfaced on January 28. Fox personalities seized on the footage to once again cast Pretti as an aggressor against federal agents, with the network airing at least 10 additional attacks even as his family stressed that “nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex's killing at the hands of ICE.”

Despite their pleas, Fox host Jesse Watters told viewers that in the new video, Pretti “looks like a dangerous, hostile, unhinged male nurse with a loaded weapon who went back for more a week later.”

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From the January 29, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Fox News contributors and guests also repeatedly contradicted video evidence by insisting Pretti had behaved aggressively or brandished a weapon. Fox contributor Paul Mauro claimed agents were only “trying to subdue him without using deadly force” when Pretti “pulls out that 9 mm,” former DHS official Charles Marino asserted that Pretti “showed up to this protest, intended to obstruct and confront law enforcement agents, and it turned out badly for him,” and right-wing activist Chris Rufo described him as “a violent leftist agitator … seeking armed conflict with the police.”

Former prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky described the shooting as “essentially a suicide-by-cop type of scenario,” claiming, “It's long been known if you're going to fight with cops and resist in situations that are escalating like this, it is a death wish.”

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From the January 24, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox Reports with Jon Scott

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From Fox News' live coverage on January 24, 2026

But many others on the network continued to churn out false statements and justifications for Pretti’s killing.

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MMA

  1. ### Fox News has completely ignored Trump's since-deleted racist Truth Social post

02/06/26

  1. ### Tim Pool reacts to a video Trump posted with the Obamas as apes: “It is not racist”

02/06/26 12:38 PM EST

  1. ### Responding to Trump's racist post depicting Obamas as apes, Salem's Mike Gallagher lashes out at the “Truth Social team”

02/06/26 12:29 PM EST

  1. ### Sean Hannity predicts that the “economy is going to be humming like never before” by the third quarter 2026

02/05/26

MMA

FOX NEWS’ PAST BIDEN CORRUPTION ACCUSATIONS PERFECTLY DESCRIBE THE UAE’S SECRET INVESTMENT IN TRUMP’S CRYPTO BUSINESS

02/05/26 ](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-past-biden-corruption-accusations-perfectly-describe-uaes-secret-investment)

MMA

February 3, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): You go back to the revolutions. The Bolsheviks, a radical minority, trying to impose their will and power on the majority, and they can only do that through fear, intimidation, organized violence, oppression, and the way they often do that is they use women and children. Why? Because children don't know any better and it's frightening to see it happen. And women can have their compassion and their emotions hijacked and they're often the most passionate revolutionaries. I mean, the Manson family, those murders were done by young women who believed in a cause. And when you talk to them, they don't know why.

//

  1. ### Fox misleadingly claimed that a government shutdown would impede relief for winter storms, glossing over the real threat to disaster-stricken communities

:{02/03/26

  1. ### Fox won’t tell viewers that the UAE bought off Trump

:{02/03/26

  1. ### Border Czar Tom Homan in resurfaced Fox interview: “We need a judicial warrant for a search”

02/03/26

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MMA

  1. ### Fox won’t tell viewers that the UAE bought off Trump

02/03/26

  1. ### Right-wing media distract from GOP sabotage of the Affordable Care Act

02/03/26

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NOTE BBB CUT HEALTHCARE TO PAY FOR BILLIONAIRE TAX CUTS BIG ISSUE 2026 MIDTERMS

MMA

Right-wing media distract from GOP sabotage of the Affordable Care Act

Trump's media apologists praise his lackluster replacement health care proposal

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 02/03/26

After Republicans let enhanced premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act Marketplace plans lapse at the end of 2025, health insurance premium costs for many Americans have risen significantly — and are projected to more than double for those who received those subsidies — and the number of signups has plummeted.

Now that Trump has announced his “Great Healthcare Plan” — a vague set of health care policies — and a rural hospital fund established by Trump’s tax cuts announced its first round of funding, right-wing media have jumped on board, ignoring Republicans’ long history of sabotaging the ACA in favor of claiming that the program is unaffordable and praising Trump’s policy ideas, which fail to address the problems he and Republicans helped to create.

Analyses predict massive spikes in insurance premiums and millions losing their insurance from the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits

Trump’s proposal includes a mix of initiatives that are already underway, such as Trump’s push to cut U.S. drug prices by linking them with the lower cost of drugs sold abroad, and some of his stalled ambitions, such as his desire to redirect billions of dollars in federal funding away from health insurers and toward average Americans. Trump also called to restore funding for the ACA’s cost-sharing reduction program, an insurance subsidy program that he ended in his first term, and to institute “maximum price transparency” by requiring hospitals and insurers to make more information available to consumers.

The proposal does not include new ideas to expand health coverage or simplify America’s often-byzantine health care system.

Additionally, other existing Republican policies stemming from their latest tax cut for the rich are estimated to cause up to 15 million Americans, and possibly more, to lose their health insurance. Other experts said Trump’s plans are so vague that it is unknown what effects they may have but they put people with preexisting conditions at risk and don’t reestablish the expired subsidies:

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  1. ### Fox misleadingly claimed that a government shutdown would impede relief for winter storms, glossing over the real threat to disaster-stricken communities

02/03/26 1:38 PM EST

  1. ### Fox won’t tell viewers that the UAE bought off Trump

02/03/26 11:00 AM EST

  1. ### Border Czar Tom Homan in resurfaced Fox interview: “We need a judicial warrant for a search”

02/03/26

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AN 1 26

President Donald Trump was up early Thursday morning for a Truth Social posting spree that focused largely on his 2020 election loss — but included a dash of claims about 2016's "Russiagate."

The rant included a nearly decade-long conspiracy that Trump was spied on by former President Barack Obama. Trump reposted Fox News commentary from far-right host Jesse Watters who claimed Obama personally ordered a CIA spying operation on Trump.

"ARREST OBAMA NOW," one post read.

According to the "Truths," the Obama administration manufactured evidence to undermine Trump's election in 2016, though none of the information about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia was revealed publicly until after the election. Other reports about the Russian hack of Hillary Clinton's campaign, Russian bots and content farms were reported throughout 2016, a Washington Post timeline shows.

Trump on Thursday morning also posted a series of "Truths" showing he's still focused on his 2020 election loss.

Among the posts was a flood of accusations claiming that the election was "crooked."

Trump appeared to post screenshots of random users from X who agree with his sentiment that he actually won the 2020 election.

Another video Trump posted from CNN appears to show a discussion about Trump winning Georgia in 2024, though Trump doesn't explain how that is relevant to his 2020 conspiracy theories about the election.

Trump also shared another conspiracy cited by former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly about the Chinese government funding leftist groups and the Minnesota Immigration Rights Action Committee.

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mma

Fox News’ biggest stars are desperately trying to turn the Trump administration’s execution and subsequent smearing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis into a story about how the political left is out of control.

Video analyses conducted by several news outlets show masked Border Patrol agents engaging, assaulting, restraining, and gunning down Pretti (who had been recording their activities on his phone) over a matter of seconds on Saturday morning. High-ranking administration officials subsequently branded him a “domestic terrorist” who had intended to “massacre” the agents, citing Pretti’s possession of a legally carried handgun that he never drew during the altercation.

Fox initially ran with and even went beyond the administration’s justifications for killing Pretti. But the network pivoted beginning Sunday evening as burgeoning outrage made their arguments untenable, with some commentators conceding that videos disproved the official statements and suggesting the administration shift tactics.

Monday night’s Fox programming provided a synthesis of the two narrative threads. Network hosts suggested that more investigation was necessary to determine what had happened to Pretti, and called for a retrenchment of sorts. But much of their focus was on attacking what they deemed a Democratic “insurgency” against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Fox host Jesse Watters condemned Gov. Tim Walz, telling viewers that he “has not made any effort to chill out his citizens” and has instead “been in open rebellion against the federal government” and “activated a Minnesota insurgency.”

“This insurgency is more sophisticated than you think, and it relies on a supportive population,” Watters added, claiming that “these people are giving aid and comfort to foreign criminals” and that “like jihadists, their leaders don’t care if they die.”

“This movement is lethal to the country,” Watters concluded. “Renee Good and Alex Pretti would be alive if Minnesota would stop attacking the Trump administration for doing what voters put him in to do.”

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From the January 26, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Laura Ingraham described immigration enforcement protesters as an “open-borders mafia” who “prattle on how they are protecting their neighbors, but they don't bat an eye when their neighbors' daughters are raped by an illegal or run over by an illegal with, you know, his second DWI.”

She added that “the hard-core communists who give the octane to these mobs have one overriding goal … to destabilize America by frustrating a key pillar of the Trump agenda. Now, of course, that's border enforcement.”

Ingraham went on to say that “certain elements” in Minneapolis were “hoping to provoke ICE” and “some, not all, hope to witness, I think, a violent response, then they would clip it for social media and then they can blast it out.”

“So the more tragic, in this warped mindset, the better,” she added. “The more fodder for their demand that ICE withdraw from the city and immigration arrests end immediately. They think they have that, this image, in the death of Alex Pretti.”

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From the January 26, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

And Sean Hannity insinuated that the media and “the left” were engaged in a “rush to judgement” regarding Pretti’s killers. Then, interviewing FBI Director Kash Patel, Hannity sought assurances that the administration was keeping its investigative resources focused not on Pretti’s killers, but on targeting his fellow activists.

“What do we know about this encrypted message group?” Hannity asked, referencing Signal chats used by Minneapolis activists to track immigration enforcement operations. He added, “When you have well-organized groups like those that are going after law enforcement, I would imagine that will fall under the purview of the FBI.”

Patel, who had previously divulged launching a probe of the messaging groups in response to a MAGA influencer’s post, replied that “this Signal chat is something that we, the FBI, are looking at and spearheading.”

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From the January 26, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

This rhetoric, intended to dehumanize and criminalize Minneapolis activists, echoes years of demagoguery on Fox and throughout the right-wing media about the violent threat purportedly posed by the left — most recently following the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents on January 7.

//

  1. ### The Fox News response to the federal government execution of Alex Pretti sets a new level of depravity

01/25/26 11:50 AM EST

  1. ### After 36 hours justifying the killing of Alex Pretti, Fox News suddenly changes its narrative

01/26/26 12:40 PM EST

  1. ### The incendiary and demonizing chyrons on Fox News evening programming regarding Minnesota, ICE, and protests

01/16/26

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mma

Watch MSNOW's Ari Melber discuss Fox News' changing narrative on ICE shootings in Minnesota

01/27/26 7:18 PM EST

  1. ### Right-wing radio host attacks self-proclaimed three-time Trump voter for criticizing ICE tactics

01/27/26 5:39 PM EST

  1. ### Sean Hannity on killing of Alex Pretti: “I don't care that this guy had a license to carry”

01/27/26 4:50 PM EST

  1. ### Nick Fuentes says “Trump has fully chickened out” on mass deportations, calling the administration's operations “a spectacular failure and a disaster”

01/27/26 4:13 PM EST

  1. ### “Looks like a surrender”: Right-wing media figures are disappointed by Trump’s demotion of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino

01/27/26 4:03 PM EST

  1. ### Fox’s absurd attempt to cast Tom Homan as Trump’s good cop on immigration

01/27/26 4:03 PM EST

  1. ### Cada Tarde host on Kristi Noem's defense of ICE killing Pretti: “This woman is doing incalculable harm to President Donald Trump”

01/27/26 3:46 PM EST

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: Kristi Noem has “not done a credit to the president as DHS secretary”

01/27/26 3:19 PM EST

  1. ### Nick Fuentes calls Alex Pretti a “race traitor” and says there is “one less asshole in the world"

01/27/26 2:38 PM EST

  1. ### Fox's Trey Gowdy calls out Noem for getting ahead of the facts: “I don't understand why it is so hard for those of us in public service to say from time to time, ‘You know what, I got it wrong'”

01/27/26 2:25 PM EST

  1. ### Fox stars respond to Alex Pretti’s killing by attacking Minneapolis “insurgency” of “hardcore communists” and “jihadists”

01/27/26 2:15 PM EST

  1. ### Megyn Kelly on ICE operations in Minnesota: “I'm still amongst those people” who “wanted all illegals deported, whether they'd committed a crime or not. ... I want them gone.”

01/27/26 1:59 PM EST

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MMA

  1. ### Sean Hannity says ICE should stop “going into Home Depots and arresting people”

01/26/26 4:56 PM EST

  1. ### Fox News contributor: “I was taken back by the White House who initially put out what I defined as misrepresentation of what took place there when you look at the video”

01/26/26 3:52 PM EST

  1. ### Megyn Kelly: Minnesota protesters are “terrorists” who must “behave well and submit immediately”

01/26/26 2:16 PM EST

  1. ### After 36 hours justifying the killing of Alex Pretti, Fox News suddenly changes its narrative

01/26/26 12:40 PM EST

  1. ### Discussing Minnesota, FBI Director Kash Patel says “some of the best reporting” has been through Benny Johnson and Cam Higby: “As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it”

01/26/26 12:25 PM EST

  1. ### Right-wing streamer Asmongold on Alex Pretti shooting: “There's literally no excuse for it”

01/26/26 12:19 PM EST

  1. ### Benny Johnson on Alex Pretti shooting: “A left-wing protester attempted to pull this Sig Sauer handgun on federal officers and commit a mass murder”

01/26/26 11:27 AM EST

  1. ### Fox contributor claims that Alex Pretti pulled a gun on an ICE officer

01/26/26 11:24 AM EST

  1. ### Fox’s Trey Gowdy points out double standard of defending Kyle Rittenhouse and criticizing Alex Pretti

01/26/26 11:23 AM EST

  1. ### Newsmax's senior judicial analyst on Alex Pretti shooting: “To me, their shooting is indefensible”

01/26/26 10:54 AM EST

  1. ### Alex Jones blames Alex Pretti for his own death: “He came with a gun and stuck himself in the middle of a riot”

01/26/26 10:34 AM EST

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MMA

January 24, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Big Weekend Show

JOE CONCHA (CONTRIBUTOR): [Minneapolis Mayor Jacob] Frey and [Minnesota Gov. Tim] Walz are gaslighting with a nuclear blowtorch because obviously this has now happened three times, right, where you have Nicole Good who tried to, I don't know if she intentionally tried to hit that ICE officer, but he was hit in the torso, there was internal bleeding, he had to react. Then we had last week you have not one, not two, three illegal immigrants that went after an ICE officer, including one with snow shovel, which at last check, if you hit someone cleanly with, can be a deadly weapon, thank you.

And now here literally a guy pulls a gun on an ICE officer, he defends himself, and they're saying that, Oh, no, he was only attacked at this point. Jacob Frey just said in that clip that you just played, Joey, that we need Donald Trump to act like a leader. You know what? Back in 2016 when Barack Obama was deporting 3 million people out of this country, you had leaders of Minneapolis, and Minnesota, and all across the country cooperating with ICE to make sure that that happened smoothly, that's acting like a leader, not what Frey is saying at this point, this human broomstick of a Mayor that we have in Minneapolis.

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CONTEXT

MMA

January 24, 2026, edition of The Benny Show, posted to YouTube

BENNY JOHNSON (HOST): You need to pray for Border Patrol, federal law enforcement, and ICE right now as Minneapolis is about to pop off. Another deadly shooting.

This time, a left-wing protester attempted to pull this Sig Sauer handgun on federal officers and commit a mass murder, potentially killing many of them because there were quite a few around during an arrest situation where a left-wing agitator, probably a professional paid agitator, 51 years-old, was reaching for this firearm.

Federal law enforcement put him down, but a Border Patrol member shot and killed an individual in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the intersection of 26th Street, Nicollet Avenue. This is the same avenue that the Quality Learning center is on. Goodness gracious. What started it all, and now we're learning so much more about what the left is willing to do.

This would be the second time that a leftist paid protester, agitator, terrorist has been killed in self-defense by federal law enforcement for attempting to commit murder. Renee Good tried to run over federal officers, and this individual tried to shoot federal officers. You can see here in this video -- what you'll see is federal officers tussling, attempting to apprehend the agitator and then the individual showed his firearm. And you can hear the discharge of a weapon. And the reactions from inside of whatever establishment was filming this -- again, well, stop resisting arrest. Stop fighting federal law enforcement.

//

  1. ### Discussing Minnesota, FBI Director Kash Patel says “some of the best reporting” has been through Benny Johnson and Cam Higby: “As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it”

:{:{01/26/26}:

  1. ### Benny Johnson on Greenland: “President Trump ruling an empire. We are an empire once more.”

:{:{01/22/26}:

  1. ### Many right-wing media figures fell in line after Trump renewed threat to acquire Greenland

01/21/2

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MMA

Fox's Charlie Hurt: “Only one person could have prevented this from happening, and it's Alex Pretti.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 01/25/26

Video

Citation

From the January 25, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Weekend

GRIFF JENKINS (CO-HOST): You know, can I just say this is clearly a tragedy. And everyone grieves for this young ICU nurse. But it's important to to note that this was avoidable.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY (CO-HOST): Yeah.

CHARLIE HURT (CO-HOST): Totally.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Totally.

JENKINS: Because of the chaos -

JENKINS: And you have to wake up and feel for Alex Pretti and his family and his grieving parents, but also you have to wonder why does a nurse feel compelled to go confront ICE armed with a 9mm handgun? And, Rachel and Charlie, I can't but help remember when Governor Walz earlier this week on Wednesday took to the microphones, and this was his message as the situation was escalating in the wake of the tragic killing of Renee Good.

...

HURT: Only one person could have prevented this from happening, and it's Alex Pretti. He should not have been there, he should not have confronted ICE. I don't know -- I know more people who concealed carry than people who don't concealed carry. I don't know a single person who concealed carries who would go up and, confront police, especially if they were armed. Every single person I know who concealed carries, If you get pulled over for a speeding ticket, doesn't matter if you don't think you were speeding -- doesn't matter what the - you could - put your hands on the wheel and say, offer I've got a concealed carry permit, I've got a loaded weapon in my car here.

And the officer usually goes, okay, thanks for letting me know, do you know why I stopped you, and it moves on from there. That's the way the people who have concealed carry permits behave. They don't put extra magazines in their pocket and go and confront police and then wind up in a physical altercation with police. And it's a tragedy, what happened to this guy.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: And-

HURT: But he is the only person who could have prevented it.

//

  1. ### Fox News contributor: “I was taken back by the White House who initially put out what I defined as misrepresentation of what took place there when you look at the video”

01/26/26 3:52 PM EST

  1. ### Alex Jones blames Alex Pretti for his own death: “He came with a gun and stuck himself in the middle of a riot”

01/26/26 10:34 AM EST

  1. ### Fox host says the “normal” Minneapolis residents she knows are “very embarrassed” about the protests

01/25/26

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mma

Fox pretends Trump and his tariffs have revived manufacturing, but reports show the US has lost 72,000 manufacturing jobs since April

01/22/26

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AN 1 26

Trump fires off post accusing Fox News of 'criminal offense' over plummeting poll numbers

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AN 1 26

Following the recent shooting of Renee Good by an agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States, the Donald Trump administration’s latest narrative suggests that “deluded wine moms” are to blame for the violence in ICE-related demonstrations in Minneapolis and across the country.

This mother-blaming is nothing more than an old trick with a new spin.

Organized gangs of ‘wine moms’

A Fox News columnist recently wrote that “organized gangs of wine moms” are using “antifa tactics” to “harass and impede” ICE activity. In the opinion piece, he claimed that “confusion” over the what constitutes civil disobedience is what “got 37-year-old Renee Good killed.”

Similarly, Vice-President J.D. Vance called Good a “deranged leftist” while a new acronym, AWFUL — Affluent White Female Urban Liberal — has appeared on social media.

In framing protesters like Good, a mother of three, as confused, aggressive and “delusional,” this narrative delegitimizes and pathologizes maternal activism.

This strategy aims to divert blame from the U.S. government and its heavy-handed approach to immigration — which has resulted in yet another slaying of a protester by ICE agents in Minneapolis, this time a male nurse who was reportedly coming to the aid of a female demonstrator — while also drawing on a centuries-old strategy of blaming mothers for social problems.

What makes a ‘wine mom?’

The term “wine mom” emerged over the last two decades as a cultural symbol of the contemporary white, suburban mother who turns to a nightly glass of wine (or two) to cope with the stresses of daily life.

The archetype goes back much further, reflected in literature, film and television characters, such as the wily Lucille Bluth of Arrested Development.

Yet, this motif is less light-hearted than assumed: a recent systematic review reveals a strong link between maternal drinking and stress, especially for working mothers.

While it would be easy to view problematic drinking as another example of maternal failure, it is important not to. Here’s why.

Mother-blame in history

Throughout history, mothers have found themselves in the midst of what American sociologist Linda Blum calls a “mother-valor/mother-blame binary.”

When behaving in accordance with socially acceptable and desirable parameters — that is with warmth, femininity and selflessness — mothers are viewed as “good.” When mothers violate these norms, whether by choice, circumstance or by virtue of their race or class position, they’re “bad mothers.”

Mother-blame ultimately reflects the belief that mothers are solely responsible for their children’s behaviour and outcomes, along with the cultural tendency to blame them when things go wrong. Yet, as Blum points out, “mother-blame also serves as a metaphor for a range of political fears.”

Perhaps the most striking example of this is the suffrage movement, which represented a direct challenge to patriarchal notions that women belonged in the domestic sphere and lacked the intelligence to engage in political discourse.

Suffragettes in the United Kingdom — many of them mothers — occasionally used extreme tactics, such as window-smashing and arson, while women in the U.S. obstructed traffic and waged hunger strikes.

These activists were framed as threatening to not only the establishment, but also to families and the moral fabric of society.

Ironically, despite the fact that women’s entry into politics led to increased spending and improved outcomes related to women, children, families and health care, scholars have found that mother-blaming was as common after the women’s movement as it was before.

Contemporary mother-blame

Beyond political matters, contemporary mother-blame is rampant in other domains.

Mothers have been blamed for a wide variety of their children’s psychological problems, including anxiety, depression and inherited trauma. In media and literature, mothers are often blamed for criminality and violence, reflecting the notion that “mothers make monsters.”

When children struggle in school, educators and administrators may blame the mother. Mothers risk being called “too passive” if they don’t advocate for their children or “too aggressive” when they do.

Similarly, the “crazy woman” or “hysterical mother” is a well-known trope in custody law, and mothers may be blamed even when their children are abused by others. Mass shootings? Mom’s failure. The list goes on.

By setting up mothering as a high-stakes endeavour, the cultural norm of mother-blame also serves to “divide and conquer.”

In my sociology research, I found that mothers on Facebook worked to align themselves with like-minded “superior” mothers, while distancing themselves from perceived “inferior” mothers. This feeds into the cultural norm of “combative mothering,” which pits mothers against each other.

An old trick with a new spin

The “wine mom” narrative builds on this historical pattern of mother-blame. It is meant to trivialize, delegitimize, divide and denigrate mothers who are, in fact, well-organized and motivated activists concerned for their communities.

While there are legitimate concerns around maternal drinking as a coping mechanism, the “wine mom” label has begun to represent something different. Mothers are reclaiming the title to expand their cause.

As @sara_wiles, promoting the activist group @redwineblueusa stated on Instagram: “They meant to scare us back into the kitchen, but our actual response is, ‘Oh, I want to join!’”

We should acknowledge that rather than causing societal problems, mothers have a long history of trying to fix them, even if imperfectly. Mothers like Renee Good are no exception.

Darryn DiFrancesco, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Human and Health Sciences, *University of Northern British Columbia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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mma

Many right-wing media figures fell in line after Trump renewed threat to acquire Greenland

White nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes said Europe should be “grateful that we don't take a whole lot more”

Written by Payton Armstrong, Reed McMaster & Jack Wheatley

Published 01/21/26

Many right-wing media figures backed President Donald Trump’s vow to take control of Greenland, a move that threatened the NATO alliance formed after World War II, telling Denmark to “just sell us Greenland” and arguing that it’s “worth talking about” taking Greenland by force because “that's the only way that America exists in the first place.” Some in conservative print media outlets came out against Trump’s threats, suggesting that some of his tactics were “dangerous,” calling it “Trump’s lesson in how to turn U.S. allies into China’s friends,” and asserting that his “foreign policy needs to distinguish between friend and foe.”

Trump vowed to acquire Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally

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MMA

The Fox-Trump fusion in two Fox & Friends segments

Is it state-run media, or a media-run state? Yes.

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 01/21/26

A year into President Donald Trump’s second turn in the Oval Office, it has become virtually impossible to tell where his administration ends and Fox News begins.

Trump arrived for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday morning amid alarm from U.S. allies over his manic, unhinged, and unnerving demands for NATO member Denmark to hand over Greenland. At a Davos speech the day before, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned of a “rupture” in the world order, in which international rules are being replaced by the mantra that “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”

Here’s how Fox & Friends co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy put it as a helicopter bearing the president touched down in Davos: “It feels like even though this meeting has been going on for a couple days and speeches have been made and interviews have been done, it feels like nothing starts until President Trump arrives — until daddy's home, as so many people say.”

“Just think about the anticipation, the stakes that are going to be made here, just with the presence of President Trump,” she glowed, adding: “Here you have this global conference where President Trump is about to blow it up in terms of his negotiations and stands, and yet nothing starts until he arrives.”

“It is a new day,” she concluded. “America is the center of everything. President Trump is the leader that everything hinges on.”

Video

Citation

From the January 21, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

Campos-Duffy isn’t just a typically sycophantic Fox host with a penchant for conspiracy theories. Her husband, former Fox contributor and Fox Business host Sean Duffy, is one of 24 former network employees who went through the revolving door between the network and the second Trump administration, and he is now the secretary of transportation (Fox & Friends’ former weekend co-host Pete Hegseth is Duffy’s Cabinet colleague as secretary of defense).

At a normal news outlet, employing the wife of a Cabinet secretary for a role which allowed her to shower the president with praise would be an unheard-of ethical disaster. But at Fox, it may not have even been the biggest such calamity of the day.

Less than 15 minutes before Campos-Duffy proclaimed Trump the world’s “daddy,” Fox & Friendsbrought on the president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump. The network hired Lara Trump as a commentator after the president took office last year in an absurdly corrupt deal which put a lantern on Fox’s reemergence as a Trump propaganda outlet.

Lara Trump, who Fox employs as the host of a weekly program which she uses to give top Trump officials like Campos-Duffy’s husband soft-focus interviews about the great jobs they are doing for the American people, was there to take issue with the tenor of The View’s Tuesday sitdown with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“Lara, listen, obviously they’re going to like Zohran Mamdani, that’s The View,” said Fox & Friends guest co-host Johnny “Joey” Jones. “But when you see them just gushing over him like that — I mean, he’s been in office for a couple of days, but still.”

“Yeah, well, this is surprising to absolutely nobody,” Lara Trump replied, mocking the “hard-hitting hosts there” for being “obsessed with people like” Mamdani. Because if there’s one thing they won’t stand for on Fox & Friends, it’s shoddy journalism and hosts gushing over their favorite politicians.

Video

Citation

From the January 21, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

All of this happened on the program where Donald Trump built his political following with regular appearances, then watched obsessively throughout his first term for tips on how to govern the country while posting hundreds of times on social media about what he saw on the show.

Is it state-run media, or a media-run state? Yes.

//

  1. ### A comprehensive review of the revolving door between Fox and the second Trump administration

:{:{11/13/24}:

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  1. ### The president's daughter-in-law hosts a weekly show on Fox News. To call it “propaganda” is too kind.

:{:{07/10/25}:

  1. ### From reality TV to warping reality: Rachel Campos-Duffy has made a career of pushing extremism, bigotry, and conspiracy theories

09/09/24

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The incendiary and demonizing chyrons on Fox News evening programming regarding Minnesota, ICE, and protests | Media Matters for America

collage of Fox News chyrons in 1/26 concerning Minnesota

Media Matters; screenshots via Fox news

Research/Study

The incendiary and demonizing chyrons on Fox News evening programming regarding Minnesota, ICE, and protests

Written by Helena Hind & Jane Lee

:{:{Published 01/16/26}:

After Fox News pushed the Trump administration’s propaganda in its coverage of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s deadly January 7 shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the network has used its chyrons during the ensuing protests to demonize demonstrators, accuse Democratic officials of inciting violence, and declare “Dems at war with America itself.” Fox’s characterization of the protests serves to suggest a pretext for President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which he threatened to do in a January 15 Truth Social post.

The Will Cain Show

still of Cain;

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Will Cain Show

“Can I.C.E. agent sue people calling him murderer?”

still of Cain

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Will Cain show

“Dems calls I.C.E. shooting murder, what happened to due process?”

Chyron reads: “Anti-I.C.E protests rage after MN shooting”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Will Cain Show

“Anti-I.C.E protests rage after MN shooting.”

Chyron reads: "What happens when communities defy laws?"; Graphic shows a map of the Confederate States

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Will Cain Show

“What happens when communities defy laws?”

Chyron reads: “Trump threatens Insurrection Act amid MN protests”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Will Cain Show

“Trump threatens Insurrection Act amid MN protests.”

Chyron reads: "MN officials ramp up rhetoric, then ask for calm"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Will Cain Show

“MN officials ramp up rhetoric, then ask for calm.”

The Five

still of Kennedy

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

“Minneapolis Mayhem: Left-wing agitators stalk, harass ICE agents.”

Chyron reads: “Violent anti-ICE protests continue to rock MN”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

“Violent anti-ICE protests continue to rock MN.”

Chyron reads: "Minneapolis anarchy: Anti-ICE agitators take over Twin Cities streets"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

“Minneapolis anarchy: Anti-ICE agitators take over Twin Cities streets.”

Chyron reads: "Trump threatens Insurrection Act to stop MN chaos"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

“Trump threatens Insurrection Act to stop MN chaos.”

Chyron reads: “Violent left-wing agitators cause mayhem in MN”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

“Violent left-wing agitators cause mayhem in MN.”

Chyron reads: “Walz refuses to turn down temp as ICE under siege”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

“Walz refuses to turn down temp as ICE under siege.”

Special Report with Bret Baier

still of Bret

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier

“Minneapolis chaos: Protesters clash with federal agents.”

footage from Minneapolis

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier

“Twin cities chaos: Protesters interfering with ongoing I.C.E. operations.”

Chyron read: "Military deployment threat"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier

“Military deployment threat.”

Chyron reads: “Minneapolis mayhem: Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier

“Minneapolis mayhem: Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act.”

Chyron reads: “Presidential power: Trump threatens Insurrection Act”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier

“Presidential power: Trump threatens Insurrection Act.”

The Ingraham Angle

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

"An insurgency not a protest" and “Dems light the match.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“The left is getting armed.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

"An insurgency, not a protest" and “For Dems, it's ‘democracy’ only if they win.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Dems' anti-ICE insurrection spreads.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“This is what an insurgency looks like.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Rioters wage an insurgency against law enforcement.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Dems fuel the insurgency.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

"The Dems' murder-suicide mission" and “Insurgent virus spreads to moderate Dems.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Insurgents emboldened by Dem rhetoric.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Dems promote lawlessness.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Dems want to take America down with them.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“The Dems' murder-suicide mission.”

still of Laura

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Dems at war with America itself.”

Chyron reads: “CNN plays defense for rioters”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

"Propagandists & the push polls" and “CNN plays defense for rioters.”

Chyron reads: “Anti-ICE lunatics are fueled by radical Dems”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Anti-ICE lunatics are fueled by radical Dems.”

Chyron reads: "The left wants more violence"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

"There goes the neighborhood" and “The left wants more violence.”

Chyron reads: "Dems to insurgents: Fight ICE"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

"There goes the neighborhood" and “Dems to insurgents: Fight ICE.”

Chyron reads: "Now anti-ICE thugs are stealing weapons"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Now anti-ICE thugs are stealing weapons.”

Chyron reads: “The left’s foot soldiers ransack federal vehicle”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“The left’s foot soldiers ransack federal vehicle.”

Jesse Watters Primetime

still of watters

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Minneapolis loses control of its city.”

still of Jesse

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Women are being used as cannon fodder.”

still of Jesse

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Male hatred fuels anti-ICE rage.”

still of Jesse

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Leftists want to see blood.”

still

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Radicals declare war on ICE.”

Chyron reads: “Activists: You’re with us or against us”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Activists: You’re with us or against us.”

Chyron reads: “Radicals want to kill Homan’s family”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Radicals want to kill Homan’s family.”

Chyron reads: “Innocent gardeners aren’t getting ICE’d”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Innocent gardeners aren’t getting ICE’d.”

Chyron reads: “Minneapolis is choosing them over you”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Minneapolis is choosing them over you.”

Chyron reads: “Activists want you to risk it all”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Activists want you to risk it all.”

Chyron reads: “Protesters need to stay out of the way”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Protesters need to stay out of the way.”

Chyron reads: “ICE stalkers go wild in the Twin Cities”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“ICE stalkers go wild in the Twin Cities.”

Chyron reads: “Federal agents targeted by the left”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Federal agents targeted by the left.”

Chyron reads: "Minneapolis throws a gnarly riot"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Minneapolis throws a gnarly riot.”

Chyron reads: “Black Panthers want blood”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Black Panthers want blood.”

Chyron reads: “Rioters fight for bad hombres”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Rioters fight for bad hombres.”

Chyron reads: “They want us out, illegals in”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“They want us out, illegals in.”

Chyron reads: “Minneapolis wants cops to go to war”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“Minneapolis wants cops to go to war.”

Chyron reads: "This is a battle of wills"

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“This is a battle of wills.”

Hannity

still of Minneapolis footage

Citation

From the January 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

“Protests continue to wreak havoc in Minneapolis.”

Chyron reads: “Walz: Get out and film ‘atrocities’ being committed by ‘armed, masked’ ICE agents”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

“Walz: Get out and film ‘atrocities’ being committed by ‘armed, masked’ ICE agents.”

Chyron reads: “Left-wing agitators battle federal authorities”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

“Left-wing agitators battle federal authorities.”

Fox News @ Night

still of Trace

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox News @ Night

“Anti-I.C.E. protests rage in Minneapolis.”

Chyron reads: “Protesters swarm I.C.E crime scene in MN”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox News @ Night

“Protesters swarm I.C.E crime scene in MN.”

Chyron reads: “Police chief: Crowd engaging in unlawful acts”

Citation

From the January 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox News @ Night

“Police chief: Crowd engaging in unlawful acts.”

Chyron read: “MN Gov: ‘Campaign of organized brutality’ by feds”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox News @ Night

“MN Gov: ‘Campaign of organized brutality’ by feds.”

Chyron read: “Democrats to descend on Minneapolis”

Citation

From the January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox News @ Night

“Democrats to descend on Minneapolis.”

The Latest

Right-wing streamer Asmongold calls for anti-ICE protesters to be “put in a camp” for “mandatory labor” of 5-10 years

01/20/26 3:04 PM EST

Podcaster Shawn Ryan on the Epstein files: “Listen up, everybody. The fucking White House is protecting pedophiles.”

01/20/26 2:17 PM EST

Nick Fuentes: “Please pull the trigger. Please kill them, Mr. President. … I'm not actually wishing for violence, but please send in the military and restore order.”

01/20/26 12:52 PM EST

Nick Fuentes’ Instagram takeover

01/20/26 11:48 AM EST

Fox's Kilmeade cautions against Trump's threatened EU tariffs: “If you affect what we're paying at the stores, Republicans have almost no chance of holding the House and Senate”

01/20/26 9:45 AM EST

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MMA

New York Times video analysis says there’s “no indication” Renee Good ran over an ICE agent. Right-wing media have been claiming she nearly “slaughtered” him.

The Times’ analysis reveals “no indication Agent Jonathan Ross got run over” by Good just prior to her killing – contrasting over a week of right-wing media claims

Written by Noah Dowe, Reed McMaster, Ben Van Bloem & Tyler Monroe

Published 01/16/26

After the January 7 killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, right-wing media figures rallied behind the agency, saying they are “100% on ICE’s side,” repeatedly accusing Good of ramming the agent with her car, and even calling her a “murderer.”

But new video analysis from The New York Times reveals “no indication Agent Jonathan Ross got run over” by Good – rather, that “Ross put himself in a dangerous position near her vehicle in the first place.”

New York Times’ analysis says there’s “no indication Agent Jonathan Ross got run over”

//

  1. ### The Trump administration claims they are targeting criminal migrants in Minnesota. Local reporting shows U.S. citizens and legal immigrants are being detained.

:{:{01/16/26}::{ }:

:

  1. ### Megyn Kelly on Renee Good's family: “I have empathy for them because they had a dumbass mother”

:{:{01/16/26}::{ }:

  1. ### Right-wing media are describing pro-immigrant Minnesota activists using the language of war

01/16/26

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  1. ### LindellTV host Emerald Robinson claims Patrick Byrne “got called in to the White House”

01/16/26 1:47 PM EST

  1. ### Nick Fuentes suggests ICE killing Renee Good is “probably a good thing” because the “future is at stake, whether white people exist as a race”

01/16/26 11:19 AM EST

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, January 16

01/16/26 10:50 AM EST

  1. ### Newsmax host dismisses reported incident of ICE teargassing a baby: “Well, like, that sucks. But why was the six-month-old, even exposed or near tear gas in the first place?”

01/16/26 10:10 AM EST

  1. ### Jesse Watters: “This is a Minnesota insurgency. They’re conducting guerrilla warfare against federal agents.”

01/15/26 8:51 PM EST

  1. ### “Arrest them all”: Right-wing media back Trump as he threatens to use the Insurrection Act

01/15/26 6:45 PM EST

  1. ### New polling shows a majority of Americans are concerned about ICE's killing of Renee Good. Fox News figures have claimed otherwise.

01/15/26 6:18 PM EST

  1. ...### Matt Walsh on Minneapolis: “The whole city must be taught a lesson. How much do we have to deal with from these people? They must be punished.”

01/15/26 3:48 PM EST

  1. ### Megyn Kelly suggests people are protesting ICE because they aren't having sex

01/15/26 3:38 PM EST

  1. ### Nick Fuentes says “podcast bros” being against mass deportations is “a very bad bellwether” for “where the middle is”

01/15/26 2:36 PM EST

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AN 1 26

January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

STEVE DOOCY (HOST): I'm looking at these pictures out of Minneapolis and I'm thinking man something is so messed up there, and obviously the president looking at the same things. If he does invoke the Insurrection Act, doesn't that mean that he can send in the National Guard. He is emboldened to do that by law, if there's a civil disobedience and occurrence -- and that's the definition of it, what I'm looking at right there.

TREY GOWDY (GUEST): Yeah, it's one of the few exceptions to the Posse Comitatus, where you cannot deploy military forces for domestic use and it's often done when state authorities either cannot or will not. So think back to the 1960s, southern states said, 'we refuse to integrate our schools' presidents used the Insurrection Act to say you know what, you are going to follow the law. I actually think we may be beyond this point in Minnesota. You actually have governors and mayors who are openly defying federal law enforcement. I mean they are not like ambiguous or agnostic about it. They are openly defying it. So I think he's got all the justification. I'm sure he's wanting Minnesota to get in the right hymnal themselves, but they are going the opposite direction, Steve.

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MMA

Fox’s Laura Ingraham is practically begging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act

Ingraham described pro-immigrant activists as “insurgents” and an “insurgency” multiple times over the course of her January 12 show

Written by John Knefel

Published 01/13/26

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham described pro-immigrant activists in Minnesota as “insurgents” and as an “insurgency” multiple times over the course of her January 12 episode. At one point, Ingraham floated the idea of President Donald Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, which authorizes use of the military against civilians in the United States under certain conditions, such as to suppress a rebellion.

Ingraham’s comments come after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on January 7, sparking massive protests around the country. The agent fired at Good three times as she was attempting to drive away from him, according to independent analyses from The New York Times and The Washington Post. The Times and Post analyses contradict a statement from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, amplified by Fox News, which falsely claimed Good was attempting to ram her car into the agent. Right-wing media have almost universally defended the killing and disparaged Good, frequently blaming her for her own death.

Ingraham’s rhetoric illustrates the degree to which conservative media are looking for Trump to escalate his attacks against protesters and immigrant communities more broadly. It also shows how the war on terror, and its logic of counterinsurgency, has evolved into a campaign the Trump administration is now waging against broad swaths of the American public.

“An insurgency, not a protest,” Ingraham said, describing reactions to the Minneapolis shooting in the first moments of her Monday evening show. She continued with that framing over the course of her opening segment, sometimes by airing bombastic social media posts and ascribing them to the entire movement protesting ICE’s killing of Good.

“A Chinese propagandist on TikTok is telling insurgents here to start compiling lists of likely Trump supporters and other cooperators,” Ingraham said. After playing the clip, Ingraham added: “If this isn’t promoting an armed insurrection, I don’t know what is.”

“It starts with treating the patriots as enemies,” she continued. “Look what happened over the weekend — insurgents besieged a hotel in Minneapolis where they thought that ICE was staying.”

Video

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

“Now, this resistance, this insurgence is organized and well-executed,” Ingraham added. “It's meant to undermine our entire federal system, but we know Democrats don't care about Renee Good because to them she was just collateral damage.”

As Ingraham continued her monologue, the Fox host cast the anti-ICE protesters as violent threats. “The insurgents, they don’t care about double standards,” Ingraham said. “They are committed to ridding the country of Trump and his agents by any means necessary.”

“They want to deliver vigilante justice,” she added.

After detailing media coverage that was critical of the Trump administration, Ingraham said the negative press “fed the burgeoning insurgency — they wanted it to feed an insurgency.”

Her opening remarks concluded, Ingraham stayed on the topic with her first guest, former Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair.

“Do you believe in this situation that the Democrats care about really what happened to Renee Good or is she just, you know, she's like a prop in their insurgency play?” Ingraham asked.

Blair responded in kind, referring to a “war” between ICE and the public who opposes it.

“Yeah, she's just a catalyst to continue their movement to the eradication of citizenship — look, at the end of this, this is what this war is about,” Blair said. “The war is about the idea and concepts of what a citizen is.”

Video

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Ingraham’s next guest was Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). She began by asking for his “thoughts on where we are — could the Insurrection Act come into play?”

Roy responded by saying “of course the president should use the Insurrection Act from 1807” and claiming that “we, the average American, want that.”

Video

Citation

From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Right-wing media figures have long fantasized about invoking the Insurrection Act. One notable example is Jeffrey Clark, who Trump attempted to install as acting attorney general in January 2021 while Trump was attempting to overturn the previous year’s election results. In July 2023, Clark appeared on the podcast of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and explained that he’d advised Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. Clark was a senior official at the Justice Department at the time. He currently works for the second Trump administration in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

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HE GONE A WHILE ON FAIL?

MMA

News reports highlight role of Trump attack dog and Fox regular Bill Pulte in threatening Fed chair

Fox has repeatedly platformed Pulte’s attacks against Trump foes like Jerome Powell

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 01/13/26

Multiple news reports show that Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, who has long participated in Fox News' and President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to encourage Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, played a prominent role in the Trump administration’s decision to send subpoenas to the Fed and threaten Powell with criminal indictment on Friday.

Powell has called the investigation a “pretext” and said the real reason for the subpoenas and threats is his clashes with the president on interest rates.

Pulte began pressuring Powell via social media to lower interest rates beginning last May and repeatedly called for him to resign. Pulte also claimed that Powell had lied in his Senate testimony when questioned about the costs associated with renovating the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, D.C., and called for a congressional investigation into Powell. Last summer, Pulte even reportedly drafted a letter for Trump to fire Powell.

Pulte also urged the Justice Department to investigate other targets of Trump’s ire, including Fed board member Lisa Cook, who was perceived to be an opponent of Trump’s interest rate agenda, as well as Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had both investigated Trump. Fox News was a major platformer of Pulte’s attacks against Trump’s targets. After Pulte’s attacks against Cook apparently crumbled, he disappeared from Fox for several weeks.

On Sunday, Bloomberg News reported that Pulte “was a driving force” behind Friday’s subpoenas targeting Powell. From Bloomberg’s report:

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte was a driving force behind the Trump administration’s decision to subpoena the Federal Reserve, according to people familiar with the matter, intensifying pressure on the central bank as President Donald Trump prepares to pick a new Fed chief.

…

The head of the typically staid FHFA has been a vocal force within the administration, pushing controversial housing policy ideas and investigating Trump’s foes for mortgage fraud. Pulte submitted a criminal referral to the DOJ about Fed Governor Lisa Cook that is at the root of Trump’s push to fire her. The Supreme Court is set to take up the Cook case later this month.

The next day, Politico reported that backlash to the threat to indict Powell has ironically led to some Trump administration “officials and allies again calling for the ouster of” Pulte, whom they “suspect” is “behind the latest inquiry.” Politico additionally reported:

Pulte, who spent months last year lambasting Powell on social media and on television, recently pitched Trump on ousting Powell, going so far as to bring “wanted” posters of the Fed chief along with him, according to three of the people familiar.

Indeed, Axios also reported that the day the subpoenas were served to the Federal Reserve, Pulte said to reporters outside of the White House: “We do need to get rid of Jay Powell. He's a disaster.” Pulte reportedly added: “What he's caused with the building is a disgrace to the Fed. The Fed has no credibility as a result of him.”

On January 13, The Wall Street Journal reported: “In recent weeks, one administration official who lobbied for a probe was Bill Pulte. … Pulte had previously argued in favor of opening an investigation into Powell in private conversations with the president and senior administration officials.”

An editorial from the Journal noted that “our sources say Bill Pulte of the Federal Housing Finance Agency wrote a report that made its way to Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C.,” whose office sent the subpoena.

The editorial also called for “firing Mr. Pulte before he can cause any more embarrassment” to the administration.

Amid all the reporting of Pulte’s key involvement in the subpoena against Powell, he turned to Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo for her softball treatment in an apparent effort to control the damage. Even though Bartiromo had expressed her own reservations about the threatened indictment against Powell earlier, she pressed Pulte on this news for less than one minute, during which he denied involvement, and let him ramble about other topics for the remainder of the interview.

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From the January 12, 2026, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Joining me now is U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency Director and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Chairman William Pulte. Mr. Chairman, good to see you. Thank you so much for being here.

BILL PULTE (FHFA DIRECTOR): Always good to see you, Maria.

BARTIROMO: A lot of people are questioning this, why is Trump’s DOJ investigating Chairman Powell? Is this all politics?

PULTE: That’s outside — this whole thing is outside of my purview, Maria. So I’d refer you to the DOJ on that matter.

BARTIROMO: Yeah, but you’ve been talking down to Jay Powell since you got in the job. You said that you were looking at investigating the way he conducted himself anyway. So, you know more about this than you’re letting on.

PULTE: Well, my main focus, Maria, frankly, is focused on mortgage rates and making sure that we get home buying and home building back in this country.

MMA //

  1. ### Trump enforcer Bill Pulte disappeared from Fox after accusations against Fed board member Lisa Cook crumbled

09/24/25 5:17 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox Business lets Trump enforcer Bill Pulte spin his debunked “mortgage fraud” accusations against Lisa Cook

09/26/25 2:39 PM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media help federal housing chief weaponize his agency against Trump’s political opponents

09/03/25

---

---

MMA

  1. ### Greg Gutfeld on ICE shooting: “When you kick over a beehive, don't complain when the bees come back at you”

01/13/26 6:08 PM EST

  1. ### As Minneapolis prosecutors resign over pressure to investigate Renee Good’s widow, right-wing media call for her arrest

01/13/26 4:55 PM EST

  1. ### Fox’s Laura Ingraham is practically begging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act

01/13/26 4:53 PM EST

  1. ### News reports highlight role of Trump attack dog and Fox regular Bill Pulte in threatening Fed chair

01/13/26

  1. ### Right-wing media have run with misleading claims about widespread fraud in Minnesota child care centers

01/13/26 3:48 PM EST

  1. ### Joe Rogan: “I can also see the point of view of the people that say, ‘Yeah, but you don't want militarized people in the streets just roaming around snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens'”

01/13/26 3:24 PM EST

  1. ### Alex Jones says the officer who killed Renee Good was “completely justified”

01/13/26 2:29 PM EST

---

MMA

January 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Will Cain Show

WILL CAIN (HOST): The department is surging hundreds of additional agents into Minneapolis to support the ongoing ICE operations there in the wake of last week's shooting. This comes -- in this press conference today -- comes as we're getting new witness video of Renee Good before the shooting. She can be seen in her vehicle blocking agents for several minutes, even dancing to the tune of her own car horn. You know, all the behavior of a legal observer.

There's a weird kind of smugness, by the way, in the way that some of these liberal white women interact with authority. Most guys learn early in life that every confrontation has a sort of escalation chain. A joke, a push, an argument can eventually turn to violence. We spend a lifetime reading the signs, knowing when we're getting close, knowing when to pull back, knowing when we're on the edge of violence. These protesters? They seem completely oblivious, or they think they have a hall pass to the possibility that blocking cops or using their cars as barricades could end violently -- tragically, but violently.

---}:

---

AN 1 26

A Fox News opinion columnist is telling the women in America he calls “organized gangs of wine moms” that they are “impeding” federal immigration agents and should “knock it off.”

Referring to Minneapolis’ Renee Good, who was shot and killed at point-blank range last week by an ICE agent, Fox News’ David Marcus says that harassing federal agents “doing their jobs” is “criminal behavior,” and warns that it “got a woman killed.”

“What we are seeing across the country as organized gangs of wine moms use Antifa tactics to harass and impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is not civil disobedience,” Marcus writes. “It isn’t even protest. It’s just crime.”

Marcus also calls these women “cosplaying would-be revolutionaries,” and he asks whether groups of people “training and then executing missions that put law enforcement and the public in harm’s way may, in fact, be criminal conspiracies.”

He accuses Good and her wife of “heckling” and “goading” ICE officers “with an obnoxious smugness that makes most people’s skin crawl.”

Critics took issue with Marcus’ claims.

“Women-led movements are more likely to succeed and lead to egalitarian democracies,” noted Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “Autocrats know they have to do everything possible to dampen women’s political participation because it’s women who most often emerge as the most powerful forces in the fight against fascism.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance quipped: “Remember to apply for membership in your local gang of wine moms soonest.”

Political scientist Daniel W. Drezner mockingly added: “THREATS TO THE UNITED STATES, RANKED: 1) Organized gangs of wine moms 2) League of Women Voters 3) Daughters of the American Revolution 4) Packs of wild dogs that have taken over major cities 5) China.”

Author and attorney Jill Filipovic noted, “Misogyny is bad for all the obvious reasons, but it is also almost universally a tool wielded by those who support government repression.”

---

A look at how Fox used its coverage of the Minneapolis ICE shooting to push the administration's propaganda

Analysis from The New York Times and The Washington Post counters administration claims parroted by Fox

Written by Bushra Sultana, Ben Van Bloem, Gideon Taaffe, Helena Hind & Reed McMaster

Research contributions from Harrison Ray, Tyler Monroe & Casey Wexler

Published 01/08/26

On January 7, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a woman, Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an immigration crackdown on the city. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” against ICE officers and said the victim “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”

State and local officials disputed the accounts, and The New York Times and The Washington Post later reported that videos of the shooting countered Noem’s claims.

But Fox was quick to push dubious claims from the administration, saying that “we have more facts now” while suggesting that what happened was a “ramming incident” and that the woman was using the car as a “deadly weapon.” According to a Media Matters review, Fox News aired clips or read quotes from statements made by Noem in press conferences at least 17 times during its January 7 coverage of the incident.

As videos of the events started to emerge, some Fox figures briefly tempered their language, saying people should “let the facts come in” and noting that “we don’t know everything that has happened.” In some instances, they noted that there is a “shifting narrative” and that some Trump administration claims might have been “bad information.”

The moderation didn't last long. Fox's evening programming went back to toeing the administration’s line, framing the incident as the woman “blocking” the ICE agents, refusing to comply, and trying “to ram them with her car.”

State and local officials have called the administration's claims that were parroted by Fox a “garbage narrative” by a “propaganda machine.” CNN reported that multiple Department of Homeland Security officials have “privately expressed shock” over the agency’s “immediate response” to the shooting. A New York Times analysis of the incident stated that “the vehicle appears to be turning away” from the officer involved and that he was “standing to the left of the SUV” at the time he opened fire, while the SUV’s wheels are “pointing to the right, away from the agent.” And as The Washington Post notes, “As the vehicle moves forward, video shows, the agent moves out of the way and at nearly the same time fires his first shot. The footage shows that his other two shots were fired from the side of the vehicle.”

:{:{This isn't the first time the administration has been caught being dishonest about ICE actions. }:In October 2025, Noemclaimed VID]

that “no American citizens have been arrested or detained” by ICE, but according to a ProPublica investigation published the same month, more than 170 U.S. citizens had been detained at raids and protests. In October, The Daily Beast reported that DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin was “caught posting inaccurate information about the violent arrest of an American teen girl.” In November, as the Chicago Sun-Times reported, a federal judge found that Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino -- who led raids in Chicago and its suburbs -- had “lied in a court deposition … about his own use of tear gas in a confrontation with protesters in Little Village.”}:

Here's a timeline of Fox’s coverage of the January 7 Minneapolis shooting, which shows that the network largely pushed the administration's propaganda:

//

  1. ### Fox News host Will Cain accuses Tim Walz of “seditious language” and “walking the line” of “insurrection,” comparing him to 1960s officials who tried to prevent school integration

01/08/26 11:36 AM EST

  1. ### Newsmax host on ICE shooting: “I don't lose any sleep for this woman because she seemed crazy”

01/08/26 9:07 AM EST

  1. ### Newsmax host says Jacob Frey, Tim Walz, and Keith Ellison are “enemies of the state”

01/08/26

---}:

mma

  1. ### Fox News host Will Cain accuses Tim Walz of “seditious language” and “walking the line” of “insurrection,” comparing him to 1960s officials who tried to prevent school integration

01/08/26

---

Right-wing media’s “war on meat” paves the way for Trump administration to blame climate policies for rising beef prices

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Ilana Berger

Published 12/18/25

Right-wing media's longstanding claims of a Democratic “war on meat" have given Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins cover to blame rising beef prices on Democrats and climate policy — even as cattle ranchers themselves point to climate-driven drought as one factor contributing to small herd sizes and voice their opposition to the administration’s plans to import Argentine beef.

On December 8, Rollins told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, “The cost of ground beef is actually coming down, so we’ve started now the trajectory down. But let’s be very clear: To rebuild the lowest beef herd in 75 years … will take a little bit of time. You think about the last administration. They had a war on American agriculture. They thought that cows created climate change. They didn't want big herds, and the cost of inputs were skyrocketing.”

She made similar claims prior to this appearance at least five separate times on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria, Fox News’ Fox & Friends, and CNN’s The Situation Room.

Right-wing media have long tried to pit ranchers and farmers against environmentalists and those attempting to mitigate the environmental impacts of agriculture, including falsely claiming Democratic leaders and the Inflation Reduction Act (which they often called the “Green New Deal”) would ban meat.

mma

//

  1. ### Right-wing media spun the bad November jobs report as a win for “native-born” workers

12/17/25 4:22 PM EST

  1. ### Fox News contributor blames DEI for shooting deaths at Brown University

12/17/25 12:16 PM EST

  1. ### Fox found its culprit for high grocery prices following Democratic election victories — Joe Biden

12/17/25

---

---

// JRNL Fail

The Trump administration’s chum cycle

Media allies are fed bogus information they use to promise prosecutions of the president’s enemies

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 12/18/25 11:39 AM EST

The promise of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to his MAGA media allies, was that Trump loyalists installed at the heads of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies would finally reveal the “deep state” corruption behind the myriad investigations into his misdeeds and bring his political enemies to justice. While the administration’s actual document releases have proven little, its strategy of chumming the water with red meat for the MAGA base has worked on the Trumpist propaganda corps, which has taken the bait and used it to demand a wave of arrests and prosecutions.

In the latest such salvo, Fox News Digital reported Tuesday morning that “the FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022, but moved forward amid pressure from the Biden Justice Department,” citing “newly declassified documents” to which the outlet apparently received exclusive access. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and FBI Director Kash Patel quickly promoted Fox’s story; so did Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who said he had received the “shocking new docs” that day and alleged they proved that the FBI’s search of the president’s home had been a “miscarriage of justice.”

But as legal reporters who had followed the Trump documents case swiftly noted, the GOP’s spin was nonsense.

The right’s propaganda apparatus nonetheless sprang into action.

MAGA slop artists like Benny Johnson rushed to social media to hype the “massive” story and demand “charges and arrests” in response.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed the “blockbuster” story during his December 16 show with right-wing propaganda magnate John Solomon, who suggested the documents were “the most important document to date” and “could lead” to criminal charges or a civil suit from Trump.

That night, Solomon was on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show telling millions of viewers that the news, which Hannity termed “a bombshell revelation,” could trigger “legal consequences.” (Trump himself subsequently posted a clip of the segment on social media, then denounced “the FBI’s CRIMINAL RAID.”)

On Newsmax, host Greg Kelly even declared that “Jack Smith belongs in jail” over the Mar-a-Lago search, a bizarre conclusion given that Smith was prosecuting war crimes in Europe at the time and would not become special counsel until two months later.

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Citation

From the December 17, 2025, edition of Newsmax'sGreg Kelly Reports

We’ve been seeing iterations of this pattern throughout this first year of Trump’s second term: The Trump administration chums the waters by handing over documents related to one of the myriad past investigations into the president’s actions; the president, top Trump officials, and Republican officeholders say they show a massive scandal; and mainstream reporters point out their narrative is farcical while MAGA media stars call for the indictment, arrest, prosecution, jailing, and perhaps execution of their political enemies.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard triggered a firestorm in July with her bogus claim that former President Barack Obama directed a “treasonous conspiracy” against Trump in 2016. While the documents she cited as evidence, originally provided to Fox, proved nothing of the sort, her claim was nonetheless accepted as gospel by MAGA media figures who spent weeks regurgitating her claims and demanding arrests of a litany of purported culprits. The president himself even posted to Truth Social an AI video featuring Obama being arrested and imprisoned.

In August, the purported “Clinton Plan” emails in a newly declassified annex to special counsel John Durham’s 2023 report supposedly unveiled a “plot” against Trump, leading to calls for Hillary Clinton’s imprisonment (Durham had assessed that the emails in question were forgeries created by Russian intelligence).

Two months later, it was FBI documents purporting to show that special counsel Jack Smith had been “spying” on GOP senators that led to right-wing outrage and calls for his arrest (the FBI had reviewed the toll records of senators in order to establish who Trump and his alleged co-conspirators were trying to contact before and during the January 6 insurrection).

And now it’s the Mar-a-Lago search coming under scrutiny based on similarly dishonest readings of documents the administration has released.

Maybe this is all part of the Plan B that DOJ “Weaponization Working Group” head Ed Martin laid out in May — to “name” and “shame” people who the Justice Department proved unable to indict. If that’s the case, a rude awakening may be in store for the right-wing media figures who predicted “justice” was coming — and for the audiences who believed them.

But one can’t put anything past an authoritarian president who has installed loyalists who treat the Justice Department as his personal law firm, purged the law enforcement apparatus of anyone who thinks otherwise, and frequently demands probes into his political foes that his underlings scuttle to carry out.

The constant right-wing celebrations for Trump’s revenge tour can only increase the pressure on law enforcement to try to somehow bring cases against his foes. Indeed, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered a grand jury probe into Gabbard’s nonsensical accusations in August; three months later, Reuters reported that prosecutors were drafting grand jury subpoenas “to investigate Obama-era intelligence officials.”

We’ll see where that goes in 2026.

// MMA

  1. ### Tulsi Gabbard’s Russiagate conspiracy theory can’t even survive a softball Fox News interview

08/06/25 12:43 PM EDT

  1. ### NY Times reported John Durham found the “Clinton Plan” emails were likely created by Russian spies. Right-wing media are running with them as legitimate.

08/01/25 4:44 PM EDT

  1. ### Why the right-wing media apparatus is suddenly yelling about Jack Smith supposedly spying on GOP senators

10/07/25

===

---

MMA

Fox News contributor blames DEI for shooting deaths at Brown University

Nicole Parker: “I believe that Brown University's prioritization was not on the safety and security of their students. They were more focused on things like DEI efforts, and that has been catastrophic and led to the death of two students.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

:{:{Published 12/17/25}::{ }:

Video

Citation

From the December 17, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

JULIE BANDERAS (ANCHOR): What does this video say to you, and how shocked are you, first of all, that this video has produced nothing? I mean, nobody has come in, as of this video being released, for questioning.

NICOLE PARKER (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): I'm actually not shocked at all because I know that Brown University is now trying to defend their posture on their security statements that they have made. But it's been an epic fail, the fact that there is no security footage from the campus and that the justification was it was an older building. Both the attorney general and the police chief of Providence police department have said we have no video surveillance. That is inexcusable. I believe that Brown University's prioritization was not on the safety and security of their students. They were more focused on things like DEI efforts, and that has been catastrophic and led to the death of two students.

---

  1. ### After the economy fell flat in 2025, Fox promised: “Next year looks like it’s going to be amazing”

12/18/25

  1. ### Right-wing media spun the bad November jobs report as a win for “native-born” workers

12/17/25 4:22 PM EST

  1. ### Nick Fuentes tells Jewish pe

---

mma

Trump's border czar dominates Fox airtime, leaving homeland security secretary trailing far behind

Axios revealed tension between Tom Homan and Kristi Noem over Fox appearances

Written by Harrison Ray

Research contributions from Isabella Sherk

Published 12/11/25

Media Matters found that Homan has made more appearances on Fox than any other administration official this year, far outpacing his counterpart. And those hits, which Axios says “have led Noem's supporters to cast him as a self-promoter without portfolio,” have reportedly become a flashpoint in their rivalry.

Since Trump's inauguration, Homan has made nearly three times as many Fox appearances as Noem. Throughout the year, he has consistently topped the list as the most Fox-friendly administration official, appearing at least 140 times, with 115 hits on Fox News and an additional 25 on Fox Business. Meanwhile, Noem has appeared only 48 times on Fox News, with no appearances on Fox Business.

---

MMA

Maria Bartiromo omits MAHA calls for EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin’s resignation in interview on the agency’s action on forever chemicals

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Ilana Berger

Published 12/10/25

In a December 8 Fox Business segment, host Maria Bartiromo asked EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin about the agency's recent approval of a number of “forever chemical” pesticides but ignored a petition from major “Make America Healthy Again” influencers over the move, citing only concerns from “environmental advocates” that she said the EPA has fact-checked “as misinformation.”

Just a few days earlier, The New York Times reported on a petition spearheaded by MAHA influencers calling for President Donald Trump to oust Zeldin, but Bartiromo did not mention the petition or specify who is involved.

Since Zeldin’s appointment, the EPA has approved pesticides that contain several different pesticides that are classified by many as PFAS, or cancer-linked “forever chemicals,” a move that the petition authors say “has prioritized the interests of chemical corporations over the well-being of American families and children.”

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From the December 8, 2025, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

The petition represents a boiling point in the ongoing tensions between MAHA champion Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., members of the movement, and other parts of the Trump administration.

Bartiromo said during the segment, “Environmental advocates and critics are calling these forever chemicals” and warning of “long-term risks like reproductive issues and liver toxicity.” She added, “The EPA fact-checking that as misinformation. … What can you tell us?”

Not only did Bartiromo fail to mention the MAHA component of those “environmental advocates” — a broad public health effort that helped Trump win the election — but she also referred to a November 26 “fact check” on the EPA’s website claiming to debunk “false claims that agency recently approved ‘Forever Chemical’ Pesticides” with PFAS. However, the most widely accepted definition, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which was developed by an international group of scientists, does classify these recently approved substances as PFAS. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a similar definition is “already in use in 23 states.”

Zeldin defended the agency, saying, “It’s not forever chemicals. It’s actually better and safer than what it is replacing.” Zeldin continued, “There are some people, though, whenever they see something on the internet, they just take it at its word.”

Earlier in the interview, Bartiromo brought up Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying she’s “leading a charge with six other Democrat governors, urging the EPA to monitor and collect data on microplastics in drinking water by adding them to the unregulated contaminants list under the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

Again, she avoided mentioning MAHA, even though Kennedy has called attention to the issue, and a September strategy report from the “MAHA Commission to President Donald J. Trump” highlighted the need to evaluate “the risks and exposures of microplastics and synthetics, including in common products such as textiles.”

Zeldin dodged the question about microplastics, saying, “This isn’t a new issue,” and then praised an ExxonMobile refinery for “innovation with plastic recycling,” saying it’s “taking a plastic and they are getting it right down to its original raw chemical compound.”

Zeldin was describing chemical recycling, a process that experts say is not an effective way to reduce plastic pollution. The facility he praised, in Baytown, Texas, has faced strong opposition from Texas residents. Environmental groups also sued Exxon for repeated violations of federal air pollution limits at the facility, leading to a $14.25 million civil penalty.

“You’ve been doing a great job there running the EPA,” Bartiromo concluded.

---

~ DAGEN M

MMA

  1. ### Fox tries to sell Trump administration's claim that lower fuel economy will make car buying more affordable

:{:{12/10/25}::{ }:

Fox tries to sell Trump administration's claim that lower fuel economy will make car buying more affordable

Trump's auto tariffs are expected “to increase car prices by as much as $6,000”

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 12/10/25

Biden administration officials had estimated that the fuel efficiency rule, which required automakers’ new vehicles to achieve approximately 50 mpg on average by 2031, would “lower fuel costs by $23 billion while preventing more than 710 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by 2050 — the equivalent of taking 165,000 cars off the roads.”

Fox’s coverage of Trump’s fuel economy rollback pushed White House talking points that it would make car buying more affordable and reverse costly Biden-era regulations, with Fox host Will Cain calling the move “a win for the American consumer.” But industry experts and at least one Fox Business host dispute the claim that lowering the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards will lower the price of cars for consumers.

Gas price expert Patrick De Haan did not mince words, calling the attempt to connect fuel economy to affordability “STUPID!”

“If you want to know why cars cost more, look at tariffs, commodity spikes, electronics, and supply chain changes — not long-established fuel economy rules,” he continued. “Weakening CAFE standards could backfire and lead to HIGHER gas prices if vehicles become less efficient.”

According to Kelley Blue Book, an American vehicle valuation and automotive research company, “Shoppers can expect the tariffs to increase car prices by as much as $6,000 on vehicles priced under $40,000. Higher car prices mean higher car taxes, financing, car insurance, and other ownership costs. This price pressure will make cars less affordable for consumers.”

And Bloomberg writes: “It’s not clear that relaxing the standard will result in lower sticker prices anytime soon — if at all — since carmakers plan their lineups years in advance. And it won’t do anything to address added costs from tariffs Trump has imposed on cars and car parts with the promise of reshoring domestic manufacturing.”

Nevertheless, here’s how Fox News and Fox Business are pushing the affordability narrative while pinning the high cost of cars on Biden in the wake of Trump’s announced fuel economy standard rollback:

Trump called on Americans to accept less this holiday season. Fox thought that was hilarious.

  1. ### Fox struggles to run cover for Trump calling affordability crisis a “hoax,” “scam,” and “con job”

12/10/25

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Fox ignores Trump pardoning Honduran drug trafficker while accusing Dems of supporting Venezuelan drug traffickers

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Rob Savillo

Published 12/09/25 2:43 PM EST

How do you spin the president you support pardoning a notorious drug trafficker amid your weekslong campaign to convince viewers that your political enemies are pro-trafficker? For the propagandists at Fox News, the answer is just to pretend it didn't happen.

President Donald Trump announced on November 28 his intention to pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been serving a 45-year sentence in federal prison after a U.S. court convicted him of “helping drug traffickers send tons of cocaine to the United States in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes that fueled his political career.” Trump claimed Hernández had been “treated very harshly and unfairly,” though he later said he knew “very little” beyond what he had been told by “very good people that I know.” (Axios credited, in part, a “persistent lobbying campaign” by former Trump adviser and fellow pardon recipient Roger Stone, who touted his role in securing the pardon.) Hernández was released following the pardon’s issuance on December 1.

Fox has devoted just over 6 minutes of airtime to the Hernández pardon, according to a Media Matters review of the network’s programming from November 28, when Trump announced his intention to pardon Hernández, through Monday. Special Report, the flagship “straight news” show anchored by Trump golfing buddy Bret Baier, and the weekend daytime shows The Sunday Briefing and Fox News Live provided the bulk of the network’s coverage. Fox & Friends Weekend also ran a headline read.

The only other mentions of the story on Fox came when Democratic co-hosts on the panel show The Five raised the issue during segments about the Trump administration’s purported counternarcotics effort aimed at alleged drug trafficking from Venezuela, which Trump claims is directed by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Since early September, U.S. military strikes undertaken at Trump’s behest, aimed at what the administration claims are boats trafficking drugs in the Caribbean, have killed at least 87 people and destroyed 23 boats.

Co-host Jessica Tarlov pointed out on December 2 that Trump’s pardon of Hernández disproves “the story about this administration being focused on eradicating American society of drugs.” On Monday, co-host Harold Ford Jr. similarly challenged his colleagues to state whether or not they approved of the president granting clemency to a convicted drug trafficker (Fox contributor Tyrus and co-host Dana Perino responded that they did not while co-host Kayleigh McEnany mocked Ford for landing on a “niche issue” she said she hoped Democrats would “hang on” in the midterm campaigns).

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From the December 8, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

Fox’s chyron as Ford began talking — “Dems stick up for narco terrorists” — speaks to the tenor of Fox’s coverage of the U.S. strikes off Venezuela. While experts have described the U.S. campaign of extrajudicial killings as “patently illegal,” the strikes have been widely praised on Fox, where hosts and anchors regularly accuse Democrats who raise legal questions about them of supporting the traffickers.

“It's either you're pro drug dealers, drugs going throughout Europe and throughout this country, or you're for taking out those boats,” host Brian Kilmeade said on Friday’s Fox & Friends — a program which has so far not covered Trump’s pardon of a man actually convicted of helping traffic drugs “throughout this country.”

Likewise, Fox host Will Cain has said of Democratic criticism of the strikes, “Maybe it’s that they are against law and order,” while anchor Harris Faulkner asked of those questioning the strikes, “Are they working against America and for the drug cartels?” Neither has addressed the Hernández pardon on their program or questioned whether it shows Trump to be “against law and order” or working “for the drug cartels.”

And Fox stars Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Sean Hannity have not told their viewers about the pardon, even as all three have praised Trump for authorizing the Caribbean boat strikes.

//

MMA

  1. ### Sean Hannity criticizes “insane” Trump supporters who “praise Hitler”

12/08/25 7:39 PM EST

  1. ### Jesse Watters says criticizing boat strikes makes people sound “effeminate”

12/08/25

  1. ### Nick Fuentes says Trump’s national security policy is “an explicit acknowledgement of white genocide”

12/08/25

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mma

Key Trump officials appeared on Fox networks more than 1,300 times in the first 300 days of his second term

Written by Isabella Sherk & Harrison Ray

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe

Published 12/04/25

:{:{Key officials in President Donald Trump’s second administration appeared on Fox networks over 1,300 times during his first 300 days back in office. Trump “border czar” Tom Homan led all officials with at least 133 appearances, while Fox News' Hannity led shows in airing the most appearances by Trump officials, with at least 158 interviews. Trump officials appeared on Fox networks on 290 (97%) of the administration's first 300 days.}:

Top 10 key Trump officials on Fox networks (Clickhere for the full list)

:

Prime-time host Sean Hannity consistently served as a loyal booster for both his guests and the Trump White House, dedicating an entire section of his recent interview with Vice President JD Vance to praising the president’s “discernment” and claiming Trump’s energy levels are “beyond.”

Video

Citation

From the November 13, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity.

On Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo (128 appearances), Kudlow (103), and Varney & Co. (76) featured the most appearances by key Trump officials. Fox Business served as a pliant venue for Trump's economic messaging, providing officials with a sympathetic platform to defend the administration's controversial and chaotic economic moves.

Top 10 shows on Fox networks with most appearances by key Trump officials

(Trump has tapped many other former Fox employees to be part of his second administration as well.)

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mma

  1. ### Trump's calls for “remigration,” a form of ethnic cleansing, echo Nick Fuentes' calls to roll back immigration

12/04/25

  1. ### Fox falsely credits Trump tariffs for creating factory jobs first announced during the Biden administration

12/04/25 3:24 PM EST

  1. ### Fox Business' Dagen McDowell disputes Trump administration claim that lowering fuel economy will make cars more affordable

12/04/25 2:39 PM EST

  1. ### Stewart Rhodes: Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Todd Blanche “have to go”

12/04/25 1:39 PM EST

  1. ### Key Trump officials appeared on Fox networks more than 1,300 times in the first 300 days of his second term

12/04/25 10:12 AM EST

  1. ### Right-wing media continue to praise Trump's legally questionable boat strikes in the Caribbean

12/04/25 8:20 AM EST

  1. ### Jesse Watters pits Minnesotans with “deep Scandinavian roots” against the Somali population

12/03/25

mma

Fox falsely credits Trump tariffs for creating factory jobs first announced during the Biden administration

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 12/04/25

A Fox News segment celebrated a Trump administration tariff on imported kitchen cabinets and credited it for creating 400 jobs at a factory in Alabama, even though the plant’s construction was actually announced in 2022 during the Biden administration. The segment also downplayed the tariff’s likelihood of increasing housing costs, which the network recently bemoaned, as inflation for kitchen furnishings is already nearly twice as high as the overall inflation rate.

Video

Citation

From the December 4, 2025, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

The new factory, which a Fox graphic showed is owned by Wellborn Cabinet, was first announced — along with its estimate of creating 415 jobs — in August 2022 during the Biden administration. Fox crediting Trump’s tariff policies for a supposedly new plant that was announced well before his second term began echoes a pattern from the first Trump administration of media outlets erroneously granting Trump credit for business decisions that he had little or nothing to do with.

Fox also downplayed the effect of Trump’s tariff on imported kitchen cabinets on increased housing costs, even though just weeks ago Fox was expressing concern over the high cost of housing and embracing dubious Trump policies to address those costs. Some of those policies, experts said, were likely to make housing even more expensive. Fox had also recently praised Trump for lowering his own tariffs in an effort to address the higher prices that they contributed to.

The most recent Consumer Price Index report shows that the inflation rate for living room, kitchen, and dining room furniture for the past year stood at 5.9%, nearly double the overall inflation rate of 3% for the past year.

And as Fox is celebrating the addition of 400 jobs making kitchen cabinets — which, again, were announced more than three years ago and were not created due to Trump’s tariff — other companies that install cabinets into homes said that the price hike from the tariff may cost them business. This was a major consequence experienced during the first Trump administration, during which Trump’s 25% tariff on steel imports led to a job gain of 1,000 in the steel production industry, but a 75,000 job loss in the overall manufacturing industry that consumed steel.

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MMA

Corporate broadcast news covered this year’s COP30 global climate summit for 2 minutes — cable networks covered it for just over 3 hours

Fox News used COP30 to attack Gavin Newsom and undermine climate science

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 11/26/25

COP30 — which proceeded without an official U.S. delegation — opened on November 6 while the main sessions got underway on November 10 and concluded on November 21.

This year’s conference sought to address numerous issues, creating a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels and a landmark declaration on the threat of disinformation in addressing climate change and a newly proposed initiative to reduce deforestation.

As in previous years, the gathering was met with protests by Indigenous and civil society groups calling for stronger climate action. This year, although 2,500 Indigenous people gathered in Belém, Brazil, for the summit, only 14% (360 individuals) received credentials to attend negotiations. (No members were part of Brazil’s official delegation.) By contrast, fossil fuel lobbyists were overrepresented at the COP30 climate negotiations to the chagrin of climate organizers and Indigenous climate activists. In one demonstration on November 14, indigenous groups blocked the entrance to the conference and demanded to speak to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Reporting on the protests by TV news outlets was sparse, while the attendance of California Gov. Gavin Newsom was widely covered. CNN and MSNBC discussed how the U.S. is falling behind in the clean energy technology race while China gains ground. Additionally, 22% of segments mentioned Bill Gates’ controversial climate memo to world leaders. Meanwhile, Fox News coverage attacked Newsom and undermined climate science.

Two brief headline reports, one from ABC and one from CBS, focused on the protests at the conference. Much of the broadcast coverage focused on a fire that broke out in one of the convention halls on November 20 — though none of the coverage of the fire offered more details about the climate conference.

:{:{Video}:

Citation

From the November 21, 2025, edition of NBC's Today

CNN’s coverage of COP30 featured several experts, including Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat who was the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change during the 2015 Paris climate accord negotiations; Margaret Barry, a climate litigation fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University; Kim Cobb, climate scientist and director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society; as well as former vice president and climate advocate Al Gore.

A key narrative through CNN’s coverage was the state of the clean energy transition and China’s role in it.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on November 8, Figueres explained some of the progress since the landmark Paris agreement in 2015: “Ten years ago, one in every hundred vehicles that were being sold was electric. Now, we have one in five. We have two times as much investment into renewable energy as we do into fossil fuels. Solar has been deployed 15 times faster than we ever expected 10 years ago, and on and on and on. There are many proof points that there is a new economy rising.”

Amanpour also interviewed Al Gore, who pointed out the cost of the U.S. ceding the clean energy economy to others.

“China is now exporting to other countries more green technology like electric vehicles and windmills and solar,” Gore said. “The value of their green tech exports now far exceeds the exports from the United States to the rest of the world. … We’re seeing this transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy and electric vehicles and batteries and these exciting new technologies that are pollution-free, they create three times as many jobs per dollar spent compared to the old dirty fossil fuels, and that’s where the economic future is.”

Climate scientist Kim Cobb made a similar argument on CNN Newsroom With Fredricka Whitfield*:

“China, of course, [is] transitioning its economy very, very quickly to clean energy sources. About 84% of the demand last year in China for electricity was met by clean energy sources. They are owning EVs, batteries, and solar cells to the tune of 78% of global manufacturing taking place in China for a $2 trillion industry. So right now what we’re looking at is China taking a very bold leadership role and charting its clean energy future. The U.S., in the meantime, swimming very much upstream against the global currents of deployed renewables, which are cheaper than fossil fuels right now.”

While MSNBC covered the climate conference for roughly 13 minutes, its coverage included similar narratives about clean energy. On his November 16 show, host Ali Velshi noted: “Now, in America's absence, China is stepping up as a global leader in climate science. The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air reported last week that China's carbon emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months straight. Part of that is attributable to a record amount of renewable energy expansion in China. In 2024, the country installed 333 gigawatts of solar power capacity — that's more than the rest of the world combined.”

Video Citation}:

From the November 12, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

Discussing COP30 earlier in the same segment, Greg Gutfeld declared that the “climate agenda has been fully discredited” and that “the climate computer models have been shown to be corrupt.” He went on to falsely claim, “They are wrong on predicting everything from the temperature increases to the snow or ice melting.”

Laura Ingraham announced that scientists’ warnings on climate change have been “total scams.”

The network also hosted its usual round-up of climate contrarians and skeptics including Marc Morano, Bjorn Lomborg, Michael Shellenberger, and Victor Davis Hanson, and Fox coverage continued to cite the controversial October 28 climate memo from Bill Gates to global leaders ahead of COP30 to suggest that climate change is no longer considered a crisis requiring immediate action.

Video{Citation

From the November 15, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Journal Editorial Report

“I think what Bill Gates is really saying is something reasonable,” Lomborg agreed. “Talk about how you think about climate — he’s saying sure, it’s a problem, but it’s not the end of the world.”

In reality, 2025 is set to be the “second or third warmest year on record,” the World Meteorological Organization reports. The warmest year overall remains 2024, which was likely “the first calendar year with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average.”

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Right-wing media praise Trump’s made-up excuses for war against Venezuela

Trump massively inflated threat from Venezuelan “narco-terrorists” smuggling fentanyl into the US

Written by Zachary Pleat

Research contributions from Jane Lee

Published 11/24/25

President Donald Trump and right-wing media have been quick to cite fentanyl interdiction as the supposed justification for the administration’s likely illegal strikes against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, which they have blamed on so-called “narco-terrorists” tied to the regime of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. But reporting has shown the Trump administration’s excuses are built on lies — with virtually no fentanyl arriving in the United States via routes currently being targeted by the military in a bombing campaign that has already claimed at least 83 lives.

This isn't the first time Trump and his media allies have used fentanyl as an excuse for his out-of-control policies, as it was used to justify his instigation of a trade war with Mexico and Canada earlier this year. The Trump administration’s military buildup also follows multiple actions that undermine efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking into the U.S.

Reporting based on government data makes clear that Venezuela is not the source of the fentanyl problem America faces

MMA //

  1. ### Fox parrots Trump's “drug war” justification for Canada/Mexico tariffs, even as he weakened fentanyl smuggling enforcement

03/05/25 2:56 PM EST

  1. ### Right-wing media outlets are claiming regime change in Venezuela would be easy. Evidence and history suggest otherwise.

10/29/25 4:26 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox praised and validated Trump's legally questionable boat strikes in the Caribbean

10/29/25 3:31 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media's campaign for military intervention and regime change in Venezuela

09/05/25 6:34 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media concoct their own legal justification for Trump’s extrajudicial strike on Venezuelan boat

09/05/25 10:00 AM EDT

  1. ### An intelligence report debunked MAGA media claims about Tren de Aragua and Venezuela. A Trump official is now under fire for reportedly ordering the report be redone.

05/28/25

---

November 19, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

HARRIS FAULKNER (ANCHOR): Critics are going after six Democrat lawmakers, in particular, over this plea to members of the military and intelligence communities. Watch this:

(VIDEO BEGINS)

...

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): You can refuse illegal orders.

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): You must refuse illegal orders.

SLOTKIN: No one has to carry out orders that violate the law –

REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN (D-PA): – or our Constitution.

...

(VIDEO ENDS)

FAULKNER: OK, you caught that, right? Refusing military orders; that would be treason. Reaction, as you might imagine: swift and fierce. Libs of TikTok posted, "Democrats are encouraging members of the military to commit treason and defy orders from Trump." And Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt says, "Sounds a little subversive to democracy-ish."

//

Baier, Bartiromo pass on MBS criticism, score seats to his gala

:{:{11/19/25}::{ }:

Jesse Watters attacks ABC reporter for asking Donald Trump about Jamal Khashoggi}:

:{:{11/18/25}::{ }:

  1. ### This Fox segment demonstrates the network’s struggle to craft a coherent affordability message for Trump

11/18/25

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Baier, Bartiromo pass on MBS criticism, score seats to his gala

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 11/19/25 MMA

Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier and Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, who scored invitations for Tuesday night’s lavish White House banquet honoring Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, both passed on criticizing President Donald Trump for his pathetic excuse-making about Crown Prince Mohammed ordering the brutal murder of the U.S.-based dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Khashoggi was an outspoken critic of the crown prince who wrote columns for The Washington Post criticizing his native Saudi Arabia’s repressive regime from his self-imposed exile in Virginia, London, and Istanbul. In October 2018, he was reportedly lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, killed by Saudi operatives, and dismembered with a bone saw, generating an international scandal stoked further by the CIA’s subsequent determination that Crown Prince Mohammed ordered his assassination. Fox, meanwhile, spent the weeks after Khashoggi’s murder running cover for both Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed.

Trump, who has a fundamentally transactional view of U.S. foreign policy, an affinity for brutal dictators, and a tendency to dehumanize journalists, offered little interest in Khashoggi’s fate at the time. And he became enraged on Tuesday afternoon when ABC News chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce dared to ask the crown prince a question about Khashoggi’s murder during their joint Oval Office appearance.

The president interrupted Bruce, calling her outlet “fake news” and “one of the worst in the business.” He then said of Khashoggi: “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial — a lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen, but he [the crown prince] knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.” Crown Prince Mohammed, for his part, said Khashoggi’s murder was “a huge mistake and we're doing our best that this doesn't happen again.”

When Bruce asked Trump a question later in the press conference about the Jeffrey Epstein files, the president blew up again, criticizing her “attitude” and complaining that she had asked Crown Prince Mohammed, “a man who is highly respected,” “a horrible insubordinate and just a terrible question.” In a depressing commentary on the current state of U.S. press freedom, he then suggested that federal regulators should strip ABC’s broadcasting license “because your news is so fake and it's so wrong.”

Trump’s repeated defenses of a foreign tyrant’s murder of a U.S.-based journalist — and his suggestion from the White House that his administration should destroy an outlet for asking “insubordinate” questions about it — drew immediate attention from news outlets and harsh criticism from many journalists.

But Baier had nothing to say about it when he discussed the press conference with Fox anchor Martha MacCallum on The Story that afternoon. Instead, sounding like a Trump spokesperson, he touted the “massive” scale of impending “deals” between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, and commented that Trump, “in his defense of all things MBS, realizes that that relationship is crucial to his thought about the way forward in the Middle East.” He added that Crown Prince Mohammed’s response on Khashoggi was the same as what Baier described as the “solid answer” the crown prince had given Baier in a previous interview.

Video

Citation

From the November 18, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Story

Baier did not directly address Trump’s outburst during Special Report that night, though correspondent David Spunt mentioned it during a packaged report, and John Roberts, who subbed in as anchor while Baier was in Washington, D.C., to attend the banquet, brought it up with the panel.

Bartiromo, for her part, did not mention the Khashoggi exchanges herself on her show Wednesday (a correspondent ran a brief headline read on it during the program, but Bartiromo did not comment on it). Instead, she touted Trump’s role in securing what she termed Crown Prince Mohammed’s “massive investment into America.”

Bartiromo is a total Trump shill, while Baier’s overhyped reputation serves to conceal his usefulness to the administration. But both have done enough for the president to garner what Trump suggested on Tuesday was a very exclusive seat at the gala honoring the crown prince.

“We could have sold the big ballroom out three times in honor of this gentleman,” Trump said at the end of their joint appearance. “So, I made a lot of enemies because I have a lot of people that are invited tonight or are unable to come because of the size constraint.”

“This would be a perfect night to have that ballroom open,” he added. “If we had that open, we'd have a lot of people very happy. Right now, we have a lot of unhappy people because they all want to be with us tonight to honor this great man.”

You don’t get a ticket to such an event by offering “insubordinate” comments about the “great man” who the U.S. intelligence community says set in motion the vicious murder of a critical journalist.

//

Jamal Khashoggi and the bloody bill for Trump's anti-press rhetoric

10/12/18 12:13 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News downplays Khashoggi's murder: “Saudi Arabia is one of the safest places to be a journalist in the world”

10/20/18 2:20 PM EDT

  1. ### Bret Baier touts CBS News’ move toward “more balance” and “coverage that’s fair”

10/24/25

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aha hmmn do they look for cUdgel before cop eg UK server -gate?

mma

Ahead of COP30, right-wing media misrepresented Bill Gates' memo to declare climate change is over

Climate scientists question why Gates is pitting poverty reduction against climate action

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Research contributions from Ilana Berger

Published 11/14/25

Bill Weir, CNN’s chief climate correspondent, correctly predicted how right-wing media would respond: “This will be used by detractors and denialists to say that the story is shifting.”

On *CNN News Central’*s day one coverage of COP30, Erica Hill laid out some of the impact of Gates’ memo at a time when the United States is already turning its back on the “world’s largest climate summit”:

But there it seems Gates was wrong. Right-wing media figures, who regularly downplay the climate crisis are likely among those who “think climate is not important,” and they are not disagreeing with the memo. They have celebrated it and used it to further downplay the climate crisis, attack climate science as “fraudulent,” and advance right-wing narratives and misinformation related to global warming, including denying sea level rise, suggesting that current climate change is unremarkable because the climate has been changing for billions of years, and pushing the “global cooling” myth.

6/22/22]

10/29/25]

10/30/25; Washington Post, 9/16/16; Media Matters, 12/17/12; 5/22/19]

Newsmax host Rob Finnerty falsely claimed that Gates is “saying that it’s [climate change] not real.Finnerty said, “Now think about what Democrats have done to all of us in reaction to the climate hysteria created by people like Bill Gates over the last five decades: wind farms, electric cars, carbon footprint, bike lanes, electric buses, eating less meat, renewable energy. We could go on all night and all of it was total garbage. … Bill Gates, who's been right there with always-wrong Al Gore warning us of impending doom for years now, saying that it's not real.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [10/31/25]

Right-wing streamer Zack Hoyt, known online as Asmongold, told his audience that Bill Gates no longer believes in climate change and quotes Trump’s Truth Social Post.“You know who else doesn't believe in climate change recently? Bill Gates. Bill Gates has dramatically changed his position on climate change, acknowledging for the first time that there is no doomsday risk for, of global warming. … We just won the war on the climate change hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely wrong on the issue.” [YouTube, AsmongoldTV,

11/1/25]}:

3/25/24]

Additionally, The Guardian pointed out that a number of climate scientists have criticized Gates for using “‘straw man’ arguments about the threat to humanity and ‘false dichotomies’ between spending on climate or aid for the poor.”

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JRNL FAIL

5 YR OLD B ROLL ON FOX? btb SAYS MOLO COCK ONLY BURNED FEET OF PROTESTOR, NOT BLDG? 10 25

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AN PP 11 25

When President Donald Trump told reporters on Sept. 5 he’d started looking at sending the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, he said it was because of something he saw on television.

He said the city was being destroyed by paid agitators. “What they’ve done to that place, it’s like living in hell,” he said, a comment that became an internet meme as some Portland residents juxtaposed it with tranquil images of the city.

Trump didn’t say which channel he watched; he said at one point he saw something “today” and at another “last night.”

The evening before, on Sept. 4, Fox News aired a two-and-a-half-minute segment spotlighting protests outside a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Portland. Similar footage aired the morning of Trump’s remarks. The president went on to announce Sept. 27 on Truth Social that he would send troops, saying that he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”

He later said he’d told Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, that “unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down.”

ProPublica examined months of Fox News’ coverage and reviewed more than 700 video clips posted to social media by protesters, counterprotesters and others in the three months preceding the Sept. 4 broadcast.

The review found that the news network repeatedly provided a misleading picture of what was happening in Portland.

As The Guardian and The Oregonian/OregonLive have reported, Fox News on Sept. 4 used footage from the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd and said it was from 2025. We found two clear cases from that night as well as one that seemed to match a scene filmed at a key site of the 2020 protests. Fox also mislabeled two other dates of actions shown on screen, and one broadcast implied that a protest from elsewhere was happening in Portland.

Fox News chyrons about Portland the week of Trump’s remarks carried phrases like “violent demonstrators,” “protesters riot,” “anti-I.C.E. Portland rioters” and “war-like protests.” One host said protesters were attacking federal officers.

This portrayal of protesters as routinely instigating violence or rioting was also misleading.

As ProPublica reported last week, most clashes between protesters and police before the Fox News segment did not result in any criminal charges or arrests alleging protesters committed violence. What’s more, based on news releases from federal and local authorities, charges and arrests for assault, arson or destruction of property were almost entirely confined to a period that ended the night of July 4.

Videos after that date captured numerous images of federal officers forcefully moving in on protesters without corresponding criminal charges alleging protester violence.

A spokesperson for Fox News did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment.

The Department of Homeland Security did not answer requests to comment on its officers’ tactics.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said of action on the ground in Portland: “This isn’t a peaceful protest that’s under control, like many on the left have claimed, it’s radical violence. President Trump is taking lawful action to protect federal law enforcement officers and address the out-of-control violence that local residents have complained about and Democrat leaders have failed to stop.”

Here’s how Fox News’ coverage of the Portland story was misleading.

Fox News Said It Was 2025. It Wasn’t.

Protests in 2020 in the wake of Floyd’s murder by a police officer attracted large, sometimes violent crowds to Portland — along with a federal law enforcement response authorized by Trump.

The protests outside the ICE facility have typically been far smaller. Still, Fox spliced footage from 2020 into its coverage this year and claimed it was from 2025.

The Fox News correspondent in the segment that aired the night Trump was watching TV said: “On this night in late June, police used tear gas.”

The accompanying image appears to be not from the ICE building but from the federal courthouse in downtown Portland, more than a mile away. A nearly identical scene was shown in aFox News video five years earlier. Footage that aired Sept. 4, shot at a slightly different angle, blurs out spots where graffiti was visible on the building in Fox’s July 2020 broadcast.

Almost immediately after showing the courthouse scene, the segment cuts to another image as the correspondent says, “federal police used tear gas and flashbangs.”

On screen at that moment is a U.S. Navy veteran who was pepper-sprayed and repeatedly struck with a baton. But it didn’t happen in September 2025. The video was posted on social media on July 18, 2020.

The Fox News segment about the ICE protests soon shows an American flag burning.

That image was posted on social media July 16, 2020.

The location: the base of a downtown Portland statue more than a mile away from the ICE building where protests are happening in 2025.

On the webpage for its Sept. 4 video segment, Fox News added an editor’s note at least two weeks later: “This video contains footage from protests in Portland in 2020 and 2025.”

“Still Going On”

After mislabeling 2020 events as 2025, Fox’s Sept. 4 evening broadcast explicitly drew a connection between the two periods.

“The protest chaos, which began with riots aimed at social justice in 2020, has severely damaged Portland’s reputation,” the correspondent said.

The dramatic footage at this moment shows fires in the street and was broadcast on Fox on Aug. 19, 2020, the day after a crowd smashed through windows and set items on fire in the headquarters for the government of Multnomah County, where Portland is located.

We don’t know for certain which broadcast got Trump thinking about Portland. The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump watched. But the president said on Sept. 5 that what he’d seen about Portland on TV was “unbelievable.”

“I didn’t know that was still going on,” he said. “This has been going on for years.”

The reality: Portland’s 2020 social justice protests, which resulted in hundreds of arrests and continued for months, turned sporadic by early 2021. Protests in years since have led to occasional property damage, but nothing in Portland has matched the scale of events that followed Floyd’s death.

Portland police Chief Bob Day said at a Sept. 29 press conference that the city had been inaccurately portrayed through the lens of the protests in 2020 and 2021.

“What’s actually happening, and the response we’re seeing both from Portlanders and from the Portland Police Bureau,” Day said, “is not in line with that national narrative. And it is frustrating.”

A Riot That Wasn’t

In a Sept. 2 segment featuring the video from a day earlier, anchor Bill Hemmer said it shows “riots raging.” Anchor Trace Gallagher teased another Sept. 2 news segment by once again showing the video, saying, “It’s a riot outside a Portland ICE facility.”

The Sept. 4 segment shows Julie Parrish, an attorney for a neighbor of the ICE facility, accusing Portland police of saying, “Meh, we’re just gonna let violent rioters do this for 80 straight nights.”

The physical behavior of protesters that was captured on the video is not violent. The camera instead shows federal agents advancing on them. In the moments before officers tossed munitions into the crowd, videos show, one protester was blowing bubbles. The Portland police did not declare a riot, a legal designation that allows for an elevated police use of force. (They declared a riot just once, a police spokesperson said, on June 14.)

The Sept. 1 protest had “little to no energy,” according to an internal Portland police summary, before federal officers dispersed the crowd to collect a prop guillotine that had been brought. Katie Daviscourt, a Trump-aligned commentator who filmed the clips, noted on X that protesters were having dance parties and that their main problems were “not leaving restricted areas, burning a flag, and possessing a deadly object (guillotine).”

ProPublica found a similar pattern for the three months before Fox’s Sept. 4 broadcast: clashes that on most days and nights had no criminal allegations of protester violence to explain them.

After dozens of arrests and charges were announced in June through July 4, federal prosecutors accused just three people of crimes at the ICE building in the roughly two months leading up to Fox’s Sept. 4 broadcast.

During that same two-month time frame, ProPublica’s review found numerous instances of police using force: videos from more than 20 days or nights with federal officers grabbing, shoving, pepper-spraying, tackling, firing on or using other munitions on protesters.

No local arrests or federal criminal charges were announced on these days or nights, and only a handful of dates corresponded with incidents of protester aggression later asserted by federal authorities in their legal case for sending troops.

Asked whether Fox News accurately represented her footage, Daviscourt said: “I stand by my four months of accurate reporting.”

Parrish told ProPublica she had collected evidence that “shows ongoing and persistent activity” outside the facility that under statute and police directive “would be considered riotous, unlawful assembly and/or disorderly conduct.” She declined to share this evidence, saying it was privileged as part of her client’s file.

Her lawsuit on behalf of a neighbor living near the ICE facility, which sought to require police to enforce Portland’s noise ordinance, was dismissed.

The Reappearing Neighbor

A Sept. 5 “Fox & Friends” segment showed a neighbor from an apartment building confronting protesters over noise, shouting at protesters: “Turn that (bleep) down, it’s midnight! … We the people need sleep!”

Fox said it happened Tuesday, which would have been Sept. 2. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt said, “This has been going on for months now, but a lot of this since Labor Day,” as the video shown on screen sandwiches footage of the neighbor between other scenes from the Labor Day protest.

“This is a chaotic city,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said.

The next day, the clip of the neighbor appeared again on Fox News. This time, the network said the footage was from Wednesday, or Sept. 3.

In reality, the confrontation was captured on video months before. Daviscourt published the video on June 29 on X.

On the two September nights that Fox said the neighbor’s confrontation happened, ProPublica’s review found no videos of violent clashes posted on social media, and federal authorities announced no arrests.

For example, according to a Portland police email from 11:22 p.m. on Sept. 3: “There are still about 20 people hanging around but only 4 were even on the sidewalk in front of the building.”

Misrepresentations Continue After Trump’s Guard Order

On Sept. 28, the day Trump’s order was implemented, a Fox News broadcast played a clip of Kotek saying that Guard troops were not needed in Portland, then immediately cut to a clip of a hectic scene of protesters clashing with police.

“Wish she could see some of those images,” the anchor said. Sarcastically, as a co-anchor chuckled, she added: “Look at that. Just a peaceful protest.”

A small box on the screen showed the footage wasn’t from Oregon.

It was from Illinois.

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mma

Right-wing media escalate attacks on young women voters following Democratic election wins across the country

Clay Travis: “They've all gone insane, young women are actually insane in this country”

Written by Jane Lee, Isabella Corrao & Helena Hind

Published 11/07/25

In the wake of Democrats’ sweeping election victories across the country on November 4, right-wing media quickly focused their ire on young women, who voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.

Figures across right-wing media expressed fear over the demographic, with Newsmax host Carl Higbie labeling “liberal white women” as “the biggest threat to America — they will literally vote for their own destruction and take everyone down with them.” The response from right-wing media to women exercising their right to vote ramps up a trend of conservative voices attacking liberal women in the past year.

Right-wing media react to young women voters following November 4 elections

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MMA

October 31, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Will Cain Show

WILL CAIN (HOST): I hear your affirmative case and I don’t deny your affirmative case. I don’t come to you today — this is not a debate and I would not even classify myself as a skeptic. But I do know that skeptics remain. 25% of our viewers right now remain skeptical, so I wanted to have you address some of those arguments that are the sources of the skepticism.

...

EILEEN COLLINS (GUEST): And by the way, we couldn't have landed on the moon without computers, so we had to have a certain amount of technology. And I’m going to tell you that, you know, I lived through that, I’m very proud of the fact that we had men that were strong, that were risk takers, that were willing to do something that — they went out into an area where there's no air, there's — no one had ever been to the moon before, and now they're taking a tremendous risk to their lives. And years, decades, 50 years later we say didn’t happen? I think that's really an insult to the people that made the Apollo program happen.

CAIN: I totally understand that argument, Eileen, but the point of our conversation is actually to address some of that skepticism and see if it doesn’t hold weight, and the affirmative argument you’re making is one that I find compelling as well. These men were heroes. However, the points — points are still made and they're worth addressing as is always the case in anyone who has a counter argument. It's not the dismissal of the counter argument, it's the response to the counter argument that is powerful.

...

One more thing. Stanley Kubrick — this video's gone around for some time. Stanley Kubrick, the noted filmmaker, he has a video out there that he says he was part of this. He says he helped fake the moon landing. What do you say to Stanley Kubrick?

COLLINS: I had not heard about that but I would like to understand why he would say that the moon landing was faked. I mean, Stanley Kubrick, he made several movies on the space program, "2001: A Space Odyssey," space stations, talked a lot about artificial intelligence and a variety of technologies up in space. So I would say that he more than anyone would know we had the technology and the ability to go to the moon.

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Fox praised and validated Trump's legally questionable boat strikes in the Caribbean

Some at the network have been pressing for further US intervention – even regime change in Venezuela

Written by Jack Winstanley & Emma Mae Weber

Published 10/29/25

Fox News has celebrated the Trump administration's lethal strikes against supposed drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean, despite concerns from legal experts over the strikes’ legality and bipartisan warnings from congressional members that they have seen no evidence to support the administration's claims that the strikes are targeting drug traffickers.

Along with championing the strikes — many of which have targeted boats coming from Venezuela — as “pretty spectacular” and a “great move” and praising the administration’s “aggressive” approach, some Fox figures and guests have gone so far as to suggest they would support regime change in Venezuela, claiming that the Maduro government is “part of the cartel.”

\Trump’s attacks on boats in the Caribbean draw legal questions from experts and legislators

NPR noted that the Trump administration “has designated several South and Central American drug cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, but Congress has not authorized the use of force against them” and quoted a former State Department legal adviser, who said, “Outside of armed conflict, there is a word for the premeditated killing of people, and that word is 'murder.'" He added, “And just because the administration puts together this fig leaf of a legal justification does not legitimize these premeditated killings in the Caribbean.” The New York Times, [10/24/25; NPR, 10/24/25]}:

mma //

  1. ### An intelligence report debunked MAGA media claims about Tren de Aragua and Venezuela. A Trump official is now under fire for reportedly ordering the report be redone.

:{:{05/28/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Right-wing media's campaign for military intervention and regime change in Venezuela

:{:{09/05/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Right-wing media concoct their own legal justification for Trump’s extrajudicial strike on Venezuelan boat

09/05/25

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MMA

October 27, 2025 edition of The Faulkner Focus

HARRIS FAULKNER (ANCHOR): How much of this can they take? Imagine living near protesting gone violent like this. Voters, working Americans, families, anyone dealing with the overflow and residual effects of attacks on federal agents like endangering the lives of even the non-violent protestors caught up in the riots and local law enforcement. This is untenable, it's dangerous. Federal officials say rioters assaulted Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, plus Border Patrol agents who had to deploy tear gas to try to stem the chaos.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered the Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino to testify tomorrow about his use of tear gas in a separate incident last weekend in a Chicago neighborhood. Homeland Security officials say he followed proper protocol and that those agents were under attack by rioters. Now remember, when Bovino joined us on The Faulkner Focus a couple of weeks ago, we knew that he'd been doxxed and there were hit out on him. The anti-violence is growing. Anti-ice violence. And now, Democrats are actually pushing ahead with a plan to launch that master ICE tracker that Bovino and I talked about on this program. It will enable federal agents' activities to go up on a live map. So it will be uploaded to the Democrat Party website, doxxing the agents and their locations. Here is acting ICE director Todd Lyons.

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FAULKNER: By the way, the placement of that tracker just went up a notch. It is not just their party website, it's the U.S. House Democrat committee website. We're in the middle of a government shutdown but they have time to put this up on their House committee page, the Democrats. The new column calls that ICE tracking Democrats' most reckless move to the moment. An excerpt here. "With the party's approval rating sinking and most Americans supporting Trump's deportation efforts, clinging to the far-left borders on political suicide. At a time when Democrats should be tacking toward the center, they're doubling down on extremism — and this latest gambit could prove deadly." Ari Fleischer, Fox News contributor, former white house press secretary. What are we missing about the Democrats' thirst for violence? It feels real.

ARI FLEISCHER (GUEST): I want to put a little historical context into this. Prior to the civil war, southern states led by then vice president John Calhoun advocated something called nullification. That if the federal government passed a law that a southern state didn't like, it was nullified. The southern states had the right not to follow federal law. This is a modern day nullification crisis. In Chicago, they are saying federal law doesn't matter. Federal agents do not matter. We the locals can do whatever we want, including violence. This is devastating for rule of law in the United States. It's also devastating for the Democrats politically. There is no support for this outside the extremes of the Democratic party that just want people to come to America illegally and once they are here remain here safely. The Democrats are indeed committing political suicide.

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VID CANAL STR NICK SHIRLEY

Laura Ingraham claims that Democrats are "signaling very clear that it's war time" | Media Matters for America

MMA

October 22, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): The words they're using -- fight, push, resist -- they're signaling very clearly that it's war time and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson thinks he's a general.

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Johnson dismantled tyranny. ICE-free zones are the answer. We're on the front lines, okay, general. General idiot. Sure sounds like he's calling for insurrection to me. And they're already promising their post-war tribunals.REP GARCIA

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Fox News contributor compares Trump’s destruction of the East Wing to Obama’s installation of a basketball court

10/22/25

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Fox viewers were told “there is no violence from the right” hours after arraignment of Jan 6 rioter for allegedly threatening to kill top Democrat

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/22/25

Just hours after New York prosecutors charged a pardoned January 6 rioter with threatening to kill House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Donald Trump Jr. told Sean Hannity’s Fox News audience that “there is no violence from the right,” adding, “It is not both sides — it is from one side, and it was from the left alone.”

Fox viewers, however, probably did not experience any cognitive dissonance. The network all but ignored the threats against Jeffries, with its coverage on Tuesday consisting of a single largely nonspecific 36-second news read on its Special Report program, according to a Media Matters review.

CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane reported early Tuesday morning that Christopher Moynihan “was arrested Sunday after saying in text messages that he planned to ‘eliminate’ Jeffries when the top House Democrat spoke at an event in New York City on Monday” and charged with making a terroristic threat. Prosecutors noted in a court filing that Moynihan texted “Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live,” and “Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future." He was arraigned later that day.

Prosecutors previously said Moynihan was one of the first Trumpists to storm the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 insurrection and among those who occupied the Senate chamber that day. He pleaded guilty to five misdemeanors and was sentenced to 21 months in prison but was among the roughly 1,500 January 6 participants to receive a pardon from President Donald Trump on his first day in office.

Political violence does, in fact, target “both sides”

Donald Trump Jr.’s Tuesday night comments reflect a talking point frequently heard in right-wing spaces. In the wake of the shocking murder of Republican activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk, many in MAGA media and President Trump himself baselessly declared the case symptomatic of a terroristic left targeting a nonviolent right.

This argument flies in the face of what we’ve seen the last several years, as right-wing extremists have violently attacked not just the U.S. Capitol but also Democratic politicians and their families as well as Black, Hispanic, and Jewish Americans. Denying that reality derails any hope of a genuine conversation about political violence, a genuine scourge in this country, in favor of what appears to be a Trump administration plan to use Kirk’s death as a pretext to wield state power against its political enemies in a broad crackdown on dissent.

A Trump supporter who rioted against democracy and received a presidential pardon subsequently threatening to murder a leading Democratic politician hammers home the absurdity of the MAGA talking point.

And so Fox is hiding that news from its audience as part of its frequently deployed strategy to downplay or ignore stories that undermine its narratives. The network’s hosts and executives seem to prefer keeping viewers ignorant in order to maintain their fearfulness and fury at their fellow Americans.

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NO HANNITY?

How Fox News has justified and celebrated ICE’s violent immigration crackdown in Chicago

As ICE targeted immigrant communities, Fox whitewashed its abuses

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Ben Van Bloem, Harrison Ray, Payton Armstrong, Jack Wheatley & Sophie Lawton

Published 10/21/25

October 9 marked one month of “Operation Midway Blitz,” the Trump administration’s effort to target and harass immigrant communities in Chicago with military-style raids and violent enforcement to advance its mass deportation plans. Fox News has responded by celebrating and justifying the violence Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have unleashed on Chicago residents regardless of citizenship or immigration status.

Fox inaugurated the operation by embedding a reporter with ICE agents in a move reminiscent of the height of the global war on terror, signaling to its audience that Chicago was a battlefield that required a militarized crackdown. Over the subsequent four weeks, Fox dutifully fulfilled that expectation with coverage that painted civic resistance to ICE as proof that Trump’s authoritarian tactics were needed, while simultaneously whitewashing the agency’s worst abuses.

On September 30, ICE initiated a raid on a Chicago apartment building that began with agents rappelling from a Black Hawk helicopter and ended with residents — citizens and noncitizens alike — reportedly imprisoned in unmarked vans, grouped by perceived race, ethnicity, or immigration status. Parents were separated from their children, some of whom were zip-tied to other kids, according to a witness. In at least one instance, an agent pointed their gun in the face of a grandmother who lives in the building, she said. Agents destroyed family belongings and lobbed flash-bang grenades as they ransacked the building.

In a different context, it would have been the stuff of right-wing paranoid nightmares. But this was a building in Chicago that houses Black and immigrant families, and Fox found it worthy of praise.

In a segment teasing coverage of the siege, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner said the security forces had zeroed in on “a Chicago apartment complex … targeting members of the brutal Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang,” adding: “Seems like a good thing."

The ICE claim that the raid would yield TdA members, which Faulkner parroted, turned out to be wrong. According to MSNBC’s reporting, only one of the people arrested was “verified” as part of Tren de Aragua, and ICE didn’t provide evidence to back up even that assertion. (ICE has repeatedly claimed people are members of TdA, only to have its accusations fall apart under scrutiny.)

The next evening, host Laura Ingraham repeated the false ICE talking point that the raid turned up gang members.

“TdA gang members in Chicago got a surprise this week, an unexpected drop-in that involved a Black Hawk helicopter and hundreds of federal agents,” Ingraham said.

Video

Citation

From the October 1, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Ingraham also falsely claimed that the building raid was proof that Trump was “fixing the criminal mess” in Chicago.

MSNBC found that of the 37 people arrested, only eight had criminal charges and it isn’t clear how many — if any — had been convicted.

Faulkner returned to the story on October 2, reiterating the false characterization of the building.

“The political left is also pushing against a massive federal raid on an apartment complex taken over by members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang,” she said.

Video

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From the October 2, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

The storming of the apartment building wasn’t the only violent incident Fox chose to celebrate. On September 19, a federal agent in a Chicago suburb threw Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh to the ground during a protest outside an ICE facility.

Ingraham praised the assault.

“A similar situation in Chicago today where absolutely unhinged agitators worked to form a blockade — they don't have actual jobs, but that is their job — in front of an ICE facility, including a Democrat congressional candidate who was thrown to the ground by an ICE agent,” Ingraham said. “Good work.” (Abughazaleh formerly worked at Media Matters.)

Even when Fox personalities didn’t overtly celebrate ICE’s abuses, the network has justified the Trump administration’s brutal tactics. Such coverage frequently clustered around high-profile events with dramatic footage, such as the storming of the apartment building. Other notable incidents included federal agents using tear gas, pepper ball projectiles, and rubber bullets on protesters on September 19 and again on September 26.

Describing the same event, Fox host Jesse Watters said the protesters“went loco” and “slashed tires,” adding, “Mostly peaceful protests are no bueno in the golden age. One day they’ll learn.” Watters introduced footage of ICE’s brutal tactics by mocking the protesters, saying it “didn’t work out for them.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/19/25]

In two notable cases, Fox appeared to justify federal agents shooting two people, killing one of them, by repeating government claims that were soon undercut by local reporting.

On September 12, an ICE officer in a northern suburb of Chicago shot and killed Silverio Villegas González following a traffic stop. A Department of Homeland Security statement claimed the officer had been “seriously injured,” which was later contradicted by police body camera footage in which the officer is heard saying his injuries were “nothing major.” A witness also told the Sun Times that they “didn’t see Villegas González dragging one of the agents behind his car,” and NBC News reported, “No videos show the actual shooting or the ICE agent being dragged and injured, making it difficult to corroborate DHS’s account of what happened.”

Fox framed the fatal shooting by repeating the unsubstantiated government claims.

As the news broke, Fox anchor Martha MacCallum presented DHS’ version of events without qualifications.

“An ICE officer severely injured during a traffic stop in Illinois," MacCallum said. “ICE says that the suspect dragged the officer as he tried to get away.”

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From the September 12, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum

Weekend anchor Jon Scott said González “tried to flee the scene in a car, dragging the agent by his bumper,” adopting DHS’s initial characterization. “The agent wound up shooting and killing that alien.”

Then on September 28, Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy repeated the characterization, saying, “We saw an ICE agent dragged with his vehicle.”

Two Fox hosts had a similar approach to an October 4 incident in which a Border Patrol agent shot Chicago woman Marimar Martinez five times. According to her attorney, footage apparently contradicts initial government allegations that Martinez had rammed her car into the agent’s vehicle — which the government then moved more than 1,000 miles away, despite its likely role as key evidence in the case. Several of the government's claims appear to be undercut by the criminal complaint against Martinez.

Jesse Watters repeated the government’s unverified version of the event.

“So you’re saying she didn’t ram the ICE officer’s vehicle with her car and trap it?” Watters asked co-host Jessica Tarlov. She had referenced press coverage that undercut the government’s version of events, to which Watters replied: “We don’t have that — I’m just not going to take your word for it.”

Video

Citation

From the October 7, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

Ingraham claimed officers had been “nearly run over” and called it a “coordinated ambush of federal officers.”

Beyond the Chicago area, the Trump administration has surged — or threatened to surge — federal immigration and police forces, the National Guard, and the military into Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Portland, Memphis, Baltimore, New Orleans, San Francisco, and New York City. Many of those cities have already resisted Trump’s onslaughts. Wherever he sends his forces next, Fox is sure to follow, cheering his administration along the way.

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MMA

Murdoch media continues scapegoating renewable energy in New Jersey

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Ilana Berger

Published 10/21/25

Right-wing media are pushing hard to disparage New Jersey’s renewable energy investments, which they misleadingly blame for high electricity rates.

In 2025, New Jersey’s wholesale electric bills rose dramatically, with average residential customers seeing bills climb by roughly 17-20% per month. Next year, ratepayers can likely expect another 1.5 - 5% increase on top of that.

Several factors are contributing to the rate hikes in New Jersey. They include increased demand for electricity to power new data centers and New Jersey grid operator PJM Interconnection’s reported failure to quickly connect renewable projects to the grid. But news outlets owned by the Murdoch family — Fox Business and the editorial boards of The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post — are pinning the blame for electricity costs on renewable energy, insisting that eliminating subsidies for renewable energy and building more fossil fuel infrastructure in the state are among the answers to New Jersey’s cost-of-living crisis.

The Trump administration has taken this approach as well, scrapping billions in renewable energy projects. Increasingly, the consequences consumers are already experiencing elsewhere reveal that a crusade against renewable energy is unlikely to benefit New Jersey or the country as a whole.

Electricity bills have spiked in New Jersey, a result of changes in the state’s energy market

Murdoch media outlets, hosts, and guests misleadingly blame climate-friendly policies for high energy prices

The anti-renewable energy agenda right-wing media are promoting in New Jersey is playing out across the country, and many are questioning its logic

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  1. ### Fox Business viewers might not realize Trump's tariffs are massive taxes that have disrupted the economy

10/17/25 3:58 PM EDT

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, October 10

10/10/25 10:57 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox Business host Larry Kudlow urges Trump to seize on the shutdown to fire up to 500,000 more federal workers

10/07/25

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Star Fox host Laura Ingraham is now in business with the president’s son

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe

Published 10/20/25

Fox News star Laura Ingraham spent years railing against the purported corruption caused by the business interests of President Joe Biden’s son. But now she’s going into business with Donald Trump Jr., federal records show, a wildly and obviously unethical conflict of interest that no credible news outlet would tolerate.

Ingraham and Donald Trump Jr. are among the directors of “Colombier Acquisition Corp. III,” a special-purpose acquisition company which is seeking to raise $260 million in an initial public offering in order to acquire another company, according to a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday and first reported by Bloomberg. The firm’s CEO is Omeed Malik, co-founder and managing partner of the venture capital fund 1789 Capital, which invests in companies aligned with the MAGA movement and has “grown into a financial powerhouse” since November, when Trump was elected president and his son became a partner. Several other executives and directors for the SPAC are also 1789 Capital employees, the filing shows.

No credible news outlet would allow a conflict of interest of this magnitude

The SPAC’s prospectus positions the company as a way to benefit from “the market’s excitement to fund the next chapter of American Exceptionalism by investing in the Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Growth (‘EIG’) economy, a set of era-defining business and investment opportunities that we believe will build the next period of American prosperity.” It continues: “These opportunities are rooted in America-first cultural shifts after the 2024 U.S. election, a resurgence of merit-based investing in growth equity, a focus on market-based solutions for America, and a celebration of America’s most prominent founders. Opportunities in the EIG economy include but are not limited to companies that reindustrialize the American economy and enhance American prosperity and security.”

Ingraham’s bio in the document identifies her as “the host of ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ an hour-long cable news program, which launched in October 2017, on Fox News (weeknights),” a program which “features Ms. Ingraham’s analysis of politics, business, legal matters and the culture, along with her interviews with prominent individuals in those fields.”

The potential conflicts of interest created by Ingraham’s roles with the SPAC and Fox are legion:

Notably, Ingraham regularly claimed the business dealings of Hunter Biden in the years prior to his father’s presidential election implicated Joe Biden in rampant corruption. Hunter Biden’s name was mentioned during at least 164 episodes of Ingraham’s Fox show in the less than two years from January 3, 2023, when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives after promising to use their power to investigate those business interests, through Trump’s election on November 5, 2024, according to a Media Matters review of the Kinetiq video database.

Ingraham claimed during one such program, in June 2023, that Hunter Biden’s clients were “sophisticated players” who were “prepared to pay millions” because “they believed they would get certain benefits in return from the U.S. government.”

“Every single person in the White House press room knows how all this works,” she added. “The only defense that they have is that we can’t prove that Biden himself did lobbying or was directing Hunter’s business.” Ingraham concluded by bemoaning that “these foreign interests are now encouraged to believe that America is for sale” and arguing that “one pillar of the 2024 campaign for Republicans should be, the Bidens are getting richer while your family is getting poorer.”

Video

Citation

From the June 26, 2023, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

A few short years later and President Trump’s son is overseeing a business empire which includes not only the venture capital funding through 1789 Capital but also foreign real estate deals; massive crypto investments; and nebulous advisory roles with several companies. And Ingraham has looked at the various financial schemes involving the president’s family and decided to join him and cash in.

Again, no credible news outlet would allow a conflict of interest of this magnitude, roughly analogous to if Hunter and MSNBC star Rachel Maddow were to have gone into business together during the Biden administration. But don’t expect the Fox brass to step in: Once you’ve put the president’s daughter-in-law on the payroll and given her an hour a week to produce propaganda for the administration, you’ve acknowledged that you are in a different line of work.

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AN GUK 10 25

Legal filings resulting of a defamation lawsuit reveal Fox News employees were wringing their hands over their company’s fawning support of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

The Guardian collected employees’ statements from a 771-page filing released last week, made public as part of a defamation lawsuit filed against the network by voting technology company Smartmatic. The comments came from an anonymous internal survey of 1,040 employees conducted between August 2020 and early September 2020.

According to the Guardian, one employee said Fox should “change the misogynist, racist, rightwing content”, adding: “Fox News is a propaganda machine for the Republican party NOT a news organization and should be acknowledged as such. It is embarrassing to tell people that I work here as even conservatives know [Fox News Channel] and [Fox Business Network] are biased information sources — not news.”

Other employees complained the news content at the company is “hateful and has made the world a more divided and angry place.”

“I sometimes go home fighting back tears,” another employee said. “This network made me question my morals. Have I sold my soul to the devil?”

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Still another employee pointed out that the network should “get out of Trump’s pocket” and realize that its most prominent hosts, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, “are a total embarrassment, peddling BS and conspiracy theories.”

“Many days I feel like I am part of the problem and FNC is contributing to hatred in this country,” the anonymous contributor added.

The complaints of rampant bias continued with another employee ranting: “This company aligns itself with the current administration and has lost its integrity.”

A different survey respondent complained, “I wish there was purpose for what we do other than pushing the brand, ideology and political will of [the president].”

Other employees wished management would crack down on “conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric” spewed by opinion hosts like hosts like Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs, while one asked management for “a commitment from opinion hosts/producers to only tell viewers the truth, and to bolster their arguments with hard, proven facts given in full context, rather than spin or reckless conjecture that causes harm to real people.”

Smartmatic’s lawsuit against Fox claims Fox “lied and knowingly spread falsehoods about Smartmatic’s role in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.” The company told Guardian reporters that it believes the employee criticisms provide evidence that Fox executives were on notice of internal concerns about what the network was airing. The company has also argued that Fox’s board of directors failed to act on the results of the survey, which it said provided a “stark warning” about the network’s programming.

Newsmax has already settled a similar defamation suit with Smartmatic over the 2020 election.

Read the full Guardian report at this link.

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NOTE THIS CRM IS MOSTLY FOX?!

MMA

Right-wing media said Chicago ICE raid yielded numerous gang members' arrests. New reporting shows hardly any arrests related to Tren de Aragua.

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Sage Hodil

Published 10/16/25

Right-wing media have cheered Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s September 30 raid on a Chicago apartment, saying they arrested a dozen or dozens of “suspected Tren de Aragua gang members” in an apartment complex “seized by TdA gang members.”

However, the Department of Homeland Security told CNN that just two of the 37 arrested are believed to be gang members. And later DHS told MSNBC it has “verified” one Tren de Aragua member from the raid.

The Trump administration claims that its arrests in Chicago have targeted criminals, but there is little evidence many of the 1,000 people detained by ICE in the city have any criminal convictions. Right-wing media have previously carried water for the Trump administration’s mass deportations that allegedly focus on the “worst of the worst” even though the majority of ICE detainees have no criminal convictions.

ICE's raid on a Chicago apartment building led to dozens of arrests and four children taken into custody. New reporting shows that few if any arrested in that raid or others in Chicago have criminal or gang ties.

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  1. ### Right-wing media falsely claim benefits go to undocumented immigrants as millions of Americans face health coverage losses

10/14/25 4:20 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media say Portland is a war zone under siege. On-the-ground coverage paints a different picture.

10/10/25 9:40 AM EDT

  1. ### As Trump sends the National Guard into US cities, right-wing media celebrate and call protests “an insurrection”

10/08/25

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note // no kings 2 10 25 called hate am rally

an rupar 10 25

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is under fire after alleging that Democrats are catering to “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.”

“The Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals,” Leavitt said on Fox News on Thursday afternoon.

“That is who the Democrat Party is catering to — not the Trump administration, and not the White House, and not the Republican Party, who is standing up for law abiding Americans, not just across the country, but around the world.”

Leavitt did not explain why the Democratic Party should be catering to the Republican Party or to the Trump administration.

READ MORE: Trump Focused on Bailout for Farmers Loyal to Him ‘For a Really Long Time’ Says Official

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Critics blasted the Press Secretary.

Former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer wrote: “This s– is so f– dangerous and everyone on the Republican side just nods along.”

Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf asked, “Remember when they pretended to want to ‘turn down the temperature’?”

Veteran journalist John Harwood called Leavitt’s remarks “disgusting b–.”

Dylan Williams, Vice President for Government Affairs for the Center for International Policy warned: “How is this anything other than deliberate incitement that risks leading to deadly violence?”

“This is INCREDIBLY dangerous framing,” declared author Carey Lohrenz, the first female F-14 Tomcat pilot, “and should make the hair on the back of your next stand, whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, or Independent. And it’s also patently false.”

READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Like Being Mad Mike’: Johnson ‘Upset’ Over Dems’ Health Care Demands

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted that Hillary Clinton’s “‘Deplorables’ was a scandal for years and she wasn’t even in the government yet. This is the White House Press Secretary, whose salary is paid by the American public.”

Journalist Ahmed Baba wrote: “In a sane reality, this insane comment would’ve ended the career of any other press secretary. In this reality, it’s a just another Thursday. But when the Trump fever breaks, and it will break, these people will have to reckon with the digital footprints of their own depravity.”

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did-fox-news-apply-an-ai-filter-to-give-this-woman-a-black-eye

Did Fox News apply an AI filter to give this woman a black eye?

Jason Weisberger Oct 3, 2025

Image: Screen Grab/The Simpsons

Social Media is pointing out that a "journalist" claiming to have been "assaulted" by "antifa" in Portland's black eye looks like an AI injury simulation filter was used.

An additional message in the thread shows analysis by AI on the video, claiming that it does appear to be altered. Folks find the woman's eyebrow movements, as well as changing eye color, to be telltale signs of a filter.

There is also a video that claims to show the "assault," and it appears to be someone innocently waving a flag.

Here is the video direct from Fox via YouTube. You make the call!

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Previously:

• Fox News leaks juror details, forcing resignation in Trump case

• FOX's Watters threatens wife on air, proving point of political ad

• 'He cheated on his wife and then left her with twins' — Dan Crenshaw blasts Fox's Watters' personal life

• Fox Fascist, Jesse Watters, shows how fascism works

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A Trump-appointed judge just demolished right-wing fearmongering about Portland

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/06/25 MMA

Fox News propagandists cheered last month when President Donald Trump directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to send 200 National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, claiming the move was necessary because, in host Jesse Watters’ words, the entire city “has been under siege by antifa for four months.” But a Trump-nominated federal judge blocked the deployment on Saturday, noting that protests in the city have been “small and uneventful” for months and writing that the president’s order “was simply untethered to the facts.”

After Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., in August and suggested he would do the same in other U.S. cities, right-wing media spent September trying to turn Portland into the president’s next target. They created and fed the narrative that Portland is a “chaotic city” consumed by “civil insurrection” in which “every weekend is war.” While news reports from the city portrayed the protests as minor, MAGA pundit Steve Bannon told his audience, “Antifa's burning down Portland every night. … They've taken control of Portland.”

The president responded to the overheated commentary of his most zealous supporters. In a September 27 post to Truth Social, Trump ordered Hegseth to send troops to protect “War ravaged Portland” from “Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” and claimed he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”

But after Hegseth directed 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to the city over the objection of Gov. Tina Kotek, the state of Oregon and the city of Portland sued in federal court, arguing that the president had exceeded his legal and constitutional authority.

District Court Judge Karin Immergut — a stalwart of the GOP legal community who worked on Kenneth Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton, served as a U.S. attorney under President George W. Bush, and was nominated to the bench by Trump himself — agreed. On October 4, she issued a temporary restraining order which blocked the deployment.

Trump-appointed judge: Portland protests “were small and uneventful”

Immergut wrote in her ruling that Trump had not met the standard under the statutory authority he invoked, which only allows the president to federalize National Guard units in cases of invasion, rebellion, or when the federal government has been rendered otherwise unable to execute the law.

She explained that contrary to Trump’s depiction of the situation in Portland, her review determined: “As of September 27, 2025, it had been months since there was any sustained level of violent or disruptive protest activity in Portland. During this time frame, there were sporadic events requiring either PPB monitoring or federal law enforcement intervention, but overall, the protests were small and uneventful.”

The judge added that the federal government produced “only four incidents of protesters clashing with federal officers in the month of September preceding the federalization order,” calling these “inexcusable, but they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces.”

She further wrote that the standard the federal government tried to set “would allow the President to call in the National Guard whenever one law enforcement office receives support from another office, which is a routine aspect of law enforcement activity. If the President could equate diversion of federal resources with his inability to execute federal law, then the President could send military troops virtually anywhere at any time.”

Immergut concluded that Trump lacked the statutory authority to federalize the guard in this case “because the situation on the ground belied an inability of federal law enforcement officers to execute federal law,” adding: “The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.”

That’s not how Fox presented Portland to its viewers

Fox hosts pulled out the stops to present the city as a violent hellhole crying out for the federal intervention the president had ordered.

“Left-wing terror is at record highs,” Watters declared on his September 29 broadcast. “They're shooting at Teslas, Trump, Charlie, and ICE. After sending in the Guard into L.A. and D.C., Trump is going for round three — Portland.”

“This weekend, he directed the secretary of war to send 200 National Guardsmen to protect war-ravaged Portland, and he is authorizing them to use full force if necessary, because federal facilities in Portland have been under siege since the start of the summer,” Watters continued, adding, “Every weekend, antifa has been on the warpath.”

Watters claimed two nights later: “Portland has been under siege by antifa for four months. The Guard is there to get things under control, but Portland Democrats say they want to deport the Guard because the protests are mostly peaceful.”

On September 29, host Laura Ingraham similarly claimed that Portland was “getting a dose of Trump-style safety” because an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and “the areas around it have been under siege regularly in Oregon, and it continued this past weekend.” She added that Oregon was “rushing to court siding with criminals and against public safety.”

The same night, host Sean Hannity accused Oregon and Portland of “typical radical, predictable left-wing sanctuary state and city lies” because officials there supposedly won’t acknowledge that the “city’s on fire” and consumed by “a whole lot … of violence, lawlessness if you ask me.”

Their arguments are wildly overstated on the facts. But there’s so much more at stake, as Immergut pointed out in her ruling.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” she wrote. “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.”

Fox’s star hosts apparently disagree, and are standing with Trump as he tries to send the nation hurtling toward martial law.

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  1. ### Right-wing media cheer for Trump to deploy National Guard to other American cities after DC

08/14/25 10:52 AM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media’s dystopian Portland coverage feeds into Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard

09/29/25 5:48 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News' Kayleigh McEnany attempts to justify deployment of National Guard by declaring “a pretty clear rebellion” against the government

10/06/2

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mma 10 25

Fox News propagandists are overwhelmingly backing the GOP’s bogus shutdown message that congressional Democrats are refusing to fund the government because they want to give health care to illegal immigrants. But every once in a while their masks slip, and they reveal that they oppose extending the crucial Obamacare subsidies at the heart of Democrats’ actual position, which would trigger drastic premium price hikes for millions of Americans.

A partial government shutdown began at midnight on Wednesday after both Republican and Democratic proposals to extend government funding failed to reach 60 votes in the Senate. CBS News reported that the Democrats’ “red line” was “a permanent extension of enhanced tax credits for Americans who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.” Those enhanced tax credits, authorized under the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021, are scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

That’s as it should be, according to some Fox pundits.

Fox host Sean Hannity complained on Wednesday night that Democrats had refused to fund the government in part because “they want to extend Biden COVID-era health care subsidies, which were supposed to be temporary. COVID is over.” But rather than explain the implications of allowing those subsidies to expire, Hannity pivoted away to his main gripe. “Don’t let the left fool you. This is also about your tax dollars funding health care for illegals,” he said, while airing B-roll from 2022 and 2023 of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. “Democrats have been lying, trying to deny it,” he added.

Video

Citation

From the October 1, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Earlier that day on The Five, after Democratic co-host Jessica Tarlov pointed out that the ACA subsidies are “the crux” of the dispute, Jesse Watters interjected that Democrats “juiced up the premiums for COVID-level spending” and Republicans simply “want to bring it back down to pre-COVID.”

Guest host and Fox contributor Paul Mauro chimed in that Democrats “used COVID to throw all of these subsidies in, and like any entitlement, when you go to take it away, people have strokes.”

“Right,” Fox host Greg Gutfeld interjected.

This position is wildly unpopular — polls show that supermajorities of Americans support extending the subsidies, with even Republicans and self-identified MAGA supporters backing it by a wide margin — and for good reason.

The 22 million Americans who benefit from those enhanced subsidies will face crushing increases in the cost of health insurance if those Fox hosts get their way and Republicans allow them to expire. According to CBS News:

The cost of premiums for people who buy their insurance through the ACA marketplaces could more than double, rising from an average of $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026, according to a Sept. 30 analysis by KFF. About 4 million people would likely drop their insurance coverage if the credit is allowed to expire because they would't be able to afford the costs, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated.

That’s a huge potential impact for millions of people — but Fox’s mentions of these subsidies are breathtakingly rare.

Tarlov and other Democrats have used appearances on the right-wing network to try to warn its viewers, but Fox’s stars are far more blasé. They are relying on a typical page from Fox’s standard playbook: Mentions of the Obamacare subsidies and potential results of the policy they support are few and far between, as the hosts instead try to redirect the attention of their audience and stoke their rage over the prospect of undocumented immigrants receiving benefits.

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  1. ### Right-wing media run wild with the blatantly false claim that Democrats are shutting down the government to secure “health care for illegals”

09/30/25 3:58 PM EDT

  1. ### How Fox News is hiding the GOP’s brutal Medicaid cuts

06/26/25 9:28 AM EDT

  1. ### Another massive Trump corruption scandal for right-wing media to bury

09/16/25

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AN 10 25

President Donald Trump lashed out at Fox News in a Truth Social post on Sunday, criticizing the network for airing an interview with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) on the topic of healthcare.

Trump accused Fox and correspondent Peter Doocy of giving Kelly a platform to speak "totally unabated or challenged," while ignoring Republican perspectives and diminishing his own popularity in their coverage.

“Why is FoxNews and Peter Doocy putting on Democrat Senator Mark Kelly to talk about, totally unabated or challenged, Healthcare?” Trump wrote. “The FAKE SPIN is so bad for Republicans that it is hard to believe that we WIN.”

The post, laden with Trump’s trademark all-caps emphasis and grievances against media bias, continued with a warning to the conservative network: “Fox should either get on board, or get off board, NOW, but at this point, it just doesn’t make any difference to me.”Trump also claimed Fox News benefits from his popularity and presence in the Republican Party but allegedly distorts coverage to favor Democrats.

He also slammed the network’s polling practices, stating they “refuse to put up Polls that correctly show me at 65% in Popularity, a Republican RECORD,” and labeled the Fox News Poll as “one of the worst 'Pollsters' out there.”

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The president’s remarks were criticized on social media.

Democratic influencer Brian Krassenstein wrote on the social platform X: “Trump flips out at Fox News for not completely sucking up to him.

He wants Fox News to be an arm of the government, and he just told America that.

He said the quiet part out loud.”

Podcaster Spencer Hakimian wrote: “Trump is very angry at Fox News and Peter Doocy.”

“Every single hour of every day, he is more unhinged and lives in a delusional fantasy world filled with made up numbers and complete nonsense that doesn’t exist. Despite this being the kind of rant an escape mental patient would spew out, its become normalized & it gets ignored,” wrote an account on X.

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MMA

Fox Business lets Trump enforcer Bill Pulte spin his debunked “mortgage fraud” accusations against Lisa Cook

09/26/25

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MMA 10 25

Frequent Fox appearances are central to the Trump administration's climate and energy misinformation strategy

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Research contributions from Harrison Ray

Published 09/29/25

Fox News and Fox Business have not simply covered President Donald Trump’s destructive climate and environmental agenda — they have served as the administration’s preferred vehicles for selling it to the public.

Since late July, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have made dozens of appearances across Fox News and Fox Business programs to defend the proposed repeal of the EPA’s endangerment finding, shift blame for soaring electricity bills away from fossil fuel volatility, and portray offshore wind projects as both unreliable and dangerous.

By turning to Fox networks, senior Trump officials gain a platform where destructive environmental deregulation is framed as common sense and basic policy questions are never asked. What emerges from these appearances is not legitimate debate or accountability journalism, but a symbiotic relationship that allows the Trump administration to launder harmful misinformation through Fox’s news and opinion programming — leaving viewers with a distorted picture of climate science, energy policy, and the real stakes of the administration’s environmental rollbacks.

Topline findings

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin

Zeldin has leaned on Fox’s coverage to launder claims that climate regulations are illegitimate and that reliance on renewable energy is driving economic pain.

During the August 13 episode of Fox Business’ Kudlow, Zeldin argued that the endangerment finding — a 2009 scientific determination that provided the legal framework for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions — rested on “a lot of mental leaps” and claimed that “the Clean Air Act doesn’t make any reference to the greenhouse gases.” (In reality, the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA ruling explicitly found that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Act.) He paired that dismissal with charges that Obama-era scientific findings were exaggerated and “pessimistic,” and closed the segment by promoting natural gas pipelines as the only path to affordable energy and job growth.

Video

Citation

From the August 13, 2025, episode of Fox Business' Kudlow

Energy Secretary Chris Wright

Wright has similarly leaned on Fox to attack renewable energy as too costly, unreliable, and an obstacle to America’s economic and technological ambitions. He also used his appearances to make sweeping claims that fossil fuel expansion is the only realistic path forward and to blame renewable energy for electricity price increases.

During a segment about the “importance of unleashing U.S. energy” to meet growing demand from artificial intelligence on the September 4 episode of Fox & Friends, Wright told viewers that artificial intelligence represents “perhaps the highest use of electricity.” Later that day on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, Wright described offshore wind projects as a “guaranteed” driver of higher electricity costs, telling host Laura Ingraham that wind and solar are “variable, parasitic sources” that make the power grid less reliable and more expensive. He also claimed that by adopting offshore wind, the United States would be “competing for the most expensive electricity in the world.” Ingraham did raise the issue of higher electricity costs during the Trump administration but allowed Wright to spin, evade, and double down on falsely blaming renewable energy.

Video

Citation

From the September 4, 2025, edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum

Burgum has also used Fox appearances to promote the administration’s fossil fuel expansion agenda while attacking renewables as unreliable and costly.

During the August 2 episode of Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street, Burgum defended the administration’s proposed rollback of the endangerment finding, agreeing with Zeldin and Wright that the EPA had overstepped its authority. He also blamed increased energy costs on Obama- and Biden-era climate regulations, pushed deregulation as a way to unleash economic growth, and attacked offshore wind.

Video

Citation

From the August 2, 2025, episode of Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street

For example, on Kudlow, after Zeldin dismissed the endangerment finding as “a lot of mental leaps,” Fox host and former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow never pointed out that it was grounded in the Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision and decades of scientific consensus. Nor did viewers hear that it has prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and delivered billions in net economic benefits.

And when Wright insisted that renewables drive up electricity prices on The Ingraham Angle, the Fox host did not mention that analysts instead point to fossil fuel volatility, surging demand from AI data centers, and Trump’s own decision to roll back and cancel renewable energy projects as the primary drivers of increased electricity costs.

On Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, as Burgum railed against offshore wind energy and celebrated coal and gas as the foundation of energy dominance, Bartiromo never noted that solar energy combined with battery storage is now the cheapest and fastest-to-build source of new power, or that clinging to coal plants saddles consumers with higher bills while increasing pollution. Instead, the segment cast fossil fuels as the only reliable option, ignoring the economic and health benefits of renewables.

The Trump administration’s reliance on Fox News and Fox Business is not incidental; it is a core communications strategy. By prioritizing their appearances on Fox networks, officials like Zeldin, Wright, and Burgum gain access to a powerful megaphone while shielding themselves from scrutiny or accountability. Fox’s “straight news” programs give their talking points the appearance of neutrality, and its opinion hosts repeat and amplify those same claims until they harden into conventional wisdom.

The result is the laundering of misleading talking points: Administration officials feed misinformation into Fox, the network recycles and legitimizes it, and audiences are left with a propagandistic narrative that obscures the public health costs of climate change and environmental deregulation and dismisses the economic benefits of clean energy.

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WATTERS CLEARLY JOKING ABOUT VIOLENCE /BOMB BUT WHAT MAKES A LEGIT TARGET FOR JOKE?

09/23/25

RAMBLED, LIED? NOBEL PRIZE 7 WARS, 4X TIME LIMIT

09/23/25

MMA

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MMA

Right-wing media run wild with the blatantly false claim that Democrats are shutting down the government to secure “health care for illegals”

The New York Times noted a “misleading” Republican talking point on the looming shutdown. That talking point is all over right-wing media.

Written by Gideon Taaffe, Isabella Sherk & Pete Tsipis

Published 09/30/25

Right-wing media are pushing a lie that Democrats are threatening to shut down the government over “free health care for illegal immigrants” and want to “blow up the budget” for “illegal aliens” even though undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federally funded health benefits.

The Democrats are actually pushing to extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act without which millions of Americans could face significantly higher health care premiums and lose access to health care. Additionally, Democrats are pushing to reverse cuts to federally funded health care that were passed under Trump's “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July.

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  1. ### Sean Hannity: “I don't care if the government shuts down”

09/30/25 12:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Benny Johnson: “I feel like most workers in the federal government are nonessential. I think most of them could be replaced by an AI chatbot, frankly.”

09/30/25 12:13 PM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host: “Let's not pretend that the idea of a government shutdown isn't somewhat alluring to most of us”

09/30/25

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How Fox covers for Trump administration malfeasance

Monday night was a perfect case study

Written by Matt Gertz

Published09/23/25 MMA

The job of a Fox News evening host isn’t to cover President Donald Trump and his administration, it’s to give them cover. The network’s stars are shameless propagandists who employ a variety of tactics to hide the president’s misdeeds from their viewers. Their Monday night programs, which followed days of administration chaos and corruption, perfectly encapsulate how this process works.

Trump and his supporters, in just a few short months, have ushered in an unprecedented and radical transformation of American political life. A president who won office in large part by exploiting voter discontent over rising prices has exacerbated that problem through unilateral tariffs while simultaneously consolidating power, crushing dissent, enriching himself and his allies, and dismantling and remaking agencies that secure goals like public health.

The result is that any given day can feature several instances of wildly scandalous behavior, any one of which might have sunk a previous administration.

On Monday night, four such stories were circulating: Trump pushed out a U.S. attorney who had refused to prosecute his political opponent on insufficient evidence and replaced him with a crony; several outlets reported that his Justice Department appointees quashed a probe into a White House adviser who had been recorded taking a cash bribe; there was ongoing fallout from his top media regulator publicly threatening media companies over airing Jimmy Kimmel’s show; and at a White House event the president and his advisers issued a warning over Tylenol usage based on an unproven link to autism.

Any of those stories, explained in context, could prove devastating for the president and his team. But Trump has maintained high approval ratings with his supporters — and thus maintained lock-step backing from congressional Republicans — in no small part because his base gets information through the filter of right-wing media. And much of the right-wing media, fearing a revolt from their audiences, isn’t inclined to provide information that conflicts with their biases.

Here’s how each of those scandals played out Monday night on the panel show The Five and the eponymous programs of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Sean Hannity.

What happened:On Friday, ABC News reported that Trump was “expected to fire” U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert because Siebert had refused White House demands to bring mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously prosecuted Trump, because investigators did not find incriminating evidence against her. After Siebert left office, Trump publicly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to “act fast” on prosecutions against James, former FBI Director James Comey, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in what The New York Times called “an extraordinary breach of prosecutorial protocols that reach back to the days following the Watergate scandal.” The president subsequently appointed Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide and longtime Trump legal adviser with no experience as a prosecutor, to replace Siebert; she took office as acting U.S. attorney on Monday.

Fox’s response: Fox’s stars spent the years of Trump’s first term and Joe Biden's presidency complaining of a two-tiered system of justice in which federal law enforcement agencies were persecuting the right while letting the left off the hook. In reality, Republican and Trump-appointed officials kept finding sufficient evidence to prosecute Trump and his allies and didn’t find enough to do the same against his foes. But now that Trump is loudly and publicly demanding politicized prosecutions — and pushing out his own appointed prosecutor when he refused to play along — the same voices have gone silent: The story was not mentioned Monday on The Five or the programs of Ingraham, Watters, and Hannity.

Many such cases: Fox hosts have similarly ignored stories about Trump’s relationship with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. killing research into next-generation vaccines; statements by an immigrant the Trump administration sent in error to a notorious foreign prison who says he was beaten and sexually assaulted by guards; reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information derived from a classified email over an unsecured group chat; and an exodus of top Defense Department staffers over concerns with Hegseth’s management style.

What happened: Two days after ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel inaccurately suggested that the alleged killer of Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk was part of “the MAGA gang,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr publicly threatened ABC’s affiliates and its corporate parent, Disney, with regulatory retribution. Nexstar, a large affiliate network which needs Carr’s approval for a corporate merger, subsequently said its affiliates would immediately preempt Kimmel’s show; soon after, ABC announced that the program was suspended indefinitely. On Monday, after widespread criticism of the administration’s effort to curtail speech and ABC’s capitulation, Disney said Kimmel would return to the air on Tuesday.

Fox’s response:Several Fox hosts used the news that Kimmel was returning to the air to claim that his initial removal had been a business decision unrelated to administration pressure. Hannity claimed that while those “on the left” had been “melting down” and falsely blaming Trump for Kimmel’s suspension, it was now proven to have been “a decision by ABC Disney, not the government.” Watters called it a “show-biz decision” and aired a chyron stating “ABC benched Kimmel, not Trump.” Ingraham agreed with guest Raymond Arroyo’s claim that “ABC deciding to put Kimmel back on, it does lay to rest this narrative that somehow the government was orchestrating his removal from the air.” Fox host and former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on The Five, “The government didn't decide it because he’s back tomorrow, so quite clearly the government didn’t force this.” Their talking point aligned with arguments that Republican politicians and Carr himself had offered about the case as they backpedaled away from its free-speech implications.

Many such cases:Fox hosts similarly made excuses when Trump tried to fire Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook over a pretext; when Trump failed to release Epstein documents as he promised; when a Democratic senator was violently removed from a Department of Homeland Security press conference; when a foreign government gifted Trump a plane valued at $400 million; when the administration sent people in error to a notorious foreign prison; and when top Trump aides discussed plans for military strikes in an unsecured text chain — and inadvertently included a journalist in the group.

What happened: MSNBC and other news outlets reported over the weekend that the FBI had recorded White House border czar Tom Homan accepting a bag of cash from undercover agents in September 2024 as part of a corruption investigation, and that the probe was subsequently scuttled by Trump law enforcement appointees. Homan, at the time a Fox contributor and a close Trump adviser pegged for a key administration role on immigration if Trump were elected, had reportedly indicated to the agents that he could help them win government contracts. In statements, top officials from the FBI, DOJ, and White House claimed the probe had not uncovered evidence of illegal activity — but notably did not deny that Homan had been recorded taking a bag of cash from undercover agents.

Fox’s response: Fox hosts regularly provide administration officials and other appointees an opportunity to field friendly questions that help them spin damaging stories. Ingraham gave Homan that treatment on Monday. After offering him softball questions about a new California law banning ICE agents from wearing masks and how the administration can “speed up” mass deportations, she asked him to respond to the story from “our always reliable MSNBC” that “you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump's second term.” In his minute-long response, Homan denounced the “hit piece,” claimed that “nothing illegal happened,” and touted his own “sacrifices” and work for the president — but notably did not deny taking the bag of money. For her part, Ingraham let Homan ramble and ended the interview rather than asking a follow-up question to clarify that point.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly aided Kennedy after he purged top leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Hegseth after he shared attack plans over an unsecured text chain.

What happened:Researchers have found that autism is largely a heritable condition and that the increase in cases over the years is due primarily to a broadening of the diagnostic criteria. But at a Monday event at the White House, Trump, Kennedy, and other top health aides “launched a broad offensive against the mainstream understanding of autism, claiming without new evidence that acetaminophen — the active ingredient in the common pain reliever Tylenol — was a cause of the disorder,” as The New York Times put it. Health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, previously called such evidence inconclusive, and the drug is “considered one of the few safe options to treat pain or fever during pregnancy.”

Fox’s response: Ingraham on Monday touted the administration for “sounding the alarm” over a link between Tylenol and autism in response to how “the number of children with autism has spiked unbelievably over the last number of years.” She then hosted Trump health officials Mehmet Oz and Marty Makary to tout the “growing body of evidence” in support of the administration’s position and to denounce contrary findings as “false.” Watters likewise highlighted the White House’s “major medical bombshell” before turning to another Trump health official, Jay Bhattacharya, to praise the administration for supporting “prudent medicine” and providing a “judicious evaluation” of the evidence.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly cheered after Bondi reportedly ordered federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury probe into various Obama administration figures on spurious grounds; Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear targets; the president enacted various unilateral tariff shifts; and the Trump administration implemented a mass purge of FBI agents.

MMA //

06/14/23 1:24 PM EDT

09/18/25 12:00 PM EDT

09/22/25

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Fox ignores climate change while covering collapsing houses along the North Carolina coast

:{SpecialPrograms Climate & Energy:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

Written by Ilana Berger

Published09/19/25

During a September 18 segment, Fox & Friends covered the most recent instance of a house collapsing into the Atlantic Ocean — this time on Hatteras Island in North Carolina — and mentioned erosion along the coast, but left out that climate change is contributing to the problem. Sea-level rise and erosion from increasingly severe storms has helped claim 11 other homes in the unincorporated community of Rodanthe, North Carolina.

Video

Citation

From the September 18, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

CARLEY SHIMKUS (CO-HOST): A stilt house collapsing on the shore along the Outer Banks of North Carolina this week. It's now the 12th home claimed by the Atlantic Ocean in the past five years. The two-story beach home fell at the north end of Hatteras Island. Thankfully, the home was empty at the time. Officials say recent storms have worsened erosion, leading to more collapses like this. Those are your headlines, guys. Huge home.

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): It's interesting they let them just collapse. They don't destroy them before, knowing this is going to happen.

SHIMKUS: Yeah, that's right. And clearly the ocean is moving up the shore or they wouldn't have built that home in the first place.

EARHARDT: It's a big problem. It's a big problem on the East Coast. And you spend so much to have that beachfront property and then, you know — over time, it's gone.

SHIMKUS: It is, yes.

The Charlotte Observer correctly implicated the role of climate change in its reporting on the home’s destruction, highlighting that Hurricane Erin in August generated “waves as high as 50 feet,” causing “severe erosion in some places along the East Coast.”

The Observer noted that “the home was well away from the ocean and behind a vegetated dune when it was built in 1969. But a series of storms, which have occurred more frequently in recent years due to climate change, carved away the beach and the dune and brought the surf up to the pilings of the home and a string of others to its north and south.”

While the Fox & Friends segment mentioned that worsening storms “have caused erosion,” the network has repeatedly downplayed any connections between hurricanes and climate change, which has been making storms grow rapidly and more intense, destroying homes and businesses. Fox has also downplayed the threat of sea level rise, which occurs “mostly due to a combination of melt water from glaciers and ice sheets and thermal expansion of seawater as it warms,” according to NASA.

As FactCheck.org pointed out, “For every inch of sea level rise, approximately 100 inches of beach are lost, according to NASA oceanographer and climate scientist Josh Willis.”

Trump’s Department of Energy recently published a so-called “critical review” of climate science, which included several climate contrarians as authors and “cherry-picks text, data, and studies that paint an incomplete picture” in order “to suggest rising sea-levels in the US are only due to land-sinking,” according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. The DOE report uses limited information to claim that there is “no obvious acceleration beyond the historical average rate of sea level rise.”

Meanwhile, members of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which manages the coastal area that was impacted, told The Charlotte Observer that “there are probably dozens of homes endangered on the oceanfront.”

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Fox averts its eyes from former employee Homan reportedly receiving a bag of cash

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Harrison Ray

Updated 09/22/25

Fox News has yet to address on-air the recent reports that White House border czar Tom Homan, while working as a contributor for the network in September 2024, accepted a bag of cash from undercover FBI agents as part of a corruption investigation which was subsequently closed under the Trump administration.

MSNBC reported on Saturday:

In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC.

The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the case, two of the people said.

It’s unclear what reasons FBI and Justice Department officials gave for shutting down the investigation. But a Trump Justice Department appointee called the case a “deep state” probe in early 2025 and no further investigative steps were taken, the sources say.

The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summer of 2024 after a subject in a separate investigation claimed Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the presidential election, according to an internal Justice Department summary of the probe reviewed by MSNBC and people familiar with the case.

The handoff, according to MSNBC, came on September 20, 2024, while Homan was making frequent appearances on Fox as a paid network contributor in which he promoted Trump’s xenophobic positions. Homan had joined Fox after retiring as ICE’s acting director in 2018, a position in which he reportedly served as the “intellectual ‘father’” of the Trump administration’s depraved family separation policy.

The New York Times and ABC News subsequently confirmed MSNBC’s reporting, with the Times adding the detail that the cash payment had been “made inside a bag from the food chain Cava.”

Notably, in their statements to the outlets, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson did not deny the reporting that Homan had been recorded taking a bag of cash from undercover agents. Instead, they claimed that the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of illicit activity when it closed the investigation.

But MSNBC’s legal experts concluded that while Homan’s “actions didn’t clearly fit under a standard bribery charge” because neither he nor Trump were in office at the time, further investigation was warranted to determine whether he would continue accepting bags of cash once he was a public official. (A lesser charge would have been possible based on his promise to commit the crime, and MSNBC reported that “several FBI and Justice officials believed that they had a strong criminal case.”)

To state the obvious: Fox would be covering this story if it implicated a Democratic official and administration. But as of posting time (noon ET), the network has not mentioned it.

Homan is the lynchpin of the right’s anti-immigrant strategy. He makes regular appearances on Fox and throughout the MAGA media ecosystem, helping them churn out propaganda in support of Trump’s cruel, unlawful, and increasingly unpopular mass deportation policies.

Homan is a loyal member of the Trump team, and so its other members are uninterested in whether he was taking bags of cash in exchange for promises of future favors. Former Fox host Megyn Kelly made this explicit, responding to the MSNBC scoop over the weekend by posting, “We DO NOT CARE. Don’t bother [Homan] he’s a national treasure.”

Fox’s stable of propagandists apparently agree. The network regularly shields from its viewers information that reflects poorly on Trump, the policies he supports, and the administration he assembled. A recording of their former colleague accepting a bag of cash is apparently no different.

{Update (9/22/25, 3:10 p.m.):* White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the Homan probe during her briefing, which Fox carried live in its 1 p.m. hour. Leavitt responded that Homan “never took the $50,000 that you're referring to, so you should get your facts straight.” After the briefing concluded, Fox anchor Gillian Turner asked Fox political correspondent Byron York about the exchange. York called Leavitt’s denial “huge” and a “clear conflict” with what was reported elsewhere.}:

MMA //

08/08/22

11/12/24

08/07/25

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Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo pushes raising retirement age for Social Security

09/18/25

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Fox News completely ignored Senate hearing with ousted CDC director Susan Monarez

09/17/25

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Fox News embeds with feds bringing the war on terror to Trump’s invasion of Chicago

The military created its modern embed program to sell the post-9/11 wars. Now, as Trump unleashes his deportation machine on Chicago and beyond, Fox News is along for the ride.

Written by John Knefel

Published09/17/25

Men in military fatigues loitered out of focus as Fox News national correspondent Griff Jenkins, in an understated, earth-toned shirt, somberly described the launch of a new, multi-agency operation in a city one of his colleagues had recently described as “a war zone.” Jenkins was on what Fox anchor Bill Hemmer referred to as an “exclusive ride-along,” embedded with militarized forces in tactical gear as they — in the words of their top commander — went hunting.

“Operation Midway Blitz is fully underway,” Jenkins intoned during the September 9 segment. “They are surging in this elite team of ICE agents behind me, just moments ago executed a criminal arrest warrant for an illegal Mexican agent.”

Although Jenkins was in Chicago, not the outskirts of Baghdad in 2003, the optics couldn’t have been any clearer if former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were holding a special deck of 55 cards. Operation Midway Blitz was MAGA’s updated take on Operation Iraqi Freedom’s “shock and awe,” and compliant media were along for the ride.

As former President George W. Bush launched his global war on terror after the attacks on 9/11, the U.S. military modernized its approach to journalistic access and created an embed program — attaching reporters to front-line units with the ultimate goal of selling the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. While journalists had a modicum of freedom from military censorship during the Vietnam War, which resulted in negative coverage that the brass blamed for the U.S. failure there, the model was different by 2003.

The new approach was to stymie critical reporting before it went public, what some researchers refer to as a “precensorship” regime. The predictable result was coverage that legitimized the Iraq War and deemphasized stories that centered on Iraqi victims and exposed the horrors of the occupation.

Now, Fox News and the Trump administration are bringing that paradigm to U.S. cities as the wars on terror, drugs, and immigrants congeal into an all-purpose authoritarian campaign on domestic soil.

Trump hasn’t deployed National Guard troops to Chicago yet, though he has repeatedly made that threat. His new target is Memphis, Tennessee, in part because Republican Gov. Bill Lee supports the effort, which will include other federal agencies as well. Operation Midway Blitz, on the other hand, is an element of Trump’s mass deportation campaign, which is spearheaded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The stakes for Trump’s militarized approach were made plain on September 12, when an ICE agent shot and killed a man after a vehicle stop just outside Chicago.

Jenkins’ report was filed three days earlier, but it clearly showed how such stops and arrests can quickly escalate.

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From the September 9, 2025, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

“Take a look at this video,” Jenkins said, describing the violent detention of a Chicago resident. “Early they captured him coming out of his house. He got into his vehicle and tried to hide in there.”

“The ICE agents were forced to break the window and extract him,” Jenkins continued over footage of agents wearing camouflage and body armor — some in masks — throwing the man to the ground and handcuffing him.

“Griff, you saw some action — immediately,” Hemmer said to close out the segment.

Fox News helped bring the war on terror to the southern border

Jenkins’s stunt represents an escalation from Fox News in that it imposes the logic and aesthetics of foreign war reporting on a major U.S. city, but the network has a long history of working alongside armed agents of the state to produce what are essentially press releases, most recently as it pertains to immigration enforcement.

The parallels between the heady days of the George W. Bush administration and Trump’s second term are everywhere, for those curious to look.

As the industrial base of the war on terror evolved to focus on the U.S. southern border, so too did the complimentary media coverage. The center of gravity for the right’s national security priorities shifted from places like Fallujah to places like Texas’ Eagle Pass, and Fox News reporters and producers could titillate their audiences with dramatic, war-like footage much closer to home.

Fox’s Bill Melugin, who served for years as a border correspondent, frequently embeds with ICE units and state law enforcement like the Texas Department of Public Safety. Like Fox’s recent Chicago footage, Melugin’s coverage has served to reinforce the right-wing argument that the border was a war zone where only a militarized response would suffice.

Melugin’s own reporting helps illustrate how the war on terror metastasized to fit the needs of the Republican Party — and Fox News — in the Trump era. As Media Matters previously reported:

Melugin was the key driver of one of the biggest immigration stories of 2021, the perceived crisis of Haitian migrants who had established a small camp under the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas. There was a crisis, but it was for the Haitians who were relegated to extreme deprivation, humiliation, and stigma — not for the residents of Del Rio or for the United States more broadly.

Melugin initially used an airborne drone to cover the story, later appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight repeatedly to discuss his footage. When the Federal Aviation Administration instituted a two-week flight restriction over Del Rio, the Texas Department of Public Safety allowed him to embed in an agency helicopter to continue his coverage. The FAA later gave Fox clearance to fly the drone again, which Melugin did, keeping the manufactured crisis in the headlines.

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He regularly refers to families as “family units,” the official, and dehumanizing, term used by the Department of Homeland Security. His reports often sound like he’s on safari, hunting prey. “Just a short time ago we had a group of runners come zipping right by us,” he said in November. “We found two of those runners hiding in a bush. Very difficult to see them.” Later in the segment, Melugin referenced a “remarkable” video published by far-right website Breitbart that showed a man trying to sink rafts migrants were using to cross the Rio Grande.

In April 2022, Melugin co-bylined an article warning that “Border Patrol apprehended at least 23 people coming across the southern border whose names are on the terror watchlist in 2021.” The story served as the basis for at least seven segments the day it was published, part of a longrunning and false right-wing narrative that terrorists were widely attempting to infiltrate the United States through the southern border.

Fox News makes the war on terror great again

Jenkins’ embed is play-acting, another form of threat inflation that simultaneously casts Chicago as a war zone — despite the city’s historically low rates of gun violence — and Trump as its liberator. His performance is an attempt to legitimize Trump’s campaign, and to naturalize the full importation of war on terror logic to U.S. streets. Beyond Chicago, Fox has supported Trump’s threats to other cities, including sending in troops to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and New York City.

And if Melugin’s vague fearmongering about terrorists at the border in the early 2020s felt like an afterimage of the 9/11 era, Fox’s coverage of the first six months of Trump’s second term is more like a targeting scope coming into focus. The parallels between the heady days of the George W. Bush administration and Trump’s second term are everywhere, for those curious to look.

The war on terror is back, and this time it's wearing a bright red MAGA hat.

Fox anchor Harris Faulkner recently echoed Bush’sformulation that “either you are with us or with the terrorists” when she responded to Trump’s extrajudicial killing of 11 people on a boat off the coast of Venezuela on September 2. Addressing critics of Trump’s order, Faulkner asked: “Are they working against America and for the drug cartels?” (Trump has since targeted a second boat, killing three people, and claims to have “knocked off” a third without offering further details.)

Fox celebrated the initial strike itself and has been pushing for military escalation in Venezuela — up to and including regime change. The playbook is so familiar Fox’s Jesse Watters reanimated one of the key phrases used to sell the invasion of Iraq. “That drugged out dinghy was a floating weapon of mass destruction packed with enough poison to kill countless Americans,” Watters said on September 3.

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From the September 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

A range of Fox personalities celebrated Trump’s decision just days after taking office to send people to Guantanamo Bay, perhaps the defining symbol of both the beginning of the war on terror and its seeming permanence. Pete Hegseth, the former Fox & Friends Weekend co-host now serving as Trump’s secretary of the newly renamed Department of War, deployed to the Guantanamo detention camp with the National Guard following 9/11. Two decades later, he returned there in his official capacity “to speak to service members who are currently supporting the illegal alien holding operations being led by the Department of Homeland Security.”

The war on terror is back, and this time it's wearing a bright red MAGA hat. But for those not attached — in every sense of the word — to the government forces currently terrorizing U.S. cities, it’s clear the war never even ended at all.

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LISA KENNEDY MONTGOMERY (CO-HOST): I don't like it. I don't like it because of the nuns. Because all it takes is one fishing boat with a broken radio or people who don't speak English and you're killing innocent civilians and I do not like that.

The war on drugs failed the first time around. Things can go very badly here. We have not properly addressed demand in this country. That has not gone away. That is one of the reasons that the cartels proliferated during and after the war on drugs. So we do have to address demand in this country. We do have to address why do people, especially kids, in this country want to put things in their body they know can kill them? It is terrifying.

And instead, we're doing it wrong because we are, you know, we're giving people heroin to shoot up instead of taking people who need the most mental health treatment and who need the most drug treatment and getting them into facilities which can extend their lives and make them better. So, you know, I do agree with Rand Paul here that if there are people we want to go after, instead of just killing them without any due process, put them on trial. And, you know if they get tried in a state where they do have the death penalty, then let due process play out.

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Fox continued Trump’s campaign to fire Fed board member Lisa Cook just before reports seemed to exonerate her

09/16/25 MMA

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note no ref to kirk bef shot?

an 9 25

After MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in Utah on Wednesday afternoon, September 10, a long list of centrist Democrats, liberals and progressives wasted no time wholeheartedly condemning the attack — from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to former President Joe Biden to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, who is originally from the U.K., tweeted, "Charlie Kirk called me a 'lunatic' and a 'prostitute' and demanded I be deported. Nothing, nothing, justifies killing him, or robbing his kids of their dad. We don't know the identity or motive of the shooter but murder can never be the response to political disagreements."

On Fox News, however, far-right host Jesse Watters had a threatening tone when he called for retaliation against Kirk's critics.

READ MORE: 'He did not care': Details emerge about 71 year-old mistakenly arrested after Kirk murder

Watters told viewers, "They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. And what are we going to do about it? Charlie would want us to put as much pressure on these people as possible….. This is unacceptable, and it has to stop. And it has to stop now. And everybody's accountable. And we're watching what they're saying on television and who's saying what. The politicians, the media, and all these rats out there. This can never happen again. It ends now…. This is a turning point."

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Watters called for the right to "avenge Charlie's death" — a comment that journalist Pete Twinklage found especially disturbing.

On X, formerly Twitter, Twinklage posted, "this is spectacularly dangerous rhetoric. the Murdochs need to bench Watters immediately. vowing to 'avenge' Kirk's horrific assassination instead of calling for calm is beyond irresponsible. the country is a tinderbox and this lunatic is juggling dynamite and matches."

Watters' comments are generating a lot of discussion on X.

READ MORE: Group of students 'stood up and cheered' after Charlie Kirk was shot: eyewitness

New Jersey-based Kim Hurdman tweeted, "Why would the Murdoch’s bench him? They installed him. The entire network promotes this mindset and ideology. Telling people their political opponents are enemy[.] They spent 40 yrs getting fabulously wealthy telling older white pp who to be afraid of and who to hate. Get real."

Journalist Jessica Durkin posted, "Meanwhile MSNBC is apologizing up and down because Matthew Dowd said the truth on that channel that Kirk speaks hate."

U.S. Marines veteran Gene Frenkel tweeted, "MSNBC fired Dowd.. Watters deserves the same."

Another U.S. Marines veteran, Paul Nun, commented, "Jesse Watters made an entire career around stoking division. He failed to mention the Republican terrorist who murdered Democratic politicians a few weeks ago."

X user Martin Judd remarked, "Murdochs have just announced the most radical far-right son will run the place. So he is not going to be of any help."

Journalist/author John L. Valentine wrote, "This punk isn't going to do anything but run his mouth. He's a TV warrior. Brave behind his desk. He'll leave the violence he's trying to incite to others. His call for more violence won't end the violence. It'll only exacerbate it."

READ MORE: 'None of us should tolerate this': Trump ripped over 'deplorable' promise of 'retribution'

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11 PPL ON BD SO LIKELY HUMAN SMUGGLING?

MMA

September 5, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

HARRIS FAULKNER (ANCHOR): We begin with this Fox News alert. The Trump administration ramping up its mission to stop narco-terrorists who are bringing in deadly drugs to the United States. Now he has slowed things down to a crawl at the border. So that has helped. But we have a tremendous amount of things coming into the country in other ways. I mean, you know, they are being pushed from China, we know that. That's where the original sourcing is. The Pentagon is reportedly deploying ten advanced fighter jets to Puerto Rico now to join the fight against the drug cartels. Those jets will join a growing military build-up into the Caribbean. So I want to get into how this is still getting into the country. We will. I'm Harris Faulkner. You are in the Faulkner focus.

This week the U.S. Military took out a vessel the administration says was carrying Venezuelan gang members and drugs. It's hard to believe that that wouldn't be a good thing for everybody — because it is. Somebody's not really telling the truth on this. Under a Trump administration, the people on the left and the legacy media say this is a bad thing. Why?

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FAULKNER: I love that part about: It feels to me. That's not exactly how any of this works. So are they just fooling around on the left or do they realize what they actually sound like? Are they working against America and for the drug cartels with their support? These are questions they need to answer.

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Fox News mostly ignored warnings from FEMA employees that Trump is setting the stage for a “disaster on the level of Hurricane Katrina”

09/04/25 3:37 PM EDT

  1. ### National TV news coverage of Hurricane Katrina’s 20th anniversary was solemn and respectful but largely elided the structural inequalities the storm exposed

09/04/25

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Before Trump appointed Fox News entertainer Jeanine Pirro U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, NPR reports she already had a reputation with her old bosses at Fox.

"Insane," is how one Fox corporate board member described one of her public statements, according to NPR.

"Reckless maniac," is how a Fox News executive put it.

“I don't trust her to be responsible," another executive admitted.

READ MORE: Economist Paul Krugman says Trump 'telling the truth' on this issue — but there's a catch

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Still another company head was horrified at Pirro’s “tendency to find random conspiracy theories on weird internet sites."

NPR reports these opinions were lifted from legal documents made public last month in a defamation lawsuit brought by Smartmatic, a voting technology company, against Fox News. Pirro is named as a defendant. The critiques circulated when Pirro was at the top of her purported game at Fox as an explosive entertainer fond of big, blaring statements and claims, similar to the breathless threats and “federal assault” prosecution Pirro lobbed at a man who hurled a hoagie at a U.S. border agent in Washington, D.C.

“He thought it was funny. Well, he doesn’t think it’s funny today because we charged him with a felony assault on a police officer, and we’re going to back the police to the hilt. So, there — stick your subway sandwich somewhere else,” Pirro shouted into her office camera.

A federal grand jury did not agree, handing Pirro her second defeat at indicting D.C. residents protesting President Donald Trump’s flood of federal agents on local streets.

READ MORE: 'Trump takes this snub personally': Conservative mocks 'saddest little dictator'

“The U.S. attorney can try to concoct crimes to quiet the people, but in our criminal justice system, the citizens have the last word,” said defense attorneys for Sidney Lori Reid, who Pirro tried to prosecute allegedly placing herself between ICE agents and someone they were detaining. “We are anxious to present the misdemeanor case to a jury and to quickly clear Ms. Reid’s name.”

NPR reports former Trump senior official Sarah Isgur saying the jury was still out on whether Pirro can be an effective prosecutor.

"At some point in the near future, she's going to be really tested — like all U.S. attorneys with these kinds of big posts are," said Isgur. "And we'll find out whether those comments were prescient or whether she really does understand the difference between the two hats."

Read the full NPR report at this link.

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Nearly all major cable news networks carried the high-profile press conference in Washington D.C. in which victims of convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein called for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release all of its Epstein-related evidence. Fox News, however, largely dismissed it.

Mediaite reported Wednesday that Fox aired the presser up until Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took aim at the Trump administration for continuing to keep the Epstein files under wraps, specifically naming the FBI, the CIA and the DOJ. At that point, host Dana Perino cut away.

"So Marjorie Taylor Greene continues speaking at this press conference about the Epstein files, the Epstein victims, as well – a highlight on them today," Perino said, before segueing into a separate story attacking Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as "the worst mayor in America."

READ MORE:'The American people are watching': Epstein victims put Trump on notice

Others also noticed Fox News suddenly cutting away from the press conference. Media Matters for America senior fellow Matthew Gertz wrote on X: "While CNN and MSNBC are airing the press conference featuring Jeffrey Epstein's victims, Fox News is providing counter-programming featuring a Trump appointee."

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"MSNBC and CNN giving full coverage to Epstein victims testimony today, because Trump is president and wants it to go away," conservative freelance journalist Jack Hunter tweeted. "Fox News not covering it at all, because Trump is president and wants it to go away."

Deadline.com correspondent Ted Johnson also confirmed that Fox News diverted from the press conference by posting four screenshots with the text: "CNN, MSNBC and BBC on press conference with Epstein victims, Fox News so far is not."

"What an absolute disgrace on the part of @FoxNews -- the network cut away from the Epstein survivors press conference," one X user wrote. "Fox is clearly taking orders from the White House."

READ MORE:'We have a problem': CNN data guru sounds alarm as 70% of Americans abandon core value

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Fox and other right-wing media are ignoring or praising the Trump family's self-serving cryptocurrency ventures

08/28/25

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The hosts of Fox News’ Fox & Friends tried to help Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clean up the mess caused by the purge of top leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, downplaying the agency’s crisis while serving up softball questions to the Department of Health and Human Services secretary in a Thursday morning interview.

The White House said Wednesday night that it had fired CDC Director Susan Monarez, just a month after her confirmation by the U.S. Senate. The Washington Post reported that Kennedy, who was a notorious antivaccine activist before his appointment at HHS, had demanded Monarez’s resignation after she declined to say that she would “support rescinding certain approvals for coronavirus vaccines.” At least three senior CDC officials announced their resignations following her dismissal, including the agency’s chief medical officer and its top scientists overseeing vaccines and emerging infectious diseases.

Fox bears significant responsibility for Kennedy’s ongoing dismantling of U.S. health agencies and their work. The network’s stars helped mainstream antivaccine sentiment within the GOP, elevated Kennedy during his 2024 presidential campaign as part of a strategy to return President Donald Trump to the White House, and greased the skids for Kennedy’s ascension to the pinnacle of the U.S. health bureaucracy. They even assured their viewers, in the words of Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt, that Kennedy was “not going to take away vaccines.”

But rather than treating Kennedy’s CDC purge as an off-ramp, Fox responded by doubling down on its support.

Plenty of reporters surely wanted to speak to Kennedy after he pushed out the CDC director then watched other agency leaders leave. But it was the co-hosts of Fox & Friendsthat got the opportunity, and it’s obvious why — they were willing to treat the exodus as a minor story. Indeed, Brian Kilmeade’s promo focused on an entirely different topic.

“RFK Jr. is taking on the chronic disease epidemic and how he wants to change medical schools to make America healthy again,” Kilmeade said. “The HHS secretary will deal with that — and all his staff changes — coming your way.”

That was also the tenor of the interview.

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From the August 28, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

Kennedy fielded nearly four minutes of questions about Wednesday’s mass shooting at a Minnesota Catholic school before guest host Emily Compagno finally raised the issue of Monarez’s ouster.

But Compagno did not mention the reason for Monarez’s dismissal or the number of CDC officials who had subsequently resigned, instead asking: “The CDC director was fired after refusing to resign, as her lawyers accuse you, sir, of putting millions of lives at risk, as the CDC vaccine chief slammed in a resignation post. What are your thoughts on that?”

Kennedy responded that “it would be inappropriate for me to comment on a personnel issue” before pivoting to critique the CDC’s praise of vaccines and its need for “strong leadership” that “will be able to execute on President Trump's broad ambitions.”

Kilmeade then read from a statement criticizing Kennedy from Monarez’s lawyers and noted two of the other CDC resignations before adding, “Is this something that’s caught you by surprise? What’s your reaction to people that are getting a little worried?”

Kennedy responded: “I think that no, it has not caught us by surprise. Again, I cannot comment on personnel issues, but the agency is in trouble, and we need to fix it, and we are fixing it, and it may be that some people should not be working there anymore.”

And with that, discussion of the CDC losing four top leaders overnight was concluded, as Compagno asked Kennedy an open-ended question that allowed him to segue to “our newest initiative to try to get the medical schools to start teaching nutrition.”

After a few minutes of discussion on that topic, the interview closed with an ominous sign for the future, as the HHS secretary previewed his promised September report on the purported causes of autism.

“We are now developing sufficient evidence to ask for regulatory action on some of those, or at least recommendations,” Kennedy said.

It seems likely that Kennedy will attempt to carry out the anti-vax project to which he’s already dedicated years of his life, using false claims that vaccines cause autism to try to alter the childhood vaccine schedule that reduces pediatric deaths and hospitalizations from infectious diseases.

:{After last night, there are fewer senior leaders at CDC to stand up to Kennedy and his conspiracy theories. And after this morning, we can expect Fox to be in his corner.:{}:

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Murdoch media find a scapegoat for New Jersey’s high electric rates

As data centers demand enormous energy outputs and Garden State grid operators reportedly slow-walk new projects, right-wing media take shots at renewable energy

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Ilana Berger

Published 08/27/25

The price of electricity has been on the rise across the country. Between 2021 and 2024, the average monthly residential electricity bill in America went up by $22 per month. Now, energy prices are rising twice as fast as inflation and are expected to increase further.

Several factors, including increased demand for electricity to power new data centers and New Jersey grid operator PJM’s reported failure to quickly connect renewable projects to the grid, are contributing to the rate hikes in New Jersey.

As electricity bills become a prominent concern in New Jersey and across the country, Energy Secretary Chris Wright complained to Politico, “We’re going to get blamed.” Indeed, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is set to increase energy costs “by around $165 per household per year in 2030, and by more than $280 in 2035 — a jump of over 13% compared to current costs.” Instead of acknowledging that, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post are scrambling to find a way to blame rate hikes on now-imperiled renewable energy projects — projects that tech companies fought to keep as they search for ways to make their data centers viable.

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From Katrina to Helene: A timeline of Fox News’ hurricane misinformation, harmful narratives, and climate denial

August 29 marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Louisiana

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 08/28/25 mma

For two decades, Fox News has weaponized major disasters caused by supercharged storms to attack political opponents, push right-wing narratives, and deny climate change.

Major storms that hit populated areas generate wall-to-wall TV news coverage. At its best, this coverage exposes systemic issues that leave certain populations vulnerable to disasters, keeps a spotlight on both rescue and recovery processes to keep accountable those responsible for disaster response, and discusses the link between our warming planet and the intensification of storms, along with solutions for reducing climate pollution.

At its worst, coverage ignores these issues, downplaying or denying the role of climate change and using disasters to amplify false narratives and misinformation that serve a political agenda. In 20 years of hurricane reporting, Fox News’ coverage has predominately reflected the latter.

Below is an overview of some of the major storms that have made landfall in the U.S. over the past 20 years – and how Fox covered them.

Hurricane Katrina remains the costliest extreme weather disaster in U.S. history and one of the deadliest, with many of the 1,392 deaths likely having come as a direct result of the federal government’s failed response. Over 1.5 million survivors were displaced, making it also “one of the largest forced migrations in U.S. history. … Families were separated, homes were lost, and entire communities were erased.”

The media latched on to unverified stories of violence and societal breakdown, demonizing those most impacted by the storm and further delaying rescue and recovery efforts. Military forces were deployed to suppress the victims rather than evacuate them. Fox pushed this narrative of violence — “robberies, rapes, carjackings, riots and murder. Violent gangs are roaming the streets at night, hidden by the cover of darkness” — and supported the Bush administration's reported strategy of blaming the faulty emergency response on Democratic state and local officials.

Superstorm Sandy hit the eastern United States in October 2012, causing at least 182 deaths and approximately $65 billion in damage. Fox criticized the Obama administration's Hurricane Sandy relief efforts by comparing them to the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. In fact, there were few similarities between the responses, and the Obama administration's response to Sandy was widely praised by members of both parties.

Discussing Hurricane Sandy on the November 1, 2012, edition of his show, Fox host Sean Hannity asked: “So where's President Obama? Well, after his photo-op with Gov. Chris Christie, and the help of your tax dollars, he boards Air Force One and he begins his day with a stump speech.” Hannity later said, “And with the horrifying images of Sandy's devastation now contrasted with the president's constant campaigning, this is starting to look like, in my opinion, Obama's Katrina.”

Hurricane Harvey was, at the time, “the most significant tropical cyclone rainfall event in United States history” and was particularly devastating to Black and Hispanic communities in Texas. Discussing Hurricane Harvey on the August 25, 2017, edition of The Five, Fox host Jesse Watters downplayed the impact of climate change on hurricanes, stating, “Hurricanes have been happening since the beginning of time. … These things just happen. It’s called the weather” — a nonsensical argument, as scientists are not claiming that climate change causes hurricanes, but that it makes them stronger and more intense.

Hurricane Irma, which hit Florida, was one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic. It claimed 129 lives in the U.S. and Caribbean and cost an estimated $52 billion in damages. Discussing Hurricane Irma on the September 11, 2017, edition of The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld also brought up the frequency of hurricanes while ignoring intensity, stating that “landfalling U.S. hurricanes, they’ve been decreasing over the last 140 years.”

Hurricane Maria killed an estimated 3,000 people in the U.S. territory and caused roughly $90 billion worth of damage. President Donald Trump’s administration was widely criticized for its response and for blocking federal aid to Puerto Rico, which struggled for weeks to return power to its residents. The mayor of San Juan publicly criticized Trump’s response, and Trump drew backlash when he threw paper towels into the crowd at a relief center. Lying about death toll numbers, Trump claimed Democrats had inflated the number to make him look “as bad as possible.”

Fox personalities were among the right-wing media figures who leapt to Trump's defense. Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs called the Hurricane Maria death toll a “farce” and “an amazing tortured inflation.” Fox News’ John Roberts suggested that the dispute over Maria's death toll in Puerto Rico was part of Trump’s “feud with Puerto Rican officials.”

On the October 19, 2017, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the former host defended Trump from charges of racism against Puerto Ricans because “Puerto Rico is 75 percent white, according to the U.S. Census.” Carlson characterized as “unfounded” the charges that the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was racist and added that “the race angle” bothered him because “it makes people hate each other, and it’s just stupid.”

Hurricane Florence caused catastrophic damage to the Carolinas, claiming at least 37 lives. On Fox, climate denier Joe Bastardi and Rush Limbaugh’s former “official climatologist” Roy Spencer dismissed the link between climate change and intensifying hurricanes in favor of the denier argument that the frequency of hurricanes is decreasing. (Climate science does not argue that climate change is increasing the number of storms, but rather that it is making storms “more intense, with higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and more severe storm surge.”)

On the September 14, 2018, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Spencer talked about the declining frequency of “hits of the United States by major hurricanes,” claiming there’s too much “natural variability” to determine what influence human actions have had on hurricanes. On Hannity, Bastardi stated, “The amount of hurricanes in the last 50 years, from Florida to New England, is 37% of what it was the previous 50 years, so if there’s climate change going on, it's actually decreasing the amount of major hits.”

Affecting many states in the south, Hurricane Dorian was also the worst storm ever to hit the Bahamas and was responsible for at least 78 deaths. But the lives that Dorian claimed were overshadowed by the spectacle of “Sharpie-gate” when the president altered a map of the storm’s predicted path with a marker. After Trump lied about the path of Hurricane Dorian, using a Sharpie to manufacture a threat to Alabama, not only did prime-time host Sean Hannity defend him, but Fox’s Howard Kurtz attacked the media for covering Trump’s comments. Hannity called the media who reported on Trump’s lie “psychotic jackasses” and claimed that only “Trump derangement syndrome” could explain why reporters would point out that the president was wrong.

Roy Spencer appeared on the September 2, 2019, edition of The Story with Martha MacCallum to downplay climate change’s impact on hurricanes. Spencer stated that there is “no long term trend in either their intensity or in the number of major hurricanes … that have hit Florida.” On the September 4, 2019, edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Ainsley Earhardt again brought up storm frequency in order to downplay the link between climate change and hurricanes, stating, “Hurricanes have been happening since the beginning of the atmosphere.” Later, on September 4, 2019, Jesse Watters appeared on The Story with Martha MacCallum to claim falsely that “there's no correlation between temperature and hurricanes, and there's no trend over the last hundred years about intensity or ferociousness or numbers.”

Hurricane Ida caused extensive damage from the Southeast to the Northeast U.S., where it brokeprecipitation records in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania and caused major flash flooding, killing 95 people and causing an estimated $85 billion in damages. Fox News used the storm to downplay the seriousness of climate change and attack then-President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, including the infrastructure bill that contained measures to make communities more resilient in the face of extreme weather.

While discussing Hurricane Ida on the September 7, 2021, edition of The Ingraham Angle, one of the network’s favorite climate contrarians, Michael Shellenberger, said that the frequency of hurricanes is decreasing and that there is “no significant increase” in intensity — a bald-faced lie. On the September 8, 2021, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Joe Bastardi downplayed the intensity of the storm by arguing that other bad storms happened in the 1950s.

On the September 2, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Hannity, Sean Hannity began a segment downplaying the impacts of climate on Ida by stating, “The left is blaming climate change for the heavy rainfall, severe weather, and using it as yet another pretext to push their Green New Deal socialist agenda.” On the September 5, 2021, edition of Fox News’ The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, host Steve Hilton ran a short segment on Democrats supposedly using Ida to implement the Green New Deal.

Hurricane Ian brought a historic storm surge and catastrophic flooding to Florida and was responsible for at least 84 storm-related fatalities. As Hurricane Ian pummeled Florida and the Carolinas, Fox News dismissed, mocked, and outright denied climate change’s impact on hurricanes. On the September 29, 2022, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, former Fox host Tucker Carlson focused on hurricane frequency and downplayed the intensity argument, falsely claiming that “there’s no science behind these claims.” On the September 28, 2022, edition of Hannity, Sean Hannity stated, “During hurricane season, you usually have hurricanes, like we did a hundred years ago.” Later that night on The Ingraham Angle, Michael Shellenberger stated that hurricanes are “not intensifying right now, so any perception that hurricanes are more intense is just a perception fed by that relentless alarmist media.”

Meanwhile, Jesse Watters mocked Biden's disaster response. Watters said, “Maybe the reason Joe [Biden] isn't talking with the leader of the state that's about to be devastated by this natural disaster is because he's already got the whole thing covered with the Inflation Reduction Act. Sen. Amy Klobuchar laid it out for us clearly. There's no need to worry, people, because the Inflation Reduction Act and voting for Democrats is going to stop hurricanes.”

Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast, causing approximately $4 billion in damage to one of the state's poorest and least populated areas. As climate-fueled Hurricane Idalia barreled toward Florida, Jesse Watters Primetime hosted Judith Curry, a climate contrarian who consulted for oil and gas companies during her time in academia, to argue that scientists have “seriously mischaracterized” the threat of climate change. She claimed that the “dominant factor” in climate change is “far and away” Earth’s “natural climate variability.”

On the August 30, 2023, edition of Fox News’ so-called straight news program Special Report with Bret Baier, anchor Bret Baier dismissed comments from Joe Biden connecting the storm to climate change.

With 213 fatalities, Hurricane Helene became the second deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in 50 years, with economic losses estimated at more than $200 billion. Fox used Hurricane Helene to attack the Biden administration’s policies and disaster response while laundering harmful misinformation, even while politicians of both parties representing the impacted areas praised the response and begged media and bad actors to stop spreading misinformation that ultimately disrupted rescue and recovery efforts and put Federal Emergency Management Agency workers in danger.

One of these false and harmful claims contended that FEMA’s hurricane victim relief funds had been drained by aid to undocumented immigrants. In reality, the funding is separate and unrelated. Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity led the charge in repeating the false claim; Watters’ prime-time show repeated the lie in 5 consecutive broadcasts starting October 3, and Hannity managed 6.

Fox News also falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration were ignoring millions of Americans impacted by intense flooding while dishonestly claiming that victims were only entitled to $750 in aid, when in reality that is just the start of federal benefits. Fox’s misleading coverage of the $750 payments was “one of the more dishonest omissions ever seen on Fox News – which is saying something,” Mediaite senior editor Michael Luciano wrote of the misleading attack by Fox hosts Hannity, Watters, and Laura Ingraham.

Fox personalities also complained about the Biden administration’s pledge to give $157 million to Lebanon, incorrectly claiming that the humanitarian aid for Lebanon was being taken from funds that would otherwise be used for disaster relief assistance. Hannity misleadingly suggested U.S. foreign aid was competing with disaster relief for funding. Watters, meanwhile, incredulously asked, “How is it that Biden and Harris can send money overseas faster than they can send it to our own citizens?”

In May, just weeks before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season and peak extreme weather, CNN obtained an internal memo warning that FEMA was “not ready” for hurricane season. According to the internal assessment, preparations for hurricane season have been “derailed” and issues abound at the agency, “including a general uncertainty around its mission, lack of coordination with states and other federal agencies, low morale and new red tape that will likely slow responses.” Fox ignored reporting on the agency's lack of preparation for this year’s extreme weather season. The network was also quiet about multiple states that expressed frustration over delayed or denied disaster relief from the Trump administration.

On June 2, acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson made headlines, first in Reuters, for telling staff in a daily briefing that he had been unaware the U.S. has a hurricane season. Legacynewsoutlets, including cable networks CNN and MSNBC, covered Richardson’s controversial remarks and the wider concerns about FEMA’s hurricane preparedness while Fox News seemingly ignored them.

After the deadly flooding in Central Texas in early July, Fox News personalities attacked the media and prominent Democrats for linking the flooding to climate change and for raising concerns about Trump administration cuts to agencies and services that predict and respond to extreme weather events. When reporting showed that the Trump administration’s response had been delayed, Fox ran defense for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

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an 8 25

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has found yet another way to troll President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies: selling Bibles online for $100 — which is Newsom's way of making of making fun of "Trump Bibles."

Although Fox News pundits weren't offended by "Trump Bibles," some of them are deeply offended by Newsom's latest trolling campaign. Newsom is selling the Bibles via his online store, the Patriot Shop.

Dana Perrino and Will Cain were among the angry Fox News hosts.

READ MORE: 'Sick of all the lies': Missouri farmer erupts at GOP rep for backing 'dictator' Trump

Cain told viewers, "He seems to have found ground, legs with the left by mocking President Trump. Like the ChatGPT personality, he's just borrowing now from President Trump, copying his style with X post, now he's even going for his own MAGA style merch."

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Perino said of Newsom, "You have to stop it with the Twitter thing," and complained about his "performative, confrontational style" — which, she said, only "wins you points with the loony radical base."

Newsom's latest trolling campaign and Fox News' angry responses to it are generating a lot of discussion on X, formerly Twitter.

The Monterey County Republican Party posted, "Gavin Newsom's signed Bible sold out at 0, because the ones he touched kept burning his skin. Sick sick man."

READ MORE: Inside Trump's downfall — and the thing that will finally do him in

Politico's Christopher Cadelago observed, "A trolling Gavin Newsom is selling a holy bible along with other MAGA-inspired merch — and the $100 bible is already sold out."

...

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mma

Fox News' Bret Baier promised a “fair” and “balanced” interview with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin that was anything but

Fox’s “straight news” show proves once again to be a safe space for Trump officials to propagandize the administration's most radical rollbacks

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Published 08/22/25

Fox News has spent years manufacturing consent for the GOP to dismantle climate policy, building a narrative ecosystem that depicts environmental regulations as illegitimate and recasts climate funding as corruption.

Former Republican congressman turned Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is one of the latest beneficiaries of this ecosystem, relying on Fox’s programming to promote his rollbacks. His August 19 appearance on Special Report with Bret Baier showed how the network’s flagship “straight news” show turns the Trump administration’s destructive policy into routine politics, treating one of the most consequential climate rollbacks in modern history as common-sense rather than a public health emergency.

Baier let Zeldin define the stakes and avoid the consequences of Trump’s EPA rollbacks

During the nearly 10-minute interview, Fox anchor Bret Baier invited Zeldin to frame the EPA’s endangerment finding — the legal foundation for greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act which Zeldin recently announced plans to revoke — on his own terms.

:{:{First, Zeldin dismissed the finding as a series of “mental leaps,” a line that Baier let stand without noting its legal basis in the Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision or its firm grounding in scientific consensus. When Baier pivoted to discuss the Biden administration’s climate funding, he allowed Zeldin to parrot debunked allegations of “waste and abuse.” }:

The Fox “news-side” anchor also credulously echoed Zeldin’s talking points about “pass-throughs” rather than pressing him on what canceling $29 billion in grants for programs such as Solar for All would mean for emissions, public health, or making energy more affordable for low-income communities. Baier ended the interview by paraphrasing Politico’s description of Zeldin’s former congressional colleagues being “mystified” by his actions as EPA administrator. This provided Zeldin with an opportunity to rebut his critics while avoiding questions from experts, industries, or communities affected by his policies.}:

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Citation

From the August 19, 2025, episode of Fox News' Special Report

In May, Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo referenced the same Politico description during her program, setting Zeldin up to defend himself in similar fashion. By raising vague criticisms from colleagues instead of hard questions about policy impacts, Bartiromo and Baier provided Zeldin with an easy stage to launder administration talking points and reframe catastrophic policy rollbacks as common-sense governance.

Baier promised a “fair” and “balanced” interview with Zeldin, but he delivered only the facade of actual journalism — a flattering segment dressed up as accountability that, in practice, serves to mislead viewers and shield the administration from scrutiny.

Special Reportlaunders Fox’s climate denial narratives into “straight news”

Fox News has long amplified fossil fuel industry talking points and elevated climate contrarians to downplay or dismiss the scientific consensus on global warming. Several such figures — Judith Curry, John Christy, Steven Koonin, and Roy Spencer — recently helped co-author the Department of Energy’s widely discredited “critical review” of climate science, which is being used to justify rolling back the endangerment finding and other protections. Fox has played a key role in the decades-long campaign by right-wing groups to dismantle the finding itself.

This pattern of denial and distortion also runs through Special Report. For years, Fox’s flagship “straight news” program has consistently softened or distorted the stakes of global warming and climate action. Between 2009 and 2021, more than 87% of its climate segments contained misinformation or misleading narratives.

Zeldin has slotted into this system seamlessly. During his first 100 days as EPA administrator, Zeldin made 36 cable news appearances, 35 of them on Fox networks — more than any other Trump Cabinet official. He has used this saturation to shape the climate discourse, pushing talking points that frame climate funding as corruption, environmental regulation as overreach, and fossil fuel expansion as common sense. Fox has amplified these claims across its networks, airing more than 50 segments portraying the Biden administration’s $20 billion in climate funding as waste, fraud, or abuse. By repeating Zeldin’s rhetoric and omitting the evidence that undermines it, Fox has helped harden these claims into conventional wisdom for its audience.

Together, Fox’s opinion shows and its “straight news” programs such as Special Report form a unified ecosystem that primes viewers to accept the right’s policy priorities without question. By the time the Trump administration moved to repeal the endangerment finding, Fox had already established the narrative for Zeldin’s talking points.

Fox rarely, if ever, holds Trump administration officials accountable. By contrast, networks like CNN have aired critical segments and investigations, even if their rare live interviews with Trump officials too often miss the mark. And while CNN and other outlets must do better when they have rare opportunities to interview administration officials, Baier’s role is different.

Special Report is the program Fox relies on the most for its credibility as a news network, and that is why Baier’s handling of Zeldin matters. In presenting the Trump EPA administrator’s comments without pushback under the network’s “straight news” banner, Baier helped the administration to justify repealing the endangerment finding — potentially the most consequential climate rollback in modern history.

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  1. ### The Trump administration's “critical review” of climate science is authored by some of Fox News’ favorite climate deniers

08/14/25 3:47 PM EDT

  1. ### Mainstream TV news outlets have squandered rare opportunities to hold Trump officials accountable for climate harms

08/12/25 4:01 PM EDT

  1. ### The Trump administration launches assault on the EPA’s endangerment finding following decades-long right-wing media campaign

08/14/25

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New legal filings show the depths of Fox's loyalty to Trump

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/23/25 MMA

My latest piece for MSNBC is about how newly public filings in the lawsuit by voting technology company Smartmatic shed more light on how Fox News systematically punished staffers who told the truth about President Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election while rewarding those who aided that effort:

What stands out most as one sifts through the Smartmatic filings is that almost all the Fox employees shown enacting this “pivot” kept their jobs and were even promoted. While some have left the network over the past year, they did so to join Trump’s second administration. Meanwhile, those depicted as trying to stand up for facts were largely purged. With hindsight, it’s easy to see that since airing deceit after the 2020 election, Fox has solidified an incentive structure in which staffers are rewarded for propping up Trump and everything he does, while they risk consequences only for breaking with that edict.

The documents show Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO and co-chairman of Fox’s parent company, and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott supporting Fox News host Jeanine Pirro’s uncensored return to the network’s airwaves, a platform she used to push election conspiracy theories. After Murdoch’s father, Rupert, retired in 2023, Lachlan ascended to chair of Fox Corp., while Scott retained her position.

[...]

This obvious disparity sent a clear message to Fox’s employees: If you deviate from the MAGA script, you put your career at risk, but if you follow it, you will be rewarded. That incentive structure has echoed down through Fox’s coverage ever since, as the network hollowed out its “news” side, propped up Trump’s return to the leadership of the Republican Party and then the White House, and served as a megaphone for an administration stocked with former colleagues.

Read the whole thing.

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MMA

Eight damning new revelations about Fox’s 2020 election lies from the Smartmatic filings

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/21/25

Newly available filings in the election technology company Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News provide fresh insights into the network’s egregious and irresponsible promotion of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies — four and a half years after Fox’s propaganda helped trigger a violent insurrection in which enraged Trumpists sacked the U.S. Capitol.

The documents, which support Smartmatic’s motion for summary judgment and were originally filed in April, were first reported by The Washington Post after a judicial hearing officer removed many of the redactions.

The documents feature numerous previously unseen text messages and internal communications between Fox hosts, executives, producers, and other employees as Trump attempted to use false claims about the 2020 election to subvert the results of the election he lost and remain in power.

Fox’s internal machinations during this period were previously made public through the lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, another election technology company which accused the network of defamation over its post-election coverage. Fox ultimately settled that suit as it went to trial in 2023 for a record $787.5 million.

The contours of Smartmatic’s story are broadly similar to — if no less damning than — the one Dominion told: Fox hosts and executives knew that Trump lost the 2020 election and that the claims of widespread election fraud he and his supporters pushed were false, but they nonetheless pivoted in the days following the election to promote such conspiracy theories -– including falsehoods about the company — because they were taking heat from viewers overcalling Arizona for Joe Biden and feared losing market share to more aggressive competitors like Newsmax

But the Smartmatic filings provide new evidence that helps flesh out the tale of Fox’s cowardice and corruption.

Maria Bartiromo leveraged her status at Fox to try to overturn the election: “I am news”

Maria Bartiromo was once a respected business reporter, but reinvented herself as a hardcore MAGA propagandist during the first Trump administration. But even as she went further and further down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, Bartiromo has retained her position on Fox’s “news” side, anchoring Fox Business’ three-hour weekday program Mornings with Maria as well as the weekend show Sunday Morning Futures,which is simulcast on Fox News.

Smartmatic’s filings show Bartiromo leveraged that position as she tried to get Sidney Powell, the MAGA attorney notorious for her far-fetched election claims, to come on her Fox Business show in mid-November 2020. (Bartiromo hosted Powell on her Fox News show earlier that month to push election lies after Powell sent her an email featuring fraud hypotheses from someone who also claimed that “the Wind tells me I’m a ghost, but I don’t believe it.”)

“Sidney we must keep you out there,” Bartiromo wrote in a November 17, 2020, Signal message.

She contrasted her own role at the network with that of then-Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, another avid promoter of election fraud lies, and suggested she could provide more helpful treatment, saying, “Dobbs is considered very opinionated. I am news. How about Friday?”

Bartiromo later suggested to Powell that her own goal was to reverse the election results and keep Trump in power. “I am very worried,” she wrote. “Please please please overturn this. Bring the evidence. I know you can.”

Bartiromo still has both of her “news” shows.

The filings show then-Fox host Jeanine Pirro texted Ronna McDaniel, then the chair of the Republican National Committee, the following on September 21, 2020: “I work so hard for the party across the country… I’m the # 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and the party.”

It’s not precisely news that Pirro viewed her work at the network as an extension of Trump’s campaign — it would in fact have been difficult to come away with a different conclusion after watching her commentary over the years.

Nonetheless, it’s helpful to have that confirmed explicitly in writing.

In mid-November 2020, I reported that Fox appeared to be trying to stave off its competitors by heavily promoting its prime-time “opinion” stars during its purported “news” hours. This campaign included the “news” programs running ads hyping the hosts casting doubt on the election results, airing on-screen bugs promoting their shows, and playing lengthy clips from the “opinion” shows.

The Smartmatic filings reveal that Fox CEO Suzanne Scott apparently ordered this breach of the purported wall the network maintained existed between its “news” and opinion divisions. She emailed top Fox executives on November 9, 2020, demanding that the “news” hours increase its promotion of “opinion” talent like Pirro and the prime-time hosts. She wrote (emphasis added):

On the website – its 345p and I still dont see our opinion folks being promoted on .com – I’m seeing a ton of FOX nation – need that changed asap for the next few weeks. Same for FOX News channel – not seeing nearly enough promotion of primetime talent other than the little bug. And we should get a Pirro promo in as well. This is something I called around about first thing this morning. I’m traveling next four days and expect this to be handled well.

Sean Hannity went from considering Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani an “insane” person he could not conceive of hosting to welcoming him back onto his program in 10 days.

The Fox host functioned as an extension of Trump’s White House and regularly hosted Giuliani to spin Ukraine conspiracy theories that Fox’s research team said were not credible. But the former New York City mayor turned Trump lawyer was apparently going too far for even Hannity in the early days of Trump’s campaign to delegitimize the 2020 election results.

The filings show Hannity texted associates on November 10, 2020, to say of Giuliani: “He is going nuts. We canceled the guy. Read what’s wrong…. He’s insane.” He told producers the following day that Giuliani is “acting like an insane person. I’m not redpill78.” (According to the Smartmatic filing, “Hannity testified that his reference to ‘redpill78’” — a streaming program associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory — “indicated that he was skeptical” of Giuliani.)

On November 19, 2020, Hannity interviewed Giuliani about his election fraud claims.

Hannity subsequently testified that he had hosted Giuliani because he was a “top newsmaker.”

He retains his Fox prime-time show.

The Dominion filings show that a Fox executive took Pirro off the air the weekend after Election Day, preempting her November 7, 2020, broadcast because he did not “trust her to be responsible.” They also reveal that after Pirro’s show returned the following weekend, her executive producer struggled in vain to prevent her from promoting what he termed her election “conspiracy theories.”

Those filings, however, do not fully explain why Pirro returned to the air in the first place. Smartmatic’s filings fill in that gap: They show that Pirro’s removal sparked a backlash from the MAGA faithful that Fox’s CEO, at Fox prime-time star Sean Hannity’s urging, sought to quell by increasing Pirro’s profile and allowing her to comment without “being censored.”

According to the filings, Hannity told Pirro via text message on November 10, 2020, that he had already reached out to Scott to talk about issues including Pirro’s treatment by the network. When Pirro vented to her colleague, “I’M TIRED OF THE CENSORSHIP AND I’M EMBARRASSED BY HOW THEY CALLED THIS ELECTION,” he further explained that he was “looking for changes” including “to leave u alone.”

Hannity may have already been getting results: Scott’s email the previous day ordering more promotion of Fox’s opinion hosts included Pirro along with the prime-time hosts. A few days later, promos for Pirro’s upcoming show were running and being distributed through right-wing channels.

A flurry of communications about Pirro’s show followed between Scott and Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch and between Scott and Fox executive vice president of primetime programming Meade Cooper the day before Pirro’s next broadcast.

“Has anyone spoken to Judge Jeanine before her show this weekend?” Murdoch asked Scott. “It would be good if she corrects the record and clears up the schedule change last week.”

Scott passed the request on to Cooper, who replied that they weren’t planning to make a statement about that and added, “David Clark is reviewing all scripts and working with her on her open. She is very into not being censored but he is working with her closely on it.”

“We don’t want to censor her,” Scott replied.

According to the filing, Scott “had a conversation with Pirro related to coverage of election fraud claims before Pirro’s November 14 show.” The same day, when Hannity texted her to crow about all the promos she was getting, Pirro replied, “I gave 3 demands. New producer. No censorship. 9 pretapes. Suzanne [Scott] promised me NOT overruled by Meade cooper.”

The newly unleashed Pirro used the opportunity the cowed Fox executive team gave her to promote election conspiracy theories that ultimately proved very expensive for Fox.

But it’s hard to get disciplined at Fox for being too supportive of Trump — she was subsequently promoted to the weekday panel show The Five and recently left Fox to become U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Scott’s handling of Pirro shows how willing Fox was to bend over backward to provide editorial independence to its conspiratorial opinion hosts. But “news-side” personalities at the network who tried to shut down such claims weren’t so lucky.

The Smartmatic filings show top Fox executives expressing dismay after anchor Neil Cavuto cut away from a November 9, 2020, White House press conference featuring press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and told viewers, “She’s charging the other side is welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting. Unless she has more details to back that up, I can't in good countenance continue showing you this."

Tom Lowell, Fox’s vice president and managing editor of news, subsequently told other top Fox executives that anchors like Cavuto should not have the authority to cut away from live events, writing: “Needs to be a chain of command here considering the environment we are in. It’s not the talents call and [t]he EP [Executive Producer] needs approval from you [Mitchell] or Jay [Wallace] in the handling of pressers.”

When GOP state legislators put on a series of sham election fraud “hearings” in late November and early December 2020, which featured Trump’s legal team and discredited “witnesses” with unverified or debunked claims, Trump praised Fox’s right-wing competitors for airing the hearings live — and criticized Fox for failing to do so.

Scott responded to the pressure by urging her network to start taking such hearings live in a December 2, 2020, email to Lowell. She suggested that the “witness testimony” at the events constituted the “evidence that the news division has been saying doesn’t exist,” and concluded, “This is BUSINESS. RIGHT NOW BAD BUSINESS.” From her email:

The entire impeachment was about one anonymous hearsay whistleblower. We ran the Schiff Nadler show wall to wall. If we wanted to send a strong message to the audience, run the witness testimony. That’s called evidence that the news division has been saying doesn’t exist. Now will the results ever change. Odds are next to zero. This is BUSINESS. RIGHT NOW BAD BUSINESS.

Lowell admitted that the network had featured witness testimony in stories about the hearings without fact-checking them but warned Scott that airing the events live was not a good news practice.

“It is one thing for us to give a platform to the Presidents Attorneys and surrogates, or people like this guy on with Sean [Hannity] right now who signed an affidavit, but we need to be skeptical of some of these supporters who just wander in to make statements about things they think they saw,” he wrote in an email to Scott.

The Smartmatic filings provide new details about what Fox’s Jesse Watters was told and what he did during this period, while he was the host of the weekend evening program Watters’ World.

Watters was explicitly warned not to promote election fraud claims immediately after the 2020 election, according to the filings.

“On November 6, Watters texted Fox host Pete Hegseth, ‘By the way, did you get the memo about not saying fraud?’” the filing states.

Watters testified that this was a reference to instructions relayed by his producer, Megan Albano. In a text message the same day, Albano told Watters, “If we call the race, you cannot, under any circumstances, cast doubt on” the election because “the powers that be are not having any of it.”

This message did not stick, the filing shows: “On November 21, 2020, an original television broadcast of Watters’ World aired at 8:00 p.m. on Fox News. Dobbs appeared as a guest, discussing a ‘cyber-attack’ using voting machines to steal the 2020 election, and Watters presented an ‘investigation’ into Dominion and Smartmatic.”

The filing further states that in a text to The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld, Watters wrote: “Think about how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL.”

Fox has since given Watters two promotions — he gained his own weekday evening show in January 2022, and that program took over the network’s “pivotal” 8 p.m. timeslot in June 2023.

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MMA

  1. ### Matt Walsh to Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL): “You're an anchor baby. You became an American thanks to a paperwork loophole.”

08/13/25 3:23 PM EDT

  1. ### On CNN, The New Yorker's David Kirkpatrick discusses his reporting that Trump is “pocketing off the presidency,” making at least $3.4 billion

08/13/25 2:55 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media champion migrant detention camps amid reports of horrific conditions

08/13/25 12:55 PM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host says that following DC, Trump will target more “blue cities” like Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco, and New York City

08/13/25 9:14 AM EDT

  1. ### Anti-trans pundits who championed the idea of protecting women’s sports now say that throwing sex toys at women athletes is hilarious

08/12/25 7:01 PM EDT

  1. ### Greg Gutfeld suggests expanding D.C. police takeover to Baltimore and Chicago

08/12/25 6:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News host: “Jim Crow 2.0 is kind of great”

08/12/25 5:44 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett advocates for federal takeovers of New York City and Chicago

08/12/25 5:41 PM EDT

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MMA

August 12, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JOHNNY JOEY JONES (CO-HOST): Lastly to Clyburn, if it's Jim Crow 2.0, just so you know, Jim Crow was pretty bad, but Jim Crow 2.0 is kind of great. I mean, we have it in Georgia and we had more people of color turn out and vote in this last election than ever before. So the more they use that -- the more they try to use the racist attack, the more the results yield something completely the opposite.

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AN 8 25

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) is widely seen as a top contender to challenge Republican Senator John Cornyn in a high-stakes race that could determine control of the U.S. Senate. Early polling shows her leading the Democratic field.

Fox News hosts in recent weeks have targeted the outspoken Texas Democrat, an attorney, and in one particularly caustic segment on Thursday, they denigrated her intelligence and capabilities.

“Her incompetence is beastly,” declared Fox News co-host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery. “I mean, she certainly is a mental deficient.”

READ MORE: GOP Senator Denounces Anti-ICE Democrats as ‘Pawns’ of an ‘Anarchist Agenda’

“If you listen to any of her statements, and she is callous. She’s also, you know, she’s a dumb-dumb, and you can’t take her seriously,” Kennedy continued. “She doesn’t have solid policy positions, and, uh, you know, she is a recalcitrant piece of garbage.”

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Kennedy concluded that “all she cares about is making her profile more massive, and she’s massively incompetent.”

According to Newsweek, “Crockett has not yet declared a run for Senate but has been viewed by many as a rising star in the Democratic Party on the national stage. Her rise has also drawn significant criticism and backlash from Republicans.”

In response to Crockett denouncing President Donald Trump’s “racist and wrong” remarks about the President of Liberia, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields on Thursday attacked the Texas Democratic Congresswoman.

READ MORE: ‘Absolute Cringe’: DHS Ridiculed After Attacking CNN Report—by Confirming It

“Jasmine Crockett has the brain capacity of a jellyfish and is the last person on Earth to critique anyone’s mental acuity, let alone intelligence,” Fields said, as The Hill reported. “The Democrats’ rising star has done more to cement the party’s demise than the President she breathlessly supported, the decrepit and feeble Joe Biden.”

In a poll commissioned by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), Crockett “led with 35 percent support among surveyed Democratic voters, ahead of [Colin] Allred at 20 percent, with [Beto] O’Rourke and Texas Representative Joaquin Castro both at 13 percent,” Newsweek noted.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Aug. 10, 2025, 3:00 AM PDT

By Matt Gertz, senior fellow for Media Matters for America

Fox News hosts elevated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to help return President Donald Trump to the White House. They then greased the skids for Kennedy’s confirmation as secretary of health and human services. But as he works to demolish American health care research, they are nowhere to be found.

Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic who once described Covid-19 shots as “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” announced on Tuesday that he is terminating nearly $500 million in federal contracts supporting the development of next-generation vaccines and other treatments based on mRNA technology. “After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH and FDA, HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses,” he said in a video posted online.

Before the pandemic, Kennedy was not a natural fit for the Fox audience.

But Kennedy’s announcement drew harsh criticism from infectious disease experts and other scientists. They warned that the cuts could stall treatments for everything from respiratory illnesses to cancer, leave the nation more exposed to pandemics, undermine public trust in vaccines and threaten U.S. global leadership in medical advances.

While Kennedy’s announcement was widely discussed on MSNBC and CNN, as well as by national broadcast, print and digital outlets, Fox News has almost entirely ignored it. A single 30-second news brief on its “Special Report” program represents the entirety of the Trumpist propaganda network’s coverage through Thursday, according to a Media Matters review.

Fox News may not want to claim credit for Kennedy as he stifles crucial medical research, but it certainly deserves it. You can’t explain the evolution from Trump’s first administration, which fast-tracked the development of mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 through Operation Warp Speed, to the second term’s anti-vax, “Make America Healthy Again” schtick without talking about the network’s role in turning the GOP base against vaccines and toward conspiracy theorists like Kennedy.

'Misinformed' or 'speaking in the wrong terms': Doctor rebukes RFK Jr. over cutting mRNA research

05:03

When pharmaceutical companies began rolling out the vaccines produced under the Trump administration in late 2020 and early 2021, Fox News’ stars could have used the unique influence they have over their viewers to encourage them to get their Covid-19 shots. But Trump had lost his re-election bid, and the network that had worked so hard to keep him in office instead pandered to anti-vaxxers by turning against the vaccination campaign helmed by his successor, President Joe Biden.

Led by its then-prime-time star Tucker Carlson, the network incessantly promoted misleading and false claims about safe, effective vaccines with the potential to save their viewers’ lives — day after day, month after month, year after year. The network uplifted conspiracy theories, gave airtime to conspiracy theorists and culture war vaccine opponents, demagogued against efforts to get more people to receive these lifesaving shots, and propped up ineffective cures as potential substitutes. Fox News continued to broadcast these segments even as more Republican parts of the country, with lower vaccination rates, suffered higher Covid-19 death tolls, as The New York Times’ David Leonhardt detailed.

All of the fawning attention on Kennedy from the right had the impact one would expect.

Before the pandemic, Kennedy, the scion of a Democratic dynasty who once called for a boycott of Fox News host Sean Hannity and described him as a fascist, was not a natural fit for the Fox audience. But with the Covid-19 vaccine campaign underway, his decades of work undermining vaccines and his attacks on the new mRNA vaccines in particular suddenly made him attractive to the right.

When he began his presidential campaign in March 2023 — with Carlson’s show as his launchpad — MAGA media stalwarts saw an opportunity. They treated Kennedy’s bid, first in the Democratic primary and then as an independent candidate, as a potent spoiler candidacy to boost Trump’s return to power. Kennedy became a constant presence on the programs of pro-Trump commentators. Fox provided him with more airtime than many would-be Republican standard-bearers received.

All of the fawning attention on Kennedy from the right — alongside mainstream news coverage of his bizarre history, such as his claim that a parasite in his brain had triggered memory loss — had the impact one would expect: Kennedy became more popular with Republicans than Democrats. As polls increasingly showed that he was pulling support from Trump, though, MAGA media figures like Hannity abruptly turned on Kennedy. After Carlson reportedly helped to facilitate Kennedy’s decision to drop out and endorse the once-and-future president, Fox hosts resumed showering the anti-vax champion with praise.

‘Explosive’ conservative non-doctor turbocharging RFK Jr’s healthcare coup

05:52

As Election Day approached, talk turned to what reward Kennedy could expect in return. Paul Dans, the former head of Project 2025, floated Kennedy’s name for HHS secretary — and that’s precisely the position Trump nominated him for.

Not everyone on the right was willing to accept Kennedy’s ascent. The editorial boards of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and New York Post denounced the decision and called for Senate Republicans to vote down his nomination.

Murdoch’s print voices lost out to his cable news shouters.

But Fox News hosts were elated. As Kennedy’s nomination moved through the Senate, they touted him as a “reformer” and “true health care crusader” who had “the skills, knowledge, and experience” needed for the job.” When Kennedy said he wasn’t going to take away anyone’s vaccines, Fox said he wasn’t going to take away anyone’s vaccines.

Murdoch’s print voices lost out to his cable news shouters — the Senate confirmed Kennedy on a near-party-line vote, with Sen. Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor, the sole Republican vote against him.

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And lo and behold, once confirmed, Kennedy continued the anti-vax project to which he had dedicated years of his life. He yanked $2 billion in funding to vaccinate children whose families may not be able to afford immunizations. He downplayed the importance of vaccination for quelling a measles outbreak even as measles cases hit record highs. He replaced the members of a vaccine advisory board with his own picks — some of whom were notorious vaccine critics — who plan to review the childhood vaccination schedule and scrutinize its components. And now he’s terminated federal funding that could have fueled a new wave of cures.

Under Kennedy’s leadership, the Department of Health and Human Services itself has become a grave threat to public health. That is the regrettable but inevitable consequence of Fox News’ cynical exploitation of its viewers. The network’s hosts should take a bow — they earned it.

Matt Gertz is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive research center that monitors the U.S. media. His work focuses on the relationship between Fox News and the Republican Party, media ethics and news coverage of politics and elections.

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As experts warn of a famine unfolding in Gaza, here’s how right-wing media are reacting

Many are denying the existence of famine or blaming Hamas and the UN. But some acknowledge the reality.

Written by Chloe Simon & Gideon Taaffe

Published 08/06/25 4:25 PM EDT

As world health experts warn that Gaza is experiencing the “worst-case scenario of famine,” right-wing media figures’ reactions have fallen into three broad buckets: Deny the existence of a famine, pin the blame on Hamas and the United Nations in Israel’s defense, or — in a few cases — acknowledge the reality on ground.

Figures like right-wing podcaster Laura Loomer flat-out claimed there’s “no starvation in Gaza,” and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk called images of malnourished children “propaganda,” saying it’s “emotional, visual, optical warfare.”

Others, like Fox News personalities Katie Pavlich and Mark Levin and Newsweek’s Josh Hammer have blamed the United Nations and Hamas for starvation in Gaza, claiming they’re “obstructing aid from entering” and “purposely starving the population as a PR strategy against Israel.”

There has also been a small group of right-wing media personalities who have acknowledged the unfolding famine in Gaza. However, some of them have strong antisemitic beliefs, such as white nationalist Nick Fuentes and far-right commentator Candace Owens.

Palestinians in Gaza are starving largely due to Israel’s restrictions on food entering the region — even Trump has acknowledged “real starvation”}:

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Fox News host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery (also known as "Kennedy") recently committed a major on-air error, and is being roundly mocked for it on social media.

On Monday, Kennedy was criticizing California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) over his proposal to allow California voters to decide this November whether to get rid of the Golden State's independent redistricting commission. Newsom floated the idea in response to Texas Republicans carrying out a mid-decade redistricting plan aiming to strip Democrats of five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

"This is why California is a monoparty state. That's why Democrats have a supermajority and, you know, that's why they have two Democrat senators. That's why they have a Democrat governor," she said. "And it's such a massive majority because of this type of redistricting, which is incredibly insincere."

READ MORE: 'Middle-aged Manson girls': Far-right 'bloodthirsty' MAGA women mocked in scathing take-down

Many commentators, journalists and other experts took to social media to remind Kennedy that statewide elected officers like U.S. senators and governors are not impacted by redistricting efforts, which are confined to U.S. House districts. Progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen wrote: "Can anyone explain to me how California has 2 Dem Senators and a Dem Governor because of gerrymandering?"

"Um... how does gerrymandering impact the election of Senators and the Governor?" St. Mary's College political science professor Todd Eberly tweeted.

"It was generally assumed you were smarter than to think a STATE WIDE VOTE is affected by how congressional districts are shaped or reshaped IN that state," former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann posted to X. "It's not one county, one vote."

"She is very very dumb," quipped Democratic commentator and 2024 Democratic National Convention delegate Kaivan Shroff.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Fox News has aired 168 segments about Tulsi Gabbard's revisionist claims regarding Russia, Obama, and the 2016 election

Written by Rob Savillo

Published 07/30/25

Coverage peaked in the middle of last week when the network aired 28 segments on July 23. Over the weekend, Fox's Life, Liberty & Levin and Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromodevoted their entire programs to the story.

Prior investigations into Russian activity during the 2016 election — including investigations spearheaded by the Republican-led House and Senate intelligence committees — have concluded that Russia did interfere through social media and hacked documents.

Media Matters reviewed segments from July 18 through July 28 about Gabbard's criminal referral or the contents of the referral. The top shows to cover the story were Hannity, with 16 segments; the network's flagship weekday morning show, Fox & Friends, with 15; America's Newsroom and Fox News Live, with 12 each; America Reportsand The Faulkner Focus, with 10 each; and finally Special Report with Bret Baierand Fox & Friends Weekend, with 9 each.

Trump's rabid base is obsessed with Epstein — the convicted sex offender who allegedly sexually abused underage girls for years and who died by suicide in 2019 amid new charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy — and the story of Trump's connection to the sex offender continues to be a problem for the president as new details emerge of the pair's once-close relationship.

In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed in a Fox News interview that Epstein's “client list” — of high-profile persons to whom Epstein allegedly trafficked young girls — was sitting on her desk, then the DOJ contradicted that statement in July to say no such list existed. Furthermore, The Wall Street Journal reported that the DOJ told Trump back in May that he is in the Epstein files. The DOJ subsequently denied the accusation.

Some of Trump's most ardent supporters have cried foul. Right-leaning podcasters are turning on the president over his administration's handling of the entire saga, and more generally, right-wing media are in disarray over developments in the case undermining the administration's credibility. Fox's attempt to sweep Epstein under the rug by way of boosting bogus claims against Obama-era administration officials makes the network complicit in Trump's efforts to quash a story that is ripping apart his MAGA faithful.

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[## Fox News gave new classified email revelation in Hegseth Signal scandal just 40 seconds of airtime 07/25/25

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One of the nation’s most prominent civil rights attorneys is denouncing Fox News co-host Greg Gutfeld’s attempt to normalize the word “Nazi,” diminish its horrific meaning, and strip it of the weight it carries. And she’s asking why so few seem outraged by his remarks.

“This is why the criticism doesn’t matter to us when you call us Nazis. ‘Nazi this,’ and ‘Nazi that,’ Gutfeld declared on Tuesday (video below) during the cable network’s show, “The Five,” in a segment where the chyron read: “Dems Smear ICE With Nazi Comparisons.”

“You know what? I’ve said this before,” he continued. “We need to learn from the Blacks — the way they were able to remove the power from the N word by using it. So, from now on, it’s, ‘What up my Nazi?’ ‘Hey, hey, what up, my Nazi?’ ‘Hey, what’s hanging my Nazi?'”

Sherrilyn Ifill, the civil rights attorney, Professor of Law, and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, wondered where Americans’ outrage had gone.

READ MORE: ‘Popping Champagne’: Russia Scoffs, Snubs Trump’s 100% Tariff Ultimatum

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“Just loathsome,” Ifill wrote. “I know it’s old school, but is there no demand that Fox fire him? Losing his microphone should be the minimum.”

Others also responded.

Progressive media outlet The Tennessee Holler called Gutfeld’s remarks “One of the most tone deaf and problematic 30 seconds of TV in our history right here. This will be tough to beat.”

The Lincoln Project responded, “So they’re just fully comfortable calling themselves Nazis now. Got it.”

The House Homeland Security Committee Democrats weighed in, writing: “Greg Gutfeld is an unwatchable racist clown.”

Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo News, wrote: “These quotes, even if said in jest, would destroy the careers of any other journalist on any other mainstream national media platform. But Fox doesn’t employ journalists and doesn’t have any journalistic (or decency) standards.”

READ MORE: ‘Divine Providence’: Johnson Paints Trump as ‘Miraculously’ Spared by God

Dr. Travis L. Stokes, Ed.D., as part of a lengthy response, wrote: “Let me get this straight: you’re comparing the Black community’s centuries-long, survival-forged, trauma-laden, complex reclamation of the n-word—a term born from slavery, lynching, Jim Crow, police brutality, redlining, mass incarceration, and generational trauma—to you and your little Fox News clowns tossing around ‘Nazi’ like it’s a TikTok trend?”

Philosopher, historian, and activist, Dr. Émile P. Torres called it, “The normalization of Nazism. Happening in realtime.”

This is not the first time Gutfeld has faced backlash for remarks invoking Nazism or the Holocaust. Two years ago, Gutfeld was rebuked for comments he made about Jews, the Holocaust, and Nazis.

“Officials at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland have criticized Fox News host Greg Gutfeld for saying on air that Jewish people survived Nazi concentration camps by being ‘useful’,” NBC News reported at the time.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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On July 1, CBS News' parent company, Paramount, agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit from President Donald Trump —who claimed that CBS edited a 2024 interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in a way that amount to election interference. Many Trump critics attacked the lawsuit as frivolous and baseless, arguing that Paramount was submitting to a shakedown just to be done with the matter.

Now, Fox News is drawing criticism for its editing of a 2024 interview with Trump, and critics argue that it was edited in a way to make Trump look good — not edited for journalistic purposes.

CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, in a July 14 post on X, formerly Twitter, tweeted video of the Fox News interview and noted their editing of comments on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

READ MORE: 'You dress as a cowgirl?' Kristi Noem bashed at homestate fundraiser

Kaczynski posted, "I had not seen this Fox News extended interview with Trump from 2024 — where they deliberately edited his (Jeffrey) Epstein answer — where he won't commit to releasing the full files because of 'phony' stuff in it."

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Kaczynski, comparing the unedited interview to Fox News' edited version, tweeted, "Check out what Trump said vs what Fox edited."

In response to Kaczynski's tweets, Media Matters' Matthew Gertz — obviously mindful of Trump's CBS News lawsuit — posted, "My understanding based on the CBS News precedent is that this is an illegal interference with the 2024 election that should result in Fox News paying tens of millions of dollars to orgs chosen by Kamala Harris and facing an FCC probe. Quote Andrew Kaczynski @KFILE."

In a separate tweet, Gertz posted, "At least that's the result when the president is engaged in a corrupt abuse of power crying out for more scrutiny."

READ MORE:There's far more to Trump and Epstein's relationship: Trump biographer

Former Trump supporter turned Trump critic A.J. Delgado tweeted, "Yup, I was tweeting about this last October, as were others, and no one seemed to care. It's insane that Fox edited the answer (the only reason the full answer came out is, I believe, that Will Cain later absentmindedly shared the full answer on his own show. That's the only reason we even know.)"

The Trump War Room account on X posted Fox News' edited version of the interview in June 2024.

Observations from Kaczynski, Gertz and Delgado's tweets on Fox News' 2024 interview with Trump are drawing a lot of discussion on X.

Former Obama Administration official Tommy Vietor wrote, "Time for Kamala to sue Fox News???"

X user Michael Serdikoff tweeted, "This is same (guy) suing CBS for editing Harris' remarks."

Another X user, Cindy Cooper commented, "So the Fox News network via Fox News Radio did air the entire answer. Thanks."

Watch the video belowor at this link.

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BESSENT SAYS DEMS BLEW UP DEFICIT IN 2020

FOX RETRACTED ABREGO KILLED AM

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PROJECTION DEFLECTION DEMONIZATION?

Laura Ingraham accuses Democrats of trying to start an "armed rebellion" | Media Matters for America

mma 7 25

July 7, 2025, edition of Fox News' *The Ingraham Angle

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Even otherwise, reasonable people, if they're led to believe by trusted news and political sources that Trump is truly evil and that he is truly a fascist, fascist country, then isn't armed rebellion the only answer? That deranged individual wearing full tactical gear who tried to ambush the border patrol today in McAllen, Texas, yeah, apparently thought so. Now, this is what Democrats knew would happen. They knew it. And, yet, they never tamped down the rhetoric, not after city blocks were burned during the Floyd riots, not after the Trump assassination attempts.

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Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: California’s Gavin Newsom sues Fox News, seeking a very specific amount of money

The Democratic governor is seeking more than $787 million — and if that figure sounds at all familiar, there’s a good reason for that.

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Trump’s condemnations of the nation’s free press are painfully routine, though the president has been a bit more hysterical than usual this week, and there’s no great mystery as to why.

Two days after the Republican declared that U.S. military strikes had “completely and totally obliterated” Iranian nuclear sites, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency completed a preliminary intelligence assessment that found the airstrikes were less effective than Trump claimed. A great many news organizations, naturally, shared that information with the public after the assessment was leaked to reporters.

Trump and his team lashed out wildly, not only because of the leak, but because independent media outlets reported the news. In fact, on Wednesday, Trump’s personal lawyer threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN, claiming that the newspaper and the network damaged the president’s reputation by running reports that Trump considers, among other things, “false” and “unpatriotic.”

Time will tell what, if anything, comes of such an odd threat, but as it turns out, the Republican isn’t the only political leader targeting a media outlet under related circumstances. NBC News reported:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Fox News on Friday, accusing host Jesse Watters of defamation by falsely claiming that Newsom had lied about a phone call with President Donald Trump during a dispute over the use of the National Guard in Los Angeles. The lawsuit ... claims that Fox ‘operates as a propaganda machine for President Trump’s radical right-wing agenda.’

Politico was first to report on the suit.

The Democratic governor is seeking more than $787 million — and if that seemingly unusual figure sounds at all familiar, it’s because that’s roughly the amount of money the network paid in 2023 to settle a defamation case filed by Dominion Voting System.

Or put another way, Newsom and his lawyers engaged in a bit of political trolling when they chose this specific dollar amount.

“By disregarding basic journalistic ethics in favor of malicious propaganda, Fox continues to play a major role in the further erosion of the bedrock principles of informed representative government,” the lawsuit states. “Setting the record straight and confronting Fox’s dishonest practices are critical to protecting democracy from being overrun by disinformation and lies.”

The incident that sparked the litigation came earlier this month. On June 10, a reporter asked Trump when he’d last spoken to Newsom, and the president replied, “A day ago.” The Californian quickly responded that he had no idea what Trump was talking about, adding that the two had no interactions on June 9.

The president later clarified that he was off by a couple of days in his initial comments, and the story (such as it was) faded from view.

But on Fox News, the story unfolded a little differently. In fact, on June 10, after airing an edited clip of the president, Watters told viewers, “Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?” The on-screen text read at the time: “Gavin Lied About Trump’s Call.”

In reality, the governor didn’t say that Trump “never called him”; he said Trump’s claim about a June 9 call was wrong, and on that point, the president himself soon after conceded that Newsom was correct.

“If Fox News fails to issue a formal retraction and on-air apology, we will proceed with the lawsuit so that a jury can determine Fox News’s culpability and assign a monetary value to its ‘blatantly unethical’ conduct,” the governor’s lawyers Michael Teter and Mark Bankson wrote in a letter.

Fox added in a statement of its own: “Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him. We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed.”

As a legal matter, Newsom faces a tough challenge. As Politico’s report noted, “Public officials must clear an extremely high legal standard to prevail in defamation cases, as the U.S. Supreme Court established six decades ago in New York Times v. Sullivan.”

Watch this space.

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  1. ### Fox News misled its viewers on what Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” would mean for American energy, jobs, and manufacturing

07/02/25 3:10 PM EDT

  1. ### Benny Johnson on Zohran Mamdani: “Trump told me yesterday he's just gonna put him in jail”

07/02/25 2:20 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: “The child tax credit is essentially a giveaway to people who don't pay taxes in the first place”

07/02/25 2:06 PM EDT

  1. ### Steve Bannon calls Florida Everglades ICE detention center a “congregation facility”

07/02/25 1:08 PM EDT

  1. ### National TV news largely failed to connect the record-breaking eastern U.S. heat dome to climate change

07/02/25 9:50 AM EDT

  1. ### Greg Gutfeld singles out Jewish voters in New York for attack: “Don’t talk to me"

07/01/25 6:50 PM EDT

  1. ### PBD Podcast panelist Adam Sosnick: “There's a big portion of Gen Z that needs to go to American reeducation camps”

07/01/25 4:52 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News falsely denies GOP's “One Big Beautiful Bill” will impact Medicaid while defending cuts in the bill

07/01/25 2:32 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk condemns Zohran Mamdani for how he “disgustingly” eats rice: “We in the West value cleanliness. We have utensils.”

07/01/25 2:24 PM EDT

  1. ### Many states' Medicaid programs have a different name, but local reporting is connecting the dots on One Big Beautiful Bill's massive cuts

07/01/25 1:14 PM EDT

  1. ### Racist AI-generated videos are the newest slop garnering millions of views on TikTok

07/01/25 11:47 AM EDT

  1. ### CBS Evening News explains how GOP's “One Big Beautiful Bill” would harm North Carolina families

07/01/25 11:45 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host: “At some point every entitlement needs to be looked at”

07/01/25 8:56 AM EDT

  1. ### On MSNBC's Deadline White House, Angelo Carusone blasts Fox News for hiding the GOP's severe Medicaid cuts from its audience

06/30/25 5:14 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News’ job as Trump’s tax and spending bill moves toward passage: Help it over the line

06/30/25 12:57 PM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax's Michael Savage suggests arresting CNN owners for sedition following its report on intelligence assessment on strikes in Iran

06/30/25 9:00 AM EDT

  1. ### Brian Kilmeade says that birthright citizenship is “being abused”

06/27/25 5:47 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News’ Bret Baier ignores key reason why data centers may increase energy costs

06/27/25 2:45 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News encouraged the US to directly attack inside Iran — and then praised Trump when he listened

06/27/25 1:37 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy on forum shopping: “We shouldn't delude ourselves, both sides do this sort of thing”

06/27/25 12:49 PM EDT

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Fox News encouraged the US to directly attack inside Iran — and then praised Trump when he listened

Written by Helena Hind, Jane Lee, Alicia Sadowski & Isabella Corrao

Published 06/27/25

Fox News spent the week following Israel’s June 12 attack on Iran demanding that President Donald Trump join the war while fearmongering about the threat Iran poses to the U.S. On June 17, The New York Times reported that Trump had changed his mind about U.S. involvement after watching Fox News “broadcasting wall-to-wall imagery of what it was portraying as Israel’s military genius.”

After the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 21, Fox lavished praise on Trump's supposed foreign policy acumen despite independent experts pushing back on the purported success of the operation. The network’s celebration continued after Trump announced “complete and total ceasefire” between Iran and Israel on June 23. Fox personalities and guests have characterized Trump as a peacemaker who should receive a Nobel Prize, defended his skirting of congressional approval for the strikes, and suggested an opportunity for “regime change” in Iran.

Before the attack, Fox News fearmongered that Iran’s nuclear and offensive capabilities posed an “imminent” threat

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  1. ### Fox News encouraged the US to directly attack inside Iran — and then praised Trump when he listened

06/27/25 1:37 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy on forum shopping: “We shouldn't delude ourselves, both sides do this sort of thing”

06/27/25 12:49 PM EDT

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, June 27

06/27/25 10:45 AM EDT

  1. ### TikTok Shop is selling black market vapes to children … again

06/27/25 10:02 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox guests have spent months advocating cuts to SNAP, which are now reportedly included in the Big Beautiful Bill

06/27/25 9:23 AM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters calls CNN “treasonous” for reporting on the Pentagon’s Iran bombing damage assessment

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June 26, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS: You know, everyone's feeling this huge swelling of patriotism and then CNN comes along and sullies it. Now, CNN says, "We didn't do anything wrong," but CNN spent 48 hours with guests at the top of every single hour saying, "The mission failed," saying, "The bombs didn't work," says, "The Iranians still have a nuclear program." What kind of effect does that have? You're basically taking classified information and using it to undermine the commander-in-chief and cast doubt on the effectiveness of the American military capabilities, and putting the commander-in-chief at a disadvantage when he's trying to maintain a ceasefire. It's treasonous. That's the t-word, Jessica.

And Kash and Bongino are going to be looking at these congressmen now, because I have a suspect list. I feel like I know who this person was, and you could easily find them, there's a limited amount of people that had access to this intelligence. You go and see who got access to it and then you narrow it down and then you get a warrant for their phone. So they better lawyer up, because someone's going to go to prison for a very long time.

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In response to Zohran Mamdani’s primary win, Laura Loomer pushes the idea that “Muslim Uber, Lyft, and taxi drivers would start coordinating attacks on non-Jews to carry out jihad”}:

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  1. ### Charlie Kirk says if the Senate parliamentarian “keeps on acting in a way where there is no negotiation, then we gotta get rid of her”

06/26/25 1:01 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox’s Brit Hume says Pete Hegseth’s attacks on Jennifer Griffin "was unfair”

06/26/25 11:07 AM EDT

  1. ### Half of the top 10 online shows spread misinformation or false narratives about Hurricane Helene in 2024

06/26/25 10:49 AM EDT

  1. ### How Fox News is hiding the GOP’s brutal Medicaid cuts

06/26/25 9:28 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host on the Senate parliamentarian: “Some say that she's a partisan actor”

06/26/25 9:24 AM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters calls the early US intelligence report on Donald Trump's bombing of Iran “enemy propaganda”

06/25/25 6:03 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media figures make false claims about Medicaid cuts in the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”

06/25/25 5:03 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News no longer cares about energy sector job losses

06/25/25 3:41 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro warns of “a deep state inside the Trump administration”

06/25/25 2:58 PM EDT

  1. ### Matt Walsh reacts to Democratic primary for mayor in NYC: “We've rolled out the red carpet for foreign nationals who are gonna destroy us from within”

06/25/25 2:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk says it “doesn't feel right” for London and New York City to have Muslim mayors

06/25/25 12:45 PM EDT

  1. ### Speaker Mike Johnson’s Medicaid lie to Fox & Friends’ audience unraveled. The hosts don’t care.

06/25/25 11:53 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host: “Radical Muslim fanatics brought down the Twin Towers in September, 24 years ago. And now New York City might make a Muslim their mayor 24 years later.”

06/25/25

---

see fox bs //

mma

Right-wing media push Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill as estimates find over 11,000 could die annually from loss of Medicaid

When all aspects of the bill are considered, one study estimated it could lead to 51,000 excess deaths per year

Written by John Knefel

Published 06/24/25

Two analyses of the House of Representatives’ version of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” found that its deep Medicaid cuts — which right-wing media figures have supported for months — would result in more than 11,000 preventable deaths annually. When all aspects of the legislation are included, according to one of the analyses, the bill could cause an estimated 51,000 preventable deaths per year.

Right-wing media figures, however, have repeatedly claimed that people who “deserve” to be on Medicaid won’t be affected by the bill. Instead, they falsely argue that Medicaid will be strengthened for “the people that actually need it,” as Fox News’ Sean Hannity put it recently.

It remains to be seen exactly how much congressional Republicans will end up slashing Medicaid, as the House legislation passed on May 22 and the Senate is currently finalizing its own version.

The House version of the bill finances massive tax benefits for the extremely wealthy with its steep Medicaid cuts, which include the harshest Medicaid work requirements Congress has ever put forward.

The bill would also limit states’ ability to access federal funding by freezing what’s known as provider taxes, and punish states that use their own money to offer health insurance to immigrants.

The Senate’s proposed Medicaid cuts are even deeper than those in the House bill.

Researchers estimate Medicaid cuts in GOP bill could result in over 11,000 deaths annually

The two studies that examined the House’s legislation came to similar conclusions, though one focused primarily on the bill’s Medicaid provisions while the other took a look at the legislation as a whole.

The more recent study, from the Annals of Internal Medicine, was published June 17 and examined the House GOP’s proposed Medicaid cuts.

“Enactment of the House bill advanced in May would increase the number of uninsured persons by 7.6 million and the number of deaths by 16 642 annually, according to a mid-range estimate,” the authors write.

The authors stress that even this estimate could be an undercount, as their figures “exclude harms from lowering provider payments and shrinking benefits, as well as possible repercussions from states increasing taxes or shifting expenditures from other needs to make up for shortfalls in federal Medicaid funding.”

They also acknowledge that they and the Congressional Budget Office — which offers analysis of federal spending — made an “assumption that many of those losing Medicaid coverage would find alternative coverage,” which “may be overly optimistic.”

Conservative pundits have frequently pushed the false narrative that the Republican legislation won’t harm people who “deserve” health insurance

Previously, analysis from KFF found that the proposed bill would decimate hospitals that provide care to large numbers of Medicaid recipients, especially in rural areas, which would likely compound the harms of the legislation.

The other research into the Big Beautiful Bill’s effects, published June 3, was conducted by experts at the Yale School of Public Health, and was commissioned by two Senate committees working on their chambers’ version of the bill.

The Yale experts estimated that 7.7 million people would lose insurance as a result of the House bill, which would “result in an estimated 11,300 additional deaths annually due to lost access to Medicaid or ACA Marketplace coverage.”

The stark number increases dramatically when other aspects of the bill are included. The proposed legislation would end support for Medicare Savings Programs — cost sharing programs that allow Medicaid to pay Medicare premiums — leading to an estimated 1.38 million low-income Medicare beneficiaries losing their coverage. The authors write that the bill “would increase mortality by 18,200 per year due to reduced access to subsidized prescriptions.”

The House version also repeals nursing home staffing standards — which could lead to an estimated 13,000 deaths annually — and fails to extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credit, which the authors write “is expected to push another 5 million Americans into uninsurance, resulting in 8,811 more deaths each year.”

In all, the authors estimate that the Big Beautiful Bill could result in more than 51,000 preventable deaths every year.

Right-wing media insists those who “deserve” coverage won’t be affected by the bill

These credible estimates are virtually absent from right-wing media coverage of the bill. To the contrary, conservative pundits have supported many of the most draconian aspects of the Big Beautiful Bill, including its burdensome and unnecessary work requirements — one of the key mechanisms in the legislation to kick people off of Medicaid.

Conservative pundits have also frequently pushed the false narrative that the Republican legislation won’t harm people who “deserve” health insurance, whether that’s Medicaid or private plans purchased through the ACA.

---

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mma

How Fox News is hiding the GOP’s brutal Medicaid cuts

Network mentions of “Biden” are outpacing “Medicaid” 10-to-1

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe

Published 06/26/25

Fox News has mentioned Medicaid, the vital federal health insurance program that President Donald Trump and his Republican allies are seeking to slash, significantly less often than CNN or MSNBC have, and one-tenth as frequently as it has referenced former President Joe Biden and his family, according to a Media Matters review of the first five months of the Trump administration.

Media Matters identified 1,390 mentions of the word “Medicaid” on Fox’s original programming from January 20 through June 21, based on searches of the Kinetiq database of closed-captioning transcripts. By contrast, using the same method, we found that the network mentioned “Biden” 13,289 times during that period.

Notably, Jesse Watters’ prime-time show mentioned “Biden” 1,096 times compared to only 20 mentions of “Medicaid,” a ratio of 55-to-1. The broadcast referenced “Biden” more times than any other show on the network — including those that air for two or three hours each weekday — and “Medicaid” less often than any other weekday show with the exception of Gutfeld!, which is nominally a comedy program, and Fox News @ Night.

Fox hides the GOP's Medicaid cuts from viewers

Senate Republicans are writing their own version of the legislation — and are seeking even steeper Medicaid cuts. Such cuts could devastate the financial viability of rural hospitals, forcing them to close their doors, and along with other health cuts in the House bill would result in more than 11,000 medically preventable deaths annually, analyses show.

The contents of the GOP tax bill — and in particular its cuts to Medicaid — are horrifically unpopular among those who are aware of them. But many are not, and Fox is doing what it can to keep it that way as Congress tries to ram through the legislation in time to meet Trump’s July 4 timeline for signing it. While Fox personalities have at times defended or downplayed the bill’s proposed Medicaid cuts, our data shows that the network is largely trying to avoid discussing them altogether.

By contrast, we found that CNN mentioned “Medicaid” 2,825 times and MSNBC mentioned it 4,445 times during the same period. While the ratio of Biden to Medicaid mentions was 10-to-1 on Fox, it was 10–to–4 for CNN (with 6,688 raw mentions of “Biden”) and 10–to–8 for MSNBC (5,283). This is not to say that Medicaid coverage on CNN or MSNBC has been sufficient, but to demonstrate the extent to which it is absent on Fox.

The OBBB’s Medicaid provisions aren’t the only aspect of the legislation that Fox doesn’t want to talk about. The CBO found that the House bill’s tax cuts for the rich are so large that it would increase federal deficits by $2.4 trillion over 10 years even after accounting for the cuts it makes to the social safety net. But our review found that Fox is mentioning “deficit” even less frequently than “Medicaid,” with only 1,051 references. That means Fox has mentioned “deficit” about once for every 13 times it mentioned “Biden.”

A larger version of this chart is available here.

:{:{---}:

mma

  1. ### Fox’s Brit Hume says Pete Hegseth’s attacks on Jennifer Griffin "was unfair”

06/26/25 11:07 AM EDT

  1. ### Half of the top 10 online shows spread misinformation or false narratives about Hurricane Helene in 2024

06/26/25

How Fox News is hiding the GOP’s brutal Medicaid cuts

06/26/25

  1. ### Newsmax host on the Senate parliamentarian: “Some say that she's a partisan actor”

06/26/25 9:24 AM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters calls the early US intelligence report on Donald Trump's bombing of Iran “enemy propaganda”

06/25/25 6:03 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media figures make false claims about Medicaid cuts in the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”

06/25/25 5:03 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News no longer cares about energy sector job losses

06/25/25 3:41 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro warns of “a deep state inside the Trump administration”

06/25/25 2:58 PM EDT

  1. ### Matt Walsh reacts to Democratic primary for mayor in NYC: “We've rolled out the red carpet for foreign nationals who are gonna destroy us from within”

06/25/25 2:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk says it “doesn't feel right” for London and New York City to have Muslim mayors

06/25/25 12:45 PM EDT

  1. ### Speaker Mike Johnson’s Medicaid lie to Fox & Friends’ audience unraveled. The hosts don’t care.

06/25/25 11:53 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host: “Radical Muslim fanatics brought down the Twin Towers in September, 24 years ago. And now New York City might make a Muslim their mayor 24 years later.”

06/25/25 10:16 AM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity and Clay Travis melt down over Zohran Mamdani while reporting updates on NYC mayoral primary

06/24/25 10:44 PM EDT

  1. ### Laura Ingraham says “heads should roll” if Donald Trump was wrong about Iranian bombing damage assessment

06/24/25 8:05 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News has effusively praised Trump's strikes on Iran

06/24/25 5:09 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News’ Will Cain makes his case for Donald Trump to be added to Mount Rushmore

06/24/25 4:39 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media push Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill as estimates find over 11,000 could die annually from loss of Medicaid

06/24/25 4:00 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk on Trump's mass deportations: “10 million is gonna be a big number in four years, which is basically gonna launch a soft civil war in the major cities”

06/24/25 2:26 PM EDT

  1. ### Riley Gaines says Maine or California need “to be made an example of” for allowing trans athletes to compete

06/24/25 1:57 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox host calls for Israel to conduct more “assassinations” in Iran

06/24/25

---

MMA June 19, 2025, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House

ALICIA MENENDEZ (ANCHOR): As Donald Trump flirts with the greater American involvement in the conflict, it's caused deep division in the MAGA movement, upsetting some of his most influential America first figures, the likes of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, who was spotted today outside the White House. Bannon has warned against any American involvement in the conflict. Joining the conversation, president of Media Matters for America, Angelo Carusone, Claire McCaskill, is still with us. Angelo, describe this division between the two factions of MAGA here.

ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT, MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA): Yeah, I think it's so big that it then — it even expands out to the larger sort of right wing media echo chamber because, as you noted, Fox is pretty heavily in the, you go to war with Iran camp. They've been pushing this for a very long time. This they see as an opportunity, and they know know that they have Trump's ear. I mean, even though the last election, there's much to be made about the podcast and the inner, you know, these online shows that Trump deployed and used, that's not his go-to day to day. The lens through which he sees the world, even still as president, is cable news, and Fox News is the main vehicle for that. That's why when he was criticizing Carlson, he said, look, tell him to get a TV network, and then maybe people will listen to what he has to say because that's still the mindset. And so Fox is all in on this, and they are reflective of a part of the MAGA base.

MENENDEZ: But why? Why, Angelo? Why are they all in on this?

CARUSONE: I mean, look. Part of it is straight bigotry. I mean, they really — they have really spun this narrative, we shouldn't forget about that, that Islam is a fundamental problem, that we are in a battle for good and evil. And even though has been a little bit sidelined in terms of his day-to-day involvement in this particular decision, let's not forget that Pete Hegseth, who is very reflective of the Fox News worldview, was somebody that described the great conflict, not as one between the United States and China or other great powers, but as between Christianity and Islam, and that we had to go out there and do everything we can, including using our military, to put that back in check.

So they see this larger geopolitical world through that framework, and that is something that they've been pushing for a very long time aside from just having — that is also part of their their foreign policy. They don't believe that you should democratize other countries. They're just — they're warmongers.

They believe in might makes right. And even though they are repeating Trump's line of peace through strength, they actually don't mean peace through strength. They mean, strength first and then, you know, have peace because you have nothing left after that. I mean, that's honestly what they're actually saying, and it's core to the Fox News base. It also plays really well on TV. Like, we shouldn't lose the sight of that.

Rupert Murdoch cut his teeth in the tabloids, and one of the big things that he always did was find the most horrible, horrific things that he could tell stories about crimes, violent things, and exaggerate them, but also lay them into a demographic fight. That's part of how he came to be. He sees news through that storytelling perspective. And then you have people like Carlson and Bannon who have their own world view, and a lot of it is hyper nationalist, and we shouldn't be celebrating that in that even though they are taking a position here that seems more reasonable, it's coming from a really scary place. It is coming from either straight up bigotry, you know, antisemitism, or a real deep intense nationalism, that is — even if they get to a destination there that seems peaceful, it's because they want to turn their energy internally on what they see as domestic enemy.

That's the part that doesn't get sort of carried through here is that they see the real threat not as foreign entities, not as these foreign entanglements, but as you and me, as members of the media and as advocates and people that are participating in civic spaces. That's who they see as the real target right now as enemy number one. So we shouldn't lose sight of why they're advocating for peace, but the net effect of all of this, though, and this I think Claire McCaskill really illustrated this well in the first segment is that this is the confusion. This is why Trump is on the sidelines.

If Bannon and Tucker were either quiet or were in uniform with this idea that he should be bombing Iran, it would have happened already. And because part of how he sees the world is through these stories, he's trying to see how this particular chronicle plays out a little bit. You know, who wins in this narrative for hearts and minds for audience share. And that's a big part of this, is seeing how the story plays out, because he honestly isn't sure there's something grounding him. And now it's just what's going to end up capturing the imagination of his base, of his audience, and where is he going to get the best ratings for himself.

---

MMA

Fox let chief Trump propagandist Hannity lead special coverage of the US strikes on Iran

Hannity said the attack “will go down in history as one of the greatest military victories”

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 06/23/25

Fox News turned to Sean Hannity, the Donald Trump political operative who hosts a weekday prime-time show, to help the president sell his new war with Iran, airing two hours of special coverage after Trump’s Saturday night announcement that the U.S. military had struck three Iranian nuclear strikes. The wildly unethical choice emphasized Fox’s role as a Trumpist outlet whose primary mission is propagandizing its audience to support the president’s actions.

Bret Baier, Fox’s chief political anchor, broke the news on the network’s airwaves at 7:52 p.m. ET, minutes after Trump posted about what he deemed the “very successful attack.” Baier and his guests provided overly credulous coverage that nonetheless resembled a normal news broadcast. But just under an hour into that coverage, an on-screen bug revealed that Hannity would be taking over the network’s coverage live beginning at 9.

Fox executives, knowing that Trump intended to speak at the White House at 10 p.m., made the conscious decision to ensure that for the hour before and after those remarks, the network’s coverage would be guided by Hannity, not its “news side” team.

Hannity spent the last decade shattering every possible ethical norm on Trump’s behalf: He has appeared in and even scripted his campaign ads, spoken at a campaign rally, and advised presidential decisions on staffing, communications, and policy — all while regularly interviewing Trump himself on his Fox show. He has also advocated for a U.S. military strike on Iranian nuclear sites for more than a decade.

Hannity predictably used the opportunity on Saturday to shower Trump with praise and host a parade of shills who touted the president’s decision to bomb Iran.

“I just spoke to the president of the United States,” Hannity said at the top of his broadcast. “I have some new information and breaking details to share about tonight's, what is [an] historic air campaign. Now tonight, Iran's nuclear ambitions, they are officially dead. It appears the United States just completely obliterated Iran's top secret Fordo nuclear facility.” Hannity added that two other Iranian nuclear sites had been “wiped out.”

“This is a huge development tonight, and I believe the world is a much safer place,” he concluded.

Video

Citation

From Fox News's June 21, 2025, special coverage

“Maybe it's a little early to go there, but this will go down in history as one of the greatest military victories — taking out the No. 1 state sponsor of terror,” Hannity later added. “They've been responsible for hundreds of thousands of missiles between themselves and their proxies being fired into Israel. They have threatened to wipe Israel and the U.S. off the map, and that threat has been removed tonight.”

“There is no doubt we are watching history tonight,” Hannity said after Trump’s address. “There's no doubt that — I agree with the president — this is one of the most skilled, important, imperative peacekeeping, peace-through-strength-keeping operations in the last 40 years, and certainly the reign of terror in Iran, whether they know it or not, is coming to a quick end.”

Hannity turned to Mark Levin, the hawkish Fox weekend host who reportedly counseled Trump to back Israel’s strikes on Iran over lunch at the White House earlier this month, during both hours of coverage.

Levin praised Trump as “a historic figure” and screamed at Fox’s audience that they could now “go to bed peacefully tonight” because Trump had stopped “these Islamo-Nazis [who] were building nuclear weapons to attack us with ballistic missiles.”

“This mission was never going to fail under this commander in chief,” he ranted. “This is historic, he is historic, the United States military is historic,” Levin continued, comparing the strikes to those of “Reagan and Thatcher defeating the Soviet Union.”

Video

Citation

From Fox News' June 21, 2025, special coverage

“It's about time we rally around this president, rally around our United States military, [and] accept the fact that this is a high point in American history and world history,” he later added, claiming Trump “protected the entire Earth from these barbarians” and “prevented World War III.”

Fox viewers also heard from Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (“I commend President Trump for his resolute and strong action”), Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin (“peace through strength is what President Trump has been talking about from Day 1”), Fox contributor Katie Pavlich (“God bless President Trump, God bless the U.S. military, and God bless the Israelis for paving the way so the mission could be as successful as it was tonight”), and Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson (“the world heard the president speak tonight and that’s what leadership looks like, that’s what commander in chief looks like”).

Hannity returned to Levin for the “last word” of the night. Levin took some credit for the strikes, praised Trump for going through with them, and engaged in score-settling with unnamed figures who had opposed them.

“To be perfectly honest about this, there were a handful of us who encouraged this night, who said that we needed to take military action to bring about this result. It is not so much that we had to convince President Trump — he knew what to do, he instinctively knows what to do, he is a brilliant, brilliant man,” Levin said. “But there are other people. I was laughing because they are now believers, and they are now talking about what a fantastic night this is.”

In the hours since Hannity signed off, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine effectively contradicted Trump’s Saturday night statement that Iran’s nuclear sites were “completely and fully obliterated,” saying it was still too soon to fully assess the damage; U.S. officials acknowledged that Iran had may have moved its supply of enriched uranium to an unknown location before the attack; Trump floated a goal of “regime change”; and The New York Times detailed how “the president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved,” in the days leading up to the strike.

If Trump tuned in to his favorite network on Saturday night, he heard a host who functions as his chief propagandist showering him with praise for following through. That’s apparently exactly what the Fox executives wanted. And that bodes ill for how the network will handle a war against Iran based on obvious lies and featuring rapidly shifting aims.

//

  1. ### Trump’s Fox News obsession is driving the U.S. toward war with Iran

06/18/25 2:03 PM EDT

  1. ### A guide to Sean Hannity’s role as Trump’s chief White House propagandist

01/22/25 12:56 PM EST

  1. ### How Fox powered Trump’s first term — and what that means for his second

11/19/2

---

---

MMA

  1. ### Charlie Kirk on Trump and Iran: “It is very conceivable that if he bombs those two cities, that is not a new war”

06/18/25 1:11 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox host cheers on the arrest of NYC mayoral candidate Brad Lander: “I love that ICE cracked down on him”

06/18/25

Fox News’ Ben Domenech tells Ilhan Omar to buy a one-way ticket to Somalia

06/17/25

  1. ### Greg Gutfeld calls NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani a social justice suicide bomber

06/17/25 6:45 PM EDT

  1. ### Daily Wire's Matt Walsh on Trump's deportation policies: “The Trump administration is ... extremely tuned in to what the base is saying. I know that for a fact.”

06/17/25 2:50 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk calls the SALT deduction “a penalty for well-run red states”

06/17/25 1:48 PM EDT

  1. ### How broadcast TV news covered environmental justice in 2024

06/17/25 11:19 AM EDT

  1. ### Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill threatens rural hospitals. Fox News personalities have falsely claimed immigrants are “bankrupting” them.

06/17/25 11:03 AM EDT

  1. ### TikTok’s search engine algorithm promotes anti-abortion propaganda

06/17/25 10:47 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox host Lawrence Jones: “If we ever even got into a conflict with Iran, it would be over within two days, if that”

06/17/25 9:31 AM EDT

  1. ### On Fox News, Charlie Kirk praises Trump's “remigration” policy, a form of ethnic cleansing

06/16/25 10:18 PM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity calls “No Kings” protesters “radical left-wing lunatics”

06/16/25 5:36 PM EDT

  1. ### Joe Rogan calls for a path to citizenship for undocumented migrants

06/16/25 4:43 PM EDT

  1. ### With minimum wage bill, news organizations help Republican Sen. Josh Hawley rebrand as a working class ally

06/16/25 2:32 PM EDT

  1. ### Tucker Carlson harshly criticizes GOP's “One Big Beautiful Bill”

06/16/25 2:22 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing disinformation machine spins up a false profile of Minnesota shooting suspect

06/16/25 12:50 PM EDT

---

MMA

  1. ### Prompted on Patrick Bet-David's podcast about targeting gang members for deportation, Michael Knowles replies you “have to go after the gardener”

:{:{06/13/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Fox ramps up Trump’s pressure campaign against the Federal Reserve

06/13/25 1:21 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk claims he had advanced warning of Israel's attack on Iran: “I knew it was coming”

:{:{06/13/25}::{ }:

Fox parroted DHS claim Padilla “lunged toward” Noem. Video debunks it.}:

06/13/25

After the Department of Homeland Security tried to justify Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) violent removal from a press conference by falsely claiming that he had “lunged toward” Secretary Krisi Noem, Fox News propagandists chimed in, alleging the senator “ran at” and tried to “bum-rush” the secretary. But video from the event shows Padilla standing calmly across the room from Noem, interrupting her event by asking her a question, as agents begin shoving him away.

Padilla was manhandled, forced to the ground, and ultimately handcuffed by federal agents after interrupting a Noem press conference at a Los Angeles federal building on Thursday. “I’m Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla, whose subcommittee oversees Noem’s department, said as the agents began forcing him from the room.

Democratic senators and political commentators responded with shock, anger, and revulsion as video of Padilla’s forcible removal circulated. But DHS, rather than apologize, issued a statement claiming Padilla “chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem.”

In fact, video from the scene shows Padilla did not “lunge” at Noem, instead standing and speaking in a level tone as he began asking his question and then saying, “I am Sen. Alex Padilla,” as federal agents pushed him out of the room.

Video

Citation

CBS News video

But Fox’s propagandists ran with DHS’ lies.

“Now Democrat senators are joining the riots,” Fox host Jesse Watters claimed on his prime-time show, as on-screen text read, “Senator cuffed after charging Noem.”

“Alex Padilla, the senator from California, got handcuffed inside a federal building this afternoon for lunging at a cabinet secretary,” he continued. “Kristi Noem was in Los Angeles giving a press conference about the riots when the senator barged in and ran at her, yelling and screaming.”

Watters added that Padilla was “lunging at” Noem and “screaming hysterically.”

The Five co-host Emily Compagno similarly said that “Padilla barged his way into DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's news conference on the LA riots, only to be forcefully removed and handcuffed while on the floor,” adding, “The DHS called it theater. They said he didn't identify himself. He had no senator pin. He forcefully lunged. Would you describe this as a stunt by the senator?”

Co-host Greg Gutfeld responded in part: “Padilla shows why you need order and grown-ups. This is a microcosm. Some guy bursts into a presser shouting, expects to be treated preferentially. He expected his invasion to be allowed. What does that sound like? Their policy with illegal criminals.”

Watters agreed with Gutfeld, claiming that Padilla had “bum-rushed a woman” and that he “seemed like a crazy man impersonating a senator.”

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country. We will hold this administration accountable,” Padilla told reporters following his release on Thursday.

To which one could add, if this is how DHS and Fox hosts lie about a senator when there’s video disproving their claims, you can only imagine how they’re lying about everyone else.

---

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, June 13

06/13/25 10:45 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News contributor: Sen. Alex Padilla should be federally charged

06/13/25 9:17 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host says Sen. Alex Padilla was “barking like a random, unstable guy that just jumped in off the street wearing street clothes”

06/13/25 8:13 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News hosts Jesse Watters and Kayleigh McEnany say Democrats are trying to get arrested so they can copy Trump’s mugshot

06/12/25 8:53 PM EDT

  1. ### Laura Ingraham says Senator Alex Padilla was performing “a carefully choreographed stunt” at DHS briefing

06/12/25 7:38 PM EDT

  1. ### CNN's Gabe Cohen lays out the “big question marks and concerns” with Trump's “plans to dismantle FEMA and make states handle their own disasters”

06/12/25 6:06 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media immediately cheer Sen. Alex Padilla being thrown to the ground and handcuffed at Noem press conference

06/12/25 5:43 PM EDT

  1. ### MSNBC’s Ben Rhodes: Fox News “is no different than the state media that we see in places like Russia”

06/12/25 5:15 PM EDT

  1. ### Daily Wire's Matt Walsh attacks Trump for “outrageous” Truth Social post about immigration enforcement

06/12/25 3:24 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News anchor asks if US senator forcibly removed from press conference was “there to protest law and order”

06/12/25 3:21 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media call for “overwhelming force” and arrests in LA protests

06/12/25 11:03 AM EDT

  1. ### Trump’s religious liberty commission is filled with right-wing Christian media figures with histories of extremist rhetoric

06/12/25 9:26 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax guest: “I hope Donald Trump has enough Marines to send to every big city in the world”

06/12/25 9:06 AM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity calls military action against Iran “inevitable”: “I don’t believe this will be a long protracted war”

06/11/25

---

MMA

Right-wing media call for “overwhelming force” and arrests in LA protests

Written by Chloe Simon & Reed McMaster

Published 06/12/25

Protests in Los Angeles have been ongoing as Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids continue to target migrant communities. In response, right-wing media have urged the Trump administration and law enforcement to crack down harder on protesters, called for Democratic officials to be arrested, and suggested the protesters were funded by outside groups.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham and others encouraged President Donald Trump to employ the Insurrection Act against protesters while Daily Wire host Matt Walsh said Trump should use “overwhelming force.” Fox host Sean Hannity and War Room host Steve Bannon have called for arrests of Democratic officials, and The Daily Caller blamed a “Pro-Chinese Communist Millionaire” for funding the protests.

Protests erupted after the Trump administration conducted ICE raids in LA and sent in troops

---

MMA

  1. ### Fox News host denigrates American citizen protestors as “ungrateful children of immigrants”

06/11/25 5:07 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News aired more than 400 weekday segments mentioning trans athletes over just four months

06/11/25 4:25 PM EDT

  1. ### Claiming “Western civilization” is under attack, Daily Wire's Matt Walsh says Democrats want to “make America less white”

06/11/25 2:17 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox Noticias host Rachel Campos-Duffy questions if deporting nonviolent migrants is “good for Trump”

06/11/25 2:15 PM EDT

  1. ### Mainstream media ignore Trump’s planned Office of Remigration, a term for ethnic cleansing

06/11/25 2:08 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk: “My whole life, I've heard people complain about traffic on the 405. Mass deportations will help solve that.”

06/11/25 1:39 PM EDT

  1. ### Steve Bannon: “If the Democratic Party keeps up what they're doing in these big cities, why are they not a terrorist organization?”

06/11/25 12:17 PM EDT

  1. ### Steve Bannon tells his audience to not believe research showing how much immigrants add to the economy

06/11/25 11:50 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox’s bizarre lies shield viewers from the fact that Trump was wrong about Newsom call

06/11/25 11:38 AM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity uses attack on Paul Pelosi to criticize Nancy Pelosi's comments about Los Angeles protest

06/10/25 9:57 PM EDT

  1. ### On MSNBC's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone explains how the “theater” of mass deportation plays out in conservative media and stifles dissent

06/10/25 6:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox’s LA fantasy is setting the stage for an authoritarian federal response

06/10/25 5:18 PM EDT

  1. ### White nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes declares “the groypers have won” as the right is now “so explicitly against mass migration”

06/10/25 3:03 PM EDT

  1. ### Daily Wire's Matt Walsh: “The president should use his authority to immediately terminate all migration from the Third World”

06/10/25 2:01 PM EDT

---

AN 6 25

Social media reacted badly to Fox News deceptively editing video to claim Gov. Gavin Newsom lied about a disputed phone call.

Last week, President Donald Trump told reporters he had “called” Newsom and suggested he “do a better job” over violent protests of Trump’s immigration policies.

“He’s done a bad job, causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death. If we didn’t send out the National Guard, and last time we gave him a little additional help, you would have — Los Angeles would be burning right now,” Trump claimed.

READ MORE: This scheme is so mind-boggling even Republicans have stopped lying about it

Newsom denied ever getting the call, however, and called Trump “a stone-cold liar” for making the claim.

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“We talked for almost 20 minutes and he barely—this issue never came up,” Newsom told reporters. “I tried to talk about L.A., he wanted to talk about all these other issues. … He never once brought up the National Guard. He’s a stone-cold liar. He said he did. Stone. Cold. Liar. Never did.”

Newsom called trash on what Trump described as a “Monday” call, but Fox News entertainer Jesse Watters, of Jesse Watters Primetime, aided the president by muddying the waters on the exact date of the call. Watters removed Trump’s claim of calling Newsom “aday ago(meaning Monday),” and instead began Trump’s quote with“Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he’s doing a bad job …”

Watters then accused Newsom of lying: “Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?”

READ MORE:Navy veteran warns Americans that we're getting to the dangerous point of no return

Conservative talk radio show host Doug Kellett railed Fox for the tampering. “FNC goes out of its way to prop up a failing and shameful President,” Kellett posted on X.

“How the hell is this legal,” complained another critic on Bluesky.

“I'm sure that @JesseBWatters will be taken off the air for this ... or that the @FCC will have something to say about it,” sniped another X user, possibly referencing the strong hand Trump’s FCC is wielding against news organizations that aren’t Fox News.

In March, Trump’s FCC commissioner Brendan Carr announced he was opening an investigation into the Walt Disney Co. and its ABC television network to see whether they are “promoting invidious forms of DEI discrimination.” Trump himself recently sued CBS ’60 Minutes’ for allegedly ‘manipulating’ footage of a Kamala Harris interview by deleting the former democratic candidate’s “word salads” regarding violence in Gaza.

READ MORE: 'Cry harder': MAGA Republicans brutally mocked after pushing Walmart boycott

CBS later released full transcripts and video of the Harris interview, showing the company had presented different parts of the interview for two different shows.

Read MediaITE’s full post at this link.

---

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mma

  1. ### Daily Wire's Matt Walsh: “The president should use his authority to immediately terminate all migration from the Third World”

06/10/25 2:01 PM EDT

  1. ### Steve Bannon: “All ten million have to go, not just the criminals and the insane asylum”

:{:{06/10/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Newsmax host on Democrats: “At what point are they declared to be a terrorist organization?”

06/10/25 9:24 AM EDT

  1. ### Laura Ingraham says Democrats are using immigration to “resettle America with new people in order to transform it completely”

06/09/25 7:55 PM EDT

  1. ### Greg Gutfeld uses Larry Nassar case to attack Simone Biles

06/09/25 6:28 PM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity says Gavin Newsom “should be arrested”

06/09/25

---

---

not random now but regular?

  1. ### Sean Hannity says Gavin Newsom “should be arrested”

06/09/25 5:02 PM EDT

  1. ### OutKick's Dan Dakich says Simone Biles “showed her stupidity” by defending trans inclusion in sports

:{:{06/09/25}::{ }:

  1. ### While calling for the military to be deployed to Los Angeles, Charlie Kirk uses a chart sourced to a white nationalist website

06/09/25 2:13 PM EDT

  1. ### Theo Von calls AI provision in GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill “really sketchy”

:{:{06/09/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Laura Loomer praises Chinese government for recognizing “the threat of Islam”

06/09/25 1:58 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk responding to protests in Los Angeles: “We must be unafraid to declare the Insurrection Act of 1807”

:{:{06/09/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Steve Bannon calls for the arrest of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

:{:{06/09/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Sean Hannity says spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is “a clear, present danger”

06/06/25 6:18 PM EDT

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, June 6

06/06/25 10:45 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News has spent years claiming that Inflation Reduction Act policies will make energy more expensive. It was wrong.

06/06/25 9:03 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News ignores the projection that nearly 11 million people will lose health insurance from Trump's spending bill

06/05/25 5:54 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro says that Tucker Carlson “put out a statement that I think is factually incoherent about Mark Levin's position on Iran and Iran itself”

06/05/25 2:33 PM EDT

  1. ### CNN’s Bill Weir highlights GOP tension as Trump’s clean energy rollbacks threaten 75,000 red state jobs

06/05/25 1:01 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox complains CBO’s tax bill deficit estimate doesn’t include Trump's huge tax hike on Americans

06/05/25 12:23 PM EDT

  1. ### Steve Bannon: “You can't extend the tax cuts for the wealthy. The math just doesn't work.”

06/05/25 11:41 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host on GOP cuts to Medicaid: “Pretty much all the 10.9 million are going to be people that should not be on the Medicaid program”

:{:{06/05/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Sean Hannity grossly misrepresents CBO report about Trump's “big beautiful bill.” Even Fox's own website got it right.

:{:{06/05/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Sean Hannity calls for mandatory military service for every American

:{:{06/04/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Jesse Watters melts down when co-host confronts him over claims that only criminals are being deported

:{:{06/04/25}::{ }:

  1. ### Fox’s Lara Trump credits the president for “miraculous” drop in prices — but prices are actually higher

06/04/25

---

mma random

  1. ### Sean Hannity calls for mandatory military service for every American

06/04/25 7:28 PM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters melts down when co-host confronts him over claims that only criminals are being deported

06/04/25 5:56 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox’s Lara Trump credits the president for “miraculous” drop in prices — but prices are actually higher

06/04/25 4:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News ignores acting FEMA administrator's controversial remarks that left staff “baffled”

06/04/25 4:05 PM EDT

06/04/25 2:47 PM EDT

  1. ### Newt Gingrich calls for Congress and Trump to “abolish” federal judges

06/04/25 1:05 PM EDT

  1. ### On MSNBC, Imara Jones highlights relationship between anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, violence, and threats to democracy

06/04/25 12:56 PM EDT

  1. ### On YouTube, Patrick Bet-David attacks Sesame Street for post supporting Pride Month

06/04/25 11:29 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax's Greg Kelly says Harvey Milk's name being removed from a Navy ship is a “correction”

06/04/25 10:48 AM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media solidify around “able-bodied” myth as Senate GOP weighs Medicaid cuts

06/04/25 9:39 AM EDT

  1. ### Laura Ingraham says American universities have “sold their souls to the CCP”

06/03/25 8:37 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk guest host says Pride Month is “cultural tyranny” and “we should just get rid of it altogether”

06/03/25 3:01 PM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media parrot GOP lie about looming Medicaid cuts

06/03/25 2:15 PM EDT

  1. ### Steve Bannon tells Mike Lindell that the South Korean election may be “stolen” and suggests that there are “major discrepancies”

06/03/25 11:12 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax guest: “The problem with the big beautiful bill is that it doesn't kick enough people off Medicaid”

06/03/25 10:19 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News is giving the Trump administration a pass on federal disaster response

06/03/25 9:08 AM EDT

  1. ### Even Fox & Friends can't completely deny that the GOP's “Big, Beautiful Bill” is set to blow up the deficit

06/02/25 1:29 PM EDT

  1. ### On far-right US podcasts, South Koreans push baseless claims of election fraud

06/02/25 9:18 AM EDT

  1. ### On MSNBC's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone explains how the right-wing media landscape made the idea of mass death acceptable

05/30/25 6:23 PM EDT

---

MMA

CBS joined Fox and Newsmax in ignoring Trump's pardon of donor's son 05/29/25 walczak

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mma

Fox attacks Scott Pelley for accurately describing Trump’s war on the press

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Alicia Sadowski

Published 05/29/25

Fox News and Fox Business hosts are lashing out at CBS News’ Scott Pelley for criticizing President Donald Trump’s attacks on free speech and civil society, even as his network’s parent company reportedly prepares to capitulate to the president’s assault.

“Journalism is under attack,” the 60 Minutes correspondent said in a May 19 commencement speech at Wake Forest University that went viral over the weekend. “Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.”

While Pelley did not mention the president or the White House by name, no one missed the implication — including Fox’s stable of pro-Trump zealots.

The mainstream press’s purported Democratic partisanship and untrustworthiness is one of the pillars of Fox’s programming. On Tuesday and Wednesday, it was Pelley’s turn as the networks’ media hate object of choice.

Sean Hannity, the Trump political operative who also hosts a prime-time Fox News show, denounced Pelley’s address as “full of rage and anti-Trump rhetoric,” adding that the 60 Minutes reporter is not a journalist but a “biased liberal radical talk show host” and “a phony liar.”

Former Trump economic adviser turned Fox Business host Larry Kudlow’s take was that Pelley had “the worst bout of Trump derangement syndrome,” while Harris Faulkner claimed he was “fighting for relevance.”

On The Five, Greg Gutfeld attempted to defuse Pelley's comments about authoritarian attacks on the press by pointing out that the CBS newsman hadn’t been arrested after his speech — only for his co-host, former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, to respond that “he should have been.”

And Laura Ingraham not only panned Pelley as a “Trump-hating former anchorman” — she used the opportunity to tout the Trump administration’s effort to punish his network.

“There's nothing worse than someone who pretends to be persecuted while ignoring real persecution, or pretends to be the keeper of the truths when associated with a network that did everything it could to protect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, even editing an interview with the VP to make her look smarter,” Ingraham said.

“So, it was bad timing for Scott's commencement sanctimony about truth and justice when 60 Minutes’ alleged corruption is being now cited as a potential sticking point in Paramount's $8 billion sale to Skydance Media,” she added. “Whoops. But the press has no one to blame but themselves.”

Pelley is correct about the Trump administration’s assault on the free press.

The president has long sought to discredit critical journalism. He decries reporting he doesn’t like as “fake news” and tries to chill it through a combination of personal lawsuits, threats of criminal investigations, and the weaponization of federal agencies against news outlets and their owners.

Pelley’s show and network, as Ingraham indicated, are among the biggest targets of this strategy. Trump and his allies claimed during the 2024 election that by airing two different portions of Harris’ response to an interview question — one on 60 Minutes and another in a preview of the interview shown on Face the Nation — CBS News had committed, in the president’s words, “the biggest scandal in broadcast history.” Trump called for CBS to lose its broadcast license and subsequently filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the network and its parent company, Paramount Global.

The only thing more insane than a legal attack over the editing of interview clips is Fox’s willingness to carry water for the argument. First Amendment attorneys told CNN that Trump’s suit was “ridiculous junk” and “a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.” And in January, then-Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel tossed a similar complaint filed by a right-wing group, arguing that it sought “to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment” and turn the agency into “the president’s speech police.”

But while Rosenworcel warned against turning the FCC into “the president’s speech police,” her Trump-appointed replacement, Brendan Carr, apparently sees that as his mission. He said before taking the post that the complaint was “likely to arise” in the agency’s review of Paramount Global’s planned merger with Skydance Media, swiftly revived the probe afterward, and has slow-walked the merger ever since.

When the Trump administration tried a similar tactic in his first term, blocking Time Warner’s purchase by AT&T while the president railed against Time Warner subsidiary CNN, AT&T stood firm, fought it out in court, and won. Several law firms who fought back when Trump targeted them for retribution in his second term have also found success.

But Paramount and its chair, Shari Redstone, who reportedly “stands to clear billions of dollars on the sale of Paramount,” are apparently setting a different, more craven path. Reports have indicated for months that Paramount executives are eager to settle Trump’s lawsuit in hopes that his administration will then approve their deal. In April, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens stepped down in light of what Pelley suggested was increasing, inappropriate Paramount scrutiny of CBS News reporting. CBS News President Wendy McMahon was forced out in May, saying, “It’s become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”

Paramount’s capitulation appears to be coming to a head. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the company has offered Trump’s lawyers a $15 million settlement, but “Trump’s team wants more than $25 million and is also seeking an apology from CBS News.” The apology, the Journal reported, had been a sticking point for McMahon. Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team reportedly “threatened another lawsuit against CBS related to alleged bias of its news coverage,” while Trump himself responded to a different 60 Minutes broadcast by calling for the network to lose its license and directed Carr to “impose the maximum fines and punishment.”

If Paramount folds in the face of Trump’s extortion, Redstone may get her big merger payday. But the result will only encourage the president to make more attacks on CBS News and other news outlets. His aim is to quell negative reporting by any means necessary, and his appetite for humiliating and delegitimizing the press cannot be sated without news outlets becoming as servile as his Fox propagandists.

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MMA

Sean Hannity has a lot to say about the “stupid flu shot” all of a sudden

Sean Hannity used to tell his audience about getting the flu shot every year and how much it helped him. Now, he’s calling it a “stupid flu shot.”

Written by Helena Hind

Research contributions from Alicia Sadowski & Isabella Corrao

Published 05/29/25

Citation

Fox News, 9/16/2020

After years of assuring his audience that he regularly gets his yearly flu vaccination, Sean Hannity has suddenly changed his tune, casting doubt on the efficacy of the “stupid flu shot” during the May 28 edition of his radio show.

The MAGA propagandist’s comments come as harmful anti-vaccine policy takes root in the Trump administration, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bucking the normal scientific review process and removing the COVID-19 vaccine from the CDC’s recommended immunizations for children and those who are pregnant.

During the May 28 edition of The Sean Hannity Show, guest Dr. Brian Tyson claimed that COVID-19 booster vaccines are “negative effective, just like last year's flu shot.” Hannity jumped in: “Well, people don't understand that. Every year, they will start producing a flu virus. They're guessing what flu is likely to hit. They don't know for sure”

The Fox News host continued: “My understanding is they're wrong 75% of the time, and people, you know, annually go get the stupid flu shot anyway.”

Sean Hannity attacks COVID vaccines and the “stupid flu shot”

May 28, 2025

Audio file

Audio

Citation

From the May 28, 2025, edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): And even the creator, who I know you're familiar with, Dr. Robert Malone, was very outspoken, and he came on this program often. And he said that mRNA technology has not been perfected. He did support emergency authorization vaccinations for people over 65 that had preexisting conditions and comorbidities because they were the ones that were more likely to be -- their lives would be put in jeopardy by the virus. He absolutely was crystal clear. It was not designed for healthy people that were younger, meaning below the age of 65, and it's absolutely not designed for children.

Now, he's the one that created the technology that allowed for the creation of this, and he's saying this. And then he gets excoriated like you got excoriated for trying alternative treatment, which, by the way, studies, since that time have proven that you were right about things like hydroxychloroquine taken early, mitigating circumstances.

How many studies now have come out confirming that? How many studies have come out showing that masks really didn't help? How many studies came out, you know, showing that your protocols actually worked? How many patients' lives did you save, and how many patients did you lose in the process?

DR. BRIAN TYSON (GUEST): Yeah. I mean, it's -- so you're 100% correct. If you go to the website c19.org, you'll be able to pull up all the different treatments and all of the studies that are listed underneath those. There's over 400 studies on hydroxychloroquine, there's over 300 studies on ivermectin.

What we found was early treatment is the key. It's not about vaccines at this point because these vaccines are not effective. Actually, they're negative effective, just like last year's flu shot. Last year's flu shot had a negative efficacy of 26%, meaning those who got the flu shot were more likely to get the flu. It's the same thing with these COVID vaccine boosters.

HANNITY: Well, people don't understand that. Every year, they will start producing a flu virus. They're guessing what flu is likely to hit. They don't know for sure. And my understanding is that they're wrong 75% of the time, and people, you know, annually go get the stupid flu shot anyway.

TYSON: Yeah. But they made $6 billion off of it last year. And that's the problem. When you continuously approve vaccines without data and without research -- this is where you know the MAHA movement is -- hopefully it's going to make some ground -- you can't continue to produce vaccines without seeing the results. And you have to start holding the pharmaceutical companies accountable.

Once upon a time, Hannity was among those who chose to “go get the stupid flu shot” every year. In April 2020, the Fox host told his radio listeners it was “my choice” to “get a flu shot every year.” Months later, he said his choice to get his annual shot is “what freedom’s all about."

That November, in an attempt to assure his listeners that the COVID-19 vaccine was safe, he said he has “taken the flu shot for many, many years with no side effects at all whatsoever… it’s helped me."

Hannity also proclaimed his dedication to regular flu immunization to his Fox News audience: “I choose to get the flu shot every year and some of my friends think I’m nuts."

Video

Citation

From the September 16, 2020, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Hannity’s sudden reversal on the “stupid flu shot” is hardly surprising, considering his yearslong assault on the COVID-19 vaccine, his network’s dedication to pushing anti-vaccine narratives, and the Trump administration’s adoption of vaccine skepticism as policy.

Meanwhile, the American Medical Association recommends on its website that “everyone aged six months or older should receive an annual flu shot.” The AMA has more on the flu vaccine and the COVID vaccine here. On its YouTube page, the AMA alsodiscussed itsrecommendations for the flu and COVID vaccine in 2024.

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mma

  1. ### Right-wing media villainize and blame Renee Good for her own death in Minneapolis ICE shooting

:{:{01/09/26}::{ }:

  1. ### Watch how Fox tried to spin the disappointing December jobs report

01/09/26 3:38 PM EST

  1. ### Megyn Kelly on Minneapolis shooting and ICE protests: “All we can do is flood the field, in my view, with more officers”

01/09/26 3:01 PM EST

  1. ### Jack Posobiec says Renee Good's wife is “complicit in the killing” and “should be brought up on federal charges”

01/09/26

Right-wing media villainize and blame Renee Good for her own death in Minneapolis ICE shooting

Written by Gideon Taaffe, Isabella Sherk & Jack Winstanley

Published 01/09/26

After an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good on January 7 during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, right-wing media reacted by blaming Good for her death, saying it "was her own doing” and attacking her character by labeling her “a perpetrator” and “trained agitator.”

//

  1. ### Jack Posobiec says Renee Good's wife is “complicit in the killing” and “should be brought up on federal charges”

01/09/26 12:16 PM EST

  1. ### A look at how Fox used its coverage of the Minneapolis ICE shooting to push the administration's propaganda

01/08/26 4:14 PM EST

  1. ### Megyn Kelly caller on Minneapolis shooting: “The vice president was up there lying his self off”

01/09/26

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AN 5 25

Trump’s ratings continue to slide on most issues. Recent Economist/YouGov polling across the US, completed on May 9-12, shows 51% think the country is on the wrong track, while only 45% have a favourable impression of his job as president. On inflation and prices in the shops, only 35% approve of his handling of this policy.

Trump seems to be scoring particularly badly with young voters. Around 62% of young people (18 to 29s) have an unfavourable opinion of the president, compared with 53% of the over-65s.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to pursue an agenda to close down, or shackle, much of the media it considers not on his side.

Funding for national public service radio NPR and television PBS, as well as the global news service Voice of America, is under threat. Some national news outlets are under investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for their coverage.

In a speech in March, Trump said broadcasters CNN and MSNBC, and some newspapers he didn’t name “literally write 97.6% bad about me”. He added: “It has to stop. It has to be illegal.”

The Trump team clearly see the role of the media as important to establishing and retaining support, and have taken steps to shake up White House coverage – including by changing who can attend the White House press pool.

About seven in ten members of the American public say they are following the news for updates on the Trump administration. It is interesting, therefore, to consider the role of the media in influencing Trump’s popularity, and insights can be found in the massive US Cooperative Election Study, conducted during the presidential contest last year.

That survey showed 57% of Americans had watched TV news in the previous 24 hours. Around 81% had used social media during the same period, but only 20% had used it to comment on politics.

There is a lot of attention being paid to fake news on the internet, which is helping to cause polarisation in the US. But when it comes to news about politics, TV coverage is still very important for most Americans.

The survey asked respondents about the TV news channels they watched, and Fox News came out on top with 47% of the viewers. ABC came second with 37%, and CBS and CNN tied on 35%. Fox News is Trump’s favorite TV station, with its rightwing populist agenda and regular output of Trump-friendly news.

Relationship between Trump voters and Fox News’s audience in 2024 US presidential election:

Source: Author graph based on Cooperative Election Study 2024, CC BY

The Cooperative Election Study had 60,000 respondents, which provides reasonably sized samples in each of the 50 states. The Trump vote varied quite a lot across states, with only 34% of voters in Maryland supporting him, compared with 72% in Wyoming. The electoral college formally decides the results of presidential elections, and this is based on states – so, looking at voting in this way can be quite revealing.

The connection between watching Fox News and Trump’s vote share can be seen in the chart above. It varies from 21% who watched the channel in Vermont to 60% in West Virginia.

Vermont is represented in Congress by Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist from a radical political tradition, and only 32% voted for Trump there. In contrast, West Virginia is part of the rust belt of impoverished states hit by deindustrialisation and the decline of the coal mining industry, and 71% voted for Trump there.

We can use a regression model (which looks at the relationship between variables) to predict support for Trump using key measures that drive the vote share for Trump in each state. The model uses three variables to predict the results with 95% accuracy, which means while not perfect, it gives a very accurate prediction of Trump’s vote.

Not surprisingly, partisanship – that is, the percentage of registered Republicans in each state – is one of the key metrics. In addition, ideology – the percentage of respondents who say they are conservatives – is another.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the third important predictor is viewership of Fox News. The relationship between watching the channel and voting for Trump is very strong at the state level. Also, the more time people spend watching the channel, the more likely they are to have voted for Trump.

Impact of key factors on Trump voting in 2024 US election:

Source: Author based on Cooperative Election Study , CC BY

This chart calculates the relationship between watching Fox News and other factors and the strength of a state’s support for Trump in 2024. If a variable is a perfect predictor of Trump voting, it would score 1.0 on the scale. If it is a perfect non-predictor, it would score 0.

So, the most important predictor of being a Trump voter was the presence of conservatives in a state, followed by the percentage of registered Republicans, and the third was watching Fox News. A high score on all three meant greater support for Trump.

To illustrate this, 45% of Texans considered themselves conservatives, 33% were registered Republicans, and 51% watched Fox News. Using these measures, the model predicts that 57% would vote for Trump. In fact, 56% voted for him in that state in 2024. So, while the prediction was not perfect, it was very close.

A similar predictive model can be used to forecast former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s vote shares by state. In her case, we need four variables to predict the results with 95% accuracy – the percentage of registered Democrats, liberals and moderates in a state, and also Fox News viewership.

Not surprisingly in Harris’s case, the relationship between Fox News viewing and voting is strongly negative (correlation = -0.64). When viewership was high, the Harris vote was low.

Years ago, the “fairness doctrine” used to mandate US broadcasters to fairly reflect different viewpoints on controversial issues in their coverage. Candidates for public office were entitled to equal air time.

But this rule was removed by the FCC in 1987, and has led to an era of some broadcasters becoming far more partisan. The FCC decision followed a period of debate and challenges to the fairness doctrine. This led to its abolition under Ronald Reagan, the Republican president who inspired Project 2025 – the document that in turn appears to be inspiring the Trump government’s policy agenda.

When the Trump era is over, incumbent Democrats are going to have to repair US institutions that this administration has damaged. If they want to do something about the polarisation of US politics, they may also need to restore the fairness doctrine.

Had it not been removed in the first place, it is possible that Harris would have won the 2024 presidential election, since Fox News would not exist in its present form. Whatever happens next, the US media is likely to play an important role.

Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, *University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Key Trump officials appeared more than 500 times on Fox networks in the first 100 days of his presidency

Fox networks remain a safe space for administration figures

Written by Harrison Ray & Isabella Sherk

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe & Media Matters Staff

Published 05/01/25

Trump officials appeared on Fox networks on 96 of the administration's first 100 days. The number of daily appearances by key officials was highest on both February 3, following Trump's announcement of his first set of tariffs, and March 4, seemingly to prime the Fox audience for his congressional address that evening, with at least 13 appearances on each day.

{}:

Top 10 key Trump officials on Fox networks (Clickhere for the full list)

Following Hannity were Fox & Friends (52), The Ingraham Angle (48), and Jesse Watters Primetime (34), alongside the network's so-called “news-side” shows The Story with Martha MacCallum (34), America's Newsroom (31), and America Reports (28).

On Fox Business, Kudlow (36 appearances), Mornings With Maria Bartiromo (33), and Varney & Company (28) featured the most appearances by key Trump officials. The administration often turned to Fox Business for economic-related news, with the network providing a friendly environment for officials to defend Trump's often "chaotic" economic policies.

Top 10 shows on Fox networks with most appearances by key Trump officials

Every confirmed Cabinet member appeared at least twice on Fox.

And the hosts always have time to try to get a friend out of trouble. In a Fox & Friends interview with their former colleague Pete Hegseth, now the secretary of defense, host Brian Kilmeade raised baseless conspiracy theories surrounding Hegseth's Signalgate scandal, saying, “Do you think ... there's some type of deep state forces that want to make sure you don't stay there?”

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MMA SORTA RANDOM

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: “Many of the organizations that Donald Trump Jr. is connected to are making an enormous amount of money during this period of time when his father is president”

05/22/25 3:00 PM EDT

  1. ### Anti-abortion groups downplay the role of Georgia’s abortion ban in hospital keeping legally brain-dead pregnant woman on life support

05/22/25 2:50 PM EDT

  1. ### Benny Johnson podcast guest claims it's “a total lie” that the GOP legislation cuts Medicaid from millions of Americans

05/22/25 12:54 PM EDT

  1. ### Contrary to right-wing media claims, the GOP's Medicaid cuts are for far more than “able-bodied men”

05/22/25

  1. ### Megyn Kelly singles out trans people for hate

05/22/25 11:00 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host invokes the Civil War while complaining about federal judges ruling against the Trump administration: “It smells like 1861”

05/22/25 10:02 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox contributor Newt Gingrich organizes MAGA attacks against Congressional Budget Office

05/21/25 5:09 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox host Brian Kimeade supports cuts to Medicaid: “People get addicted to the free money”

05/21/25 10:30 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox’s Maria Bartiromo whips Republican support for devastating Medicaid cuts

05/20/25 5:58 PM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters on Democrats being arrested: “You guys have no idea how much fun we're having. This is a dream come true.”

05/20/25 5:54 PM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity threatens to unleash his radio listeners on members of Congress “getting in the way” of Trump's budget bill

05/20/25 4:22 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro's advice to the Trump administration: “Fire Peter Navarro into the ocean via catapult”

05/20/25 2:06 PM EDT

  1. ### Benny Johnson: “Social Security is completely fraudulent. It should be privatized. They should destroy that entire program.”

05/20/25 11:57 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News host: “The vast majority of people who are going to be helped by the tax cuts are the wealthiest”

05/19/25 6:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Alex Jones says Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are “making fools out of themselves” over Jeffrey Epstein

05/19/25 4:36 PM EDT

  1. ### Matt Walsh urges Trump to ignore the Supreme Court's ruling on notice before deportations: “It's illegitimate. It's ridiculous. Trump should ignore it.”

05/19/25 3:10 PM EDT

  1. ### STUDY: Interacting with these popular right-leaning comedy podcasters can turn your TikTok feed into a swamp of Andrew Tate-style misogyny and conspiracy theories

05/19/25 10:08 AM EDT

  1. ### Watch Jessica Tarlov break the news of Moody's downgrading America's credit as Jesse Watters brags about a Trump “masterclass”

05/16/25 6:04 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media mocked and denied LGBTQ suicide rates. Now the Trump administration aims to gut the suicide hotline.

05/16/25 5:05 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk: “Maybe we just got to make an example out of Thom Tillis”

05/16/25

---

aha not me cult war replaced the cold war, fox big

an 5 25

More than 100 days into his return to the White House, the conclusion is stark: Donald Trump is no longer the same president he was during his first term. His familiar nationalist and populist rhetoric is now openly paired with an authoritarian turn – one without precedent in US history. He has adopted a neo-imperial view of the economy, treating the global order as a zero-sum contest of winners and losers. In this worldview, cooperation gives way to domination: what matters is power and the accumulation of wealth.

Having withstood two impeachment procedures, numerous lawsuits and at least one assassination attempt, Trump now governs with what can appear to be unchecked authority. To his followers, he has become a hero, a martyr – almost a messianic figure. He no longer sees democracy as a framework to be honoured, but as a tool to legitimize his hold on power. His decisive electoral victory now serves as a mandate to cast aside institutional limits.

Three key features define his style of governance: a radical centralization of executive power grounded in the theory of the “unitary executive”; the politicization of the Department of Justice, used as a weapon against rivals; and the manipulation of federal authority to target cultural, media and educational institutions. His playbook is chaos: unsettle opponents, dominate the media narrative and blur the boundaries of democratic norms. Impulsive and reactionary, Trump often governs in response to Fox News segments or trending posts on Truth Social. Instability has become a strategic tool.

But Trump is not a historical anomaly. While his 2016 victory may have seemed unlikely, his re-election reflects a deeper, long-term transformation rooted in the post-Cold War era.

From an external to an internal enemy

The collapse of the USSR – a structuring external enemy – redirected political confrontation toward the designation of an internal enemy. The culture war has become the dominant ideological battleground, driven by two closely linked forces. On one side, a religious radicalization led by nationalist Christian movements – such as the New Apostolic Reformation – seeks to roll back social progress and promote the vision of an outright theocracy. On the other, growing racial anxiety is fueled by fears of white demographic decline and resistance to civil rights gains.

The commentator Pat Buchanan saw it coming as early as the 1990s.Speaking at the 1992 Republican National Convention, he warned: “There is a cultural war going on for the soul of America… as critical as the Cold War itself.” Too radical for his time, Buchanan championed a white, Christian, conservative US hostile to cosmopolitan elites. Though marginalized then, his ideas laid the groundwork for what would become Trumpism.

Newt Gingrich, who served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, played a pivotal role in reshaping both the Republican party and US politics. A Republican group he chaired famously distributed a pamphlet to Republican candidates titled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”, advising them to use uplifting language to describe themselves, and inflammatory terms like “corrupt”, “immoral” and “traitor” to describe their opponents. This aggressive rhetoric redefined political rivals as enemies to be defeated – helping pave the way for a right-wing politics in which winning trumps democratic norms.

At the same time, the rise of a new conservative media ecosystem intensified polarization. The launch of Fox News in 1996, the growth of right-wing talk radio shows like Rush Limbaugh’s and the later explosion of social media gave the US right powerful tools to shape and radicalize public opinion. Today, algorithm-driven information bubbles trap citizens in alternate realities, where misinformation and outrage drown out reasoned debate. This has deepened polarization and fractured society as a whole.

Channeling anger

This ideological and media realignment has unfolded alongside a broader crisis: the unraveling of the post-Cold War neoliberal consensus. Promises of shared prosperity have been replaced by deindustrialization, deepening inequality and widespread resentment. Successive traumas – from 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash to the Covid-19 pandemic – and foreign wars without real victories have eroded public trust in the establishment.

Trump channels this anger. He offers a vision of a restored and idealized America, a rollback of recent social gains, and a reassertion of national identity grounded in religion and race. His populism is not a coherent ideology but an emotional response – born of perceived injustice, humiliation and loss.

Trump is more than a symptom of America’s democratic crisis: he is its most vivid manifestation. He embodies the legacy of the 1990s – a foundational decade of identity grievance, culture wars and media deregulation. Viewed as a political outsider, he has never been judged as a traditional politician, but rather embraced, by some, as the archetypal “self-made man” – a successful businessman and reality TV celebrity.

His rhetoric – transgressive, provocative and often cruel – gives voice to what had been repressed. The humiliation of opponents becomes part of the performance. For his supporters, it’s exhilarating. It breaks taboos, flouts political correctness and feeds the fantasy of reclaiming a lost America.

And he’s no longer alone. With the vocal support of economic and tech elites like Elon Musk – now a central figure in the radicalized right on X – Trumpism has entered a new phase. Together, they’ve outlined a new kind of authoritarian, cultural and digital power, where influence matters more than institutions.

The US re-elected not just a man, but a style, an era and a worldview built on dominance, disruption and disdain for rules. Still, history is unwritten: intoxicated by hubris and undermined by incompetence, Trumpism may yet crash into the wall of reality – with consequences far beyond America’s borders.

Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, Spécialiste de la politique américaine, Sciences Po

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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chls payne studenr loan elite BS

lawrence jones mamud kahlil destroy Am mma 5 25

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Marc Morano

Weekly update ⋅ May 2, 2025

Climate Depot's Morano: Bill Gates Through Harvard Funding 'Radical, Risky' Global ...

Breitbart

Thursday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Jesse Watters Primetime," Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano warned of "risky" ...

Thursday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano warned of “risky” experiments conducted by Harvard University and bankrolled by billionaire Bill Gates in the name of global warming.

Gates likened the efforts to injecting pollution back into the atmosphere.

“Talk to me about this geoengineering,” fill-in host Rachel Campos-Duffy said. “What is it? A lot of people wonder what it is.”

“All it is, is retro 1970s — in the 1970s, they said fossil fuels caused global cooling,” Morano replied. “Now, of course, they say global warming. So, they proposed all kinds of geoengineering back in the 70s. They wanted to put black soot on the Arctic, use nuclear energy to heat up the Arctic in order to melt it, because they thought the ice was growing too much. Fast forward, now they want to block the sun and inject sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to try to block the sun and cool the Earth. It’s not just England doing it. Bill Gates through Harvard University is funding studies and have been pushing this. A lot of the other billionaire class have been pushing this kind of radical, risky experiment, and it makes absolutely no sense.”

He continued, “We spent decades since the first Earth Day, cleaning up our atmosphere, and now they want to inject pollution back in. It truly is, they want to prove a point, I think, in the end, that global warming is man-made and climate change is man-made, and it’s because governments are injecting these chemicals into the sky to alter the Earth. I think they’re ultimately probably not going to go through with it. It’s a scare tactic to say you’re not supporting the Green New Deal or Net Zero. We’re going to have to do this radical, risky experiment on our atmosphere.”

*Follow Jeff Poor on X @jeff_poor

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mma daily bs

  1. ### Sean Hannity: “There's going to be some pain” because of Trump's tariffs

05/01/25 4:55 PM EDT

  1. ### Arguing against war with Iran, Charlie Kirk calls Mike Waltz's ouster as national security adviser a “positive development”

05/01/25 2:27 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro says Trump's remark dismissing empty shelves and higher prices is a “tremendous commercial for Democrats”

05/01/25 2:02 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News anchor claims Trump has “great majority support” on immigration and deportations. Fox’s own polling says otherwise.

05/01/25 12:36 PM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media follow Trump’s lead in blaming economic contraction on Biden

05/01/25 11:18 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox host argues due process for Columbia student sets “a dangerous precedent'

05/01/25 10:25 AM EDT

  1. ### Key Trump officials appeared more than 500 times on Fox networks in the first 100 days of his presidency

05/01/25 9:02 AM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters: “Regular folks don't live and die by GDP”

04/30/25 8:48 PM EDT

  1. ### In response to interview where Trump suggests an allegedly photoshopped image was real, Fox's Greg Gutfeld lashes out at ABC News' Terry Moran

04/30/25 6:37 PM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity downplays the shrinking economy: “The GDP drop was actually supposed to be much worse”

04/30/25 5:18 PM EDT

  1. ### Far-right media figures are launching their own crypto coins

04/30/25 4:41 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox anchor pleads with Gov. Andy Beshear to give Trump “a grace period” as tariffs rock the economy

04/30/25 4:11 PM EDT

  1. ### JB Pritzker called for mass protests. Right-wing media falsely accused him of calling for violence.

04/30/25 3:44 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News guest on allegedly photoshopped image that Trump suggested was real: “I obviously have not seen the original photo so I'm not in a position to make official statement”

04/30/25 3:26 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Kirk: “Large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America”

04/30/25 2:26 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro says “China is perfectly happy” with Trump's trade war

04/30/25 12:49 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: “Head Start is one of the great fails in federal history”

04/30/25 12:37 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox spins economic contraction under Trump: “Some might say that wasn't as big a drop as anticipated”

04/30/25 12:28 PM EDT

---

mma

  1. ### Ben Shapiro says “China is perfectly happy” with Trump's trade war

04/30/25 12:49 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: “Head Start is one of the great fails in federal history”

04/30/25 12:37 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox spins economic contraction under Trump: “Some might say that wasn't as big a drop as anticipated”

04/30/25 12:28 PM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host: “If he talks about 2028, suddenly he's not a lame duck”

04/30/25 9:05 AM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters to his co-host after she notes Oklahoma family mistakenly raided by ICE: “No one even believes your stories anymore”

04/29/25 7:04 PM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity: “The tariff war started with Canada”

04/29/25 7:01 PM EDT

  1. ### On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone describes how Project 2025 laid the groundwork for Trump to install right-wing media loyalists into “senior level positions”

04/29/25 6:17 PM EDT

  1. ### Stephen Miller: “Fox News needs to fire its pollster”

04/29/25 2:30 PM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media followed Trump administration in attacking Amazon for report it would display tariff costs

04/29/25 1:28 PM EDT

  1. ### Five ways MAGA media are spinning Trump’s poll collapse

04/29/25 1:23 PM EDT

Five ways MAGA media are spinning Trump’s poll collapse

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 04/29/25

President Donald Trump’s zealous propagandists have been unable to come to terms with his increasing unpopularity, instead offering a range of pathetic excuses for his cratering poll numbers.

Surveys conducted for The New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and other news organizations in preparation for the 100th day of Trump’s administration show his support in freefall. The president’s overall job approval numbers are dropping into the low 40s and even high 30s, levels several pollsters found to be historic lows for presidents at this point in their administration.

Trump is underwater with the public on nearly every issue, with particular warning signs on the economy — ABC’s poll found a majority said Trump had made the economy worse and nearly three-quarters of Americans say his policies are likely to cause a recession.

But the audience of MAGA media outlets largely consists of Trump’s most loyal supporters — the ones who would be the last to abandon him, if at all.

That gives the right-wing stars at Fox News and similar outlets every incentive to deny the reality that the American public has quickly become disenchanted with Trump’s actions and behavior and come up with alternate explanations for his slide.

The polls are fake

Trump himself responded to the collapse in support by denouncing what he termed “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS.”

“The New York Times has only 37% Trump 2024 voters, and the ABC/Washington Post Poll has only 34% Trump Voters, unheard of numbers unless looking for a negative result, which they are,” he wrote, citing his pollster John McLaughlin in a Monday morning Truth Social post. “These people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you’re at it.”

Partner Jim McLaughlin reiterated the point in a Monday night appearance on Newsmax.

“These are propaganda polls,” he said. “That's what they are. They're trying to lie to the American people. They're trying to sway public opinion.”

Host Rob Finnerty responded by suggesting it was a “coordinated takedown” of the president with “all five of these ridiculous polls coming out in the same day as the media continue to cheerlead against Trump.”

Pollster Matt Towery offered a similar analysis that night on Fox’s The Ingraham Angle.

“Now, last time I checked, Donald Trump got almost 50% of the vote,” Towery said. “So how in the world can that poll be correct? There’s no possible way.”

“He’s not in free fall,” Towery added. “He’s had a little bit of slippage because he’s doing a lot. He’s breaking a lot of eggs to make an omelet, but he is not dropping in any significant way. I can guarantee you, and I’m just not paying any attention to this nonsense.”

The polls are a “psyop”

Steve Bannon turned to Rasmussen Reports pollster Mark Mitchell to explain Trump’s polls on Monday.

“All day, Mitchell, they’re going to be bombarding us on the hundredth day that Trump is the most unpopular president in 100 years,” Bannon prompted him.

Mitchell responded by claiming that “there is a psychological operation going on.” According to him, numerous recent polls showing Trump’s polling swoon “all look the same” and large numbers of Google searches for “Trump approval” are “how I know it's a psyop. People are getting these stories shoved down their throats.”

The polls are only bad for now because Trump’s “agenda is not built for 100 days”

On Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade rejected the premise of looking at Trump’s poll numbers at this point in his administration.

“When you look at the hundred days of Trump, the problem with the hundred days and looking at the polls, this format and his agenda is not built for 100 days,” he said on Monday’s show. “He's redoing the base. He is framing out the house. A lot of it was rotted, and now he is replacing it. There’s not a lot of glory in framing out a house.”

Kilmeade added that Trump “is rebuilding and he has got a plan,” urging viewers to look ahead to potential trade deals and passage of Trump’s tax agenda.

Actually, the polls are “not bad”

Fox contributor Ari Fleischer highlighted Trump’s continued support from his political base and downplayed his low job approval numbers from the overall public.

“The base will not crack,” he told Ingraham on Monday. “The base is solid for Donald Trump, and they understand that he's got a lot of high hurdles because he's put high hurdles in front of himself because he's taking on consequential big issues that have been neglected for so long.”

Fleischer went on to claim that “the average of all the polls … shows that Trump has a 45% job approval. That is not bad. In our modern polarized era, a 45% job approval is middling, but it is not the stuff of doom, gloom, negativity, or decline. It's just the way modern politics is.”

It’s impossible to not see this administration is a “huge success”

Asked Tuesday about Trump’s “soft numbers” on Fox’s America’s Newsroom, Fox Business host and Trumpist shill Maria Bartiromo responded, “There's no other way to look at this first 100 days other than a huge success.”

The majority of Americans who disagree in Fox’s own poll are apparently just delusional.

  1. ### Fox anchor Dana Perino: Small-business owners have real concerns about losing their businesses due to tariff impacts

04/29/25 10:13 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax's Greg Kelly: “That 22nd Amendment about not being able to run for a third term just might be unconstitutional”

04/29/25 9:27 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News’ many justifications for extending Trump’s tax cut for the wealthy

04/29/25 9:19 AM EDT

  1. ### Hannity: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker “all but threatened half the country with violence”

04/28/25 10:33 PM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity defends cutting federal funding of cancer research: “That's where the private sector comes in”

04/28/25 7:10 PM EDT

  1. ### Alex Jones: “I think it's way more dangerous Trump saying we're looking to deporting citizens to El Salvador. Now, that's unconstitutional, and that is really bad.”

04/28/25 2:26 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro defends the Trump administration after a judge noted a two-year-old US citizen may have been removed from the country with “no meaningful process”

04/28/25 1:25 PM EDT

  1. ### The Trump administration's war on the press is heating up

04/28/25 1:22 PM EDT

  1. ### Daily Wire host: “Civil rights are just leftism in blackface”

04/28/25 8:46 AM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity on Kilmar Abrego Garcia: “It is so obvious to me that this guy deserves what he got”

04/25/25

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mma

WSJ pundits demolish right-wing talking points defending Hegseth: “It all comes back again to this basic point that something's wrong at the top levels”}:

04/24/25

fox stars pass on defending Hegseth amid Pentagon “chaos”

Written by Matt Gertz

:{:{Published 04/25/25}::{ }:

Fox News’ biggest stars have stopped defending Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid the weeklong firestorm over their former colleague’s dysfunctional management of the Pentagon and his potentially illegal handling of classified information.

Three months after Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 Senate tie to install the historically underqualified Hegseth at the Pentagon, journalists routinely describe a department in “chaos.” Five top Hegseth aides have left the department since last Friday amid reports of “vicious rivalries,” and a “leadership vacuum.” Reporters further revealed that Hegseth had shared details about U.S. strikes in Yemen in a second unsecured Signal chat, potentially endangering U.S. service members, and had the app installed on his Pentagon computer.

Hegseth responded to his growing list of scandals with a combative Tuesday appearance on Fox & Friends, whose hosts defended his conduct.

But other Fox hosts have been silent, even after rallying to support Hegseth when his nomination came under fire and again following the first revelation of his use of Signal to share attack plans.

Fox’s evening lineup of The Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime, Hannity, and Gutfeld!have ignored Hegseth’s struggles this week (a passing remark from guest Jimmy Failla to host Laura Ingraham was the only mention of the story on any of those shows).The Five, the Fox panel show which features Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Jeanine Pirro, and Dana Perino, also has not covered the subject.

Even Will Cain, who spent years sharing the couch with Hegseth as co-hosts of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, hasn’t mentioned his former colleague’s name on his afternoon show this week. (He did not comment on Fox correspondent Kevin Corke’s report about the Signal story during Monday’s program.)

As Fox’s stars take a pass, full-throated defenses of Hegseth’s leadership are coming from the likes of MAGA stalwarts like Charlie Kirk, Benny Johnson, and Laura Loomer, while their corporate cousins at The Wall Street Journal editorial board savage his handling of the Pentagon.

Two explanations seem plausible for why Fox’s biggest stars have gone silent as their former colleague comes under fire:

Either way, this disaster was the predictable result of President Donald Trump putting a former Fox weekend host with little relevant experience in charge of the Pentagon. The secretary of defense oversees a massive budget and bureaucracy and has the authority under certain circumstances to launch nuclear weapons and end human civilization. The risks of handing the position over to someone because of their takes on TV are almost incalculably high.

Hegseth is currently struggling to manage the Pentagon when its biggest problem is a costly, ineffective, and apparently unending bombing campaign in Yemen. How will he respond if India and Pakistan start trading fire?

  1. ### Fox stars pass on defending Hegseth amid Pentagon “chaos”

04/25/25

//

  1. ### Trump used Fox to vet his defense secretary. It isn’t going well — but now the network is fighting back.

:{:{12/04/24}::{ }:

  1. ### Fox propagandists scramble to explain former colleagues texting war plans to a reporter

:{:{03/25/25}::{ }:

  1. ### The Pete Hegseth debacle was inevitable

04/23/2

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