am's newsroom fOx

===

merri ok

straight?

SEE JOHN ROBERTS

===

---

Heritage Foundation economist argues Trump should get Nobel Peace Prize for tariffs

Stephen Moore on Fox: “If this keeps up, as I said in The Wall Street Journal today, he might win a Nobel Peace Prize if he's able to pull this off”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 04/08/25 MMA

Video file

Citation

From the April 8, 2025, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

JOHN ROBERTS (ANCHOR): Well, in fact, China said, in a quote the Chinese commerce ministry said, "China will fight until the end if the U.S. side is bent on going down the wrong path." But you know what the president said in recent days? He said the first countries that come and make a deal, they're going to do really well. The last country to come to make a deal, they're not going to do very well. It looks, at this point, as though that last country is going to be China.

STEPHEN MOORE (Guest): You know, I mean, this is so amazing how -- I just get amazed by Trump by what a great negotiator he is. So, he is basically putting pressure on these countries whether its Germany, France, or Spain, or Italy, or Canada, or Mexico, you better make that call. You want to be first. Because it's almost like a game of musical chairs. Right? You don't want to be the one left standing and that's why I think you are seeing these flurries of calls. Now look, the devil is in the details. We don't know exactly what is being negotiated, we don't know what they are offering. But hopefully, it is that they are going to lower their tariffs on America. And John, I have said many times on your show, I'm a free trade guy, I'm not a big fan of tariffs. But if he can -- if Donald Trump can pull this off and get these countries to reduce their tariffs, it's good for everybody. The world economy will be better. My gosh, If this keeps up, as I said in The Wall Street Journal today, he might win a Nobel Peace Prize if he's able to pull this off.

ROBERTS: Is there a Nobel Prize in trade? I don't know maybe he'd be up for that.

===

1 25

America's Newsroom - Wikipedia

America's Newsroom is an American television hard news program on Fox News Channel currently hosted by Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino live from 9 a.m. - 11 a.m. on Monday through Friday.

The show focuses on the development of the day's events with interviews, current event updates, and political analysis. The show has been a part of the Fox News program lineup since February 12, 2007, and is the number one cable news broadcast in its time slot.^[1][2]

The program is one of FNC's eight current straight news programs, with the others being Fox News Live, Special Report with Bret Baier, America Reports, The Faulkner Focus, Fox Report, Fox & Friends First, The Story with Martha MacCallum and Fox News @ Night.

Substitute hosts include Mike Emanuel, Aishah Hasnie, Gillian Turner, Shannon Bream, Trace Gallagher, Julie Banderas, Martha MacCallum, Jacqui Heinrich and Sandra Smith.

Hosts

Current hosts

Bill Hemmer (2007—2020, 2021–present), founding anchor of the program and former Host of Bill Hemmer Reports
Dana Perino (2021–present), co-host of The Five and former White House press secretary

Former hosts

Megyn Kelly – moved to America Live which debuted on the same day
Martha MacCallum – left America's Newsroom on January 16, 2017, to host The First 100 Days^[3]
Shannon Bream – left to host Fox News @ Night which started on October 30, 2017^[4] (Sandra Smith replaced Bream on October 2, 2017)^[5]
Ed Henry – suspended on June 25, 2020, and fired on July 1, 2020 (following an allegation of sexual misconduct)^[6]
Sandra Smith – left to co-host America Reports with John Roberts beginning January 18, 2021^[7] (Dana Perino replaced Smith on January 18, 2021)^[8]

Synopsis

Derived from one of the network's slogans, the show features general news coverage, which is divided between two general categories, either originating from the National Desk or World Desk. The program also features a number of discussions on issues currently in the news, commonly forming a panel of two to three to come onto the program to give separate viewpoints, pulled together by questions asked by the hosts to help inform the viewers on the points of views on the issue at hand.

Recurring segments

"The A-Team – three Fox News contributors offer political analysis of the day's events and topics
"The Headliner" – a high-profile official (usually in government) is interviewed by both hosts about the day's current events
"24/7 Crew" – featuring hosts from Fox News Headlines 24/7 to discuss the day's current events

Programming announcements/changes

On March 23, 2009, America's Newsroom began broadcasting in high definition and moved to Studio J, the Election Night 2008 set used by the Fox News Channel.

March 20, 2018, the show debuted Studio N, overlooking the Newsroom. It was stated that the move was temporary while Studio J was under construction.^[9]

On June 1, 2018, it was announced that the program would be extended to the 11 AM hour, replacing the long-time show Happening Now, and that the show was moving back to Studio J with a graphics makeover.^[10]

On December 19, 2019, it was announced that Ed Henry would replace Bill Hemmer starting January 20, 2020. He was fired five months later. In August 2020 (after a period of rotating anchors) Trace Gallagher - FNC's Los Angeles based chief breaking news anchor - would become recurring co-host. Gallagher remained in L.A., while Smith hosted from New York City, giving the show anchors on both coasts. In September 2020, Hemmer re-joined the program for the network's live coverage of the 2020 presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.

In January 2021, Fox News announced a new daytime programming lineup, bringing back founding co-anchor Bill Hemmer to the newscast, along with Dana Perino. Sandra Smith was moved to the 1-3PM/ET time block to co-anchor a new afternoon newscast with former Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts entitled "America Reports." The newscast returned to its two-hour format, giving the 11AM/ET hour to Harris Faulkner's new program, "The Faulkner Focus."

Location

America's Newsroom is broadcast from Studio J at 1211 Avenue of the Americas (also known as the News Corp. Building), New York City.

===

anomalous?

mma 1 25

January 31, 2025, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

LYDIA HU (FOX BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT): Excluding oil and energy products from these 25% tariffs that are possibly starting tomorrow would be really significant. Even though the United States is a leading producer of oil for the world, we also consume a lot, too. We produce roughly 13 million barrels of oil a day, but we consume closer to 19 to 20 million barrels. So that means we have to import oil, and where are we getting a lot of that? We're getting it from Canada, we're bringing in roughly bringing in 6 1/2 million barrels of oil, roughly 3.9 million barrels come from Canada. So if those 25% tariffs apply to that Canadian crude oil, we're getting the warnings that the consumer could bear the burden. Analysts with TD economics say it could lead to an immediate jump in U.S. gas prices by as much as 30-70 cents per gallon.

...

These tariffs are really wide reaching, they could include lumber, they could include agriculture, they could also include steel and auto parts. And auto parts is also an interesting point because the auto parts are so integrated in trade, they trade across the border seven to eight times before they're actually installed in a car. And there are economists that warn these tariffs could also raise the price of a car by maybe $3,000. So that's something else we're keeping an eye on.

---

===

mma

December 9, 2024, edition of Fox News'America's Newsroom

BILL HEMMER (FOX ANCHOR): Trump did a long interview on NBC, Meet The Press. Here is a question about birthright citizenship, something that hasn't come up a ton, but it has now. Watch.

[CLIP BEGINS]

KRISTEN WELKER (MEET THE PRESS ANCHOR): You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one. Is that still your plan?

DONALD TRUMP (PRESIDENT-ELECT): Yeah. Absolutely.

...

We're the only country that has it. Do you know, if somebody sets a foot just a foot, one foot, you don't need two, on our land. Congratulations, you are now a citizen of the United States of America. Yes. We're gonna end that because it's ridiculous.

WELKER: Through executive action?

TRUMP: Well, if we can, through executive action. I was going to do it through executive action.

[CLIP ENDS]

HEMMER: Take it to Congress too.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY (FOX CO-HOST): Yeah you heard him say if we can. That's because birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment. Not only that, in 1898 in a Supreme Court case called Wong Kim Ark they upheld birthright citizenship. In other words, there is constitutional precedent, there's Supreme Court precedent. You can try via executive action but I think there are going to be some very big court hang-ups that might not go the way of the administration on birthright citizenship.

HEMMER: It's been a loophole when it comes to immigration.

DANA PERINO (FOX ANCHOR): Yeah. Oh, it is. And I've gone back and forth because I love the Constitution! I'm an originalist. But then I also want — I would love to hear what this court thinks about that. Because they are originalists when it comes to the Constitution and see if that precedent would hold up.

---

===

September 5, 2024, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

TREY GOWDY (FOX NEWS HOST): This is the way I break it down Dana: So it looks like Russia likes Trump and Iran likes Harris, okay? There is a difference between interference and preference. I am more worried about the fact that if you ask most of our fellow citizens what the greatest threat to our democracy is, they wouldn't say Russia or Iran. They would say it is the mainstream media in this country, which you just proved with that previous story you did with Lindsey Graham and Amazon. Those two answers are, are baffling.

Then you combine that with Google or Meta or whatever they call themselves and this -- the Hunter Biden laptop where 50 different so-called intelligence experts countermanded what John Ratcliffe said, which was this was actually not Russian disinformation. So if I'm an American, yeah, I kind of expect Russia and Iran to want to mess with us and sow the seeds of discord. I really don't expect it to be The New York Times and The Washington Post and Politico. But I'll bet you most Americans would say they fear that more than they do foreign interference.

===

mma 3 24

On the March 8 edition of America’s Newsroom, anchor Bill Hemmer reported from an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean to highlight U.S. Navy drills. After Hemmer emphasized that he was completely surrounded by ice, host Dana Perino ended the segment by mocking concerns about climate change, asking, “How’s the global warming?”

Video file

CitationFrom the March 8, 2024, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

Hemmer responded to Perino’s quip, “It’s a very interesting story, because at the moment, there is none.” Co-host Shannon Bream chimed in, “He’s looking for some."

The idea that global warming is nonexistent because of the presence of cold weather — or in Hemmer’s case, miles of ice — is a feeble red herring that ignores the painful reality. Earth is facing “its ninth consecutive month of record-breaking warmth” after years of consistent warming, and scientists have repeatedly noted that “much of the planet’s warmth” is attributed to “human-caused climate change.”

The Arctic Ocean, in particular, is experiencing significant climate impacts. In February, the ocean’s ice extent was about 2% below average. New research predicts the Arctic could even become ice-free for the first time within the next decade or two. Greenhouse gas emissions are mostly to blame for ice loss, which will impact not only animals who depend on the ice for survival, but also humans who face the deleterious consequences of accelerated sea level rise.

The co-hosts’ jokes about global warming are just another example of the climate denialism that the network wholeheartedly contributes to and buttresses. Serial climate deniers plague Fox News, and the co-hosts' Pavlovian response to the effects of global warming is just a glimpse into the network’s pattern of pushing climate change misinformation.

===

SEEMS EMBELATIC, IMMUNE TO FACT/ REALITY

Right-wing media deny climate change in face of deadly and record-breaking extreme ...

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/right-wing-media-deny-climate-change-face-deadly-and-record-breaking-extreme

Media Matters for America

Fox Business host Stuart Varney indulged climate change denier Marc Morano and said climate change is “a good debate.” When discussing extreme ...

as the climate crisis becomes more evident and destructive,even exceeding climate scientists’ earlier predictions, Fox News and other influential right-wing outlets and figures are downplaying the severity of climate-fueled events and pushing dangerous climate denial.

This summer has been marked by a series of record-breaking extreme weather events, illustrative of the rapidly intensifying effects of global warming. Unprecedented heat waves, wildfires, and floods have wreaked havoc across North America. Meanwhile, global sea surface temperatures have reached alarming levels, and the world just experienced its hottest day on record — four days in a row. These events align with scientists' warnings, but the acceleration of warming and the intensity of this summer’s extreme heat suggest that the climate crisis is unfolding faster than expected.

Last month, when smoke from hundreds of wildfires raging across Canada polluted the air over major population centers in the U.S., Fox News dismissed the link between the fires and climate change; meanwhile conspiracy theories seeking alternative explanations for Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season flourished online. In response to news that Earth had reached its hottest temperatures ever recorded, bad actors attempted to distract from the unsettling milestone by focusing on CNN’s use of the phrase “hottest day ever.” As deadly heat continues to scorch parts of the U.S., Asia, and Europe with no end in sight, and with a 1,000-year flood event having left parts of Vermont and New York state underwater, right-wing media cling to talking points that deny climate science.

By flooding the zone with climate denial right when the climate crisis is most evident, right-wing media run cover for Republican decision-makers who are actively obstructing climate action, ward off accountability for the fossil fuel industry, and pollute information systems for those attempting to understand the link between extreme weather and our dependence on fossil fuels. This tactic, like the extreme heat, has no end in sight.

Right-wing media responded to deadly climate change-fueled heat and flooding with denial and delay

Fox Business host Stuart Varney indulged climate change denier Marc Morano and said climate change is “a good debate.” When discussing extreme heat in Phoenix, Arizona, Morano said, “This is not outside the normal bounds of hot summer weather,” and claimed that CNN, The New York Times, and others are “weaponizing hot summer heat waves to turn it into some kind of climate action.” Varney asked Morano whether “that is not the result of CO2 emissions'' and said, “It's a good debate. This is a very good debate.” Fox Business, *Varney & Co*., [7/19/23]

Far-right radio host Steven Crowder hosted climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg, who downplayed the climate crisis by arguing that more people die from cold than heat: “We are not talking about a world where most people die from heat. No, most people die from cold. Cold is fantastically more dangerous for a lot of different reasons.”:{ Rumble, }:*Louder with Crowder*:{, }:[7/19/23:{]}:

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh suggests that the extreme heat is normal for summer: “:{Well it’s summertime and that means it's hot outside … This is when the media, as it does every year, claims that the hot weather is a sign of our impending planetary doom.” The Daily Wire, :(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:*The Matt Walsh Show*, [7/18/23]

Far-right pundit James Lindsay: “Climate struggle sessions ramping up. They're going to try and fail to make that transition again. The propaganda isn't going to work this time either, though.” Twitter, [7/18/23]

Fox News host Laura Ingraham, in response to an Axios article about extreme weather: “I'm not taking@Axios seriously until they start crusading against coal burning in China — anyone who claims to worry about carbon emissions should start there or button it. Even the ‘best states for climate change’ get hit with extreme weather” Twitter, [7/18/23]

COVID-19 conspiracy theorist Dr. Naomi Wolf: “Oh! Conclusions: this will happen more and more often because climate change so: stay indoors, do remote work, ‘mask’. Back where we were again.” Twitter, [7/18/23]

Right-wing Irish political activist and conspiracy theorist Ben Gilroy: “Today media continue to propagandise weather showing high temperatures in Death Valley USA — yet the park rangers wear jackets and gloves? The elites UN climate scam is really about securing a world government plutocracy, depopulation, and severely cutting your quality of life.” Twitter, [7/18/23]

Fox host Jesse Watters downplayed the extreme heat as simply “summer”: “It's been a hot July. Some call it ‘global warming,’ some call it ‘summer.’ But what's the best way to beat the heat? Ice cream.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/17/23]

Lindsay mocked conditions in the southern U.S. that were so humid they had the potential to interfere with humans’ ability to sweat, pushing the limits of survivability. Twitter, [7/17/23]

Longtime fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy: “@AP: 'Around the world, millions feel the heat of an unrelenting summer.' Two points: 1. It is summer. It gets hot. 2. There 8 billion in the world. If only 'millions' are experiencing extreme heat, that doesn't sound much like 'climate change.'” Twitter, [7/17/23]

Misogynist influencer and alleged sex trafficker Tristan Tate: “They’re naming heatwaves like they used to name new ‘Covid variants’. Can somebody in the government give me the job of whoever makes the names up? I’ll do it for free. Watch out! The ‘lovely warm summer’ heatwave has just hit Europe.” Twitter, [7/15/23]

COVID-19 conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine influencer Dr. Eli David: “When the weather is a bit warmer than usual: Experts™: IT'S PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING!!!!! When the weather is colder than usual: Experts™: WEATHER AND CLIMATE ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS YOU MORONS!!!!!” Twitter, [7/17/23]

Newsmax host Chris Salcedo mocked concern over the record heat:“Newsflash folks, it gets hot in the summer.” He continued, “After a few particularly hot days on the Fourth of July weekend, the left — they went into full fearmongering mode.” Salcedo then interviewed Milloy, who warned that climate activists would call for climate lockdowns. Newsmax, *The Chris Salcedo Show*, [7/17/23]

On The Five, Jesse Watters attacked “the left” for connecting climate change to heat waves across the globe and mocked climate activists:“The left rushing to blame global warming for that dangerous heat wave gripping the nation and the world right now. But I think the heat's getting to their heads. Climate change-obsessed liberals are actually acting crazier than usual, with eco-extremists in Germany literally gluing their hands to airport runways as a way to sound thealarm on how the planet's cooked.” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/17/23]

Fox host Greg Gutfeld also attempted to downplay the record-breaking heat with bizarre logic: “The problem with using weather — like saying, ‘This place broke records’ — how many states, how many countries didn't break records? Nobody ever provides you the context. They’re going, ‘Three countries had record breaking heat waves.’ It’s like, well, ‘How many countries are there?’” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/17/23]

On America’s Newsroom, Lomborg suggested that more air conditioning is the way to address extreme heat: “The way to fix this, of course, is to make sure that people get lots of air conditioningand that they can actually afford the energy that they will run their air conditioning on. That’s one. The second one is to remember that, yes, there are many people dying from heat, but many, many more people dying from cold.:{” Fox News, }:*America’s Newsroom*:{, }:[7/17/23:{]}:

Climate change denier and former University of Alabama professor Matthew Wielicki: “We used to call this summer. Now we call this a climate crisis.” Twitter, [7/15/23]

Milloy: “India's monsoon season is not affected by emissions. Indians have died in monsoon flooding since there have been Indians and monsoons. It is really dishonest and disgusting to surf tragic deaths for climate.” Twitter, [7/14/23]

Right-wing British pundit Brendan O’Neill, who has been praised by anti-renewable energy activist Michael Shellenberger, wrote that “global warming could be good for humankind.”:{ Citing Lomborg, O’Neill wrote that “the truth is that global warming could be good for humankind” because more people die from the cold than heat. “It’s pissing down in Britain,” he continued, “Where’s our global warming? Even the name of the heatwave is designed to conjure up visions of hellfire and torment.” Spiked, }:[7/14/23:{]}:

On Fox News at Night, Carl Demaio, a political operative and conservative radio host, called a California campaign to warn residents about climate-driven extreme heat “wasteful spending” and “fear porn.” Fox News, *Fox News at Night*, [7/12/23]

Newsmax host Eric Bolling, in response to calls for climate action after flooding in the Northeast, denied that human activity is responsible for warming: “It's raining, so we all must change our behavior. Unprecedented weather events — look flooding’s terrible, loss of property is a disaster, and our hearts go out to those affected. But just imagine, for one moment, the ridiculousness and the pompousness to think that: one, our behavior has any real impact on weather and the Earth, and two, even if that were true — which it’s not — that we could do anything about it without making things worse.” Newsmax, *Eric Bolling The Balance*, [7/11/23]

Fox host Laura Ingraham also mocked the extreme heat and calls to action, suggesting that climate change is a made-up crisis: “It's hot, hot, hot all right. After all, we're in the middle of a season called ‘summer.’” Ingraham later played a clip from a previous show, arguing that “COVID lockdowns set the predicate for more to come.” She said, “Their so-called public health expertswere wrong on everything from lockdowns to masks to social distancing. And yet now we see the usual suspects lining up to exploit another hyped crisis: of course, I’m talking about climate change.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [7/11/23]

Right-wing journalist and author Alex Berenson: As climate change hysteria reaches a new level of screeching (1-in-1000 this, world's hottest that), remember that weather-related deaths have PLUNGED since 1970. The wealthier the world becomes, the easier managing climate change will be. And wealth requires energy. Period. Twitter, [7/10/23]

On Jesse Watters Primetime, guest host Pete Hegseth mocked reports of record-breaking heat and blamed media for “hyping climate insanity”: If there is one thing the mindless left loves to magically discover every year, it’s that summer is hot. Hegseth continued, “It was hotter in New York in April.And it’s not even the hottest June we’ve ever had. The data shows that the 80s and 90s … were a lot hotter.” Fox News, :{Jesse Watters Primetime}:, [7/7/23]

===

mma 6 23

Fox News has responded to the indictment of former President Donald Trump for withholding classified documents with a swell of demagoguery suggesting this event signals the end of American democracy. But the network is pushing another ridiculous angle: That the indictment was timed to distract from House Republicans’ latest accusations against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

The conspiracy theory is obviously baseless. Special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of Trump has been going on for months, and Fox itself reported two weeks ago that Smith was going to conclude it soon. In order to buy into Fox’s claim that the indictment is a distraction, you would have to believe that the entire process of Smith’s appointment last November and his 7 month long investigation was timed to produce an indictment in June this year, just in time to spoil yet another House Republican attempt to kick up a manufactured scandal against the Biden family.

Fox News is trying to rehash the anti-Biden smear campaign behind Trump’s first impeachment

Fox News has for weeks been hyping up efforts by congressional Republicans to accuse Biden of having received vast sums of money from Ukraine when his son Hunter was on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The accusation is a relic of the smear campaign four years ago that led to Trump’s first impeachment, when he attempted to pressure the Ukrainian government into announcing an investigation of Biden in exchange for receiving badly needed military aid to defend itself from Russia. The claims were widely debunked at the time, which did not stop the Murdoch media from ignoring facts their own news desks had reported.

In the latest chapter, members of the House Oversight Committee led by Chairman James Comer (R-KY) on Thursday looked at an FBI document called an FD-1023, containing a tip from a confidential source dating back to 2020, alleging a $5 million payment to Biden during his time as vice president.

Fox’s own reporting describes the tip as coming in June 2020, which was both in the heat of the presidential election and months after Trump’s previous efforts to pin a corruption charge on his opponent via the Ukrainian government. Even then, the source only said that another person claimed they were paying Biden, not that the source had this information directly. (Fox News is now ignoring its own reporting that “the document does not say Joe Biden received any payments,” with hosts speaking of “these $5 million payments” as if they were established facts.)

Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr told The Federalist that he sent the information to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Delaware. This would mean the information has been in the possession of the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware, David C. Weiss, whom Biden has not replaced during his term. So, either this Trump-appointed U.S. attorney deemed the tip to not be credible, or Weiss has had the information for up to three years and it could form some component of a probe of Hunter Biden. But either way, House Republicans and right-wing media would have no cause to complain of obstruction by the Biden administration.

NBC News reported that a senior law enforcement official said the FBI and a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney had reviewed the bribery claim in 2020 and determined that it was not substantiated. But on Thursday, House Republicans trumpeted the document as absolute proof that Biden was “100% guilty.”

Biden himself jokingly responded to a reporter Thursday, “Where’s the money?” And indeed, such a scheme would also have to involve some incredible degree of money laundering to hide the funds from his publicly available financial disclosures and decades’ worth of tax returns.

Fox News hosts and “straight news” anchors spread the conspiracy theory

Just as the story broke Thursday night, Fox host Jesse Watters asked, “What does this tell you on the same day we’re learning that the Bidens took $10 million in bribes, supposedly, from Ukraine?” Fox contributor Charlie Hurt:{ responded that Biden had “been asked about it for the first time. So you see this drop on the exact same day. I think that the two are very related.” Fox News, }:*Jesse Watters Primetime*:{, }:[6/8/23:{]}:
During her guest-hosting spot in the 8 p.m. hour, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner alleged: “It’s remarkable that just hours after Republicans made this finding, Biden’s own Justice Department would indict Biden’s leading opponent in 2024. It’s unprecedented.” Fox News, *Fox News Tonight*, [6/8/23]
The theory then got tons of airtime on The Ingraham Angle. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine claimed: “Well, look, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, controls the timing of this and the timing is really outrageous, because it comes right as the FBI has finally been forced by James Comer in the House Oversight Committee to hand over this evidence of Joe Biden receiving a $5 million bribe from Ukraine when he was vice president. This is devastating to the president. It should be devastating. But, of course, they've just brought out this shiny object to make all of the media look over there.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [6/8/23]
Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz chimed in: “I agree with Miranda. I think the timing is such that here James Comer and all the House Republicans and Democrats can go see what’s going on with the allegation from a credible source about Joe Biden. They just happened, hours later, to drop this indictment on President Trump. Do you think that’s a coincidence?” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [6/8/23]
Host Laura Ingraham kicked off an interview with far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) by offering this sardonic remark: “Congresswoman, so, the reporting would be then, if this were true, that the Burisma scheme is confirmed, then Trump is indicted. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. This all just happened. It’s sheer coinciden:{ce.” Fox News, }:*The Ingraham Angle*:{, }:[6/8/23:{]}:
The conspiracy theories continued into the morning, with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi :{claiming that the government was “going after Donald Trump, and I don't think it's a coincidence now because of the 1023 that’s out.” (In the same interview, Bondi claimed that the government’s prosecution of Trump was taking resources away from investigating child sex-trafficking.) Fox News, }:*Fox & Friends*:{, }:[6/9/23:{]}:
Later in the program, Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhart also asked then-Trump attorney Jim Trusty: “It happened to be on the exact same day that House Oversight Committee got to look at that 1023 form that basically alleges — it’s being told that that’s proof that there was an exchange of $5 million from this oil company in Ukraine in exchange for policy when Joe Biden was vice president. Is that coincidence that this happened on the same day?” (It was announced later Friday that Trusty resigned as Trump’s attorney.) Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [6/9/23]
During the network’s purported “straight news” programming, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) claimed, “With the indictment last night that came down on Donald Trump on the day that we looked at evidence of corruption, you know, you’re watching the executive branch trying to take out political enemies because of the accusations against the Biden family.” America’s Newsroom co-anchor Bill Hemmer did not challenge Mace or ask her any further questions on this point:{. Fox News, }::{America’s Newsroom}::{, }:[6/9/23:{]}:

Fox’s histrionics are ironic on multiple levels, considering the propaganda network previously championed the cause of locking up the right’s political enemies, argued for a president’s supposed authority to directly order the investigation of a political opponent, and served a major public role in Trump’s effort to subvert American democracy following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

===

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 Piro asked, “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}: 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.”

===

mofo

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/foxs-flagship-straight-news-show-promotes-bogus-covid-study-boost-republican

fox’s flagship “straight news” show promotes bogus COVID study to boost Republican policies

Right-wing apparatchiks want you to believe red states outperformed blue states during the pandemic — after they literally rewrote the death statistics

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD

PUBLISHED 04/13/22

murdoch media outlets are promoting an economic report declaring that Republican-led states did better than their Democratic-led counterparts in the COVID-19 pandemic. But the supposed “study” is simply an engineered conclusion produced by a political front group, which gives extra credit to Republican policies to not implement public health guidance or restrict normal life. And on top of that, it manipulates the typically higher death rates in red states by artificially adjusting them downward, while dishonestly fabricating higher death statistics in blue states.

The report, with the grandiose title “A Final Report Card on the States’ Response to COVID-19,” is the brainchild of right-wing pundit Stephen Moore, along with conservative political organizer Phil Kerpen and libertarian University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan. (Both Moore and Mulligan served as political appointees in the Trump administration.) The report was released through theCommittee to Unleash Prosperity, a conservative group advocating the discredited principles of “supply-side” economics that has also promoted “pro-growth and liberty-based responses to COVID-19.”

The report, which is not peer-reviewed, also includes a note on the first page thanking Dr. Jay Bhattacharya “for his review of this study and his instructive advice.” Bhattacharya is a Stanford medical professor associated with the right-wing Hoover Institution, who has also informally advised Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) — a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2024 — and has appeared multiple times on Fox News and undermined the COVID-19 vaccines and public vaccination campaigns.Bhattacharya also co-authored the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a reckless libertarian proposal for loosening public health measures in the midst of the pandemic to achieve global “herd immunity.”

Fox’s Special Report covered this rigged “study” as if it were straight news

The study was touted on Monday’s edition of Fox’s flagship “straight” news program, Special Report with Bret Baier. A chyron on screen claimed, “Red states fare better on economic and health outcomes.” But as a close examination of the study reveals — briefly alluded to by Fox News correspondent Jonathan Serrie — this conclusion exists only after the authors made some creative adjustments “for age, obesity, and diabetes.”

Video Citation From the April 11, 2022, edition of Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier

Thestudy was also promoted in stories on Fox’s website, as well as in the editorial pages of the network’s corporate cousins: the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal. FoxNews.com and the New York Post both mentioned the metric of “age-adjusted death rates,” while the Journal was a bit more forthcoming in noting that the study also made adjustments for “the prevalence of obesity and diabetes (leading co-morbidities for Covid deaths).”

The reports in these three Murdoch publications all pointed to the report’s praise of Florida as supposedly one of the best-performing states — a possible sign of Bhattacharya’s influence on both Florida’s policies and this report’s verdict. By contrast, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank has run through numbers from health care analyst Charles Gaba, which found that Florida is actually one of the worst-performing states in COVID-19 death statistics, even accounting for the state’s older population.

Moore also appeared on Monday morning’s edition of Fox Business’ *Varney & Co.*, during which he claimed, “The big takeaway is that the lockdown strategy was pretty much a total failure. … States that remained open did not have higher death rates from the virus than states that completely shut down.” Serrie later mentioned Moore’s study again, on Tuesday morning’s edition of :{America’s Newsroom:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:.

Moore has built a career as possibly the worst economist in the media, making serially wrong pronouncements and false calculations in service of his political agendas.In March 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced his nomination of Moore to the Federal Reserve Board, only for Moore to eventually withdraw from consideration due to multiple controversies over his past political comments.

Committee to Unleash Prosperity rewrites death numbers in red states with a fake statistic: “Metabolic-health adjustment”

In order to arrive at the favored conclusion, the Committee to Unleash Prosperity report actually looked at more than just health outcomes. The group’s press release explains that it used three metrics for its findings — COVID-19 deaths, economic performance, and school openings — and declared they were “equally weighted” in the analysis. The result is that the question of saving lives accounts for only one-third of the calculation. The study also essentially just rehashes in pseudo-scientific form Moore’s long-standing contention that saving lives in the pandemic might not be “worth trillions of dollars of losses” and that simply allowing the virus to spread was “a better strategy” than enduring the economic costs of lockdowns.

The concept of age-adjusted deaths across populations is a tricky issue. While it is a legitimate line of inquiry, Fox News has exploited it ever since the start of the pandemic to create a nonchalant response to COVID-19 deaths among the elderly. Looking at this metric from a neutral source does show some interesting effects, but the ranks of worst-performing states would still be Republican-led ones such as Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Moore and his compatriots at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity have gone even further, however,by setting up a new metric in the fine print of their supposed study. They call it an adjustment for “metabolic health” in different populations — “the pre-pandemic prevalence of obesity and diabetes.” But what it really amounts to is a manipulation of the statistics to declare that higher death tolls should be discounted in populations that were less healthy to begin with, and toact as if public health responses can be separated from the overall health of the public.

Much of the discourse around the role of obesity in COVID-19 deaths has framed it as “another ongoing pandemic,” and the role of diabetes has been addressed in media as a “public health train wreck” and evidence of “America’s diabetes crisis.” But the Committee to Unleash Prosperity instead treats these deaths as somehow a mitigating factor in the public health responses of the states most affected. It’s almost as if, by the standards of Moore and his co-authors, the deaths of unhealthy people are not a problem at all.

As a result of this statistical chicanery, death rates in the South and some other Republican-led states were magically revised downward, while deaths were “adjusted” drastically higher in many Democratic states — skewing the data to make blue states look like the worst offenders.

“NV, NY, NJ, and DC were the four states with the highest metabolic-adjusted mortality, even though none is in the top four without the adjustment,” the report says — as if that were a good thing for the authors’ credibility — because those four places all have obesity and diabetes rates that are below the national average. By contrast, in the real-world statistics they began with, the worst contenders were all red states.

Fox News has waged a two-year propaganda campaign against public health, in which it has lied about COVID-19 vaccines, promoted fake cures, encouraged the spread of the virus, and turned people defying public health measures into culture war heroes even as their actions have gotten them killed. Fox also clearly does not believe any of what it preaches — see its own corporate vaccination and testing policies — but the network nevertheless pursues this framing because it is “great for ratings.”

Who knows, perhaps the network will be able to come up with a study showing that watching Fox News is good for surviving the COVID-19 pandemic, once the analysts can adjust for the comorbidities associated with watching Fox News.

===

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/fox-news-dominated-coverage-congressional-hearing-big-oil-and-gas-prices

no lnx vid grf

Fox News dominated coverage of congressional hearing on Big Oil and gas prices

Fox’s Big Oil hearing coverage was more than triple CNN’s and MSNBC’s coverage combined

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER

PUBLISHED 04/08/22

Since last year, Fox News has been trying to pin the blame of rising fuel costs on President Joe Biden through its relentless coverage. The April 6 congressional hearing — by the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee — on the oil industry’s role in driving record high gas prices and earning record profits posed a threat to that right-wing media narrative.

In response, Fox News programs devoted 49 minutes of coverage to the hearing, much of which defended Big Oil and insisted that Biden’s policies are responsible for high gas prices. In comparison, CNN and MSNBC covered the hearings for only 10 minutes and 4 minutes, respectively, effectively letting Fox shape the narrative around this moment and failing to use it as a catalyst to inform viewers on the myriad factors that are driving the price at the pump.

Fox covered Big Oil hearing for over three times as long as CNN and MSNBC combined

Fox leveraged the Big Oil hearing to defend the industry and redirect blame at Biden

On April 6, nearly every hour on Fox News — from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. EDT — featured coverage of the congressional hearing on the oil industry and gas prices. The vast majority of this coverage ran cover for the industry while shoring up one of the network’s most dominant narratives around gas prices — that Biden is to blame.

The claim is false; presidents and their policies have little effect on the price at the pump in the short term and even less impact on how gas is priced in the global market. It also ignores the fact that prices have been rebounding since economies across the globe began reopening from the COVID-19 lockdowns last year. But that hasn’t stopped Fox News from repeatedly tethering gas price hikes to Biden’s policies.

Fox’s coverage of the hearing started with the network’s early morning program,Fox & Friends First. Fox Business correspondent Cheryl Caseonereported on the hearing and cited “misguided policies from the administration” as the key drivers of inflation and high energy cost. Other segments throughout the day highlighted industry talking points, including the claim that “rhetoric from the Biden administration” has had a “chilling effect” on oil production. Anchor Martha MacCullum began her coverage of the Big Oil hearing on The Story with Martha MacCullum by highlighting the findings of a recent Fox poll (a self-fulfilling prophecy) that “Republicans and 68% of registered voters say that the Biden administration is to blame for high prices at the pump.”

Video From the April 6, 2022, episode of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum

In defense of oil companies, Fox host and guests, which included oil industry executives, suggested they were a scapegoat for Biden’s failed policies. Appearing on America’s Newsroom, American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers said:

“We all know that the real reasonfor high prices are a consequence of low production because of some of these Biden administration policies, but also some other factors that are going on throughout the world. So — but this is a typical blame game we see all the time on Capitol Hill. It is pretty outrageous, though, that they're hauling American executives that supply 11 million American jobs up before Congress to blame them for something that they themselves can be blamed for.”

Similarly, Dan Eberhart, another oil industry CEO, appeared on America Reports and called the hearing a “big show trial.”[anti-commie]

Earlier in the program congressional correspondent Chad Pergram began his report by saying: “Democrats who control the House, Senate, and White House are struggling to address the price surge, so they need a scapegoat. Oil companies. Attacking big business is good politics for the Democratic base.They tried to focus on profits and turned on the witnesses.”

In reality, the industry’s record profits and related decisions to not increase production at a time consumers are hurting from high energy costs seems to expose something wrong, if not unjust, that should be examined by policymakers.

Some segments went so far as to defend Big Oil’s record profits, including by highlighting the losses the industry faced during the early phases of the pandemic when gas demand plummeted due to nationwide stay-at-home ordinances. Anchor Sandra Smith on America Reports listed all the major oil companies’ losses and profits over the past two years, saying that it was important context to understand the profit loss in 2020 as the companies are being “demonized” for profiting in 2021.

Video From the April 6, 2022, episode of Fox News' America Reports

Notably, while oil industry profits did dip during the pandemic, CEO salaries did not. According to an analysis by BailoutWatch, reported by Gizmodo, oil executives' salaries remained intact in 2020 as the industry was laying off workers while receiving federal handouts:

“The analysis finds that at a dozen oil companies—including big names like Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Phillips 66—CEO pay in 2020 was more than 100 times that of the median worker’s pay. All of those companies laid people off last year, including thenine companies that collectively got $4.8 billion in federal bailout money.”

CNN and MSNBC missed an opportunity to hold Big Oil accountable

CNN and MSNBC dedicated only 10 minutes and 4 minutes, respectively, to covering the April 6 hearing — even as the issue of high gas prices remains a mainstay of cable news. One segment on CNN accounted for nearly all of CNN’s coverage — an over 7-minute joint interview on CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera withRobert Reich, a public policy professor and former labor secretary, and Daniel Raimi, energy analyst with Resources for the Future.

The segment served, in part, as an example of how CNN and MSNBC could have used the hearing to more robustly cut through reductive and agenda-driven industry and right-wing media talking points to provide a more holistic understanding of why gas prices are high and what tools are available to help alleviate cost to consumers.

Video From the April 6, 2022, episode of CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera

The majority of MSNBC’s 4 minutes of hearing coverage was aired in the closing moments of The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle. Host Stephanie Ruhle first laid out the contrasting positions by Democrats and Republicans overseeing the hearing and then told her viewers:

“This might be a good time to let you know thatmembers of this very subcommittee received a whopping $383,000 from Big Oil. And according to the FEC, 97% of that money went to Republicans. So, what did the oil executives have to say about the high prices Americans are paying at the pump? They said it's not their fault.”

Video

CitationFrom the April 6, 2022, episode of MSNBC's The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle

While good, both segments only scratched the surface of the information (on gas prices) and accountability (of the oil industry).

In fact, in October, CNN and MSNBC managed to devote a modest amount of coverage to a congressional hearing on Big Oil disinformation, providing a glimmer of what accountability journalism could look like if cable news shows began seriously interrogating the fossil fuel industry. But the sparse coverage of this latest hearing represents a failure on part of the networks to both build on that accountability and, particularly in this moment, provide necessary context around high prices.

Fox News is shaping discussion around climate and energy issues

The April 6 hearing is not the first time Fox News has dominated coverage of key climate and energy actions or newsworthy moments. After the Green New Deal was introduced in 2019, Fox News relentlessly attacked the climate and justice actions and hammered the same messaging — tethering the proposal to radical socialism, climate alarmism, and economic devastation, while vilifying those who champion it. In comparison, other TV news networks made only a cursory attempt to articulate what the Green New Deal is and what it would accomplish. As a result, for Fox viewers, the Green New Deal has become synonymous with extreme socialism manifested by a fake climate crisis.

In the month following candidate Joe Biden unveiling his climate agenda in July 2019, Fox News aired 7 times the number of segments CNN aired and more than 4 times the segments aired on MSNBC. In fact, the network’s coverage of energy and climate issues in the fall months of the 2020 presidential campaign played a role shaping the related presidential debate questions.

After Biden took office on January 27, 2021, Fox spent approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes that day discussing Biden’s day one executive orders (including canceling the Keystone XL pipeline). CNN spent nearly half as much time, at approximately 53 minutes, MSNBC spent 1 hour and 24 minutes discussing the topics. While this data may not be as striking, it doesn’t include the amount of time Fox spent covering, for example, the canceled Keystone XL pipeline long after the other networks had moved on. Even now, Fox News has still repeatedly invoked the scrapped pipeline as one of the reasons contributing to the current energy crisis, even though the pipeline would not have had an impact on gas prices.

It is troubling to see CNN and MSNBC repeatedly yield coverage of major climate and energy stories to Fox News, and it’s time for the networks to step up.

Methodology

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/dozen-times-right-wing-media-said-something-ridiculous-about-climate-change-2021

no lnx many vids

A dozen times right-wing media said something ridiculous about climate change in 2021

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY TED MACDONALD

PUBLISHED 12/23/21

1. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro doesn’t think that 4 degrees Celsius of warming is an emergency

On the April 14 edition of The Daily Wire’s The Ben Shapiro Show, host Ben Shapiro stated that “I do not consider it a quote-unquote ‘emergency’ if the climate were to warm 4 degrees Celsius over the course of the next century. … It’s just a way for them to create a certain level of alarmism that is unjustifiable by the facts on the ground."

It’s a good thing that Shapiro, whose publication is backed by fracking billionaires, has no authority or credibility within the climate science community: 4 C of warming would be literally catastrophic for large swaths of the globe. As The Guardian reported in 2019, at 4 C of climate change, we’d have sea levels that would be around 2 meters higher than today (which would render many coastal areas obsolete), destruction of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, oceanic dead zones, temperatures in the equatorial belt so high that would make for impossible living conditions for most of the year, and the beginning of a potential mass extinction for many species. This is not the first time that Shapiro has said something ignorant about the climate crisis; he once theorized that people affected by rising sea levels could just sell their inundated homes and move.

2. Fox’s Dagen McDowell thinks that cold temperatures in certain parts of the U.S. entirely disprove global warming

Fox News personalities regularly conflate climate with weather, and they generally do it to dismiss global warming. On the April 21 edition of The Five, co-host Dagen McDowell mockingly suggested that “they stopped calling it global warming” because of abnormally cold U.S. temperatures.

Video file

CitationFrom the April 21, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Five

In reality, our warming climate has not eradicated cold weather, and in some cases, it has even made cold weather more severe and unpredictable. Nor have abnormally cold temperatures caused a dent in the Earth’s alarming warming trend, in which the past decade was the warmest on record.

3. Ex-coal lobbyist Steve Milloy lies about warming temperatures on One America News: “The June 2021 temperature was actually below the 40-year average”

On the August 2 edition of OAN’s The Tipping Point, former coal lobbyist and Fox News contributor Steve Milloy stated: “The June 2021 temperature was actually below the 40-year average. … There’s just so much bad information going on around, and you know, you’ve just got to be careful with climate alarmists.”

Video file

CitationFrom the August 2, 2021, edition ofOAN's The Tipping Point

In reality, the U.S. suffered through its hottest June on record, while it was the fifth-warmest June on record globally (followed by the hottest July ever recorded in earth’s history). Milloy is a longstanding figure in the climate denial community, and viewers have really “got to be careful” with his objectively false information.

4. Fox's Laura Ingraham suggests that climate change is really “about controlling the people” and fearmongers that climate action will lead to pandemic-style lockdowns

On both the May 18 and 19 editions of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham theorized that Democrats will use climate change to control Americans’ lives through pandemic-style lockdowns.

Video file

CitationFrom the May 19, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

This is a dangerous conspiracy theory being pushed by prominent climate deniers that has taken hold among far-right media figures. To be clear, the way to fight climate change is not via lockdowns (COVID-19 lockdowns “only marginally reduced greenhouse gas emissions”), but by bringing about systemic change in our energy system and reimagining our economy and the way we live.

5. Newsmax’s Chris Salcedo doesn’t believe in “proof” that CO2 emissions are contributing to climate change

There were multiple times this year when Newsmax host Chris Salcedo went on a perplexing rant claiming there’s somehow no proof that rising CO2 emissions affect temperatures in any meaningful way. On the August 18 edition of The Chris Salcedo Show, Salcedo called global warming a “religion” that “has not been proven through science” before going on to say, “There's no mathematical proof out there that states that X amount of man-made CO2 yields Y amount of temperature change.”

Then on the December 14 edition of his show, Salcedo stated: “From experts I have read and interviewed over the years, I can say that there is no proof that man's C02 emissions are destroying the planet.” Salcedo must be interviewing some pretty fringe climate deniers as “experts,” as there is effectively unanimous scientific consensus that “humans are changing Earth's climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions.”

6. Fox’s Tucker Carlson rants that climate change is somehow a conspiracy to shrink your children

While Tucker Carlson is no stranger to promoting weird conspiracy theories about climate change, one of his segments from June went completely overboard. On the June 22 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the Fox prime-time host accused climate scientists of wanting to use “human engineering” to “make human children smaller than they are now” and thereby reduce their lifetime greenhouse gas emissions: “All we need to do is experiment on human children and we can solve climate change.”

Tucker Human Engineering

Carlson’s claim was based on a speech given by a bioethicist nearly five years ago. As Gizmodo reported, “The ideas are bad, but they’re utterly fringe. Activists are clamoring for transforming society, not individual humans. You’d never know that from watching the segment, though.” But taking a fringe remark out of context and repurposing it to claim that the government will take over our lives seems pretty on-brand for Fox News.

7. Dennis Prager thinks the simple solution to a warming climate is to just use more air conditioning

Conservative commentator Dennis Prager, who leads a nonprofit online “university” that promotes climate denial, among other conservative talking points, offered his own absurd “solution” to climate change during a talk on September 22: “Did you know that there is a solution to a warm climate? It's called air conditioning. It's very effective.”

Prager’s comments follow a concerning new form of climate denial in right-wing media: acknowledging the climate is changing but claiming there’s nothing we can do to prevent it -- we must learn to live with it instead. In Prager’s case, he suggests that well-off people can just adapt to the warming climate by using air conditioning when it gets hot (which would only increase emissions even further), while those without access to air conditioning will suffer.

8. On Fox News’ The Five, Greg Gutfeld claims that the data to prove climate change is “never there”

On the September 2 edition of Fox News’ The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld criticized those who connect climate change to extreme weather events -- specifically to the destructive Hurricane Ida. He stated that the data is “never there,” and that “the severity” of such storms “has been on the decline.”

LOMBORGIAN?

Video file

CitationFrom the September 2, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Five

For one, science has shown that climate change is affecting hurricanes in a number of ways as storms are dumping more rain, moving slower, and rapidly intensifying -- all hallmarks of Hurricane Ida. Secondly, the data is indeed “there,” as climate models have been correct over the past 50 years. Additionally, Gutfeld talks about “severity” only in terms of decreasing deaths from natural disasters. However, focusing on this statistic obscures the many other reasons that climate change is a serious and deadly threat. As one scientist puts it, “climate change kills, from poor nutrition status and poor health linked to episodes of drought and harvest failures, the spread of infectious diseases, … increasing violent conflict, … and of course the impact of extreme events like tropical cyclones and flash floods.”

9. On Newsmax, Republican commentator Ford O’Connell claims that “climate change is the ultimate Trojan horse for socialism” before stating that the Earth “may or not be warming”

Newsmax had a wild year of promoting climate denial, and right-wing pundit Ford O’Connell’s claim that the Earth “may or may not be warming” on the October 25 edition of American Agenda is just another sad example.

Video file

CitationFrom the October 25, 2021, edition of Newsmax's American Agenda

The context behind this segment is noteworthy -- Newsmax was attacking its much larger rival Fox News for “going woke” and “making a permanent hard-left turn” by suggesting that the newly launched Fox Weather streaming service is taking climate change too seriously. In actuality, Fox Weather is just ignoring the issue altogether, but it’s funny to see Newsmax melt down over the fact that Fox is apparently not right-wing enough.

10. On Fox Business, Patricia Lee Onwuka of the Independent Women’s Forum claims that climate change is a “fallacy”

Discussing President Biden’s response to Hurricane Ida on the September 3 edition of Fox Business' Mornings With Maria, right-wing commentator Patricia Lee Onwuka suggested that climate change is a “fallacy” that Biden is using to advance his agenda; she also said that “the facts dispute” the idea that extreme weather events like hurricanes are connected to climate change.

Video file

CitationFrom the September 3, 2021, edition of Fox Business' Mornings With Maria

As noted above, we already know the ways in which climate change is affecting hurricanes and worsening their impacts on our warming world. Those facts don’t seem to matter to Onwuka or the Independent Women’s Forum, which has received both Koch and tobacco industry money and has a history of climate denial.

11. On OAN, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) says that “we have the cleanest environment anywhere in the world” because of the fossil fuel industry

A lot of stupid things were said by right-wing media regarding this year’s United Nations climate conference, known as COP26. One of the more head-scratching comments came from Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), who was featured on a November edition of OAN’s In Focus With Stephanie Hamill to downplay the seriousness of climate change. He went on to hype up the U.S. fossil fuel industry by stating that “we have the cleanest environment anywhere in the world” because of “clean energy practices” like fracking.

While Cawthorn was alluding to the fact that natural gas obtained by fracking is cleaner than coal (it emits much less CO2 than coal when burned), it’s important to remember that fracking also releases methane, which is about 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. And like coal, there are numerous water and air pollution problems associated with its use. In any case, the side effects of fossil fuel operations involve literally polluting our air and waterways, so in no way are they responsible for making our environment clean and safe. Additionally, despite Cawthorn’s boast that “I’ll put our air [quality] up against anyone’s,” the U.S. is nowhere near the top of global environmental rankings by any metric.

12. Fossil fuel lobbyist Daniel Turner thinks concern about climate change is “so overblown that it is hyperbolic and silly”

On the November 1 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, Daniel Turner of the fossil fuel shill group Power the Future tried to throw cold water on COP26 by claiming that “climate change panic is so overblown that it is hyperbolic and silly” and suggesting that the U.N. tries to scare people by publishing “nonsense reports.”

Video file

CitationFrom the November 1, 2021, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

We’re not sure what’s so “silly” about being concerned with a planet that’s on track for over 2.5 C of warming, which will have devastating consequences for billions of people around the world. Turner, who has spent almost his entire career working for Koch-backed groups, has made similar ludicrous statements in the past, including claiming that climate activists are somehow thrilled with the COVID-19 pandemic because it’s supposedly accomplishing their goals of implementing a Green New Deal.

===

mma 10 21

Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which is largely represented in the Democrat’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, would materially benefit millions of Americans through unprecedented investments in our social safety net and efforts to combat climate change. Polling suggests that the spending bill is popular among the American people. Expectedly, Fox News has characterized the package as a “socialist wish list” and picked off a litany of minor ticket items to rally outrage and opposition on the right.

Former Trump aide Stephen Miller’s description of the bill on the October 16 edition of the Fox News show :{Watters’ World:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: is representative of how the network is using its tried-and-true dog whistles to poison and stoke fear about the bill:

STEPHEN MILLER (GUEST): It's basically the Green New Deal, combined with critical race theory, combined with massive amnesty and open borders, combined with the complete destruction of the American economy.

Among the provisions Fox has characterized as the Green New Deal and mocked or grossly misrepresented are: the Civilian Climate Corps; an initiative referred to as Tree Equity; and a program intended to redress historic inequities and environmental injustices associated with zoning decisions and highway placement, which Fox has referred to as fixing “racists roads.”

Fox’s coverage of these programs has not attempted to describe what they entail or what they would accomplish for hundreds of communities. Rather, they have been used as punchlines or set up for cheap shots that reflect Fox’s racist ethos and climate denial — all under the guise of informing Fox’s audience about the policies contained in the reconciliation package.

Fox has grossly misrepresented the Civilian Climate Corps -- “climate cops” is not a thing KOCH FORK 4]

The reconciliation bill includes $8 billion earmarked for the Civilian Climate Corps -- modeled after the depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps -- which would establish a government jobs program that would put Americans to “work conserving our public lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, and advancing environmental justice.” The current funding for this program represents .4% of the $3.5 trillion spending in the bill.

On October 12, the Republican Study Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) released a memo on policies contained in the reconciliation package, claiming that while the bill is polling favorably, support would tank if the American people understood what was in it. It lists among the “policies to wreck America” the Climate Civilian Corps, which the memo characterizes as “a cabal of federally funded climate police … who will conduct progressive activism on taxpayers’ dime.”

There isn’t even a grain of truth in how the committee characterized the program: “Climate police” is to the reconciliation bill what “cow farts” was to the Green New Deal. But that won’t stop conservative media from running with it.

The Republican Study Committee wasn’t the first to characterize the program this way -- during the early stages of drafting the bill, climate denier Marc Morano suggested on Fox & Friends Firstthat participants could resemble “climate cops” -- but the memo certainly reinvigorated the idea on Fox.

On the October 12 edition of *The Ingraham Angle*, Banks said the bill would “create a climate police department. This was a wacky idea that AOC came out with a couple of years ago. We all laughed at it because we thought it would never happen and now it’s on the brink of happening.” The following day, at least four programs described the program this way. On October 14, Banks appeared on both *Kudlow* on the Fox Business Network and Fox News' Faulkner Focus, claiming that the bill contains billions to create a “climate police department or a militia to go out and enforce Green New Deal policies."

[vid

October 14, 2021, episode of Fox News' Faulkner Focus]

Fox mocked and belittled provisions to address environmental injustices

Notably, during the Faulkner Focus segment Banks also referred to a program to fix “racist roads.” In fact, what he’s referring to is a $4 billion fund intended to address historic inequities and environmental injustices associated with zoning decisions and highway placement, which in some cases have divided once-thriving communities of color. The fund represents about .1% of the spending in the reconciliation bill.

Biden’s original infrastructure plan called for a $20 billion fund to “reconnect” neighborhoods cut off by old transportation projects. This would benefit communities like one in New Orleans whose residents have lived under the Claiborne Expressway for decades and remember how vibrant their community was before “The Monster” was built. After construction began on the highway in the 1960s, the once-thriving Tremé community, a center of Black cultural and commercial life, was divided and diminished. When the program was first introduced as part of the infrastructure plan, Fox’s Tucker Carlson suggested, in a blatantly racist rant, that the program was a form of reparations. This plan was cut in the bipartisan infrastructure bill negotiations, and a drastically reduced version is funded by the proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Also among the litany of “controversial” items in the bill, often cited by Fox News hosts and anchors, is an initiative to plant trees, particularly in urban areas with less canopy cover to reduce the effects of extreme heat.

For example, during the October 13 edition of *The Ingraham Angle*, host Laura Ingraham fearmongered that the bill will “bankrupt the next generation, steal the next generation” before listing the “priorities” embedded in the legislation:

Eight billion bucks for a Civilian Climate Corps. It’s going to act basically as ataxpayer-funded leftist police force.$4 billion for equity — I love that word — in electric vehicle charging and tree planting.$643 million would go toward procuring culturally appropriate foods — I kid you not — for school lunches. Forget chicken tenders and Friday pizza, I guess.Free community college for illegals, of course. They’ll be eligible for child tax credits as well.My personal favorite, though — this is a drop in the bucket for the federal government. $15 million for national resource centers focused on providing services for older individuals who are underserved due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The tree equity initiative Ingraham refers to is a commonsense solution to addressing the heat island effect, which disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities across the US. Communities without sufficient canopy cover can reach temperatures up to 10 degrees higher than those that do, and one proven solution is to plant more trees in those neighborhoods.

On September 27, the day the reconciliation package was revealed, America’s Newsroom included the tree equity plan as one of the “doozies” that was buried in the bill while the Faulkner Focus also referred to it as one of the bill’s “hidden goodies” and mocked that there was “$3 billion for tree planting and so-called tree equity. Important that the trees feel equal to one another.”

In fact, there has been no shortage of “equity” jokes -- Greg Gutfeld on the September 29 edition of his late-night show Gutfeld! suggested that the program was meant to address “foilage privilege” (he meant “foliage”). And on the October 2 edition of *Fox & Friends Saturday*, in response to the program, Pete Hegseth quipped, “The oak trees feel like they have been too dominant for too long.” But for all the punchlines, there has been little attempt to understand what the program is or explain the issue it is proven to address.

Predictably, Fox has not scratched the surface of what the reconciliation bill means for climate mitigation

While the climate and environmental justice provisions that Fox has featured in its reconciliation bill coverage represent just a fraction of its spending, they are not an insignificant part of the Biden administration’s larger climate agenda, of which addressing environmental injustices and creating green union jobs are core pillars. They should be reported on. But Fox has framed the reconciliation bill as a radical-socialist wish list of trivial programs -- in fact, it represents, from a climate perspective, possibly the last chance to enact meaningful U.S. policies for the foreseeable future, which could make or break the global response to the climate crisis. But as long as Fox keeps its viewers revved up over “cow farts” and “climate cops” its base will never see the burning forest for the equitable trees.

===