todd piro
lomborgian
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MMA
Fox’s ”nuke” justification for the Iran war — and the higher prices it's wrought — has collapsed
Is it a small price to pay if you get nothing in return?
Written by Matt Gertz
:{Published 05/05/26
Fox pundits have repeatedly argued that the Iran war’s costs are “a small price to pay” for its supposed prevention of the imminent threat posed by Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.
But a new U.S. intelligence assessment reportedly found that after two months of war, “the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a U.S.-Israeli attack had pushed back the timeline to up to a year,” according to exclusive reporting from Reuters.
Trump’s war of choice against Iran is now in its third month and headed for strategic defeat. While U.S. and Israeli strikes have killed Iranian leaders and severely damaged their military, the regime is intact and has established control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital channel for global trade. Americans are seeing gas, diesel, and fertilizer prices soar as a result, and the direct cost of the war continues to grow.
Some Fox pundits, in the face of plummeting support for the war, have argued that these costs are relatively small compared to the benefit of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon — but according to the new U.S. intelligence assessment, there was and remains no imminent threat of that happening.
Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, a former Trump economic adviser, argued in a Monday Fox appearance that skyrocketing fuel costs are “a small price to pay to stop the nuclear activity” from Iran, which he described as “the most gruesome regime we’ve seen in a hundred years” (note that this period includes Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung’s China).
After Kudlow went on to say that “four and a half dollars gasoline — it's not a great idea, wouldn't want it forever, but it really isn't doing all that much harm,” Fox Business contributor Marcus Lemonis added, “I think you said it right, Larry. We don't want it forever, but this short-term pain has a big, big benefit to it.”
Fox host Sean Hannity, a close ally of the president and major supporter of his war, similarly claimed last week that skyrocking gas prices are merely “short-term pain” justified by preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb.
:{Video
Citation
From the April 30, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity
“It certainly is short-term pain,” Hannity told a guest during his April 30 broadcast. “Nobody wants to pay more for gas. Diesel is even more expensive, as you point out.”
“However, in exchange for not giving our children and grandchildren nuclear weapons, again, in the short term, I think I’d take that deal every day of the week,” he added.
And Fox host Todd Piro, during a rare mention of the $25 billion estimate a Pentagon analyst gave last week for the early cost of the war, said of that price tag, “If we are dead because Iran strikes us with a nuke, all these economic discussions are moot.”
But as Reuters reported on May 4, U.S. intelligence agencies did not assess that Iran could quickly obtain a weapon before the 2026 war began — or even before striking nuclear facilities last year — much less that the country could deploy it on U.S. soil:
U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a U.S.-Israeli attack had pushed back the timeline to up to a year, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The assessments of Tehran's nuclear program remain broadly unchanged even after two months of a war that U.S. President Donald Trump launched in part to stop the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear bomb.
…
U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded prior to June's 12-day war that Iran likely could produce enough bomb-grade uranium for a weapon and build a bomb in around three to six months, said two of the sources, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss U.S. intelligence.
Following the June strikes by the U.S. that hit the Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear complexes, U.S. intelligence estimates pushed that timeline back to about nine months to a year, said the two sources and a person familiar with the assessments.
This new assessment further demolishes arguments for the war that Fox propagandists like Hannity offered after U.S. strikes began in late February.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who negotiated on behalf of the U.S. in talks with Iranian counterparts in the lead-up to the war, helped fuel those arguments by claiming on Hannity’s Fox show that Iranian negotiators had admitted possessing a uranium stockpile that could be weaponized “in roughly one week” and used to build 11 nuclear bombs. Witkoff lacks prior experience in nuclear diplomacy — but he does have sizable business interests in the Gulf region, at times partnering with Trump’s family business.
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03/19/26 12:56 PM EDT
03/02/26 1:12 PM EST
03/13/26
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morano control BS?
Fox News is returning to its pro-COVID-19 stance by attacking Los Angeles, California, for considering an indoor mask mandate as infections in the county skyrocket. The right-wing propaganda channel, which has long spewed pandemic-related misinformation, is again lying about the efficacy of masks for slowing the spread of the disease.
The Los Angeles Times reported that LA County’s case rate “has been increasing since late October and is now triple what it was in the autumn low,” and is currently 188 weekly cases per 100,000 residents, with a case rate of 100 or more being considered high. The LA Times also reported that the county is suffering about 60 deaths from COVID-19 each week. According to City News Service, the county’s COVID-19 hospitalization rate already exceeds one of the two thresholds that County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said would trigger a universal indoor masking mandate.
Fox’s response to this news is to return to its history of killing its viewers by spreading medical misinformation that has contributed to the staggering national COVID-19 death toll exceeding 1 million people. In particular, Fox has spread lies about the usefulness of face masks in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Some Fox personalities have bizarrely claimed that wearing masks makes people crazy, while others simply told lies about their effectiveness. Fox as a whole worked very hard to incorporate masking into their deranged culture war, even though at least one Fox prime time host early in the pandemic repeatedly gushed about their potential in keeping people safe. (Fox also for a time required staffers to wear masks at the workplace.) Besides attacking face masks during a respiratory disease pandemic, Fox has also urged its viewers to **distrust public health officials**.
And with the possibility of a mask mandate coming back to LA, Fox personalities reacted with incredulity, pretending that masking is ineffective and attacking the county public health director as “power hungry.”
- :{Fox & Friends First:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: co-host Todd Piroasked, “Have we learned no lessons from the … failure of masks?” He added, “These people, Barbara Ferrer, that you saw there, the entireestablishmentthat is pushing more masking, more lockdowns, they are power hungry. And they refuse to acknowledge that COVID is something we cannot prevent at this point, but something we have to deal with.”
- :{Fox & Friends:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: co-host:{ Brian Kilmeade:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: said: “Masks don’t work. … What is wrong with these people?”
- Later in the program, Kilmeade portrayed a masking mandate as intentional sabotage on people’s lives and children’s schooling, saying: “The problem is too many people enjoying their lives going back to normal. Let's try to screw them up again.”
- Fox’s :{America’s Newsroom:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: interviewed **Fox contributor Caitlyn Jenner** for her inexpert opinion on the efficacy of face masks. During the interview, Jenner said: “I don’t think they work very well.” She later added: “I think our public health director is kind of like a little mini [NIAID Director Dr. Anthony] Fauci, wanting the control that they have.”
- Fox Business host Steve Hilton claimed that masks “make practically no differencein the preventing of the transmission of this virus,” then ranted: “Can you believe we're back here again, yet again? You have these lunatics, these bureaucrats, totally unaccountable – Barbara Ferrer, the half a million dollar a year woman who runs public health in Los Angeles – not a medical doctor, parading these totally bogus metrics, right, about cases and whatever. How does she know what the cases are? People are testing on their own at home privately. It's not reported. It's complete BS. The whole thing is total BS, and I hope nobody pays any attention to it at all.”
- On Twitter, Hilton also urged LA residents to “rise up and say enough is enough.”
aha: recall heartland rev engr if AGW is real, req gobal action thus not real
aha2 note that action esp climate /enviro by ANY branch, even the agency in charge of it is being called overreach = tyranny/loss of FFFRrrreeeeeedumb!
aha 3: jeez they call US alarmists, but purpose of fox / infowars is hype /attack Dems
london protests 7 22 break glass in emergency so they did
wow omg ingraham? 1100 dead
an 7 22
with thousands dying from extreme global heat in recent days, and as President Joe Biden announced new executive actions to address the climate crisis, right-wing media figures and climate deniers are downplaying the heat wave and the threat from human-caused climate change.
In Europe, extreme “red” heat warnings were issued in the United Kingdom for the first time, and Wales recorded its highest-ever temperature. Railroad lines, major highways, and airport runways in the U.K. buckled under the extreme heat. Multiple regions of Germany also set all-time highs, as did at least part of Denmark. Over 2,000people have died in Spain and Portugal due to the extreme heat, which has fueled wildfires there and in parts of France. These record-setting events are not contained to Europe. Parts of the U.S. and Central Asia are suffering from extreme heat as well.
Even though the extreme heat event in Europe is truly exceptional, and its connections to the climate crisis are unquestionable, multiple right-wing media figures used the extreme heat event to downplay and criticize any possible action to address the climate crisis.
Right-wing media also attacked Biden for considering declaring a climate emergency during this deadly heat wave. Instead Biden unveiled much more modest steps to address climate impacts, such as putting $2.3 billion toward community resilience and infrastructure and bolstering offshore wind development. The Federalist falsely declared that “Biden has no right to declare a ‘national climate emergency,’' though The Washington Post explained that such a move would “tap a variety of long-standing emergency authorities under the National Emergencies Act and other laws.” LifeSiteNews fearmongered thatthe emergency powers would result in “climate lockdowns.” And other right-wing media suggested that there is no crisis at all.
Right-wing media denied the existence of the climate emergency
Fox News host Dan Bongino questioned whether the planet is getting warmer and whether humanity played a role in it, asking: “What kind of a dunce believes that? Come on. Is it [the planet] getting warmer? The answer is maybe. … The question isn’t is it getting warmer; the question is what’s human beings' role in it.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [7/19/22]
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton wrote on Twitter: “There is obviously no ‘climate emergency'.” Twitter, [7/19/22]
Fox host Tucker Carlson devoted a monologue to undermining the existence of climate change, reducing climate predictions to: “It’s gonna be hot and then it’s gonna rain hard.” “No one really believes in global warming,” he continued, “and that’s why all of the liberals in the United States live on the coasts – because they don’t believe it… The entire theory is absurd and they know it. … The whole thing is a joke.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [7/20/22]
On Fox, conservative British political commentator Douglas Murray dismissed the urgency of the climate crisis, saying, “Whenever there is not an absolutely vital recent emergency, we can always fall back on – oh and the climate emergency.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [7/20/22]
Fox anchor Dana Perino asked: “What has changed with the science that would lead a president to need to declare an emergency?” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*[, 7/20/22]
Fox host Todd Piro said that climate impacts, particularly the ones affecting the most vulnerable communities, did not meet his criteria for an emergency: “While we all love clean air and clean water — I, in fact, use both … this is not an emergency that we need to focus on today. We got a lot of other problems in the world.” :{Fox News, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Outnumbered*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[7/20/22:{]}:
Fox host Sean Hannity responded to new actions by the Biden administration to address climate change by dismissing the role of human influence over global warming saying, “I think these might be acts of nature, and God, and way out of the realm of something that human beings can prevent.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [7/20/22]
Conservatives also downplayed the deadly extreme heat
Climate change denying author Bjorn Lomborg dismissed the dangerous extreme heat event, writing on Twitter: “Standard climate scare.” Twitter, [7/17/22]
Climate denier Steven Milloy on Twitter dismissed a Washington Post article linking the Europe heat wave to climate change, writing: “Hot in some places. Cool in others. Just weather. Not climate.” Twitter, [7/19/22]
Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade dismissed the dangers extreme heat poses to human health, saying: “Don’t panic. It is summer. If it was December and this was happening, then I would say, this is a little weird. But it's just a little bit hotter than usual.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [7/20/22]
Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro said on his radio show that the heat wave and wildfires were being reported so fervently because “you always know that it’s the slow season newswise when you start getting weather reports from Europe. … The thing that they will never tell you, the media, is that more people die of cold every year than die of heat every year, but the cold narrative doesn’t tend to play into the climate change narrative that they wish to progmulate.” The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*,[7/19/22]
Fox host Jesse Watters dismissed the extreme heat event as regular seasonal weather, saying: “Joe Biden has seen more seasons than a lot of us. He knows that it gets cold in January and hot in July.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/20/22
Watters followed this up with an interview during which an on-screen graphic read: “Dems worried about weather, not real problems.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/20/22]
Fox host Greg Gutfeld said: “We are in a full-blown heat wave hysteria.” He said that while he does believe “it’s getting warmer,” climate advocates should “think about the opportunity cost of all the zealotry. You know? Panic didn’t work.” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/20/22]
Right-wing media also attacked the Biden administration for considering a climate emergency declaration
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claimed on his Infowars show that a climate emergency would be orchestrated by a “scientific global dictatorship whose aim is 90% world depopulation,” and that it would lead to a “dystopia”: “You’re gonna live in a 200-square-foot coffin apartment, you’re gonna be given forced inoculations five, six times a year, you’re gonna be sterilized, you’re gonna be killed.” Infowars, *The Alex Jones Show*,[7/20/22]
The Wall Street Journal editorial board called a possible emergency declaration “a serious abuse of power.” The Wall Street Journal, [7/19/22]
Kilmeade called Biden’s executive orders tone-deaf and “agenda-driven,” insisting that they “will do nothing but hurt the price of oil and gas.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*,[7/19/22]
Hannity quoted climate denier Joe Bastardi, saying on his radio show that Democrats’ response to climate change is the“systemic dismantling of the American way of life.It’s not a rational response to a climate crisis.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [7/19/22]
Hosts of Fox’s Outnumbered claimed a possible climate emergency declaration from Biden “could cause a global depression,” is “suicide,” and is “going to kill the economy.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [7/19/22]
related: Tucker Carlson tells idiotic lie that “no one really believes in global warming”
07/20/22
Fox contributor calls for more coal plants as a solution to extreme heat
07/20/22
National TV networks mention climate change in 32% of segments on global extreme heat
07/19/22