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WATTERS 3

ESTB 2 25 IN HONOR OF HIS BEING THE BIGGEST DOUCHE THIS WEEK mofo work req medicare cuts bbb

see bad trinity ANTI-COMMIE ~ CHINA // HANNITY DEMS HATE AM

HYPE FEAR

SEE CRM JRNL FAIL

SEE RUSSIAGATE OBAMA TREASON BS 1 26

~ BLK WOMEN? MISO 4

SEE DEMONIZATION POLARIZATION

LIBERAL MEDIA BS HATES AM

HYPE WAR METAPHOR

EXTRA JUD KILL VENEZ // INGRAHAM SEE CRUEL

SEE RENEE GOOD PRETTI

note no ref to kirk bef shot?

xian?

vaxx ~ big pharma BS

SEE PROJECTION

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tim walz not real man b/c straw

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MMA

November 5, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): Yeah, let them run around like hamsters. Who cares? It’s fair game, I mean, both sides do it. Eric and Don, they had lawyers on retainer when they were in diapers. They’re used to it okay, both sides do it. But there’s a difference between the Trump boys and the Biden boy.

The Trump boys were established, well-respected, married, sober businessmen. The Biden boy was like an intoxicated mascot surrounded by hookers. Ok? I know people who did deals with them, they said he was embarrassing when they brought him to meetings, like he was all over the place. And so what value did Hunter Biden create for anybody? I mean at least the Trump boys are doing things with minerals and drones and real estate. I mean, they actually create value. Hunter Biden is in debt and broke and out of business. Dana he never even had a business, he just had a series of shell companies to sell access to his dad. And I’m with you. Collaboration with corporate America: They had law firms basically trying to put Trump in prison. Corporate America in bed with the Democrats, trying to impeach him. And half of that stuff was just a hoax. So screw those guys. Yeah, right, Trump sanctioned him — good. They should never do that again.

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mike rogers

mma

Jesse Watters on race between Rogers and El-Sayed: "It's kind of silly that you have an FBI agent running against a Muslim"abd

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OMG BAD TRINITY FEAR HYPE

mma

Fox News is peddling election “fear porn” about Democrats to rescue Republicans

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/16/26

Fox News host Jesse Watters effectively summed up his network’s recent election coverage on Thursday when he said that Republicans need to churn out “fear porn” that paints Democrats as “scary and dangerous” in order to avoid calamity in the midterms.

Watters told his fellow panelists on The Five that “polling” shows “MAGA is engaged, it’s the non-MAGA faction and independents that the Republicans are worried about” in the midterms. He then pointed to an interview he conducted with Caroline Sunshine, a former Disney star turned MAGA political operative, saying, “She said you can't just go out and sell all the great stuff Trump did. It's been great, but it doesn't motivate."

“You got to go out and have fear porn,” Watters continued. “You have to say, these people are going to take your healthcare, they're going to let in the Third World, they’re going to jack up your taxes, and that’s what’s going to get people to come out to vote. You have to say, these people are scary and dangerous, you know what we're all about. And that’s really a choice."

Greg Gutfeld praised Watters’ analysis, saying, “Good for you, fear porn."

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

“Fear porn” is an apt characterization of the tenor of Fox demagoguery as the midterms approach and polls show Democrats poised for a wave of victories even in deep red states.

The network’s stars — apparently finding that their hagiographic coverage of the Trump administration isn’t doing enough to help the president’s party — are trying to inculcate a sense of panic in their viewers. They are warning in the strongest possible terms that if Democrats take control of Congress, their prosperity, freedom, and very lives are at risk.

Watters himself, for example, warned last month that “the Democrat party and its communist base are running against America” and “want to shatter the pillars of Western civilization.”

“They want to abolish the Senate, police, ICE, and of course the border,” he explained on the September 9 broadcast of his show. “Some of them are even calling for reparations and rent control. Others have a little bit of a problem with whites, and a majority of Democrats don't prefer capitalism. It's like we're fighting the Cold War here in our own country.”

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From the September 9, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

For Watters’ colleague Sean Hannity, the Trump political operative with a Fox primetime show, this is “the single most important, consequential midterm election in our lifetime” and “the stakes, they couldn’t be any higher, nor could the choice be any more clear.”

“We can vote to build on the successes of President Trump, his first two years in office, or you can shred your Constitution, allow our country to be taken hostage by this new radicalized leftist democratic socialist communist movement and their far-left extremist candidates,” Hannity claimed on his September 28 show.

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From the September 28, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

According to Hannity, Republicans may be “imperfect” and even “pathetically weak,” but “Democrats are completely insane.”

“They want to abolish, now, the family,” he told his Fox audience on September 17. “They want to seize your assets, they want to control the means of production, they want to control your healthcare, your food” as well as “your decisions, your children.” He went on to invoke “the 574 ‘mostly peaceful’ riots in the summer of 2020” before warning viewers not to “let perfect be the enemy of good, especially when the alternative is socialism, communism, statism, shredding our Constitution, and outright insanity.”

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From the September 17, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Fox’s Laura Ingraham warned on Wednesday that Democrats are demanding the public “submit or be crushed.” She told her viewers that voting for them due to concerns about affordability “will only make things worse” because Democrats will “keep prices high permanently,” “want a war with Russia,” and have “horrid tax-and-spend policies.”

“While voting Democrat or not at all may punish Trump politically, the people you'll really be punishing are yourselves,” she added. “Oh, yes, the punishment is coming. They can't eliminate conservatives altogether, but they can and they will make your life as miserable as possible by taxing you, canceling you, and restricting you.”

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

Ingraham alleged last month that “Democrats are rethinking democracy.” According to Ingraham, “If the Democrats win the House, take the Senate, they intend to shred the Constitution and punish the country.”

She later added that the party’s leaders are “acting as mini-tyrants,” claiming: “If they had their druthers and they were in office, there would be no Fox News. They would regulate that out of existence. There would be no talk radio. There would be no alternative media.”

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MMA

Who's calling for the Trump administration to send federal agents to polling places?

Right-wing media personalities have pushed for the Trump administration to send federal agents and the military to polling places and interfere with vote counting, but voting rights groups are pushing back

Written by Jack Winstanley & Reed McMaster

Published 10/02/26

Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, right-wing media figures have called for President Donald Trump to deploy federal law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, or the military to polling stations across the country to “surround the polls” as votes are cast or to interfere with vote counting after the election.

While administration officials have offered mixed messaging on whether they'd actually send law enforcement agents or military to polling places, the law directly prohibits any potential effort to station armed federal agents at polls, and experts say this policy could potentially disenfranchise voters who feel intimidated by their presence. In order to prevent this kind of interference by federal agents at the polls, civil rights, labor, and voting rights groups have filed lawsuits ahead of the midterms.

The proposal to deploy ICE officers to polling stations is just one of several election-related policies floated by right-wing media and the Trump administration ahead of the 2026 midterms. Right-wing media figures have also suggested the president could declare a national emergency over alleged voter fraud in order to increase federal control over the midterms, and have pushed for restrictive voting requirements such as those included in the SAVE America Act. The courts have blocked many of the administration's actions to implement parts of these policies.

Is it even legal for law enforcement or the military to be at polling places?

As the Brennan Center for Justice's Sean Morales-Doyle has written, “The law is crystal clear: It is illegal to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place.” Dale Ho, then-director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project, similarly stated, “There's no law that I'm aware of that permits, or that would authorize, the president to deploy federal law enforcement or military or anything like that for domestic use in … or around polling places.”

Experts explain that stationing federal law enforcement at polling sites risks intimidating voters out of casting their ballots. The ACLU noted that the mere presence of federal immigration agents at polling places could qualify as illegal voter intimidation, with its report listing “the deployment of federal immigration agents or federalized National Guard in or around polling places in targeted communities during early voting or on Election Day to try to suppress voting” as an example of “illegal voter intimidation.” The ACLU also specifically cites “aggressively questioning voters about their citizenship, criminal record, or other qualifications to vote” as another example of illegal voter intimidation.

Ahead of the midterm elections, several lawsuits have already been filed to block federal agents from interfering at the polls, including one from a coalition of civil rights groups and unions. The Brennan Center also noted that any individual can sue under the Voting Rights Act if they are “intimidated from voting by the presence of ICE agents or soldiers.”

Who has been among the biggest proponents of having federal agents at polling places? Steve Bannon.

For months, former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon has been a prominent voice supporting the deployment of federal agents to polling stations, regularly advocating on his show for ICE to be present at polling stations.

Bannon said ICE officers will be near polling places: “If you don't have an ID — if you're not a citizen — you're not voting.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 8/19/25]

While interviewing former Trump Department of Homeland Security adviser Todd Bensman, Bannon stated, “I think ICE agents belong at polling places.”

Bannon dismissed fears of voter intimidation, stating, “It's intimidation. It should be intimidating to noncitizens. Yes, we want it to be intimidating to noncitizens. You should not go to a polling place.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 8/13/26]

Bannon called it a “minimum requirement” for ICE to be present at polling stations. [Real America's Voice, War Room, 7/17/26]

Bannon said that stationing ICE at airports can be “a test case … to really perfect ICE's involvement in the 2026 midterm elections.” Bannon added, “They can’t work the machines, you know what they’ll do? Just walk up and down, hey, we're going to speed things through — can we check your IDs? That’s what’s going to happen in the fall of ’26 because, folks, we’re tired of having elections stolen.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 3/23/26]

Bannon stated, “And I'm saying you're going to have ICE agents around the polls to make sure you can't have illegal aliens in there voting.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 2/19/26]

Bannon also said in February, “You’re damn right we’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 2/3/26]

Who else in right-wing media has promoted federal agents at polling places?

Article III Project founder Mike Davis: “I would have ICE agents and other federal law enforcement at every polling place across America. And that should only scare away noncitizens.” [Real America's Voice, War Room, 9/1/26]

Podcaster Tim Pool stated that, “at the bare minimum,” he expects federal law enforcement to be present at polling locations in states that do not cooperate with DHS. He said, “This press conference had me expecting, OK, Trump made the announcement. Markwayne Mullin, DHS, they're going to come out and they're going to say, here's what we intend to do. I mean, at the bare minimum, we expect something like we will have federal law enforcement agency at polling locations in states that do not cooperate.” [Rumble, Tim Pool Daily Show, 7/17/26]

The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro: “Making sure illegal immigrants do not show up at polling sites is not a horrible use of ICE.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 3/24/26]

Podcaster Benny Johnson: “Can we deploy ICE to every voting booth in America? Would that fix the fraud? Of course, it would.” Johnson continued, “Why are we even talking about the SAVE Act? You don't need the SAVE Act if you don't have a nation overrun with criminal aliens.” [YouTube, The Benny Show, 3/24/26]

On X22 Report, the host declared that ICE and the National Guard can “absolutely” “assist with helping in the elections.” [Rumble, X22 Report, 3/24/26; X22 Report, accessed 9/24/26]

Fox’s Jesse Watters argued for ICE to be at polling locations. Watters said, “Well, one of the demands, they say no ICE agents can be at a polling station. What's the trouble with that, Jessica? What's the problem? If illegals aren't voting, why can't ICE agents be at a polling station?” [Fox News, The Five, 3/23/26]

X22 Report’s host also argued that “if you pre-position ICE in certain areas around the country, maybe with the National Guard, that makes it a lot more difficult for the illegals to actually vote in the election.” He added that lawsuits preemptively filed over potential ICE deployments to polling locations were an attempt “to find out if ICE is going to be at the voting centers.” [Rumble, X22 Report, 3/3/26]

During an appearance on Newsmax, radio host Tony Katz questioned, “Why aren’t ICE agents at polling places? Why aren't we ensuring that Americans vote?” [Newsmax, Carl Higbie Frontline, 3/3/26]

The Gateway Pundit wrote in a blog that any concern from Democrats about voter intimidation because of ICE presence “only makes sense if illegal aliens are, in fact, showing up to vote.” The blog, which also shares Bannon’s call for ICE to “surround the polls,” states, “Democrats will inevitably argue that ICE’s presence at the polls constitutes voter intimidation, but that concern only makes sense if illegal aliens are, in fact, showing up to vote.” [The Gateway Pundit, 2/4/26]

Newsmax host Carl Higbie said, “ICE at polling places shouldn’t be a problem because illegals shouldn’t be voting in our elections.” [Newsmax, Carl Higbie Frontline, 2/2/26]

Who has suggested deploying the military to interfere with vote counting after the election?

In response to host Alex Jones asking what “martial law after the election” would look like, attorney Peter Ticktin said “it would be the FBI probably going out and seizing the machines where there’s a good reason to suspect that the vote was not a real vote.” He further explained, “Let the machines do the count, but before the count — but then let us commandeer and get the ballots. If we have the ballots, we can count them ourselves. You know, there’s ways we can do it, and it would be done after the election, but before certification.” Earlier in the episode, Ticktin claimed Trump's “going to seize the machines. … If it’s stolen from us because of their machines, we’ll be — then he’s going to have to declare martial law.” [Alex Jones Live, The Alex Jones Show, 9/29/26, 9/29/26]

Mark Cook, described by Colorado Newsline as one “of the most influential election deniers in Colorado,” said during an interview with podcaster David Nino Rodriguez that “if the military shows up to ensure that the people can run their own election unfettered, I’m all for that.” He stated, “What really needs to happen is the people that have been manipulating elections, that have stolen the elections from the people and have blocked the people away from having oversight in their own elections, we need someone to hold them back so citizens can have the oversight necessary to conduct their own elections and ensure and verify the integrity of the vote. So if the military shows up to ensure that the people can run their own election unfettered, I'm all for that. Bring them.” [Rumble, 2/19/26; Colorado Newsline, 6/18/24]

On Brighteon Broadcast News, host Mike Adams argued, “We need the military to count the votes, especially in the blue cities, because you can’t trust Democrats.” While speculating about a potential “armed uprising” from the left, Adams added, “I think Trump actually sort of tactically needs that to happen in order to declare the emergency and deploy the troops before Election Day.” [Natural News, Brighteon Broadcast News, 1/14/26; Media Matters, 4/2/18]

On Health Ranger Report two days later, Adams repeated his call to “have the military count the votes.” He argued, “You have to have a national emergency to where you deploy the military, especially in blue cities,” in order to count the votes. [Natural News, Health Ranger Report, 1/16/26]

What has the Trump administration said about deploying federal law enforcement or the military to the polls?

The Department of Homeland Security has offered mixed messaging on the potential for sending ICE officers to polling locations. In February, DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Election Integrity Heather Honey — whom ProPublica has described as “a protege of Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results” — reportedly told a group of secretaries of state that “any suggestion that ICE will be present at any polling location is simply not true.” But Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has refused to rule out the possibility; during his confirmation hearing, Mullin said that if ICE is sent to polling places, “there will be a reason for us to be there, and it’ll be known why we’re there.” Mullin added in September that agents could make arrests at polling places if needed, noting that the “only reason” agents “would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone.”

White House border czar Tom Homan, meanwhile, downplayed concerns about federal law enforcement presence at polling stations, noting, “Part of DHS' job is secure elections, and I’m not going to say … what our plan is going forward, but if only U.S. citizens can vote, I don’t see the issue of what they’re concerned about.” And earlier this year, Trump expressed his own willingness to send federal agents to the polls when a reporter asked whether he would “send the National Guard or ICE to voting locations in November” and Trump responded that he would do “anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.”

What do voting rights groups advise voters to do in response to threats of law enforcement or the military at polling places?

Voting rights groups have resources to prepare voters for the possibility of federal agents or the military intimidating voters at polling stations. Democracy Security Project Action Fund suggests voters “go to vote.gov and check your eligibility; be sure that you’re registered” and know “the most convenient polling place for you, whether that’s in person or vote-by-mail. Keep track of deadlines.”

Additional recommendations from the ACLU include:

What to do if there are reports of ICE, National Guard, or other federal agents in your community during early voting or Election Day...

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MMA

Right-wing media downplay AI safety concerns as a hoax by comparing them to climate change and “COVID hysteria”

Written by Helena Hind, Jane Lee & Evlondo Cooper

Published 09/15/26

Right-wing media are following President Donald Trump in dismissing calls to slow down AI development in the wake of multiple hacking incidents as a “hoax,” comparing concerns over AI to “climate change apocalyptic talk” and “COVID hysteria” including support for vaccines.

Reports have surfaced in recent months that rogue AI agents from OpenAI anonymously hacked into AI startup Hugging Face servers and into software service RubyGems. As Reuters explained: “Many incidents where AI agents from developers such as OpenAI and rival Anthropic have hacked or attempted to access external systems have heightened concerns over ​the increasing capacity of AI models and developers' ability to contain them.” On September 12, both Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly called for a slowdown in AI development, with Altman announcing that his company would be delaying its initial public offering until 2027.

Trump vehemently rejected the idea of an AI slowdown in a series of Truth Social posts on September 14, calling the push for caution a “hoax,” “scam,” and a “SICK conspiracy.” Trump wrote: “The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by ‘Climate Change.’”

The claim that climate scientists’ predictions have failed is not borne out by the evidence — warnings about greenhouse gases causing more warming have now come to pass, with over a decade of record-breaking heat and thousands of excess deaths across Europe in climate-driven heat waves this year alone.

Nonetheless right-wing media followed Trump’s lead, comparing concerns about unregulated AI development with supposedly fabricated climate change warnings and COVID-19 pandemic safety measures like vaccines. (In reality, researchers have repeatedly proven that vaccines limited the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic, reduced the rate of severe complications and death, and continue to be a safe, effective treatment.)

On his September 14 radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity accused former President Barack Obama of “urging Democrats to fearmonger AI just like Democrats fearmongered and flat-out lied about global warming,” claiming those concerns “turned out to be bunk.” Hannity then reassured his listeners that Trump said that “the U.S. has already put guardrails in place to regulate and prosecute AI companies.”

Dismissing AI warnings on his Daily Wire podcast, Ben Shapiro stated, “This is pretty redolent of the climate change apocalyptic talk. Like all the ice caps were going to be gone, the polar bears were all going to drown, all the rest of it.”

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From the September 14, 2026, edition of the Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show.

Fox host Will Cain referenced climate change while discussing AI warnings: “Vested interests did stop nuclear [power] and set it back half a century. And that same playbook of fears played out with climate change and COVID. So now, what is so scary about AI?”

Downplaying the “AI apocalypse alarm” during Fox’s The Five, co-host Jesse Watters referenced both climate change and the COVID vaccine, asking, “If I told you the world was going to end if you didn't take this vax, what would you do? Or if the world was going to end because of global warming, what would you do? Same thing's happening here — some people get rich and we all still survive.” B/C OF LIE/HYPE?

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

Fox’s Laura Ingraham echoed Watters’ comments later that evening, saying AI concerns reminded her of “the first several months of COVID hysteria.” She later evoked “fearmongering about climate change, same thing. Al Gore's film, Inconvenient Truth, oh my God. That still echoes in politics today.”

Hannity rounded out Fox's evening coverage with yet another comparison of AI fears to climate change and the pandemic.

Decrying “the climate alarmist cult religion,” Hannity said, “Al Gore was preaching from the pulpit of climate alarmism. … All these predictions have come and gone and the time frame he said it would happen, none of it came true.”

“We were lied to about COVID at a high level,” he added. “I just don't trust the government at all in that sense. But I trust America enough that we would use this for good.”

However, the over-the-top comparisons are not limited to Trump and right-wing media dismissing AI concerns. Joe Allen, previously the “transhumanism editor” on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, opposed AI at a debate held in Dallas during last week's GOP midterm convention by bizarrely referencing “algorithmic immigrants.” Semafor reported:

“You look at the data center, this incubator for algorithmic immigrants,” he said. “They’ve already broken out and invaded other companies. These immigrants are out of control.”

Allen was speaking at Forum, a policy discussion staged at a stylish venue fifteen minutes from the convention center to give the new American right an opportunity to debate some of the policy issues currently dividing it— in particular, the tension between populism’s activist promises and traditional small government, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

(Allen’s opponent at the debate, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, reportedly “compared complaints about AI to the ‘Black Lives Matter hysteria,’ and suggested they were driven by ‘psyops from China.’”)

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Untroubled Watters: Fox host still hasn’t told the truth about Reflecting Pool “vandals”

MMA

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MMA

Iran coverage collapsed this summer on Fox News’ evening “opinion” shows

No war but the culture war: Network stars’ references to socialism, WNBA, Fauci, now swamping Iran

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Rob Savillo & Harrison Ray

Published 09/09/26

Six months into the war Donald Trump launched against Iran, the campaign “has deteriorated into a quagmire of the president’s own making with no clear goals, no obvious strategy and no end in sight” while senior U.S. military leaders are reportedly warning that “prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland.”

But on Fox News — the MAGA propaganda network that urged Trump to attack Iran in the first place — some of his most devoted allies have all but completely stopped talking about it.

Fox’s evening “opinion” shows dramatically reduced their coverage of the Iran war over the summer, as the conflict they initially celebrated as an historic success became ever-more intractable and unpopular.

As Fox’s stars tamped down their discussions of the war, they instead focused their audiences’ attention on more palatable culture-war fare. Their programs became rife with warnings of the rise of socialism, fixated on race and gender debates in the WNBA, and revived attacks on former federal health official Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Media Matters identified mentions of “Iran,” “Iranian,” and “Iranians” (hereafter consolidated as “Iran”); “socialism,” “socialist,” “communist,” and “communism” (coded as “socialism”); “WNBA” and “women’s basketball” (“WNBA”); and “Fauci” across five Fox programs — the network’s highest-rated program, panel show The Five; premiere star vehicles The Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime, and Hannity; and the “comedy” program Gutfeld!.

We found that coverage of the Iran war on those Fox evening “opinion” shows, which had already plummeted from the heady first months of the war, fell still further over the summer.

KEY FINDINGS

As Trump’s war failed to reach the speedy resolution promised by Fox hosts, they converged on a strategy in which they stopped talking about Iran and fell back on demagoguing familiar foes — seemingly in hopes of salvaging the GOP’s standing and preventing a Democratic wave in the midterm elections.

How the Iran war fell out of Fox’s evening programming

As Iran coverage falls, Fox hosts warn of a red menace

No war but the culture war — as Iran coverage fades, a new focus on WNBA, Fauci

Methodology...

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MMA

Fox News is treating the GOP's midterm convention as a very special episode of Hannity

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 09/09/26

“‘The vibes are very bad’ in Texas” is the headline of Politico Playbook’s dispatch from Dallas, where the GOP’s “Trump-a-palooza” midterm convention has Republican attendees fearing “what could transpire on the stage — and what it might mean for lawmakers back home.”

But let not your heart be troubled, Fox News has the solution on hand — more Sean Hannity.

The Fox brass has decided to give its 10 p.m. timeslot during the convention to the network figure closest to President Donald Trump, “to make sure all the key speeches and anti-Dem video montages are seen,” CNN’s Brian Stelter reported Wednesday. That’s a shift from its coverage of the 2024 Republican National Convention, when Fox assigned chief political anchor Bret Baier and The Story’s Martha MacCallum to host a nightly special featuring a panel of the network’s political contributors

Hannity’s selection is a clear signal that Fox plans to produce a GOP infomercial, and it is functionally equivalent to simply letting the Republican National Committee program the coverage. Hannity is a confidant and adviser to Trump who uses his show to propagandize on the president’s behalf. Over the years, the host has appeared in a Trump campaign video; spoken at a Trump rally; scripted a Trump campaign ad; served as a White House back channel; sought, received, and carried out marching orders from the Trump White House about what to say on Election Day 2020; and strategized with Trump family members and White House aides.

The decision also raises questions about how Hannity will treat election denial when it emanates from the convention speakers. The host carried Trump’s speech from the White House on the subject in July, then offered a brief discussion of his claims. But despite promising “a deep dive into all this documentation in the days ahead for sure,” Hannity did not subsequently return to it — possibly adhering to the reported Fox ban on such discussions that reportedly played a role in longtime host and conspiracy theorist Maria Bartiromo’s departure from the network last week.

Hannity and colleagues try to manifest a GOP vibe shift

On the eve of the midterm convention start, Hannity and his colleagues are trying to raise Republican spirits by sheer force of will, highlighting Trump’s purported successes and warning of dire consequences if Democrats muster election victories.

Hannity opened his Fox primetime show on Tuesday with a segment on the convention, promising viewers that “we will be there” and urging them not to read anything into the numerous Republican candidates in tough races who aren’t appearing at the event. He assured the audience that he “was able to get confirmation” that the candidates attending “were invited and they're the most competitive races in the country. … Not every Republican that's running for office was invited.”

He went on to give viewers a pep talk, urging them to “take nothing for granted” because “the stakes have never been higher during a midterm election” and instructing Republican candidates to “treat every single day with the proper amount of urgency.”

Hannity reeled off a list of “promises made, promises kept by President Trump and his Republican allies,” which he contrasted to “what the radical socialist Democratic Party is now offering the country. They want to completely upend our way of life. They want to strip you of your very humanity. If they get their way, you — you will have domain over nothing. Not even your own family.”

“In 56 days, this November, the choice will be very simple,” he concluded. “You can vote for Democrats who believe America is fundamentally evil and want to humble and humiliate the American people, or you can vote for liberty, freedom Republicans, albeit many Republicans, far from perfect, but they're not DSA members. And by the way, they believe in lifting everybody up through the concepts of liberty and freedom and safety and security and opportunity.”

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From the September 8, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters similarly touted Trump’s leadership and emphasized that the midterm elections will be a referendum on his performance on their Tuesday broadcasts.

“Tomorrow in Dallas, Republicans kick off that first-ever midterm convention, and gavel to gavel, the Angle will be there,” Ingraham said. “We'll broadcast live from the American Airlines Center. Cannot wait. President Trump will headline both nights. Now, what's the goal? To fire up the base with his vision, the Republican vision for continued economic growth and rigorous border enforcement.”

While she spoke, on-screen text read, “History in the making in Dallas.”

Ingraham later claimed that “we always take these polls with a grain of salt … I mean, at this point, you don't even know what's what with the polls, but there does seem to be some pro-GOP movement in some of these polls, especially the ones that came out today.”

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From the September 8, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Watters launched his own broadcast with fulsome praise for the convention and the president at the top of his show the following hour.

“We're less than 24 hours from Trump-a-palooza where the Republicans are going to hold their first ever midterm convention right in the heart of Texas,” he said. “President Trump will be there, so will JD Vance, Bobby Kennedy, and a long list of big-name Republicans. The goal of the convention: You make this election between communism and common sense, and the commies are making it too easy.”

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From the September 8, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Watters then offered a paean to what he portrayed as a laundry list of Trump accomplishments — over a chyron that read, “Republicans have a record to show off.” The host’s litany included that “jobs market has never been hotter for people with just a high school diploma”; “people took home big refund checks and realized if you start a family and open Trump accounts, your children will retire as millionaires”; “we just captured the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela”; “the border sealed, crime all-time low, and doctors aren't giving sex change surgeries to kids anymore”; and “MAHA is cleansing what we eat.”

He went on to praise the Iran war, saying, “Republicans will have to tackle high gas prices but they'll argue that President Trump stopped Iran from nuking up, killed the ayatollah, took out the world's No. 1 state sponsor of terror, and our Navy in the strait [is] bringing prices down.”

“So the election is going to come down to Republican results and whether voters are going to buy what Democrats are selling,” Watters concluded. “They have no record to run on, no new ideas, just a mix of TDS with a whiff of communism. Republicans have to lock in these gains because there's a lot at stake.”

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Watters and his Fox colleagues will be doing everything they can over the next few days — and weeks, and months — to ensure that happens.

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Jesse Watters Primetime guest says if women are "not going to be homemakers, if they're not going to be committed moms, the only role they have left is as sex objects"

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Reflecting Fool: How Jesse Watters helped push Trump's bogus vandalism story

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/03/26

When Fox News host turned U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro dropped a high-profile case and acknowledged the alleged vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool had not occurred, Pirro left her former colleague Jesse Watters out to dry. Watters had repeatedly portrayed the supposed vandals as America-hating leftists bent on destroying the country, devoting several segments to the story in increasingly explicit terms.

President Donald Trump has strenuously and repeatedly blamed “Deranged Vandals” for damaging the pool after he ordered its renovation and repainting earlier this year — even as reporting from as early as May pointed to problems with the work of the installer, who received a lucrative no-bid contract. The president claimed the purported culprits should face “years in jail.”

But on Friday, Pirro’s office moved to dismiss charges against David Hearn — a former Olympic canoeist arrested after sticking his hands in the pool and the only person to face a felony charge over the damage — along with three misdemeanor cases, citing new evidence “showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.” The motion to dismiss stresses that the Department of Interior provided the initial reports that were the basis for Hearn’s indictment — but only later “provided additional documents” showing the damage “was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”

(Trump subsequently posted that he disagreed “100%” with Pirro, and on Monday he publicly maligned her in the Oval Office; he is now reportedly considering removing her in response, because in this administration, telling the truth when it contradicts the president is a fireable offense.)

While Hearn’s indictment — and the case’s apparent demise — may seem like a sideshow, it presents an important window into how this administration and its propaganda apparatus operate. Federal prosecutors have tried but often failed to carry out Trump’s demands that his real or imagined foes face legal punishment, and those political prosecutions often rely on support from the president’s media allies.

No one in MAGA media had carried more water for the baseless claims about the Reflecting Pool than Watters, who is uniquely positioned to serve as a vessel for such propaganda campaigns: He hosts or co-hosts two of Fox’s premiere programs and is a hardcore Trumpist who lacks both ideological moorings and basic moral scruples. Watters previously plumbed the depths of the internet fever swamps to peddle deranged conspiracy theories about the home invasion and assault of Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

The Fox host initially celebrated Trump’s effort to repaint the pool as part of a grand struggle over our national identity during a June 12 discussion on The Five — after algae turned the pool green and damage to its surface became apparent, but before Hearn’s arrest.

Watters argued that the left was “purposely subverting the greatness of America, the bedrock of Western civilization,” by allowing the pool and other national icons to “go into disrepair.” By contrast, he argued that Trump was attempting to preserve “a physical and visual reminder of our greatness and our connection to our European heritage.”

When Trump began claiming that vandals were responsible for damage to the pool and Pirro charged Hearn, Watters fit that allegation into his preexisting narrative and assailed “Democrats” and “the left” for what they had supposedly done. But on Friday night, after Pirro’s office moved to dismiss the charges, he did not mention on his show that his account was all wet.

Watters pushes Trump, Department of Interior pool “vandals” story

Watters began promoting Trump’s allegations that the pool had been vandalized on June 22, while still leaving space for the possibility that the damage had been caused by faulty installation.

“On the Reflecting Pool, Trump said that they have evidence of someone slicing and dicing the bottom of the pool and that evidence will be shown in court,” he told resident Democratic panelist Jessica Tarlov on The Five. “And that we have made five arrests. Five individuals are under investigation and I'm waiting to see the video evidence of it. Or they botched the redo. OK. Either way, this is all you got on this guy?”

“Liberals would never vandalize public works — did you see BLM, the statues, the graffiti?” Watters continued.

“You guys make a job out of destroying cities,” he went on to say. “Look at Penn Station. It's a horrible place to be. And you're pointing a finger at a pool he's trying to make better. Come on, Jessica.”

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From the June 22, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

“Did the contractors boot it? We don't know,” Watters added that night on his own program. “But the president says people are pouring chemicals into the Reflecting Pool, carving up the bottom with knives. Not only is the National Guard standing watch, but concerned citizens are keeping an eye out for sabotage.”

“The Park Police arrested a former Olympic canoer,” he added, referring to Hearn. “Records show he's an Obama donor who's been arrested by Park Police before. The Olympian Democrat donor was charged with a misdemeanor, destruction of government property, and he told the AP he is just a concerned citizen. While this curious and concerned citizen is now being repped by one of the most famous Democrat lawyers in the country. I think we know what is going on here.”

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From the June 22, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

The following night, Watters led his primetime show with “the tapes” he said had been provided by the Department of Interior that he claimed provide “a look at individuals suspected of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool.”

“Now we haven't been able to verify the video, but take a look,” he said, before airing and describing it.

“Maybe the contractors screwed up the pool, and they're fixing it, but we have a hunch there was also foul play,” he added. “We could be wrong, but we're seeing preliminary reports alleging vandalism.”

He later referenced Hearn, “the canoer who says he did nothing wrong,” calling him “a longtime Democrat donor, gave money to Obama and ActBlue, arrested by Park Police once before, back in ‘96, and now he has a GoFundMe and a lawyer who just happened to have prosecuted Trump in the first impeachment.”

While Watters carefully hedged his discussion, he left no question about which theory he believed. “Now, while the left is out there taking a knife to America, literally, the rest of the world can't get enough of it,” he said as he transitioned to a discussion of tourists praising the country as they visited it for the first time.

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From the June 23, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“That pool is America's mirror,” he went on to say. “We look in it and we love what we see — we're looking at ourselves, our history, our heritage — and the left hates everything they see. They want it broken and murky. They don't want it to reflect the greatness of the nation. They don't believe America was ever great, and they don't believe we can make America great again.”

“We shouldn't need foreigners to remind America who we are, and vandals will never be able to damage the American identity,” he concluded.

Watters then brought on actor Kelsey Grammer, who suggested that the purported Reflecting Pool vandalism shows that “a virus that has infected some — a very small number of people, I think, who just want to tear things down. They have been consumed by hatred, and, of course, hatred ends up basically destroying you.”

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From the June 23, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Two days later, Watters went off the deep end.

“The Democrats are ripping up the Reflecting Pool,” he claimed on The Five. “Now, a couple days ago, a lot of people at this table pooh-poohed the idea that you guys would vandalize the pool, but now we have hard evidence reported by The New York Times and the Park Police, because I've looked at all the reports.”

He went on to say that Hearn “got caught pulling up while he videotaped himself ripping up the bottom.”

That night, Watters suggested on his own show that the vandalism had now been proven based on a single anonymous source who spoke to him.

“A senior official confirming someone cut the liner along the bottom of the pool and took the sealant with it,” he said. “We don't know who did it, but we have a pretty good idea where to start looking,” he added, pointing viewers back to the “exclusive” video the Department of Interior had provided to Jesse Watters Primetime.

The host went on to claim that “Primetime is collecting police reports like baseball cards” and touted his “look at some preliminary documents.”

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From the June 25, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Watters and Trump’s “favorite attack dog” Pirro team up to promote pool charge

A week later, after Pirro’s office initially secured its indictment against Hearn, Watters’ former co-host on The Five went on his show for a curtain call.

“Fox News Alert: I hope Democrats enjoyed their little pool party, because Judge Jeanine just shut it down,” Watters said to introduce the segment. Trump “was fed up watching his new Reflecting Pool get savaged, so he sent his favorite attack dog to bite back — and she came armed with an indictment.”

After a brief debate over who missed the other more, Watters told Pirro: “A lot of people, when this first happened with the pool, didn't believe the president that there was vandalism. That's not the case.”

“Yes, it is not the case at all,” Pirro replied. “In fact, I was at the Reflecting Pool yesterday. There not only is a vandalism that is reflected in today's indictment, but there is a cutting of the liner of the pool, at the base of the pool for several yards across the pool.”

“And someone was intent on doing incredible damage to the pool, but what we've seen after are other people who want to do continuing damage,” she continued. “And one of the biggest problems, and one of the ugliest things that I think is out there are people trying to destroy monuments and statues — you know, part of our history.”

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From the July 2, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“We saw a lot of this start around the BLM riots — we never really saw people tear down statues in this country before,” Watters claimed. He later asked Pirro: “Why do you think that's taken hold, where they want to destroy these big, beautiful monuments, they want to deface the Reflecting Pool and topple Columbus?”

“Well, I think that people, they resent this country,” she replied. “They don't respect the country. We celebrate the country and the freedoms — they hate it. They hate the leader right now, and they are exercising, as far as I'm concerned, political violence.”

“This is not about free speech,” she concluded. “This is not anything that is justified, and we've got to make sure they understand. They are going to be made accountable, and in D.C. they will be.”

“I’m sure they will be,” Watters replied.

But as Pirro’s office now acknowledges, the case didn’t hold water.

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Jeanine Pirro isn’t going rogue. She’s the tip of the spear.

  1. 01/15/26 12:51 PM EST

Jesse Watters is Fox's new 8 p.m. host. Advertisers should beware.

  1. 06/26/23 12:18 PM EDT

Fox’s Jesse Watters is pushing a bizarre conspiracy theory that Joe Biden has been blackmailed by the FBI as an “intelligence op” to control the White House

  1. 07/03/23

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MMA

As the Iran war teeters on the brink, let's revisit the numerous “Mission Accomplished” moments from right-wing media in early March

MAGA media’s Iran war hawks promised a cakewalk. The conflict is about to enter its sixth month.

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Helena Hind, Isabella Corrao & Jane Lee

Published 07/21/26

Within days of President Donald Trump’s unprovoked attack on Iran in late February, right-wing media figures began predicting a short, easy conflict that would be over quickly. Major conservative pundits unilaterally declared in early March that the war was a “wrap-up mission at this point,” a “done deal,” and “winding down.” Instead, the war is about to enter its sixth month with no clear end in sight, with the potential for escalation seemingly everywhere.

Where right-wing media promised a cakewalk, the Trump administration has delivered a quagmire, as recent developments make clear.

The U.S. military resumed striking targets in Iran in the middle of July, following the breakdown of a largely illusory ceasefire. Iranian authorities told The Associated Press that the recent wave of strikes have killed 50 and injured over 500. Over the weekend, the Pentagon announced the deaths of three U.S. service members, and The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is now on the verge of “all-out war with Iran after more troops are killed.” And according to The New York Times, the Defense Department has been withholding the full number of U.S. troops who have been wounded in the conflict.

CNBC reported that a maritime risk firm characterized the current state of the Strait of Hormuz as a “worse-case scenario,” with the key waterway nominally open but still a primary point of conflict between the two countries.

These grim assessments stand in stark contrast to the predictions Iran hawks made in the days after the U.S. and Israeli militaries began their joint campaign on February 28 — the pundits listed below may as well have unfurled a “Mission Accomplished” banner for all of their premature declarations of victory.

In early March, right-wing media figures predict imminent end to Iran war

Although some in right-wing media expressed early skepticism of the war, there was no shortage of hacks (and hawks) who got on board immediately.

On March 3, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham set a tone that others would soon match. “We've already knocked out so much of their capability,” Ingraham said. “It looks like this is just a wrap-up mission at this point.”

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From the March 3, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Two days later, her colleague Greg Gutfeld speculated on The Five that “maybe there's just nobody who can declare surrender because they're dead. I don't know, but I don't see how this thing can continue much longer.”

The Five returned to the topic the next day. “Do not lie about the war,” host Jesse Watters shouted at his liberal colleague Jessica Tarlov. “You know the war is going well.”

Fox News contributor Tyrus Murdoch added: “I’m willing to say this is a done deal.”

Some prime-time hosts at right-wing network Newsmax took the same line.

“I think we're at the end of serious U.S. involvement in Iran,” said host Rob Finnerty on March 9.

The same night on the same network, Greg Kelly said, “This time next week, we may be able to declare victory and warn Iran, don't do it again. But it could be over.” Kelly’s comments were illustrated by a graphic that read “I Predict: War Over Soon.”

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From the March 9, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports

Finnerty doubled down the next night. “The war in Iran appears to be winding down,” he said. “I think it is.”

Also on March 10, Fox News’ Sean Hannity weighed in during his Premiere Radio Networks radio show. “I am a firm believer that this is going to end very quickly,” Hannity said.

As the month drew to a close, Hannity again saw the conflict’s end in sight, telling his radio audience, “It's going to be on the verge of wrapping up no later than three weeks from today is my prediction.”

That was on March 30.

Conservative pundits claim in March that Trump had won the war

Sometimes right-wing talking heads went even further, not just claiming that the war would end soon but declaring that Trump was already the victor.

On March 5, Ingraham stated flatly: “Trump has already won in Iran.”

In response to a press briefing by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on March 13, Heritage Foundation senior counselor James Carafano said, “The reality is the U.S. has already won this war, period. Mic drop. End of statement.”

Although Kelly’s “War Over Soon” prediction hadn’t come to pass, on March 16 the Newsmax host tried to speak that reality into existence. “I think we kind of just won the war,” Kelly said, adding: “I think we got this.”

Carafano echoed Kelly on March 23, arguing that “it does make sense for the U.S. to say, ‘Hey let's wind this down.’ Look, from America's perspective, dude, we’ve already won."

It’s now been at least three and a half months since these pundits made their various rosy predictions. Contrary to their Pollyannish analysis, the war appears to be expanding, as Iran continues to bomb U.S. military bases in the region and the Houthi militants in Yemen impose a blockade on Saudi Arabia to mirror Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

In light of these developments, a recent Fox News guest offered a different timeline, drawing inspiration from operations the U.S. military conducted after the 1991 Gulf War.

“I do expect that we're going to be there a long time,” said Robert Spalding, a retired Air Force general. “You know Operation Northern and Southern Watch went on for, you know, almost 20 years, I think.”

“I think this is going to be something similar,” Spalding continued. “We're going to have to stay there.”

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Fox guest predicts the US will be in Iran “for a long time”

07/20/26

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Fox blames climate policy for Europe’s climate-exacerbated heat deaths

Fox News and Fox Business figures applied that same framing to U.S. heat coverage to make fossil fuels look like the answer to deadly heat

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Published 07/09/26

As Europe reeled from a deadly heat wave, coverage on Fox News and Fox Business made air conditioning the story, claiming that climate policy had made it harder and more expensive for Europeans to survive the heat.

However, extreme heat is becoming more dangerous because of fossil fuel-driven warming, which makes climate policy more necessary. Fox networks instead used Europe’s deaths to argue against climate action, doubling down on the fossil fuel economy that is exacerbating dangerous climate impacts.

That argument is already being adapted to U.S. heat coverage. As American heat waves expose the strain on infrastructure built for a less dangerous climate, Fox figures blamed climate policy for making cooling more expensive, attacked climate mitigation and resilience planning, and defended more fossil fuel infrastructure. It is a convenient reversal: Fox casts fossil fuels as the answer to deadly heat, while eliding their role in making extreme heat worse.

Europe and the U.S. are both facing deadly heat made worse by climate change

Reuters reported at least 3,700 excess deaths during the June 20-28 heat wave that gripped France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. World Weather Attribution found that climate change made the European heat wave hotter and more likely, with a similar weather pattern now producing temperatures that would have been “virtually impossible” in June 1976 and still “highly unlikely at any time of the year.”

Europe’s lack of widespread air conditioning — which is shaped by its historically cooler climate, higher energy costs, and concerns about rising power demand from cooling — helps explain the death toll, but not in the way right-wing media suggest.

Much of Europe was built for a cooler climate baseline that no longer exists. As Mark O’Connell wrote in The Irish Times, “Our societies are not built, either figuratively or literally, for the world we now inhabit.” Europe is now the fastest-warming continent, warming more than twice as fast as the global average, and extreme heat is exposing the gap between the climate its systems were designed for and the climate people are now living in.

The American heat wave showed why the story cannot stop at air conditioning. Even though the U.S. has far more air conditioning than Europe, deadly heat is still outpacing the energy infrastructure that keeps people safe.

The New York Times reported that World Weather Attribution scientists also determined that the recent heat and humidity across the northeast U.S. and eastern Canada would have also been “virtually impossible” without human-caused warming, while Axios reported the event killed at least two dozen people, including 22 heat-related deaths in New Jersey.

Air conditioning saves lives during extreme heat, and more people will need it as heat waves become more frequent and deadly. However it does not solve the underlying danger. Instead, it moves part of the risk onto the power system, which is already being stressed by hotter summers, higher cooling demand, and climate-driven disruptions. During the recent heat wave, the Department of Energy issued an emergency order for PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator, as extreme heat pushed electricity demand toward possible shortfalls.

In addition, widespread air conditioning cannot protect people working outside, people without stable housing, people who cannot afford reliable indoor relief, or people who lose power when demand peaks. The scale of the risk is already visible in the American Southwest. In Maricopa County, Arizona, home to Phoenix, heat killed at least 579 people in 2023, the county’s deadliest year on record. As United Nations climate assessments link rising extreme heat to worsening health risks in the region, more of daily life is becoming harder to sustain safely without major adaptation.

Right-wing media coverage strips this context away. Global warming is making dangerous heat more frequent, but their answer is to attack climate policy while directing people back to the fossil fuel economy that has already made extreme heat worse. More cooling will be essential, but expanding air conditioning alone is not the solution. It will need to be paired with clean power, more energy efficiency, and heat adaptation to mitigate stress on fragile grids and reduce the burning of fossil fuels that are driving these harmful impacts.

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NOTE PROJECTION, LOW MOTIVE FEAR GREIVANCE

MMA

Jesse Watters: “They're using migration as a weapon against us”

Watters: “This is demographic destruction”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 06/30/26

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From the June 30, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): Alito said we blew it. He said in his dissent, this was one of the most important cases the court's ever seen and we blew it. He and Thomas were basically like yeah, this devalues and degrades U.S. citizenship because it opens it up for anchor babies and for birth tourists. Now, the Chinese communists could take their pregnant wife to Guam, have a baby, fly the baby back to Beijing with a U.S. passport and then that baby, when he's older, can get U.S. welfare, he can vote. Technically, when he's 35, he could become president of the United States. That's the stupidest thing anyone ever thought of. Literally, the guy, the senator who put this out in the 19th century said it shouldn't involve foreigners, aliens, or families of ambassadors.

Everybody agreed at the time. The guy that sponsored it, the guy that initiated it, the architect of this 14th amendment. The AG, the president at the time, Grant, all said, yeah, no foreigners, no visitors. Well, this was also before airplanes. So, no one could imagine enemies of the United States flying here to have babies that 18 years later they could use against us to sway elections, soak up welfare, and then steal our defense technology. Because that's what they do. They steal it. So, I'm annoyed. And they're using migration as a weapon against us. And the court didn't protect us. And the Democrats are in cahoots with this. They like it because they like it for money and power, so obviously, we have to agree with the court's decision. Congress, not going to do anything about it. And I think the DOJ has to ramp up prosecutions of birth tourism fraud and Trump's got to deport even more because this is demographic destruction.

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[## JESSE WATTERS SAYS HAITIAN IMMIGRANTS ARE PART OF A PLOT “TO OVERTHROW THE COUNTRY” 06/26/26

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): So the Democrats sued to keep the Haitians here. Now, why are we suing to keep Haitians? Because they make money off Haitians. It grows the welfare state. It helps the nonprofits. The Haitians have babies, they become American citizens. They're cheap labor. That's what this is all about. They want to overthrow the country and we caught them and they're going home. I'm not feeling that bad about it.

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MMA

Jesse Watters on Cuba: “My banking buddy told me that after we topple Castro, we’re going to be able to buy 100 acres of pristine Cuban coastline for like 50 Gs”}:

06/23/26

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gt replacement racism

mma Jesse Watters on New York elections: “This is what happens when you import the third world”

06/24/26

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Right-wing media defend ICE detention center amid protests over horrible living conditions

Written by Sophie Lawton

Research contributions from John Knefel

Published 05/29/26

Right-wing media are defending the living conditions at Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in New Jersey, following reports of a detainee hunger strike sparking protests outside. In addition to repeating Department of Homeland Security talking points about the conditions, media figures have attacked protesters outside the facility, claiming the demonstrations are “performance art,” among other allegations.

According to NBC, one lawyer who represents multiple detainees said her clients at Delaney Hall “have been given expired food and meals with worms in them” and that some “have been released in recent months because they were not receiving medication or treatment for cancer, diabetes, depression and other conditions.”

The Department of Homeland Security has denied that a hunger strike is taking place at the facility, and both DHS and private prison company the GEO Group, which operates Delaney Hall, have rebuked claims that conditions are unsanitary or “subprime.” In the past year, reports of poor conditions at ICE detention centers have arisen across the country, including from locations such as Fort Bliss Army Base in Texas and the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” facility in Florida.

Right-wing news pundits and podcasters have contested such reports, repeating DHS talking points claiming that conditions in immigration detention facilities are “clean and nice” and possibly offer “better meals” and “better healthcare” than detainees had previously. Further, several have argued that it shouldn’t matter whether the detainees are on a hunger strike.

Besides defending the facilities, right-wing media figures have also attacked the protesters demonstrating outside Delaney Hall, encouraging escalation from the federal government and accusing protesters of being an “organized agitator group” that aims to stir up votes for the midterm elections and set violent criminals loose on the streets.

Right-wing media dismissed the hunger strike, defended detention center conditions, and attacked demonstrators for protesting

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From the May 28, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

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

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SAME DAY AS WATTERS SAYS AA LOSE FRANCHISE BC NOT ENOUGH BABIES THE BLACKS AS PIRRO SAYS

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MMA 5 26

May 15, 2026, edition of The Benny Show, posted to YouTube

BENNY JOHNSON (HOST): Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, who is a perfect representative of the intelligence of Fulton County and the quality of people there with her disgraced career. She might even be disbarred.

She oversees Atlanta, which is just hell on earth. Have you ever been to Atlanta? It's one of the worst cities in America. I would perfectly be happy to deport the entire city. It's trash, but that city contributes four different congressional districts. They carve up Atlanta into these little districts in a ruby red state of Georgia, and then they hand over a DEI district down here also to Democrats. These are the old maps, ladies and gentlemen. These are the maps that were drawn by racists who are trying to pack as many Black people into congressional districts as possible in order to steal votes for the Democrat Party, in order to get as much section eight, as much high density housing into one tight compacted area so that they can shove more Democrat representatives into the House of Representatives. This con has been going on since the Civil Rights Act, which is really what this all was about. A power grab for Democrats stealing at least 40 different Republican seats. We've been living in a fake country. Thankfully, the Supreme Court ended this entire charade, and now this little pocket right here, this is the Fani -- this, let's just call this big Faniville, has got to go.

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MMA

Jesse Watters says Somalis should be unwelcome in America: "We've gotten a little window in how they behave so far and it hasn't gone well" | Media Matters for America

5 26

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Trump retreats to the Fox-Trump feedback loop as his polling craters

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 05/07/26

With Donald Trump’s Iran war driving his public support to its lowest levels of his second term, the president retreated on Wednesday night to Fox News, the propaganda channel he can always count on to tell him that he’s a historic success.

Trump spent part of his evening live-posting about and posting video of segments on that night’s editions of Fox's The Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime, and Hannity.

At 7:57 p.m. E.T.,Trump posted Laura Ingraham’s opening segment to his Truth Social feed.

In that segment, Ingraham, over an on-screen graphic describing the president as “Still the Champ,” denounced what she called media portrayals of Trump “losing influence,” calling them “just more wishful thinking.” She went on to say that Trump “vexes all of them because he doesn't play by their rules” and “never stopped fighting.”

Ingraham then interviewed GOP pollster Matt Towery, who called Trump “a force unequaled in the Republican Party” and claimed that “the polling that you're seeing come in on Trump is incorrect.” On-screen text during the interview read, “The MAGA Momentum Is Unstoppable.”

At 9:08 p.m. E.T., Trump posted, “Chuck Devore, Army Intelligence, was fantastic tonight on Jesse Watters. Thank you Chuck!!!”

Devore, during the segment Trump referenced, claimed:

:{Video:

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From the May 6, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

At 9:13 p.m. ET, Trump posted that “Washington D.C. CRIME is at its lowest point in 30 years, plus!” He was apparently responding to another segment on Watters’ show which used similar language.

Finally, at 10:59 p.m. ET, Trump posted Sean Hannity’s opening segment to his Truth Social feed.

Hannity’s monologue, citing President Barack Obama’s recent interview with CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, alleged that “Barack Hussein Obama” is “refusing to ride off into the sunset with grace and something called dignity” because the former president is “desperate for validation.”

He went on to accuse Obama of having “wrote the book on weaponization and politicizing justice,” through his purported attacks on Trump, adding that he “is now forced to witness his entire legacy go completely down the drain, compliments of the man that he tried to destroy.”

The president often makes or calibrates his decisions based on the network’s programming and posts about it in close to real time, a phenomenon I call the Fox-Trump feedback loop. And right now, his loyal supplicants are providing him with an endless stream of happy talk.

mma

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  1. ### In Iran, the most consequential test of the Fox-Trump feedback loop yet

03/02/26 1:12 PM EST

  1. ### How Fox powered Trump’s first term — and what that means for his second

11/19/24 7:30 AM EST

  1. ### STUDY: Two years of Trump's Fox live-tweeting obsession, by the numbers

10/09/20

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AN 4 26

DOJ indictments are converging with MAGA media narratives

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 04/30/26

Recent Justice Department indictments whose validity have been questioned by legal experts demonstrate an increasing alignment of the Trump DOJ’s activities with the narratives of the MAGA media echo chamber.

President Donald Trump has long sought to use federal law enforcement to punish his enemies, and under former Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ and FBI launched scattershot and apparently pretextual probes targeting figures like Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff over behavior unrelated to the president’s gripes.

But since Trump’s former personal lawyer Todd Blanche became acting attorney general last month, the president’s federal retaliation machine has seemed to sync up more closely with long-running talking points of his propaganda arm rather than simply focusing on the same targets.

Federal charges were filed or unsealed in recent days against the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group; former National Institutes of Health official Dr. David Morens; and former FBI Director James Comey. Legal experts have said that each of these cases are either weak or concern behavior common among Trump administration officials.

Each set of charges, however, has buttressed MAGA arguments, and provided their proponents with fresh opportunities to leverage them for content. And they foreshadow the potential fruits of DOJ’s ongoing “Grand Conspiracy” investigation, which unifies a string of conspiracy theories promoted by Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity under the auspices of Joe diGenova, a Republican lawyer and longtime fixture in right-wing media.

James Comey

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Fox News

The target. Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until May 2017, when Trump fired him over his handling of the federal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which the president describes as a “hoax”; he subsequently became a key figure in the right’s “deep state” conspiracy theories. The DOJ indicted Comey last year over congressional testimony he gave in 2020, but a judge dismissed the case, ruling that the appointment of the prosecutor who filed the indictment (and replaced a U.S. attorney who had questioned the case) had been unconstitutional.

The charges. Federal prosecutors on April 28 charged Comey with one count of “Threatening the President” and one count of “Transmitting a Threat in Interstate Commerce” related to a now-deleted May 2025 Instagram post in which Comey posted a photo of shells arranged on a beach to spell out “86 47” and commented, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” In the press release announcing the charges, Blanche said, “The temperature needs to be turned down, and anyone who dials it up and threatens the life of the President will be held accountable,” while FBI Director Kash Patel added, “James Comey disgracefully encouraged a threat on President Trump’s life and posted it on Instagram for the world to see.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. MAGA pundits have argued that recent examples of political violence targeting the right are the result of overheated commentary from Democrats and the media, often erasing incidents of right-wing political violence and ignoring violent rhetoric from the likes of Trump in the process. Numerous Fox News personalities suggested last May that Comey face an investigation or charges over his post, with Jesse Watters calling for it as “retribution.” And the indictment came days after a gunman allegedly targeting the president was stopped trying to breach the perimeter at the April 25 White House Correspondents Association’s annual dinner, which Trump, the White House, andhis media allies subsequently blamed on criticism from Democrats and journalists. VID]

The response from legal experts.“Supreme Court precedent has placed a high bar for convictions in threat cases like these, and former prosecutors and First Amendment scholars alike were highly skeptical the new prosecution would be successful,” CNN reported. Even some lawyers who are Fox News contributors aren’t buying DOJ’s argument — George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox that Comey’s Instagram post would “very likely be viewed as protected speech if it was the basis of a criminal indictment” and “have a hard-time standing up in court,” while Andrew McCarthy wrote at National Review that the “bogus” indictment is a “farce,” called Comey’s conviction “inconceivable,” and added: “Of course, when the Justice Department abuses power this way, as it has repeatedly, it shreds its credibility with the courts and undermines the integrity of all its work.”

The response from the MAGA right. While the indictment drew skepticism on Fox’s daytime coverage, the network’s evening programs championed it on Tuesday night. MAGA lawyer Mike Davis said on The Ingraham Angle that the charges were “a long time coming,” offered “cheers” to Blanche and Patel, called Comey’s post “a clear threat,” and claimed, “There have been people who have gone to prison for a lot less than this.” Hannity, meanwhile, mocked the idea that “86 47” could mean anything but “get rid of Trump,” and hosted Fox legal analyst Gregg Jarrett to claim that Comey “surely knew what the phrase meant” and that “if he tries to claim free speech as a defense, that's not going to work.”

Dr. David Morens

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Fox News

The target. Morens is an expert in public health and infectious diseases who served from 2006 to 2022 as senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The charges. The Justice Department announced on April 28 that Morens had been charged with “conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal, or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting,” specifically by using his personal Gmail account to conduct what prosecutors allege was government business in order to avoid public disclosure. Blanche alleged in the press release that Morens “deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19,” while Patel claimed that “circumventing records protocols with the intention of avoiding transparency is something that will not be tolerated by this FBI.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. The right-wing media echo chamber responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in part by turning Fauci into a hate object. Its participants also claimed that the coronavirus originated through a lab leak from a Chinese virology facility and its development may even have been funded by American tax dollars, rather than the prevailing view that the virus initially spread among wild animals before jumping to humans at a market in Wuhan, China. Morens and his email practices came under scrutiny from congressional Republicans and right-wing media in 2023 and 2024. While the Justice Department suggests Morens was acting to suppress the lab leak theory, The New York Times reports that the DOJ’s investigation “has so far yielded no evidence that scientists or health officials were involved in research that started or spread the coronavirus outbreak” and his emails in the indictment “do not show him trying to conceal evidence of a lab leak.”

The response from legal experts.Scott Amey, general counsel at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, told The New York Times that “the allegations are quite concerning,” but also “noted that senior members of the Trump administration have themselves been accused of trying to evade federal record-keeping laws.” Indeed, The Washington Post reported last year that top Trump administration national security officials were communicating over their private Gmail accounts, and in March 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared operational details of an impending U.S. military strike over an unsecured Signal chat with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other Trump administration officials, and Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally added to the chain.

The response from the MAGA right. The New York Post reported on — and effectively generated — “pressure on DOJ to prosecute Anthony Fauci” in light of Morens’ indictment. Its Thursday article claimed that “critics say Fauci … bears the most responsibility and that he should be hauled into court,” citing the head of a right-wing think tank, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and a former DOJ official who is now national political reporter at the right-wing media outlet Real America’s Voice.

The Southern Poverty Law Center

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Fox News

The target.The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights organization best known for its monitoring, researching, and reporting on white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and others it describes as “hate and antigovernment extremist groups” that “make up some of the most extreme elements of the hard right.”

The charges. The Justice Department revealed April 21 that a grand jury had returned an indictment charging the SPLC with “11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.” DOJ alleges that by using paid informants to infiltrate hate groups, the SPLC “secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups” from 2014 to 2023, including to one individual who “was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ event in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended the event at the direction of the S.P.L.C.” Blanche claimed in a press release that SPLC was “manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” while Patel alleged the group “engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. As the American right adopted positions previously espoused only by explicit white supremacists, the SPLC drew its ire by expanding its monitoring to include “extreme” right-wing elements that were nonetheless accepted within its mainstream, like Turning Point USA. Right-wing media figures denounced SPLC’s characterizations of TPUSA after the assassination of its founder, MAGA operative Charlie Kirk, in September 2025, and the following month, Patel said the FBI was cutting ties with the group, which he described as a “partisan smear machine.” Right-wing media figures have also pushed back hard against links between Trump and the deadly Charlottesville event, and described white supremacy itself as a “hoax.”

The response from legal experts.The SPLC indictment “may contain serious legal defects that could lead to a full or partial dismissal because it struggles to articulate the elements of the alleged crimes,” CBS News reported after consulting former federal prosecutors. “Legal experts say it is not clear exactly how the SPLC's statements to donors represent material falsehoods or omissions, or why its past use of paid informants would run counter to its mission of dismantling white supremacist groups, a tactic that federal and local law enforcement also utilize to infiltrate and break up criminal organizations,” the report added. Andrew Weissmann, who led the DOJ Fraud Section from 2015 to 2019, likewise wrote in a piece for Just Security that DOJ’s claims “may sound superficially plausible in a press release against an organization dissimilar to the SPLC, but nothing in the speaking indictment against the Center appears to meet the legal standard required” for the charges.

The response from the MAGA right.Right-wing pundits have gleefully parroted the DOJ allegations, using them both toattack the SPLC and to suggest that the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally had been a false-flag hoax instigated by the left as a way to sabotage Trump. Fox personalities alone have mentioned the SPLC nearly 400 times since the indictment’s release, according to a Media Matters review. (The indictment was “huge breaking news,” as Hannity put it before hosting Patel to accuse the SPLC of the “ultimate definition of hypocrisy.”) Trump himself has picked up the story, rambling about how “Southern Law” is a “total scam” in an interview with CBS over the weekend. The president said in part:

I see these No Kings which are funded just like the Southern Law was funded. You all that Southern Laws, financing the KKK and lots of other radical, terrible groups. And then they go out and they say, oh, we’ve got to stop the KKK. And yet they give them hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. They work. It’s a total scam run by the Democrats. It shows you that, like Charlottesville, Charlottesville was all funded by the Southern Law. That was a Southern Law deal, too. And it was done to make me look bad. And it turned out to be a total fake. It basically was a rigged election. This was a part of the rigging of the election. And that’s what you really should be doing. I mean, I hope one of your 60 Minutes episodes, which really hasn’t changed very much for the last few years, I’m surprised. But one of those episodes should be on Southern Law, and the fact that they spent millions and millions of dollars on absolute far right and just bad, bad groups, and then they’d use those groups and they’d say, these are Republican groups, and we’re coming to your rescue, and they’re the ones that have funded it, and they’re the ones that kept them, keep them going. Pretty sad.

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Fox News host Jesse Watters' lewd, misogynistic, and perverted remarks

Written by Helena Hind

Published 04/21/26

Fox News prime-time host Jesse Watters has a long history of making misogynistic and sexually suggestive comments on air, and his past year on the network has been no different. Watters has claimed that some men “take women too seriously,” suggested that women are supposed to “get married and live a traditional life,” and made multiple references to sex and pornography while interacting with his female co-hosts on The Five.

Misogyny is deeply ingrained in the culture at Fox News. The network itself and multiple of its stars have been the subjects of repeated sexual harassment scandals, including a far-reaching lawsuit against Fox co-founder Roger Ailes that was eventually dramatized in a 2019 film.

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  1. ### Jesse Watters is Fox's new 8 p.m. host. Advertisers should beware.

06/26/23 12:18 PM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters’ most egregious attacks against women in 2022

12/16/22 9:08 AM EST

  1. ### Greg Gutfeld says Tim Walz is guilty of “treason”: “He is, in effect, a traitor”

04/20/26

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Right-wing media’s heinous rhetoric against people experiencing homelessness

From calling for homeless people to be sent to “internment camps” to fantasizing about making them “fight like gladiators,” right-wing media’s crusade against people without housing continues

Written by Sage Hodil

Published 04/03/26

Right-wing media have a long history of attacking homeless people, and so far 2026 has seen a continuation of that trend. Pundits have called for sending homeless people to different countries, “internment camps,” and institutions. Right-wing media figures have also pushed dehumanizing rhetoric by referring to homeless people as “bums,” “blighty,” “junkies,” “mentally deranged,” and even joking about their deaths.

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  1. ### Jesse Watters’ decade-long hate campaign against homeless people

07/17/23

  1. ### Fox News zeroes in on a new target: the homeless

06/04/19

  1. ### NY Post's Latest Attack On Homeless Demonstrates Real-World Consequences Of Poor-Shaming

03/10/16

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Fox News’ knives are out for NATO as Trump’s Iran war deteriorates

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 04/02/26

Fox News’ MAGA stars, unable to acknowledge that the war in Iran that President Donald Trump launched with their support is spiralling into a strategic defeat, have landed on a scapegoat: NATO and its member states, which were not consulted by the United States before it joined Israel in starting the war and have since refused participation.

Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Sean Hannity respectively denounced NATO on Wednesday as “kind of a meaningless ally” that “we’ve had it with” for purportedly “abandoning us.” Hannity and Ingraham each suggested that Trump should withdraw the U.S. from the alliance (which he is barred from doing unilaterally under a bill Secretary of State Marco Rubio cosponsored in the Senate that became law in 2023).

Trump has spent the last several weeks raging over the refusal by U.S. allies to send their navies into the active war zone to escort oil tankers and other commercial ships after Iran, in an obvious strategic countermeasure to the U.S. attack, closed the Strait of Hormuz. Over the weekend, Spain, Italy, and France refused to allow their military bases or airspace to be used by U.S. or Israeli aircraft involved in the war, triggering a new wave of vitriol from the president and his top aides.

Trump claimed in a Wednesday interview to be “beyond reconsideration” of the U.S. role in NATO after “they weren’t there for us” in Iran. (NATO is a defensive alliance — in response to the 9/11 attacks, its members deployed forces alongside the U.S. military in Afghanistan but are not bound by the treaty to participate in offensive wars.) In an address from the White House that night, the president urged the “countries of the world” to “build up some delayed courage. … Go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves.”

The looming strategic failure of the U.S. war in Iran — its regime is intact and in control of its uranium stockpile and the strait, and altering those circumstances that would likely require a risky escalation involving American ground troops — has placed Fox’s hosts in a bind. They have assured their viewers that the war is an historic success and appear unable to break with Trump due to his support among their viewers. That makes our NATO allies an appealing target as the war grinds on.

The president regularly tunes in to Fox to guide his communication and policy decisions. If he was watching before or after his speech on Wednesday, he heard vigorous support for pivoting from his inability to defeat America’s foes to punishing its friends.

Hannity: NATO is “a one-sided alliance,” by leaving “we'll probably save a lot of money”

Hannity, of the network’s three major evening hosts, is the one most committed to the U.S. war in Iran (which he had demanded for decades), the closest personally to Trump, and the loudest voice currently denouncing NATO.

Following Trump’s speech, he panned NATO as “a one-sided alliance where we only go and protect Europe” and suggested its member states had become too culturally Muslim. In response, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) uncorked a screed in which he called for the redeployment of U.S. forces from Europe because “when we needed them the most and when the world needed them the most to stop a religious Nazi regime from having a nuclear breakout, they took a pass.”

“I think that there's going to be a reevaluation and I believe America's contribution just went down dramatically, and we'll know more in the weeks ahead as this now begins to wrap up,” Hannity replied.

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From the April 1, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Later in the broadcast, the host said it was “unimaginable to me that the NATO alliance would shatter” thanks to the purported refusal by its members to agree to what “should not be a controversial assist on their part.”

“I've got to imagine the ramifications of them abandoning us in this effort is going to — this is going to be deep, profound, and long-lasting,” he added.

Fox contributor Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state in Trump’s first administration, characterized NATO as “feckless, not to be able to convince their own people” of the importance of the Iran war, while retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, another former Trump administration figure, said the U.S. should withdraw from the alliance and form a new one.

“Yeah, I think you're right and we'll probably save a lot of money,” Hannity replied to Kellogg. “But the fact that they did not have a moral clarity when you're dealing with the No. 1 state sponsor of terror potentially this close to acquiring nuclear weapons is breathtaking to me. And this will have reverberations, I believe, going on for decades to come.”

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From the April 1, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Ingraham: NATO is “kind of a meaningless ally” due to “weakness in Europe”

Ingraham had recently warned about potential downsides of the war, but quickly pivoted back in line with her colleagues. While previewing Trump’s speech on Wednesday’s broadcast, she claimed that “NATO turned out, in this case at least, to be what Donald Trump had predicted: kind of a meaningless ally, if allies at all.”

Her guest, the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano, responded with the evening’s most vigorous defense of the alliance. “I don't think NATO is the problem,” he said, instead pointing to “some very weak leaders inside NATO who have made some very cowardly decisions” and “look like complete yahoos.”

“What we're going to see is not NATO disbanded,” Carafano. “That's nuts. But what we're more likely to see is NATO step back up to the plate under pressure from Donald Trump, and countries throw out their own leaders because they’re weak-kneed yahoos.”

But Ingraham responded by saying that disbanding NATO should be on the table.

“Well, I'm not sure I agree with that,” she replied. “I think there's just a lot of weakness in Europe, period. Period, there's weakness. … We're so lucky we have Donald Trump as president of the United States.”

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From the April 1, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Watters: “We’ve had it with these people”

Watters joined in the NATO criticism on Wednesday, albeit in a somewhat less aggressive tone than his colleagues.

“The NATO allies, I put allies in quotes,” he said. “I mean, it's been a great alliance over the years. It's really kept the Russians off the continent until the Ukraine invasion. But it's been really one-sided, and now a lot of people are looking around at them saying no, you can't use the airspace. You can't use the base.”

“They've had it,” he added. “We've had it with these people. We love them, but we've had it.”

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Jesse Watters questions the “emotional maturity” of women: “I hope there's not a female president in my lifetime” | Media Matters for America

4 26

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Jesse Watters says it's “common sense” to deny due process to people being sent to an El Salvador prison

04/16/25

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Fox News’ united front in support of Trump’s Iran war may be breaking down

Host Laura Ingraham warns escalation could produce “cascading problems for the region,” political turmoil for the GOP

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 03/26/26

Four weeks after President Donald Trump launched a poorly conceived war of choice against Iran, the lockstep support for the conflict that has characterized coverage from Fox News’ star hosts is beginning to fray. The power struggle is significant — it is not an exaggeration to suggest the course of the war might hinge on which Fox shows the president is watching.

Trump is clearly approaching a decision point over whether to further escalate the war. U.S. and Israeli forces have done a lot of damage to Iranian military targets, but its regime is intact, still controls its stockpiles of enriched uranium, and has closed the Strait of Hormuz, threatening the global trade in oil, natural gas, and fertilizer. The Pentagon is sending thousands of troops to the region and reportedly prepping options for a “final blow” — some of which would involve deploying U.S. forces on Iranian soil.

When Trump is considering policy options, he often takes guidance from his loyal propagandists at Fox. This Fox-Trump feedback loop has in recent months played a role in the president’s decisions to send White House border czar Tom Homan to oversee immigration enforcement in Minnesota; prioritize the SAVE Act over all other legislation; order the deployment of ICE agents to airports; and start the war against Iran.

Against that backdrop, Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned on Wednesday’s show that further U.S. action could produce devastating unintended consequences and suggested that Trump should refocus his attention on the domestic economy and political situation.

“Iran knows it cannot win militarily, so it's using the leverage it has by prolonging the conflict,” she said during her monologue at the top of the show. “Now, what do they want to do? They want to inflict maximum economic pain on the region, on the U.S., [on] the global economy as much as possible until they think Trump relents. But the White House doesn't seem to be blinking.”

The host then aired a clip of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warning at her press briefing that day that “President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell” against Iran.

Ingraham did not seem impressed by Leavitt’s rhetoric.

“Well, the problem is obviously unleashing hell means destroying infrastructure, which itself causes a series of cascading problems for the region, including maybe outside the region — political problems for the president in a midterm election year,” she said.

:{Video

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From the March 25, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Her air of skepticism continued throughout the show.

While interviewing Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), she noted Pentagon reports of thousands of successful missions but commented, “I mean, this is a devastating blow, yet you know, we're still there.”

“It's not even a month old, obviously,” she continued, before asking, “But are you concerned about the public and people? Again, very short attention spans, very impatient for victory, as is President Trump, I might add. But in an election year, it's easy to say politics don't matter, but at some point politics do come into play.”

And in a third segment, she highlighted the disastrous polling on the Iran war, commenting, “It looks like people are pretty impatient. The American people are sending a message to President Trump that it's time to put the focus back on the home front.”

Ingraham is inching toward the type of dissent that has been virtually absent from Fox’s coverage of the war, even as the broader right-wing media has split. Her colleagues have played key roles in convincing Trump to attack in the first place and are pushing for risky escalations. Ingraham herself briefly quibbled with Trump’s handling of an apparent U.S. strike that leveled an Iranian school, killing scores of children, but had supported the war itself, which she declared three weeks ago that Trump had already won.

But if Ingraham is getting cold feet and trying to convince Trump not to escalate a war the public has soured on, she remains an outlier at the network. Indeed, if the president tuned in for the two hours following Ingraham’s program, he saw her prime-time colleagues Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity argue not only that the war is going well and that Trump will inevitably lead the U.S. to victory, but that anyone who disagrees must want America to lose the war because they hate the president.

Watters began his show with a 10-minute monologue whose thesis was that “the Iranian regime is losing leverage fast as we continue to carry out thousands of sorties over enemy airspace.” After detailing various tactical victories, he touted a potential escalation.

:{Video

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From the March 25, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

“[President] 47 could be eyeing a knockout — Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island,” he said. “The Republican Guard has been preparing for battle, laying mines, booby trapping, loading up on Stingers, but retired top brass says our military is ready to shock and seize the terrain by air, by sea. We don't know if it's going to happen, but if it does happen, the Iranians won't know it's coming.”

“Iran looks like this is their last gasp, but some people would rather America lose the war because they hate Trump,” Watters concluded. “So far, this is the cleanest, most surgical and one-sided operation in American military history. Now, anything could happen, war is hell, it's unpredictable, but people in the know in Washington think we're about to close it out with a pretty big blow.”

Hannity, in his opening monologue, likewise declared: “Many on the left are now rooting for America to lose. Others seem to be hoping for another Vietnam-style quagmire. Why? Because Democrats care more about their political ambition rather than the future, safety, and security of your children and your grandchildren.”

“But tonight, President Trump is ignoring all the hysteria and pushing for peace one way or the other,” he continued. “If Iran's obliterated regime will not agree to a lasting agreement, this president has pledged he will continue to decimate their resolve through force, but that's really going to be up to them. They might unleash hell, otherwise.”

After airing a clip from Leavitt’s press briefing, Hannity added, “The message from President Trump is clear: Work with the U.S. or you will be killed.”

:{Video

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From the March 25, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

To which Ingraham might reply — what if killing them creates “cascading problems for the region”? As of yet, Watters and Hannity aren’t expressing any such concerns. And who the president is watching may determine the shape of things to come.

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  1. ### How Fox powered Trump’s first term — and what that means for his second

11/19/24

  1. ### Fox’s biggest hawks are thrilled with the Iran war — and floating risky escalations

03/12/26

  1. ### Laura Ingraham: “Trump has already won in Iran”

03/05/26

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Right-wing media use the SAVE America Act to undermine the upcoming midterm elections

Right-wing pundits have falsely claimed Democrats oppose the SAVE America Act because they are “cheating” and “want the illegals to be able to vote”

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Sage Hodil

Published 03/20/26

For example, in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, right-wing media were peddling election conspiracy theories and insisting the 2020 election was rigged. Ahead of the 2024 election cycle, right-wing media deployed that same playbook, spreading false information about undocumented immigrants voting, accusing Democrats of rigging the system, and attempting to undermine the validity of mail-in voting.

As the 2026 midterm elections approach, right-wing media figures are yet again claiming that Democrats are trying to cheat and want undocumented immigrants to vote, even though instances of noncitizen voting are vanishingly rare. Still, right-wing media figures have advocated for Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence at polling locations, President Donald Trump to declare a “national emergency” to enforce his preferred election policies, and Congress to pass the SAVE Act (since modified and rebranded as the SAVE America Act).

Though the SAVE America Act appears to be doomed in the Senate, the controversial bill, which aims to rewrite election laws nationwide, would, if passed, create new barriers for people attempting to register to vote by requiring them to provide documents such as a passport or birth certificate as proof of citizenship. But as the Brennan Center for Justice points out, millions of citizens lack access to these documents, and “roughly half of Americans don’t even have a passport.” As an example of the potential effects, the Bipartisan Policy Center examined a similar law requiring proof of citizenship passed in Kansas and found the law prevented roughly 12% of applicants from registering to vote. The SAVE America Act could also place additional burdens on married women who have changed their last name from the one that appears on their birth certificate.

Nonetheless, right-wing media have been using the bill to sell a false narrative that Democrats have “nefarious intentions” and are “petrified about having safe and secure elections” because “they want the illegals to be able to vote.”

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  1. ### Newsmax host discusses a Senate filibuster against the SAVE Act: “This is why people need guns in this country, because a government is willing to go 80% against the country”

03/18/26 10:15 AM EDT

  1. ### Nick Shirley rebooted James O’Keefe’s debunked voter fraud myths for a new audience

02/18/26 4:25 PM EST

  1. ### Daily Wire host admits if the SAVE Act becomes law, “fewer actual American citizens will end up voting”

02/12/26

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February 10, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): So the Democrats were probably licking their chops before this hearing. Do you think they delivered?

EMILY COMPAGNO (CO-HOST): They delivered to themselves. I'm sure that they're patting themselves on the back. This was a beautiful illustration of the hysterical theatrics that the left engages in, and especially those elected officials on the left. There are people like Swalwell who can't go one minute without just pandering to whatever followers he thinks he has. And then you contrast that with the cool, collected professionalism of those brave men and women who are out there and up there testifying on the Hill and representing all of us.

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February 9, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five}:

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): The game was so bad, everyone's talking about halftime. And halftime was so bad. Now, they say, the halftime was not bad. Okay. Last halftime was Kendrick Lamar, okay? That was also the most highly rated halftime. So is this. We didn't understand what Kendrick Lamar was saying last time, and that was English. Now how do you think we feel?

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): Jesse, they had a signer for the deaf but no translator for the Spanish. Why do you think that is?

WATTERS: I don't know. I like the Super Bowl not to be an international event. I like it when we kind of all come together as Americans, especially when it feels like the NFL's just using it as a marketing ploy to recruit Latin American audience -- on the heels of Latin America invading this country. 20 million pouring in and that's what you see. You see all these foreigners speaking a foreign language, with foreign flags marching into the camera like a caravan. Too soon!

Listen, this was an open borders moment. Everybody knows it. That's what's going on here. And all the reporters, who are liberal, who don't even watch football, this is the first playoff game they've ever watched, they are saying they loved it? They didn't hear a word. They couldn't understand what the guy said. Of course, they loved it. It was foreign.

Now, a lot of us feel -- Americans, red-blooded Americans -- that it feels like the left is teaming up with large corporations and foreign populations to take our culture away from us. Now, I love Bad Bunny. I thought some of the tunes I could move to, and I love Puerto Rico. That's the thing. Not for Super Bowl halftime. Can you give me at least that? Give me that.

On Fox News, Kid Rock calls Jay-Z “a DEI hire” by the NFL

02/10/26 3:15 PM EST

Laura Ingraham says Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny's halftime show “didn't represent America at all”

02/09/26 7:51 PM EST

Greg Gutfeld launches incoherent rant about a Jewish halftime show with “dancing accountants” and “men slinging pastrami”

02/09/26

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

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

Written by Harrison Ray & Isabella Sherk

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe & Rob Savillo

Published 02/06/26 9:58 AM EST

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

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

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

:{Video

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

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

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

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

Citation

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

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

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

Citation

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

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From Fox News' live coverage on January 24, 2026

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

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OMFG ANTI-COMMIE WATERS INGRA HANTY BEFORE SEE BAD TRINITY

MMA

MAGA media demand Trump put down the Minnesota “revolution”

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 01/30/26

A week after Border Patrol officers gunned down nurse Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis, MAGA media’s biggest stars are portraying locals who oppose immigration enforcement officers’ brutal tactics as China-backed “revolutionaries” seeking “the complete overthrow of Western civilization” which they are urging President Donald Trump to put down at all costs.

Horrific videos of Pretti’s killing by masked agents of the state whose activities he had been filming spurred a backlash against the Trump administration’s immigration policy, with polls showing eroding support and some Republican officeholders and right-leaning streamers expressing dismay.

Even some commentators on Fox News, which initially plowed ahead in depraved service of the administration’s absurd argument that Pretti was a terrorist threatening the officers’ lives, backed down a bit. After Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade urged the president to send former Fox contributor and White House “border czar” Tom Homan to take control of the situation on Monday, Trump took Kilmeade’s advice, spurring premature media claims of a “pivot.”

But in this tug-of-war over the president’s brainbox, MAGA stars quickly regrouped and urged Trump not to back down, reverting to the language of war that has characterized right-wing media discussions of Minneapolis for weeks. And the tenor of their coverage has only become more disturbing over the course of the week.

Fox host Laura Ingraham, in her opening monologue Thursday night, claimed that the “mobs you've witnessed in Minnesota and in other far-left-wing pockets of America” are composed of “revolutionaries” who “smear and dehumanize as a prelude to the executions.”

Ingraham went on to argue that “behind all this” is “a national network of socialists, communists, and Marxist-Leninists” whose “goal is to destabilize the West and undermine trust in our institutions and eventually dismantle capitalism and replace it with a Marxist communist framework that eliminates private property in favor of state-owned enterprises.”

“So how do you defeat these well-funded, well-organized revolutionaries?” Ingraham asked. She replied to her own question, claiming, “We defeat the revolution by staying the course, by prosecuting criminal conspiracies to impede ICE and also their funding networks, and by reminding Americans that their safety and U.S. sovereignty will not be negotiated away, not now, not ever.”

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From the January 29, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Ingraham further argued that the anti-ICE movement has “Chinese fingerprints all over it.”

The following hour, Fox’s Jesse Watters described Minneapolis as “antifa’s new favorite city” and local protesters as an “ICE watch mafia” with its “own socialist supply lines, logistics, and financial benefactors.”

“They're calling Minnesota a testing ground for a domestic revolution,” he added. “This is more than just about immigration. It's about the complete overthrow of Western civilization.”

Democrats want “more Renee Goods and Alex Prettis,” he added. “They think if they can stack enough bodies, Trump's going to back off.”

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

Watters later hosted MAGA streamer Tim Pool, who argued that “the terrifying thing about Minnesota” is not that federal officers keep killing civilians, but that “we're looking at a leftist base in this country that are being radicalized.”

“My concern is that there's, there's a bloodlust” among the protesters “that's not going to be satisfied,” he added.

Watters went on to say that “there's a certain faction of the left that wants the violence” and suggested that the media “has a little bit more responsibility in situations like this to calm things down.”

Then on Sean Hannity’s program, the host likewise denounced what he termed “the well-coordinated, well-funded, quote, resistance to ICE investigations in Minnesota,” which he claimed is engaged in “an attack on our very system.”

He went on to describe Democrats’ “current anti-ICE outrage” as “pure political theater,” adding that “ultimately, they want to dissolve our borders and fundamentally transform a country and the people that they despise.”

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From the January 29, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

The vitriol on Fox’s evening shows is somehow less ominous than that coming from right-wing figures off its airways, though.

Tucker Carlson, who hosts one of the nation’s most popular podcasts, argued on Wednesday’s installment that inMinnesota, “we are watching the destruction of the social fabric of the government and potentially of the nation.” He explained that the video of Pretti’s killing “represents chaos” and added: “Chaos is worse than illegal immigration. Chaos is worse than police brutality. Chaos is worse than anything. Chaos equals death. The death of people, the death of the weak, the death of countries.”

Carlsonwent on to argue that Minnesota activists “want the chaos,” adding: “This is proof that what you're watching is not a series of protests about immigration. What you're watching are the beginnings of a color revolution, of a kind of insurrection against federal authority.” He further claimed that if that revolution is not stopped, the result will be “civil war” and “killing at scale.”

“We have to hold the line,” Steve Bannon likewise argued on Wednesday. “There can be no de-escalation at all. You don't need to bring down the temperature. Raise the temperature. Put them under pressure. They're the ones that are cracking.”

“This is an inflection point,” he added. “You blink now and you're going to blink forever. You bend the knee now, you'll bend the knee forever. If we stand in the breach and say, screw you, we're fighting for the country, right?”

And Nick Fuentes, the increasingly prominent white nationalist streamer, argued that if the “radical intervention” Trump is overseeing does not succeed, “all of white civilization just collapses.”

“You have to put yourself in the position of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the year 2100 and look around at your majority-minority country that looks like South Africa, where it's just trash and graffiti and filth and homeless people and vagabonds and criminals,” Fuentes explained. “And then you have to go back in time to now when we can prevent it. And then think about what you're willing to do to stop this. And then killing a stupid fat lesbian and a male nurse doesn't seem so bad, does it?”

“Do you know what 'Sieg Heil’ even means?” he concluded. “It means ‘hail victory.’ And not to go like full Nazi or something, but there is no substitute for victory. We have to win; they have to lose.”

//

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

:{:{01/26/26}:

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

:{:{01/25/26}:

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

01/27/26

---

MMA

January 29, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Peter, you wrote a whole book about how China is infiltrating the United States, the silent coup. And this has Chinese fingerprints all over it in my view, and it's not like you're going to have a direct line to the CCP. But given what you've witnessed and the revolutionary goals on the websites of some of these organizations, what's your sense?

PETER SCHWEIZER (GUEST): Yeah, there's no question there's an international component to it and China's involved. There is an organization linked to the CCP in China called the Center for the Study of Marxist Parties in Foreign Countries. And what they do is they track these political activities. And they've been running articles, analyses on their website in China, which is restricted, talking about color revolutions in the United States and how it might happen. They cover groups like the Party for Socialism and Liberation. They cover groups like the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, both who are neck deep in this action in Minneapolis and have been involved in many other protests.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization has pledged its allegiance to the CCP. They have fraternal party ties, which means they're very close. And the political director of that party, Mick Kelly, lives in Minneapolis. He's been investigated in the past by the FBI for possible involvement for direct terrorism. He was never charged. But these are radical groups, same thing with PSL, sympathetic, tied to China. Its members have flown to China. So, this is part of something that China directly encourages, wants to see happening. And they are monitoring the situation in the United States as it relates to all kinds of social unrest like this.

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mma

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

:{Video

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

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

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

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

:{Video

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

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

//

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

01/25/26 11:50 AM EST

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

01/26/26 12:40 PM EST

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

01/16/26

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MMA

January 21, 2026, edition of Fox News'Jesse Watters Primetime

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): Tonight, we have declared officially victory in the battle of Somaliland. JD's going to make it official tomorrow and plant his flag in Minnesota. ICE has conquered the pirate ship. In year one of the Golden Age, 10,000 illegals sucked out of Minneapolis, 3,000 cuffed in the last six weeks alone.

...

The pirate ship sank and it's time to leave the lawyers behind in Minnesota. Let them sniff out the rest of the Somali fraud. Now, it's about shifting manpower out west. Time for Tom Homan to hit the golden state. California, they work with ICE, allegedly, that's according to Gavin Newsom. Prove us wrong.

---

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: Trump “is not trying to grab Greenland because it is necessary for us to up our military presence. We can do that under current treaty obligations.”

01/21/26 12:33 PM EST

  1. ### The Fox-Trump fusion in two Fox & Friends segments

01/21/26 11:16 AM EST

  1. ### Newsmax host says he questions Trump's “tactics” toward acquiring Greenland

01/21/26 10:08 AM EST

  1. ### Fox host gushes over Trump's presence at Davos: “nothing starts until President Trump arrives — until daddy's home, as so many people say”

01/21/26 9:38 AM EST

  1. ### Sean Hannity: “I just don't have any faith in the NATO alliance in terms of their ability to contribute much to us”

01/20/26 6:36 PM EST

  1. ### Jesse Watters: “We have to secure Greenland. It will happen.”

01/20/26

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MMA

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

“Civil war,” “insurgents,” “a guerilla tactical playbook” — these are just some of the ways MAGA pundits are describing civil resistance to Trump’s ICE rampages

Written by John Knefel & Sophie Lawton

Published 01/16/26

Right-wing media figures and outlets are using the language of war to characterize protests against the presence of violent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota.

The fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in south Minneapolis on January 7 touched off a new round of protests in the region and across the country. President Donald Trump responded by threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows for the domestic use of the military against U.S. civilians in certain circumstances, days after Fox News host Laura Ingraham practically begged him to do so.

While some in right-wing media have referred to anti-ICE demonstrations as an “insurrection” since at least October, the overall tenor of right-wing rhetoric has escalated dramatically in recent days. Right-wing pundits have reacted to the pro-immigrant demonstrations by casting Minneapolis residents as “insurgents” who are using a “a guerilla tactical playbook” and looking to spark a “civil war” or engage in “violent terroristic extremism.” Here are some of the most egregious examples.

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

01/16/26 1:47 PM EST

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

01/16/26 11:19 AM EST

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

01/16/26 10:50 AM EST

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

01/16/26 10:10 AM EST

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

01/15/26 8:51 PM EST

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

01/15/26 6:45 PM EST

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

01/15/26 6:18 PM EST

===-

MMA

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

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): You create the environment and then you complain about the consequences. When you kick over a beehive, don't complain when the bees come back at you. When you poke a bear, don't say, "I can't believe the bear is chasing me."

JESSICA TARLOV (CO-HOST): You have a right to stand there and yell at officers --

GUTFELD: That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about -- you guys are deliberately creating an environment so that there is chaos, and when there is chaos, you go, "Oh, my god, someone gets hurt." What do you expect in chaos?

TARLOV: You don't think that they're trying to create chaos?

GUTFELD: Yes.

TARLOV: No, the ICE officers.

GUTFELD: These organizations desire chaos. How naive are you?

DANA PERINO (CO-HOST): You wouldn't have this chaos if Minnesota police cooperated with the federal government.

TARLOV: There are Americans being pulled out of their cars. Americans.

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): You know why, Jessica? Because they're getting in the way. Why do you think she got pulled out?

TARLOV: Yeah, that woman driving to her doctor's appointment --

GUTFELD: She was just a mom in the wrong place? You guys lie about all of this.

WATTERS: That's another hoax. You're going to find out tomorrow, she was not going to a doctor's appointment. She was obstructing an ICE operation. And these resignations, Jessica, that's another hoax. It's already been debunked. How can you look at these videos --

TARLOV: Debunked by who?

WATTERS: By everybody, hours ago that was debunked. They resigned in like October.

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MMA

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

12/08/25 7:39 PM EST

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

12/08/25

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

12/08/25

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the MAGA media response to six Democratic members of Congress reminding their former compatriots in the military and intelligence community of their duty to “refuse illegal orders” reached a fever pitch on Thursday. After President Donald Trump suggested earlier that day that the lawmakers should face the death penalty for sedition, his propagandists chimed in, describing the Democrats as “devious and subversive” and their actions as “border[ing] on treason.”

On Wednesday, Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ), as well as Reps. Jason Crow (D-CO), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) released a video in which they urged current members of the military and intelligence community to disobey “illegal orders.” While they did not provide examples, the release came amid debates over the legality of U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean and domestic troop deployments. The video drew a deranged response from many on the right, who accused the lawmakers of committing “treason” and trying to “trigger a military coup.”

The president himself weighed in Thursday morning with a series of Truth Social posts in which he accused the lawmakers of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR,” described them as “traitors to our Country,” and called for them to be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL” for crimes he described as “punishable by DEATH!” The lawmakers in the video and Democratic House leadership both condemned Trump’s posts, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Trump did not in fact seek the deaths of the members of Congress.

Trump is currently operating from a position of weakness, with his support in polls in a tailspinand his congressional allies having successfully revolted over the Jeffrey Epstein files. He’s previously responded to such circumstances by seeking to reunify his coalition by pointing them at a common enemy, and that seems to be what has happened this week. To the extent that he’s given his most loyal propagandists someone to attack, it’s working.

Fox News prime-time host Jesse Watters claimed on Thursday night that the “Democrats sent a clear message to everybody in the military and CIA: You're free to commit treason.” He described their actions as “devious and subversive,” said they were “planting coup seeds inside the Pentagon and at Langley,” and accused them of “psychological warfare launched by sitting politicians against the American military in peacetime” and “trying to blow up the chain of command.”

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From the November 20, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Watters’ colleague Sean Hannity argued the next hour, “The only question tonight [is] will these six Democratic lawmakers be held accountable in a court of law?” He then commented that he’s “not sure” they committed crimes punishable by death because he’s “not a lawyer,” and asked Fox contributor and former Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz to weigh in. Chaffetz assured him that “what they did borders on treason. It really does.” He added that “President Trump was actually exactly right” because “If you do commit treason, guess what? It is punishable by death. That's just the law. He's just reciting the law.”

Their competitors at Newsmax were similarly enraged. Carl Higbie declared that Trump’s posts show he “is done playing around with garbage,” pointed out that “George Washington did hang traitors many times, including Benedict Arnold's British counterpart,” and claimed that the Democrats “should be court-martialed themselves” because “that type of rhetoric from senators and congressmen is sedition.” Greg Kelly commented that “a lot of people” think the lawmakers committed “treason, or mutiny, or something along those lines,” and accused them of “plotting the seeds, I think, of another coup.” And The Right Squad’s Chris Plante said the Democrats were “inciting civil war.”

And Laura Loomer, whose influence in the Oval Office has triggered the firings of numerous administration officials for insufficient loyalty, wrote: “President Trump just re posted a post on Truth Social calling for seditious Democrat Senators to be hung for calling on members of the military to defy President Trump’s orders as Commander in Chief.”

“Trump is right,” she added. “That’s the type of justice Americans want to see.”

//

  1. ### Right-wing media figures are calling a recent video from Democratic lawmakers “treason” and “sedition”

11/20/25 4:42 PM EST

  1. ### Fox News hid its brutal Trump job approval number from viewers — while showering him with praise

11/20/25 12:56 PM EST

  1. ### Trump’s latest attempt to defuse the Epstein revolt: Point supporters at common enemies

07/21/25

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mma 11 25

November 14, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): Their little Epstein play backfired and they walked right into a trap. Now, Trump's directing Bondi to investigate Epstein's relationship with Democrats, and the Southern District of New York is on the case. That means Clinton, Larry Summers, Michael Wolff, all of them and all the others could be the subject of a new underage sex trafficking investigation. Epstein was even caught coaching a Democrat congresswoman during a congressional hearing with Michael Cohen.

And Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers are accusing prison guards of leaking emails to Jamie Raskin. Again, they said the walls were closing in on Trump and he just turned the tables. Democrats are now under investigation for everything they've accused Trump of, mortgage fraud, Epstein, Russia. Schumer blew the shutdown, uncorked Epstein as a distraction, and it boomeranged. And now top Democrats are lawyering up and telling their wives, "I was on the plane, but I never went to the island."

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MMA

October 28, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): Sometimes when you get hit in the head so hard that you go into a coma, you wake up and people have to reteach you the English language. They have to reintroduce you to your family. That's how I feel like dealing with Democrats.

There are concepts that have kept civilizations thriving for thousands of years: border walls, different bathrooms, asylums. And it's like, we're trying to teach basic things to Democrats and they're not going along with it. It makes me feel like they want civilization to collapse. And civilizations have collapsed. There's no guarantee that the American civilization is going to continue to thrive and survive. If you have people, a faction of this country, dead set on tearing it down by releasing criminals, by destroying gender, by destroying the English language, you will have Rome.

And that's what you're facing with these people. And that's why Charlie Kirk talked about trying to save Western civilization. We're fighting each other. We're not really fighting China, we're kind of fighting Russia. We're really fighting Americans who want to destroy the country.

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

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

Written by Jack Winstanley & Emma Mae Weber

Published 10/29/25

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

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

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

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

mma //

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

:{:{05/28/25}:

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

:{:{09/05/25}:

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

09/05/25

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projectiOn AGAIN?

MMA

October 23, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): The president will survive. I'm worried about his team. I'm worried about Miller and I'm worried about Homan and all the crew because it looks like from what Carville's saying, come 2028, it's back to the revenge game. They will probably run on revenge in '28 and so Trump just needs to do what Biden did, just pardon everybody on the way out the door.

MMA

Jesse Watters: “The Democrat reaction to January 6 was worse than January 6”

Watters: “What they need to do is either appoint a special counsel or have some sort of Senate select committee”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 10/07/25 6:39 PM EDT

Video

Citation

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

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): The Democrat reaction to January 6 was worse than January 6. We only know this from a whistleblower. Wray buried this inside some secret vault somewhere. A whistleblower had to come bring this to our attention. Imagine what else we're about to find out.

So, they cracked into these phones. That means you know where the senator was, exactly, who was calling him, who he called, how long the phone conversation was, and that's an incredibly abusive overreach. And what they were probably trying to do is cast this wide net to create some grand criminal conspiracy and indict the entire Republican Party. And they used the guy that prosecuted war crimes in the Hague to do it.

This guy should be in prison. And what they need to do is either appoint a special counsel or have some sort of Senate select committee to go up, do hearings, put Wray, put Garland, put Smith under oath, and if they lie, you throw them in prison.

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PROJECTION

MMA

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

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): It's a lot of conspiracy theories with the left. They're constantly hooked on these conspiracy theories like the COVID came from a wet market. I mean, they take Chinese propaganda and then they just regurgitate it on national television or that Trump is some sort of Russian puppet. They did that for two years. These people are like not in touch with reality at all. And this is coming from me. I like conspiracy theories. I seek them out and they're usually right. And they're usually -- the dumb ones are coming from the left.

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MMA

October 8, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): It is funny to watch Trump be a Fox News producer. We wake up in the morning and we look at the news and you see Trump is holding an antifa roundtable at the White House, and you just say thank you. Thank you, Donald Trump. This is the best. We know all of these reporters that are around this roundtable. Nick Sortor, Daviscourt, Andy Ngo. They're, like, guests on our shows. The mainstream media has probably never heard of any of these people, and this is why this is such great programming.

10 25

Trump and key officials from his administration were joined by a group of conservative influencers for a roundtable discussion on Antifa on Tuesday at the White House. Among those who joined the 79-year-old were Andy Ngo, Brandi Kruse, Nick Sortor, Cam Higby, Jonathan Choe, and many more.

Brandi Kruse and Andy Ngo listens at the White House on Wednesday.(AP)

At the roundtable, Trump accused Antifa - short for 'Anti-Fascist' of laying siege to federal buildings and attacking ICE agents, National Guards, and other officials charged with enforcing federal law. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, was also present at the meeting. She said Antifa's agenda was to "destroy the American people."

Andy Ngo, Nick Sortor, Brandi Kruse and the other conservative activists also spoke about their experiences with the group after Trump and his officials were done speaking at the discussion.

Here's a full list of conservative influencers present at the roundtable: Nick Sortor, Cam Higby, Jonathan Choe, Andy Ngo, Katie Daviscourt, James Klug, Savanah Hernandez, Nick Shirley, Brandi Kruse and Julio Rojas.

Andy Ngo Recalls Alleged Antifa Ambush

Andy Ngo, a conservative influencer, has often gone viral for his confrontations with Antifa members. He recalled an incident when members of the Antifa group allegedly assaulted him in 2019. "I was ambushed in a mob beating... The punches came from everywhere — on my head and my face, and I was bleeding out of my eyes and ears," he said.

Trump also joined in, seemingly supporting Andy Ngo's narrative. "Andy Ngo has been repeatedly beaten by antifa thugs," Trump said, adding, "Andy is a very serious person too. Been watching him for a long time."

Nick Sortor Talks About Portland Arrest

Nick Sortor, another conservative influencer, recently claimed he was arrested in Portlandfor allegedly trying to cover the law-and-order situation in the city amid Trump's push to deploy the National Guard. "Frankly, the cities and police departments are COOPERATING with Antifa, such as Portland!" he claimed.

Trump, meanwhile, called for the prosecution of those involved in the arrest of the Sortor, including one individual Sortor claimed he saw was burning the US flag.

Also read: Trump vs Antifa: What is anti-fascist movement and who founded it? All FAQs answered

Brandi Kruse Details Change Of Perception On Trump

Brandi Kruse, a Seattle-based conservative influencer, called Antifa a "paid anarchist group," despite Reuters and ACLED describing it as a decentralized organization that is not unified. She claimed she had Trump Derangement Syndrome, but she "recovered" from it.

"Some of us have been covering Antifa for 15 years and have never had anyone in a position of authority even acknowledge their existence," she said, praising Trump.

“I even think I got a little more attractive after I got rid of my Trump derangement syndrome,” she added, noting that since she stopped reporting negatively on Trump, she has been “happier, healthier, [and] more successful”

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MMA

October 8, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): It is funny to watch Trump be a Fox News producer. We wake up in the morning and we look at the news and you see Trump is holding an antifa roundtable at the White House, and you just say thank you. Thank you, Donald Trump. This is the best. We know all of these reporters that are around this roundtable. Nick Sortor, Daviscourt, Andy Ngo. They're, like, guests on our shows. The mainstream media has probably never heard of any of these people, and this is why this is such great programming.

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MMA

Calls for retaliatory prosecutions are the next phase in the right’s rewriting of January 6

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/08/25

The MAGA right’s cynical effort to rewrite the history of January 6 reached a new but seemingly inevitable low this week, as right-wing media figures, the GOP, and the Trump administration teamed up to demand retribution against those who attempted to impose consequences on the perpetrators of the event.

In late 2020, President Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican Party and right-wing media attempted to overturn the results of the election that he had lost, using false claims of widespread voter fraud. That campaign’s final phase relied on Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the electoral count based on a nonsensical legal theory. When it became clear Pence would not cooperate, a mob of Trumpists — summoned to Washington, D.C., by the president who told them “we will never concede” — assaulted scores of law enforcement officers as they stormed the U.S. Capitol, sending Pence and the assembled Congress into hiding and delaying the counting of electoral votes.

This January 6 insurrection faced widespread public condemnation in its immediate aftermath. But right-wing propagandists, led by then-Fox star Tucker Carlson, went to work dismantling what turned out to be a fragile consensus. In the insidious counternarrative they created, January 6 was either righteous or something of a nothingburger, and the true scandal was the subsequent efforts to punish its perpetrators. Four years later, that version of events is the dominant one on the right, with special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over his role treated as part of a Democratic plot. And as a result, efforts to achieve accountability for the crimes of January 6 have become partisan almost by definition.

Fox News star host Jesse Watters said the day after the storming of the U.S. Capitol that “people that think it wasn't that big of a deal” were wrong. “You can't smash windows, spray police with chemical agents, assault police officers, loot, and vandalize.”

But this week, Watters declared that “the Democrat reaction to January 6 was worse than January 6.” Watters pointed to the new revelation served up by Trump law enforcement appointees that Smith had received the phone records of several Republican senators from the period around January 6 as part of his criminal investigation of the events and baselessly concluded that “what they were probably trying to do is cast this wide net to create some grand criminal conspiracy and indict the entire Republican Party.”

Watters then demanded retribution against Smith and other federal law enforcement figures involved in the January 6 investigations. “This guy should be in prison,” he said. “And what they need to do is either appoint a special counsel or have some sort of Senate select committee to go up, do hearings, put Wray, put Garland, put Smith under oath, and if they lie, you throw them in prison.”

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

Legal reporters and experts have noted that seeking phone records of Republican officials who might have been in communication with Trump around the time of January 6 was an obvious step for the investigators, who ultimately indicted the president over what they alleged were attempts to use “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.” But that conclusion presumes that investigators should have been investigating at all, and the current position of the Trumpist right is exactly as Watters pitched it: After Trump’s return to the presidency, he pardoned January 6 perpetrators and purged law enforcement who helped prosecute them.

On Tuesday night, Fox hosts and the Republican guests they hosted pushed falsehoods about Smith’s probe in order to justify retaliatory investigations into his effort. The sequence of events is roughly analogous to the crusade by Trump, congressional Republicans, and propaganda outlets like Fox to secure investigations into special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. That resulted in years of content for Fox’s stars — but the resulting four-year probe failed to garner prison time for a single person.

Here we go again.

Jack Smith did not “spy” on Republican senators in a scandal “worse than Watergate”

Fox stars Watters, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham all used the same false characterization on Tuesday as they sought to stir up outrage about Smith’s January 6 probe.

Watters claimed that the “big story” was “that Joe Biden's FBI was spying on top Republican senators”; Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the senators whose records were included, subsequently told the host that the FBI “got wiretaps essentially” against them. Ingraham claimed the senators “were all spied on” in “an attempt at partisan surveillance.” According to Hannity, Smith had been “using the federal government to spy on several U.S. senators.”

Hannity and Ingraham also ran with with Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) absurd characterization of the report as “WORSE THAN WATERGATE”: Ingraham termed it “arguably worse than Watergate,” while Hannity claimed more definitively that the report was “worse than anything alleged against Richard Nixon during Watergate.”

These claims are baseless and absurd.

The Watergate scandal featured operatives associated with Nixon’s reelection campaign attempting to break into the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the orders of a White House official, most likely in an effort to place equipment to actively surveil the president’s partisan opposition for explicitly political purposes. This is obviously very different from legitimate investigative steps taken as part of a duly promulgated criminal investigation.

And the FBI document at the root of the claim does not say anything about active or real-time surveillance — it references only a “preliminary toll analysis on limited toll records associated with” nine members of Congress.

The records were reportedly obtained from major telephone providers responding to a subpoena Smith obtained. And according to Grassley, the record the FBI reviewed “shows when and to whom a call is made, as well as the duration and general location data of the call” but “does not include the content of the call.”

Fox uses false premises to call for criminal investigations

All three shows featured calls for further investigations into Smith’s probe.

“It's time Pam Bondi appoint a special counsel to investigate Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, and Chris Wray,” Watters declared. “At the very least, we should have a Senate special select committee hold hearings and have these goons testify under oath, and if they lie to Congress, off to prison. As they said, no one is above the law.”

Hawley, in his interview with Watters, likewise called for “a special prosecutor who's going to go at this hard,” adding, “We need hearings in public. Put these people under oath. Start with Jack Smith. Let's hear from Merrick Garland. Let's hear from Christopher Wray -- and anybody who broke the law needs to be prosecuted.”

“I think the time has come for criminal prosecutions,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) told Ingraham. “I think indictments should be coming here. We can't tolerate this and the Democrats try to act like President Trump's weaponizing. It's not what's happening.”

And on Hannity’s show, FBI Director Kash Patel declared that such probes were ongoing.

“We're just warming up,” he said. “But we are running our investigations to the ground. We are finding every single person involved. We will not leave a single room locked.”

“This is what Donald Trump was put in place to do,” he concluded. “And I'm honored to be his FBI director to lead this charge. And the men and women at the FBI, we're all in on this mission.”

That doesn’t include, of course, the FBI agents fired or reassigned because they worked January 6 cases. Because for this administration and the propagandists who support it, those who tried to get accountability for January 6 are the saga’s true villains.

//

They did it and will do it again – if no one stops them

07/22/22 11:12 AM EDT

  1. ### How Fox News and the right-wing media made Jan. 6 revisionism great again

01/03/24 8:57 AM EST

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

10/07/2

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Jesse Watters' history of inflammatory and dehumanizing remarks

Written by Helena Hind & Isabella Corrao

Published 10/07/25

Fox News host Jesse Watters’ inflammatory rhetoric has reached new lows during the second Trump administration. After the right-wing prime-time host said last week that America needed to bomb or “maybe gas” the United Nations headquarters, Reuters reported that the international governing body had reached out to Fox News and that Watters privately apologized. No such apology was given on-air.

Watters has a history of espousing extreme views. For years, he has engaged in hateful rhetoric, such as against homeless people; he also openly hyped a Trump “revenge tour” against his political enemies.

No one on the right is acting on the language we’re using. On the left, they are. And it’s starting to feel like that's the Democrat strategy — intimidate us into shutting our mouths. They’re using bullets to bully us into political submission. It kind of feels like they know what they’re doing.” Watters concluded, “If they’re not going to look in the mirror and stop triggering their crazies to shoot us, stab us, and blow up our cars, then we’re going to have to crack down. We can’t sit back and not defend ourselves. It's open season on us, and if we’re not going to save ourselves, who else are we going to save?” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/24/25; CNN, 9/27/25]}:

Watters in reaction to James Comey’s indictment: “They're just mad Trump is doing to them what they did to them. So, I don't care what you call it. I'm with Greg — revenge, retribution, accountability, who cares? It's happening.”He continued, “I'm enjoying it because these people need to be punished. If someone declares war on you, what are you going to just turn the other cheek? You're right. It is an eye for an eye, and I hope we win.” Fox News, *The Five*, [9/26/25]

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

10/07/25 11:44 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox's Mark Levin: “There is an enemy within. The Democrat party has changed”

10/07/25 10:19 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox & Friends admits “coffee prices are soaring” due to Trump's tariffs

10/07/25

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MMA

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

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/07/25

Republicans and their right-wing media allies yesterday spun out frothy allegations about former special counsel Jack Smith purportedly “spying on Republican senators” in order to forestall tough questions about the state of the Justice Department. But their dark conspiracy theory immediately collapses under scrutiny.

Attorney General Pam Bondi was slated to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday for what seemed fated to be a grueling hearing. Potential avenues for congressional oversight could include the unprecedented weaponization of her department as an extension of President Donald Trump’s will; the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein saga, including the location of the Epstein “client list” she once claimed to possess and a potential presidential pardon for the notorious sex offender’s chief accomplice; and the legal authority for the deployment of the U.S. military on American streets.

But FBI Director Kash Patel, his deputy Dan Bongino, and the stenographers at Fox News were happy to try to help her out of that tough spot. On the afternoon before the hearing, Fox News Digital reported that “former Special Counsel Jack Smith was allegedly tracking the private communications and phone calls of nearly a dozen Republican Senators as part of his investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.” The October 6 article was based on a document “recently discovered by FBI Director Kash Patel and exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital,” which states that an FBI special agent “‘conducted preliminary toll analysis’ on the toll records associated with” eight senators and one member of the House as part of Smith’s probe, which at the time was called Arctic Frost. The story also included quotes from Bongino, whom the report said would be meeting with the affected members of Congress that day.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, subsequently posted the document on social media, saying that it “shows the Biden FBI spied on 8 of my Republican Senate colleagues.” He added, “BIDEN FBI WEAPONIZATION = WORSE THAN WATERGATE.”

Their allegations were quickly promoted by MAGA media outlets and on Tuesday morning were highlighted by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee as they sought to shield Bondi from criticism.

But legal reporters explained that there’s not much to the story — the FBI needed to review the toll records of senators in order to establish who Trump and his alleged co-conspirators were trying to contact before and during the January 6 insurrection.

Smith’s final report cites such toll records in a footnote for its statement that “at around the same time as he issued his 6:01 p.m. Tweet [telling his supporters occupying the U.S. Capitol to leave], Mr. Trump tried to reach two U.S. Senators, and he also directed Co-Conspirator 1 to call Members of Congress and attempt to enlist them to further delay the certification” of the electoral votes, as MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian reported.

“It actually seems sort of obvious that if you’re investigating a former president of the United States for trying to subvert an election, you’d probe some of contacts he and alleged co-conspirators had with people he was trying to enlist/pressure to overturn the results,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney noted.

“In other words, if you start from the premise that the entire probe was political, then seeking lawmakers’ toll records would be inherently bad,” Cheney added. “But if you view the probe as righteous or justified, then it’s not hard to see why those records would be pertinent.”

You won’t have trouble guessing which side the MAGAsphere came down on. Trump gave clemency to all the January 6 defendants, including those convicted of assaulting police and seditious conspiracy, still falsely claims to have won the 2020 election, and clearly believes that the only thing wrong with his election subversion plot was that it was unsuccessful. On Monday, his loyal propagandists at Fox and Newsmax leaped into action to promote the purported FBI bombshell.

On Fox, Newsmax, “stunning” story shows Smith conducted an “enemies list investigation,” is “going to go to jail

Just minutes after Fox News Digital published its story, Fox host Will Cain declared it “pretty stunning.” He went on to claim that Democrats had engaged in “projection when it comes to authoritarianism. But if this doesn't fit the bill, this doesn't fit the definition, what is the definition of authoritarianism?”

His guest, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), replied, “This is the quintessential definition of it.”

Later that night, Fox host Jesse Watters claimed that the story shows that “Biden's FBI was spying on Republican senators.”

His prime-time colleague Sean Hannity hosted right-wing journalist John Solomon, who declared that “Arctic Frost is starting to look like an enemies list investigation” and “a really troubling diagram of how the deep state was working under Joe Biden. The FBI, the DOJ working hand and glove to spy, pry, into the lives, the conversations, and the data of Republicans.”

Solomon went on — somehow maintaining a straight face — to accuse the FBI of potentially “intruding on a constitutionally protected event” because, in the time period for which the bureau sought the toll records, Congress had been certifying the election (except when they were evacuated in the face of a violent mob of Trumpists).

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From the October 6, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity

The rhetoric was similarly over-the-top in the prime-time hours of Fox competitor Newsmax.

“Jack Smith, bad guy, and I think he's just been busted in something really bad,” host Greg Kelly said at the top of his segment on the report. He described the FBI’s actions as “illegal,” adding, “Jack Smith, I think you’re going to go to jail.”

Fellow host Rob Schmitt didn’t seem to understand what the story was actually about, even as he promoted it to his audience. He told Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), “You had your phone tapped by Jack Smith,” and asked the senator to “illustrate to us how big a deal this is.” Johnson gently corrected Schmitt, saying that investigators had only obtained “metadata,” before claiming that the report “should shock and outrage every American.”

(Newsmax quickly updated its chyron from “FBI: JACK SMITH TAPPED PHONES OF GOP SENATORS” to “FBI: JACK SMITH SNOOPED ON GOP PHONES.”)

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Jesse Watters says Democrats are “flirting with secession”

10/06/25

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MMA

October 6, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

KAYLEIGH MCENANY (CO-HOST): When you look at the DOJ filing -- I bring my primary sources when I'm on with Jessica always -- the 169-page DOJ filing requesting an emergency filing to reverse that judge. What you find in it is this: their legal authority is 10 U.S.C 12406. They say in two cases Donald Trump can federalize the National Guard. One case: you're unable to implement the laws of the United States. You cited the laws of the United States. It's immigration law as passed by Congress. Unable to enforce that because ICE agents are being targeted.

Number two: you can federalize the Guard if there's a rebellion against the authority of the government. Well, ICE is government. There's a pretty clear rebellion against this authority. Go ask the Dallas ICE agents who were targeted with anti-ICE bullets. This is a rebellion against US government sources.

And also, what's interesting, you only have to get ten pages into this lawsuit, here's what you find, just to add to Jesse's list here. There's someone who wielded a firearm at ICE in Portland. There's an individual -- you mentioned the rocks, the sticks. Listen to this, officers have been bitten, kicked, shot with paintballs, threatened with a machete and a knife, and assaulted with potentially blinding lasers. The protesters literally lit a material on fire up against the courthouse and other protesters threw accelerants on the fire. That's just one fire, there was another fire too. That one was done with motor oil over the building in Portland ICE.

Donald Trump is on strong legal footing. I can't speak to the one federal judge. I think they're going to get reversed. The ninth circuit sided with Trump once, I think they'll do it again. You can't be biting ICE officers and lighting their building on fire.

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an salon 1925

After the fatal shooting of Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk, Fox News host Jesse Watters blamed the left for the killing and called for revenge.

Watters told viewers, "They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it?"

Watters' comments drew a lot of criticism. On X, formerly Twitter, Bayou Communications' Shannon Marie posted, "Dangerous f—— rhetoric."

In an article published on October 1, Salon's Sophia Tesfaye describes a pattern of violent rhetoric at Fox News.

On September 23, Watters joked about bombing the United Nations (UN).

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Watters, on "The Five," told co-host Dana Perrino and others, "What we need to do is either leave the UN or we need to bomb it. Maybe gas it? We need to destroy it.”

Meanwhile, on Fox News' morning show, "Fox & Friends," host Brian Kilmeade called for homeless Americans to be given "involuntary lethal injection" — although he later apologized for his "extremely callous remark."

"When Fox News figures casually invoke mass violence, whether through forced lethal injections or bombing international institutions, it's not just reckless rhetoric — it's a flirtation with incitement," Tesfaye argues. "These aren't fringe voices. They're amplified on one of the most-watched networks in the country, shaping public sentiment and policy discourse. But don't expect Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr to make much of a fuss about the network's dangerous musings. He is still denying the pressure campaign he publicly mounted against (late-night television host Jimmy) Kimmel for his comments following Kirk's killing."

Tesfaye adds, "'There was no threat made or suggested that if Jimmy Kimmel didn't get fired, that someone was going to lose their license,' Carr said on Tuesday. In a media landscape dotted with double standards, where the head enforcer is a partisan operative and fierce MAGA supporter, a 'kind of, sort of' apology is perhaps the best we can hope for from Fox News."

*Sophia Tesfaye's full article for Salon is available at this link.

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September 26, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): It's Comey's turn. And remember, you know, the Dems love due process, so let's due process the hell out of this guy. He may get away with it, but he's got to go through the process. I love the media saying that, you know, Trump has set a precedent. Have they forgotten Julie Honey, Bannon, Stone, Navarro, Papadopoulos, the Trump supporters, what, a thousand of them? They invented lawfare. So, they can call it revenge. It's not revenge if you have it coming and if it's justice.

Here is the issue. Here is the thing you've got to remember about mutually assured destruction. It doesn't work when you go first and we're still standing. That's what just happened. When you come for us, you've kind of got to finish the job. Because now we're in power, and it's payback, revenge, I don't care what you call it. I don't care what the media calls it.

...

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): They're just mad Trump is doing to them what they did to them. So, I don't care what you call it. I'm with Greg, revenge, retribution, accountability, who cares? It's happening. And I'm enjoying it because these people need to be punished. If someone declares war on you, what are you going to just turn the other cheek? You're right. It is an eye for an eye, and I hope we win.

They're asking like, "Oh, well, this is like the revenge tour?" Well, what would the revenge be for, Jessica? What would the revenge be for? No one really answers that question all right? It's because they arrested him, they arrested his campaign manager, his campaign advisor, his lawyers, his national security advisor. They arrested his trade advisor and put him in shackles. They arrested his CFO. They arrested his valet. And not only that, they spied on him, staged a coup, impeached him twice, tried to bankrupt his company, leaked his tax returns, and then couldn't protect him from a sniper. So, what are you supposed to do? They didn't think this was going to happen?

//

MMA

  1. //### Fox News' Will Cain calls for Des Moines superintendent to be deported

09/26/25 5:02 PM EDT

  1. ### The Comey indictment is so weak even some in right-wing media aren’t buying it

09/26/25 2:40 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News panel expresses extreme skepticism on Comey charges: “I don't think this case even gets to trial”

09/26/25

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CLEARLY JOKING ABOUT VIOLENCE /BOMB BUT WHAT MAKES A LEGIT TARGET FOR JOKE?

09/23/25

09/23/25

MMA

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AN 10 25

Now 19, Barron Trump is President Donald Trump's youngest child, his only child with First Lady Melania Trump, and a half-brother of Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump.

Fox News' Jesse Watters aired a gushing segment on Barron Trump, and his comments are drawing plenty of mockery on X, formerly Twitter.

Watters told his colleague Julie Banderas that Barron Trump recently brought a woman to Trump Tower in New York City and "shut the whole floor down so he could be alone." The Fox News host noted comments from interviewees in a People article who described Barron Trump as "a ladies' man" and "really popular with the ladies" as well as "tall and handsome."

Watters told Banderas, "Imagine a guy brings you back to Trump Tower, and the whole floor is shut down" — to which she responded, "If the guy's a Trump, then I would believe it…. But man, this guy's got game. I mean, six-foot-seven, and he's got a whole floor at Trump Tower for a frickin' date. I hope something good came out of that date."

It didn't take long for mockery and negative comments to show up on X.

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Media Matthews' Matthew Gertz, on October 1, tweeted, "Creepiest s—imaginable — two middle aged Fox stars discussing on national television how Barron Trump is a 'ladies man' who has 'got game,' and contemplating whether he got l— on a recent date.

X user Josiah Waters posted, "Fox is nothing more than a propaganda machine for the WH."

Another X user, Sir Damon Eric, remarked, "Jesse only wishes he was like Barron."

X user Catch Up wrote, "Jesse Watters fawns over Barron Trump taking a girl back to his pad."

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How Fox covers for Trump administration malfeasance

Monday night was a perfect case study

Written by Matt Gertz

Published09/23/25 MMA

The job of a Fox News evening host isn’t to cover President Donald Trump and his administration, it’s to give them cover. The network’s stars are shameless propagandists who employ a variety of tactics to hide the president’s misdeeds from their viewers. Their Monday night programs, which followed days of administration chaos and corruption, perfectly encapsulate how this process works.

Trump and his supporters, in just a few short months, have ushered in an unprecedented and radical transformation of American political life. A president who won office in large part by exploiting voter discontent over rising prices has exacerbated that problem through unilateral tariffs while simultaneously consolidating power, crushing dissent, enriching himself and his allies, and dismantling and remaking agencies that secure goals like public health.

The result is that any given day can feature several instances of wildly scandalous behavior, any one of which might have sunk a previous administration.

On Monday night, four such stories were circulating: Trump pushed out a U.S. attorney who had refused to prosecute his political opponent on insufficient evidence and replaced him with a crony; several outlets reported that his Justice Department appointees quashed a probe into a White House adviser who had been recorded taking a cash bribe; there was ongoing fallout from his top media regulator publicly threatening media companies over airing Jimmy Kimmel’s show; and at a White House event the president and his advisers issued a warning over Tylenol usage based on an unproven link to autism.

Any of those stories, explained in context, could prove devastating for the president and his team. But Trump has maintained high approval ratings with his supporters — and thus maintained lock-step backing from congressional Republicans — in no small part because his base gets information through the filter of right-wing media. And much of the right-wing media, fearing a revolt from their audiences, isn’t inclined to provide information that conflicts with their biases.

Here’s how each of those scandals played out Monday night on the panel show The Five and the eponymous programs of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Sean Hannity.

What happened:On Friday, ABC News reported that Trump was “expected to fire” U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert because Siebert had refused White House demands to bring mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously prosecuted Trump, because investigators did not find incriminating evidence against her. After Siebert left office, Trump publicly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to “act fast” on prosecutions against James, former FBI Director James Comey, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in what The New York Times called “an extraordinary breach of prosecutorial protocols that reach back to the days following the Watergate scandal.” The president subsequently appointed Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide and longtime Trump legal adviser with no experience as a prosecutor, to replace Siebert; she took office as acting U.S. attorney on Monday.

Fox’s response: Fox’s stars spent the years of Trump’s first term and Joe Biden's presidency complaining of a two-tiered system of justice in which federal law enforcement agencies were persecuting the right while letting the left off the hook. In reality, Republican and Trump-appointed officials kept finding sufficient evidence to prosecute Trump and his allies and didn’t find enough to do the same against his foes. But now that Trump is loudly and publicly demanding politicized prosecutions — and pushing out his own appointed prosecutor when he refused to play along — the same voices have gone silent: The story was not mentioned Monday on The Five or the programs of Ingraham, Watters, and Hannity.

Many such cases: Fox hosts have similarly ignored stories about Trump’s relationship with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. killing research into next-generation vaccines; statements by an immigrant the Trump administration sent in error to a notorious foreign prison who says he was beaten and sexually assaulted by guards; reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information derived from a classified email over an unsecured group chat; and an exodus of top Defense Department staffers over concerns with Hegseth’s management style.

What happened: Two days after ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel inaccurately suggested that the alleged killer of Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk was part of “the MAGA gang,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr publicly threatened ABC’s affiliates and its corporate parent, Disney, with regulatory retribution. Nexstar, a large affiliate network which needs Carr’s approval for a corporate merger, subsequently said its affiliates would immediately preempt Kimmel’s show; soon after, ABC announced that the program was suspended indefinitely. On Monday, after widespread criticism of the administration’s effort to curtail speech and ABC’s capitulation, Disney said Kimmel would return to the air on Tuesday.

Fox’s response:Several Fox hosts used the news that Kimmel was returning to the air to claim that his initial removal had been a business decision unrelated to administration pressure. Hannity claimed that while those “on the left” had been “melting down” and falsely blaming Trump for Kimmel’s suspension, it was now proven to have been “a decision by ABC Disney, not the government.” Watters called it a “show-biz decision” and aired a chyron stating “ABC benched Kimmel, not Trump.” Ingraham agreed with guest Raymond Arroyo’s claim that “ABC deciding to put Kimmel back on, it does lay to rest this narrative that somehow the government was orchestrating his removal from the air.” Fox host and former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on The Five, “The government didn't decide it because he’s back tomorrow, so quite clearly the government didn’t force this.” Their talking point aligned with arguments that Republican politicians and Carr himself had offered about the case as they backpedaled away from its free-speech implications.

Many such cases:Fox hosts similarly made excuses when Trump tried to fire Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook over a pretext; when Trump failed to release Epstein documents as he promised; when a Democratic senator was violently removed from a Department of Homeland Security press conference; when a foreign government gifted Trump a plane valued at $400 million; when the administration sent people in error to a notorious foreign prison; and when top Trump aides discussed plans for military strikes in an unsecured text chain — and inadvertently included a journalist in the group.

What happened: MSNBC and other news outlets reported over the weekend that the FBI had recorded White House border czar Tom Homan accepting a bag of cash from undercover agents in September 2024 as part of a corruption investigation, and that the probe was subsequently scuttled by Trump law enforcement appointees. Homan, at the time a Fox contributor and a close Trump adviser pegged for a key administration role on immigration if Trump were elected, had reportedly indicated to the agents that he could help them win government contracts. In statements, top officials from the FBI, DOJ, and White House claimed the probe had not uncovered evidence of illegal activity — but notably did not deny that Homan had been recorded taking a bag of cash from undercover agents.

Fox’s response: Fox hosts regularly provide administration officials and other appointees an opportunity to field friendly questions that help them spin damaging stories. Ingraham gave Homan that treatment on Monday. After offering him softball questions about a new California law banning ICE agents from wearing masks and how the administration can “speed up” mass deportations, she asked him to respond to the story from “our always reliable MSNBC” that “you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump's second term.” In his minute-long response, Homan denounced the “hit piece,” claimed that “nothing illegal happened,” and touted his own “sacrifices” and work for the president — but notably did not deny taking the bag of money. For her part, Ingraham let Homan ramble and ended the interview rather than asking a follow-up question to clarify that point.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly aided Kennedy after he purged top leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Hegseth after he shared attack plans over an unsecured text chain.

What happened:Researchers have found that autism is largely a heritable condition and that the increase in cases over the years is due primarily to a broadening of the diagnostic criteria. But at a Monday event at the White House, Trump, Kennedy, and other top health aides “launched a broad offensive against the mainstream understanding of autism, claiming without new evidence that acetaminophen — the active ingredient in the common pain reliever Tylenol — was a cause of the disorder,” as The New York Times put it. Health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, previously called such evidence inconclusive, and the drug is “considered one of the few safe options to treat pain or fever during pregnancy.”

Fox’s response: Ingraham on Monday touted the administration for “sounding the alarm” over a link between Tylenol and autism in response to how “the number of children with autism has spiked unbelievably over the last number of years.” She then hosted Trump health officials Mehmet Oz and Marty Makary to tout the “growing body of evidence” in support of the administration’s position and to denounce contrary findings as “false.” Watters likewise highlighted the White House’s “major medical bombshell” before turning to another Trump health official, Jay Bhattacharya, to praise the administration for supporting “prudent medicine” and providing a “judicious evaluation” of the evidence.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly cheered after Bondi reportedly ordered federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury probe into various Obama administration figures on spurious grounds; Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear targets; the president enacted various unilateral tariff shifts; and the Trump administration implemented a mass purge of FBI agents.

MMA //

06/14/23 1:24 PM EDT

09/18/25 12:00 PM EDT

09/22/25

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rfk looks bad in senate hearings 9 25 on msnbc yt anyway

mma

How right-wing media sow distrust and confusion around vaccines and science

As Florida ends school vaccine requirements and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership comes under fire, the right has repackaged anti-science talking points as well-meaning skepticism

Written by Gideon Taaffe, Isabella Sherk, Jack Wheatley & Jack Winstanley

Published 09/18/25

Amid the rise of the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” movement, right-wing media figures have employed a variety of tactics that sow doubt and confusion around vaccine efficacy and science more broadly. These efforts to capitalize on existing distrust of public health institutions and pharmaceutical companies have gained renewed momentum following Florida’s elimination of vaccine requirements for schools and comments made by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a contentious Senate hearing.

MAHA acolytes have challenged well-studied topics by “just asking questions,” described vaccination requirements as impediments to freedom and parental choice, and exploited post-pandemic mistrust of public health infrastructure and pharmaceutical companies.

The MAHA movement is fueling mistrust in medicine amid a CDC leadership shake-up and Florida's elimination of vaccine requirements

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09/09/25 10:09 AM EDT

08/11/25 9:56 AM EDT

07/09/25

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MMA CRM 4

Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed that because “the left … can’t win an argument, they’re trying to kill,” and said that “we have to politically destroy the sick movement that’s giving birth to these killers.”Watters continued, “I don’t care what you have to do — we can love them, but we don't give them any quarter. Enough is enough. This ends now. … It can be killed. Figuratively.” Fox News, *The Five*, [9/12/25]

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rww

09/17/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, President Trump and his allies have laid out a broad plan to target liberal groups, monitor speech, revoke visas and designate certain groups as domestic terrorists.

Within the past few days, the Department of Justice deleted one of its own studies from its website showing that “far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists.”

Past leaders have used shocking events to bring us together. Trump is making Kirk a martyr to drive Americans apart.

The Fox News host repeatedly called for "them" to get one chance to beg for forgiveness — or else.

The Trump regime is squashing speech and using the full force of government to enforce its ideology.

President Donald Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a bizarre post on Tuesday that appeared to claim that an earthquake in Utah on the night of Charlie Kirk’s death was a sign of God’s anger.

The killing of right wing activist and influencer Charlie Kirk has prompted disturbing and questionably legal calls for a crackdown on the left from President Trump and his allies. In an appearance on the cable network Newsmax on Tuesday evening, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) took things further — way further.

Even as the problem garners more attention, misogynistic and male supremacist violence is still often relegated to a category of “other” threats, or dismissed as the personality problems of challenged individuals, rather than addressed as an ideological belief system of its own.

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AN 9 25

With tensions running high over the shocking assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Congress erupting in "partisan shouting" yesterday on the House floor, and conservative pundits calling for war and retribution, one Republican is telling people to cool it.

National Journalcongressional policy reporter Nancy Vu reported Thursday that Sen.Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has issued a sharp rebuke to his colleagues calling for violence.

"What I was really disgusted by yesterday is a couple of talking heads that sees this as an opportunity to say we're at war so that they could get some of our conservative followers lathered up over this," he said, "It seems like a cheap, disgusting, awful way to pretend like you're a leader of a conservative movement. And there were two in particular that I found particularly disgusting."

READ MORE:'Massively ignorant': Why this MAGA candidate is getting threats from Trump supporters

One talking head Tillis may have been referencing is Fox News host Jesse Watters,who told his viewers, "They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. And what are we going to do about it?"

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Watters' comment was starkly different in tone compared to Tillis' initial reaction upon hearing of Kirk's assassination, in which he posted on X, "Political violence has no place in our society."

Another who may be the focus of Tillis's ire is Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), who was quick to blame the media for Kirk's murder.

When a reporter questioned Van Orden's claim, the far-right MAGA Republican responded, "You know what, knock it off ... You are responsible for that assassination yesterday. You should be ashamed of yourself."

READ MORE:'He did not care': Details emerge about 71 year-old mistakenly arrested after Kirk murder

While MAGA recoiled online at Tillis's condemnation of his colleagues, others agreed, with one noting, "This exact message should have come from Trump himself rather than a GOP representative."

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note no ref to kirk bef shot?

an 9 25

After MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in Utah on Wednesday afternoon, September 10, a long list of centrist Democrats, liberals and progressives wasted no time wholeheartedly condemning the attack — from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to former President Joe Biden to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, who is originally from the U.K., tweeted, "Charlie Kirk called me a 'lunatic' and a 'prostitute' and demanded I be deported. Nothing, nothing, justifies killing him, or robbing his kids of their dad. We don't know the identity or motive of the shooter but murder can never be the response to political disagreements."

On Fox News, however, far-right host Jesse Watters had a threatening tone when he called for retaliation against Kirk's critics.

READ MORE: 'He did not care': Details emerge about 71 year-old mistakenly arrested after Kirk murder

Watters told viewers, "They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. And what are we going to do about it? Charlie would want us to put as much pressure on these people as possible….. This is unacceptable, and it has to stop. And it has to stop now. And everybody's accountable. And we're watching what they're saying on television and who's saying what. The politicians, the media, and all these rats out there. This can never happen again. It ends now…. This is a turning point."

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Watters called for the right to "avenge Charlie's death" — a comment that journalist Pete Twinklage found especially disturbing.

On X, formerly Twitter, Twinklage posted, "this is spectacularly dangerous rhetoric. the Murdochs need to bench Watters immediately. vowing to 'avenge' Kirk's horrific assassination instead of calling for calm is beyond irresponsible. the country is a tinderbox and this lunatic is juggling dynamite and matches."

Watters' comments are generating a lot of discussion on X.

READ MORE: Group of students 'stood up and cheered' after Charlie Kirk was shot: eyewitness

New Jersey-based Kim Hurdman tweeted, "Why would the Murdoch’s bench him? They installed him. The entire network promotes this mindset and ideology. Telling people their political opponents are enemy[.] They spent 40 yrs getting fabulously wealthy telling older white pp who to be afraid of and who to hate. Get real."

Journalist Jessica Durkin posted, "Meanwhile MSNBC is apologizing up and down because Matthew Dowd said the truth on that channel that Kirk speaks hate."

U.S. Marines veteran Gene Frenkel tweeted, "MSNBC fired Dowd.. Watters deserves the same."

Another U.S. Marines veteran, Paul Nun, commented, "Jesse Watters made an entire career around stoking division. He failed to mention the Republican terrorist who murdered Democratic politicians a few weeks ago."

X user Martin Judd remarked, "Murdochs have just announced the most radical far-right son will run the place. So he is not going to be of any help."

Journalist/author John L. Valentine wrote, "This punk isn't going to do anything but run his mouth. He's a TV warrior. Brave behind his desk. He'll leave the violence he's trying to incite to others. His call for more violence won't end the violence. It'll only exacerbate it."

READ MORE: 'None of us should tolerate this': Trump ripped over 'deplorable' promise of 'retribution'

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MMA

September 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): The problem is, you know, this is Western civilization. This is Europe here. We have lost the connective tissue between the United States and Europe. We are now the true beacon of freedom, and we can't lose what we have in Europe. We have to cradle it. We have to nurture it, because if it dies and that flame is extinguished, that's a huge problem for the West, when you see China coming up, when you see the Muslims start to rise up. This culture and this tradition of freedom and liberty and property has to be maintained, and if it's not, bad things are going to happen not just here, to the entire world.

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From Katrina to Helene: A timeline of Fox News’ hurricane misinformation, harmful narratives, and climate denial

August 29 marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Louisiana

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 08/28/25 mma

For two decades, Fox News has weaponized major disasters caused by supercharged storms to attack political opponents, push right-wing narratives, and deny climate change.

Major storms that hit populated areas generate wall-to-wall TV news coverage. At its best, this coverage exposes systemic issues that leave certain populations vulnerable to disasters, keeps a spotlight on both rescue and recovery processes to keep accountable those responsible for disaster response, and discusses the link between our warming planet and the intensification of storms, along with solutions for reducing climate pollution.

At its worst, coverage ignores these issues, downplaying or denying the role of climate change and using disasters to amplify false narratives and misinformation that serve a political agenda. In 20 years of hurricane reporting, Fox News’ coverage has predominately reflected the latter.

Below is an overview of some of the major storms that have made landfall in the U.S. over the past 20 years – and how Fox covered them.

Hurricane Katrina remains the costliest extreme weather disaster in U.S. history and one of the deadliest, with many of the 1,392 deaths likely having come as a direct result of the federal government’s failed response. Over 1.5 million survivors were displaced, making it also “one of the largest forced migrations in U.S. history. … Families were separated, homes were lost, and entire communities were erased.”

The media latched on to unverified stories of violence and societal breakdown, demonizing those most impacted by the storm and further delaying rescue and recovery efforts. Military forces were deployed to suppress the victims rather than evacuate them. Fox pushed this narrative of violence — “robberies, rapes, carjackings, riots and murder. Violent gangs are roaming the streets at night, hidden by the cover of darkness” — and supported the Bush administration's reported strategy of blaming the faulty emergency response on Democratic state and local officials.

Superstorm Sandy hit the eastern United States in October 2012, causing at least 182 deaths and approximately $65 billion in damage. Fox criticized the Obama administration's Hurricane Sandy relief efforts by comparing them to the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. In fact, there were few similarities between the responses, and the Obama administration's response to Sandy was widely praised by members of both parties.

Discussing Hurricane Sandy on the November 1, 2012, edition of his show, Fox host Sean Hannity asked: “So where's President Obama? Well, after his photo-op with Gov. Chris Christie, and the help of your tax dollars, he boards Air Force One and he begins his day with a stump speech.” Hannity later said, “And with the horrifying images of Sandy's devastation now contrasted with the president's constant campaigning, this is starting to look like, in my opinion, Obama's Katrina.”

Hurricane Harvey was, at the time, “the most significant tropical cyclone rainfall event in United States history” and was particularly devastating to Black and Hispanic communities in Texas. Discussing Hurricane Harvey on the August 25, 2017, edition of The Five, Fox host Jesse Watters downplayed the impact of climate change on hurricanes, stating, “Hurricanes have been happening since the beginning of time. … These things just happen. It’s called the weather” — a nonsensical argument, as scientists are not claiming that climate change causes hurricanes, but that it makes them stronger and more intense.

Hurricane Irma, which hit Florida, was one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic. It claimed 129 lives in the U.S. and Caribbean and cost an estimated $52 billion in damages. Discussing Hurricane Irma on the September 11, 2017, edition of The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld also brought up the frequency of hurricanes while ignoring intensity, stating that “landfalling U.S. hurricanes, they’ve been decreasing over the last 140 years.”

Hurricane Maria killed an estimated 3,000 people in the U.S. territory and caused roughly $90 billion worth of damage. President Donald Trump’s administration was widely criticized for its response and for blocking federal aid to Puerto Rico, which struggled for weeks to return power to its residents. The mayor of San Juan publicly criticized Trump’s response, and Trump drew backlash when he threw paper towels into the crowd at a relief center. Lying about death toll numbers, Trump claimed Democrats had inflated the number to make him look “as bad as possible.”

Fox personalities were among the right-wing media figures who leapt to Trump's defense. Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs called the Hurricane Maria death toll a “farce” and “an amazing tortured inflation.” Fox News’ John Roberts suggested that the dispute over Maria's death toll in Puerto Rico was part of Trump’s “feud with Puerto Rican officials.”

On the October 19, 2017, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the former host defended Trump from charges of racism against Puerto Ricans because “Puerto Rico is 75 percent white, according to the U.S. Census.” Carlson characterized as “unfounded” the charges that the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was racist and added that “the race angle” bothered him because “it makes people hate each other, and it’s just stupid.”

Hurricane Florence caused catastrophic damage to the Carolinas, claiming at least 37 lives. On Fox, climate denier Joe Bastardi and Rush Limbaugh’s former “official climatologist” Roy Spencer dismissed the link between climate change and intensifying hurricanes in favor of the denier argument that the frequency of hurricanes is decreasing. (Climate science does not argue that climate change is increasing the number of storms, but rather that it is making storms “more intense, with higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and more severe storm surge.”)

On the September 14, 2018, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Spencer talked about the declining frequency of “hits of the United States by major hurricanes,” claiming there’s too much “natural variability” to determine what influence human actions have had on hurricanes. On Hannity, Bastardi stated, “The amount of hurricanes in the last 50 years, from Florida to New England, is 37% of what it was the previous 50 years, so if there’s climate change going on, it's actually decreasing the amount of major hits.”

Affecting many states in the south, Hurricane Dorian was also the worst storm ever to hit the Bahamas and was responsible for at least 78 deaths. But the lives that Dorian claimed were overshadowed by the spectacle of “Sharpie-gate” when the president altered a map of the storm’s predicted path with a marker. After Trump lied about the path of Hurricane Dorian, using a Sharpie to manufacture a threat to Alabama, not only did prime-time host Sean Hannity defend him, but Fox’s Howard Kurtz attacked the media for covering Trump’s comments. Hannity called the media who reported on Trump’s lie “psychotic jackasses” and claimed that only “Trump derangement syndrome” could explain why reporters would point out that the president was wrong.

Roy Spencer appeared on the September 2, 2019, edition of The Story with Martha MacCallum to downplay climate change’s impact on hurricanes. Spencer stated that there is “no long term trend in either their intensity or in the number of major hurricanes … that have hit Florida.” On the September 4, 2019, edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Ainsley Earhardt again brought up storm frequency in order to downplay the link between climate change and hurricanes, stating, “Hurricanes have been happening since the beginning of the atmosphere.” Later, on September 4, 2019, Jesse Watters appeared on The Story with Martha MacCallum to claim falsely that “there's no correlation between temperature and hurricanes, and there's no trend over the last hundred years about intensity or ferociousness or numbers.”

Hurricane Ida caused extensive damage from the Southeast to the Northeast U.S., where it brokeprecipitation records in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania and caused major flash flooding, killing 95 people and causing an estimated $85 billion in damages. Fox News used the storm to downplay the seriousness of climate change and attack then-President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, including the infrastructure bill that contained measures to make communities more resilient in the face of extreme weather.

While discussing Hurricane Ida on the September 7, 2021, edition of The Ingraham Angle, one of the network’s favorite climate contrarians, Michael Shellenberger, said that the frequency of hurricanes is decreasing and that there is “no significant increase” in intensity — a bald-faced lie. On the September 8, 2021, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Joe Bastardi downplayed the intensity of the storm by arguing that other bad storms happened in the 1950s.

On the September 2, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Hannity, Sean Hannity began a segment downplaying the impacts of climate on Ida by stating, “The left is blaming climate change for the heavy rainfall, severe weather, and using it as yet another pretext to push their Green New Deal socialist agenda.” On the September 5, 2021, edition of Fox News’ The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, host Steve Hilton ran a short segment on Democrats supposedly using Ida to implement the Green New Deal.

Hurricane Ian brought a historic storm surge and catastrophic flooding to Florida and was responsible for at least 84 storm-related fatalities. As Hurricane Ian pummeled Florida and the Carolinas, Fox News dismissed, mocked, and outright denied climate change’s impact on hurricanes. On the September 29, 2022, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, former Fox host Tucker Carlson focused on hurricane frequency and downplayed the intensity argument, falsely claiming that “there’s no science behind these claims.” On the September 28, 2022, edition of Hannity, Sean Hannity stated, “During hurricane season, you usually have hurricanes, like we did a hundred years ago.” Later that night on The Ingraham Angle, Michael Shellenberger stated that hurricanes are “not intensifying right now, so any perception that hurricanes are more intense is just a perception fed by that relentless alarmist media.”

Meanwhile, Jesse Watters mocked Biden's disaster response. Watters said, “Maybe the reason Joe [Biden] isn't talking with the leader of the state that's about to be devastated by this natural disaster is because he's already got the whole thing covered with the Inflation Reduction Act. Sen. Amy Klobuchar laid it out for us clearly. There's no need to worry, people, because the Inflation Reduction Act and voting for Democrats is going to stop hurricanes.”

Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast, causing approximately $4 billion in damage to one of the state's poorest and least populated areas. As climate-fueled Hurricane Idalia barreled toward Florida, Jesse Watters Primetime hosted Judith Curry, a climate contrarian who consulted for oil and gas companies during her time in academia, to argue that scientists have “seriously mischaracterized” the threat of climate change. She claimed that the “dominant factor” in climate change is “far and away” Earth’s “natural climate variability.”

On the August 30, 2023, edition of Fox News’ so-called straight news program Special Report with Bret Baier, anchor Bret Baier dismissed comments from Joe Biden connecting the storm to climate change.

With 213 fatalities, Hurricane Helene became the second deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in 50 years, with economic losses estimated at more than $200 billion. Fox used Hurricane Helene to attack the Biden administration’s policies and disaster response while laundering harmful misinformation, even while politicians of both parties representing the impacted areas praised the response and begged media and bad actors to stop spreading misinformation that ultimately disrupted rescue and recovery efforts and put Federal Emergency Management Agency workers in danger.

One of these false and harmful claims contended that FEMA’s hurricane victim relief funds had been drained by aid to undocumented immigrants. In reality, the funding is separate and unrelated. Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity led the charge in repeating the false claim; Watters’ prime-time show repeated the lie in 5 consecutive broadcasts starting October 3, and Hannity managed 6.

Fox News also falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration were ignoring millions of Americans impacted by intense flooding while dishonestly claiming that victims were only entitled to $750 in aid, when in reality that is just the start of federal benefits. Fox’s misleading coverage of the $750 payments was “one of the more dishonest omissions ever seen on Fox News – which is saying something,” Mediaite senior editor Michael Luciano wrote of the misleading attack by Fox hosts Hannity, Watters, and Laura Ingraham.

Fox personalities also complained about the Biden administration’s pledge to give $157 million to Lebanon, incorrectly claiming that the humanitarian aid for Lebanon was being taken from funds that would otherwise be used for disaster relief assistance. Hannity misleadingly suggested U.S. foreign aid was competing with disaster relief for funding. Watters, meanwhile, incredulously asked, “How is it that Biden and Harris can send money overseas faster than they can send it to our own citizens?”

In May, just weeks before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season and peak extreme weather, CNN obtained an internal memo warning that FEMA was “not ready” for hurricane season. According to the internal assessment, preparations for hurricane season have been “derailed” and issues abound at the agency, “including a general uncertainty around its mission, lack of coordination with states and other federal agencies, low morale and new red tape that will likely slow responses.” Fox ignored reporting on the agency's lack of preparation for this year’s extreme weather season. The network was also quiet about multiple states that expressed frustration over delayed or denied disaster relief from the Trump administration.

On June 2, acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson made headlines, first in Reuters, for telling staff in a daily briefing that he had been unaware the U.S. has a hurricane season. Legacynewsoutlets, including cable networks CNN and MSNBC, covered Richardson’s controversial remarks and the wider concerns about FEMA’s hurricane preparedness while Fox News seemingly ignored them.

After the deadly flooding in Central Texas in early July, Fox News personalities attacked the media and prominent Democrats for linking the flooding to climate change and for raising concerns about Trump administration cuts to agencies and services that predict and respond to extreme weather events. When reporting showed that the Trump administration’s response had been delayed, Fox ran defense for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

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  1. ### Even Jesse Watters can tell Trump is trying to fire Fed governor Cook over a pretext

08/26/25

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MMA

Eight damning new revelations about Fox’s 2020 election lies from the Smartmatic filings

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/21/25

Newly available filings in the election technology company Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News provide fresh insights into the network’s egregious and irresponsible promotion of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies — four and a half years after Fox’s propaganda helped trigger a violent insurrection in which enraged Trumpists sacked the U.S. Capitol.

The documents, which support Smartmatic’s motion for summary judgment and were originally filed in April, were first reported by The Washington Post after a judicial hearing officer removed many of the redactions.

The documents feature numerous previously unseen text messages and internal communications between Fox hosts, executives, producers, and other employees as Trump attempted to use false claims about the 2020 election to subvert the results of the election he lost and remain in power.

Fox’s internal machinations during this period were previously made public through the lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, another election technology company which accused the network of defamation over its post-election coverage. Fox ultimately settled that suit as it went to trial in 2023 for a record $787.5 million.

The contours of Smartmatic’s story are broadly similar to — if no less damning than — the one Dominion told: Fox hosts and executives knew that Trump lost the 2020 election and that the claims of widespread election fraud he and his supporters pushed were false, but they nonetheless pivoted in the days following the election to promote such conspiracy theories -– including falsehoods about the company — because they were taking heat from viewers overcalling Arizona for Joe Biden and feared losing market share to more aggressive competitors like Newsmax

But the Smartmatic filings provide new evidence that helps flesh out the tale of Fox’s cowardice and corruption.

Maria Bartiromo leveraged her status at Fox to try to overturn the election: “I am news”

Maria Bartiromo was once a respected business reporter, but reinvented herself as a hardcore MAGA propagandist during the first Trump administration. But even as she went further and further down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, Bartiromo has retained her position on Fox’s “news” side, anchoring Fox Business’ three-hour weekday program Mornings with Maria as well as the weekend show Sunday Morning Futures,which is simulcast on Fox News.

Smartmatic’s filings show Bartiromo leveraged that position as she tried to get Sidney Powell, the MAGA attorney notorious for her far-fetched election claims, to come on her Fox Business show in mid-November 2020. (Bartiromo hosted Powell on her Fox News show earlier that month to push election lies after Powell sent her an email featuring fraud hypotheses from someone who also claimed that “the Wind tells me I’m a ghost, but I don’t believe it.”)

“Sidney we must keep you out there,” Bartiromo wrote in a November 17, 2020, Signal message.

She contrasted her own role at the network with that of then-Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, another avid promoter of election fraud lies, and suggested she could provide more helpful treatment, saying, “Dobbs is considered very opinionated. I am news. How about Friday?”

Bartiromo later suggested to Powell that her own goal was to reverse the election results and keep Trump in power. “I am very worried,” she wrote. “Please please please overturn this. Bring the evidence. I know you can.”

Bartiromo still has both of her “news” shows.

The filings show then-Fox host Jeanine Pirro texted Ronna McDaniel, then the chair of the Republican National Committee, the following on September 21, 2020: “I work so hard for the party across the country… I’m the # 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and the party.”

It’s not precisely news that Pirro viewed her work at the network as an extension of Trump’s campaign — it would in fact have been difficult to come away with a different conclusion after watching her commentary over the years.

Nonetheless, it’s helpful to have that confirmed explicitly in writing.

In mid-November 2020, I reported that Fox appeared to be trying to stave off its competitors by heavily promoting its prime-time “opinion” stars during its purported “news” hours. This campaign included the “news” programs running ads hyping the hosts casting doubt on the election results, airing on-screen bugs promoting their shows, and playing lengthy clips from the “opinion” shows.

The Smartmatic filings reveal that Fox CEO Suzanne Scott apparently ordered this breach of the purported wall the network maintained existed between its “news” and opinion divisions. She emailed top Fox executives on November 9, 2020, demanding that the “news” hours increase its promotion of “opinion” talent like Pirro and the prime-time hosts. She wrote (emphasis added):

On the website – its 345p and I still dont see our opinion folks being promoted on .com – I’m seeing a ton of FOX nation – need that changed asap for the next few weeks. Same for FOX News channel – not seeing nearly enough promotion of primetime talent other than the little bug. And we should get a Pirro promo in as well. This is something I called around about first thing this morning. I’m traveling next four days and expect this to be handled well.

Sean Hannity went from considering Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani an “insane” person he could not conceive of hosting to welcoming him back onto his program in 10 days.

The Fox host functioned as an extension of Trump’s White House and regularly hosted Giuliani to spin Ukraine conspiracy theories that Fox’s research team said were not credible. But the former New York City mayor turned Trump lawyer was apparently going too far for even Hannity in the early days of Trump’s campaign to delegitimize the 2020 election results.

The filings show Hannity texted associates on November 10, 2020, to say of Giuliani: “He is going nuts. We canceled the guy. Read what’s wrong…. He’s insane.” He told producers the following day that Giuliani is “acting like an insane person. I’m not redpill78.” (According to the Smartmatic filing, “Hannity testified that his reference to ‘redpill78’” — a streaming program associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory — “indicated that he was skeptical” of Giuliani.)

On November 19, 2020, Hannity interviewed Giuliani about his election fraud claims.

Hannity subsequently testified that he had hosted Giuliani because he was a “top newsmaker.”

He retains his Fox prime-time show.

The Dominion filings show that a Fox executive took Pirro off the air the weekend after Election Day, preempting her November 7, 2020, broadcast because he did not “trust her to be responsible.” They also reveal that after Pirro’s show returned the following weekend, her executive producer struggled in vain to prevent her from promoting what he termed her election “conspiracy theories.”

Those filings, however, do not fully explain why Pirro returned to the air in the first place. Smartmatic’s filings fill in that gap: They show that Pirro’s removal sparked a backlash from the MAGA faithful that Fox’s CEO, at Fox prime-time star Sean Hannity’s urging, sought to quell by increasing Pirro’s profile and allowing her to comment without “being censored.”

According to the filings, Hannity told Pirro via text message on November 10, 2020, that he had already reached out to Scott to talk about issues including Pirro’s treatment by the network. When Pirro vented to her colleague, “I’M TIRED OF THE CENSORSHIP AND I’M EMBARRASSED BY HOW THEY CALLED THIS ELECTION,” he further explained that he was “looking for changes” including “to leave u alone.”

Hannity may have already been getting results: Scott’s email the previous day ordering more promotion of Fox’s opinion hosts included Pirro along with the prime-time hosts. A few days later, promos for Pirro’s upcoming show were running and being distributed through right-wing channels.

A flurry of communications about Pirro’s show followed between Scott and Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch and between Scott and Fox executive vice president of primetime programming Meade Cooper the day before Pirro’s next broadcast.

“Has anyone spoken to Judge Jeanine before her show this weekend?” Murdoch asked Scott. “It would be good if she corrects the record and clears up the schedule change last week.”

Scott passed the request on to Cooper, who replied that they weren’t planning to make a statement about that and added, “David Clark is reviewing all scripts and working with her on her open. She is very into not being censored but he is working with her closely on it.”

“We don’t want to censor her,” Scott replied.

According to the filing, Scott “had a conversation with Pirro related to coverage of election fraud claims before Pirro’s November 14 show.” The same day, when Hannity texted her to crow about all the promos she was getting, Pirro replied, “I gave 3 demands. New producer. No censorship. 9 pretapes. Suzanne [Scott] promised me NOT overruled by Meade cooper.”

The newly unleashed Pirro used the opportunity the cowed Fox executive team gave her to promote election conspiracy theories that ultimately proved very expensive for Fox.

But it’s hard to get disciplined at Fox for being too supportive of Trump — she was subsequently promoted to the weekday panel show The Five and recently left Fox to become U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Scott’s handling of Pirro shows how willing Fox was to bend over backward to provide editorial independence to its conspiratorial opinion hosts. But “news-side” personalities at the network who tried to shut down such claims weren’t so lucky.

The Smartmatic filings show top Fox executives expressing dismay after anchor Neil Cavuto cut away from a November 9, 2020, White House press conference featuring press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and told viewers, “She’s charging the other side is welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting. Unless she has more details to back that up, I can't in good countenance continue showing you this."

Tom Lowell, Fox’s vice president and managing editor of news, subsequently told other top Fox executives that anchors like Cavuto should not have the authority to cut away from live events, writing: “Needs to be a chain of command here considering the environment we are in. It’s not the talents call and [t]he EP [Executive Producer] needs approval from you [Mitchell] or Jay [Wallace] in the handling of pressers.”

When GOP state legislators put on a series of sham election fraud “hearings” in late November and early December 2020, which featured Trump’s legal team and discredited “witnesses” with unverified or debunked claims, Trump praised Fox’s right-wing competitors for airing the hearings live — and criticized Fox for failing to do so.

Scott responded to the pressure by urging her network to start taking such hearings live in a December 2, 2020, email to Lowell. She suggested that the “witness testimony” at the events constituted the “evidence that the news division has been saying doesn’t exist,” and concluded, “This is BUSINESS. RIGHT NOW BAD BUSINESS.” From her email:

The entire impeachment was about one anonymous hearsay whistleblower. We ran the Schiff Nadler show wall to wall. If we wanted to send a strong message to the audience, run the witness testimony. That’s called evidence that the news division has been saying doesn’t exist. Now will the results ever change. Odds are next to zero. This is BUSINESS. RIGHT NOW BAD BUSINESS.

Lowell admitted that the network had featured witness testimony in stories about the hearings without fact-checking them but warned Scott that airing the events live was not a good news practice.

“It is one thing for us to give a platform to the Presidents Attorneys and surrogates, or people like this guy on with Sean [Hannity] right now who signed an affidavit, but we need to be skeptical of some of these supporters who just wander in to make statements about things they think they saw,” he wrote in an email to Scott.

The Smartmatic filings provide new details about what Fox’s Jesse Watters was told and what he did during this period, while he was the host of the weekend evening program Watters’ World.

Watters was explicitly warned not to promote election fraud claims immediately after the 2020 election, according to the filings.

“On November 6, Watters texted Fox host Pete Hegseth, ‘By the way, did you get the memo about not saying fraud?’” the filing states.

Watters testified that this was a reference to instructions relayed by his producer, Megan Albano. In a text message the same day, Albano told Watters, “If we call the race, you cannot, under any circumstances, cast doubt on” the election because “the powers that be are not having any of it.”

This message did not stick, the filing shows: “On November 21, 2020, an original television broadcast of Watters’ World aired at 8:00 p.m. on Fox News. Dobbs appeared as a guest, discussing a ‘cyber-attack’ using voting machines to steal the 2020 election, and Watters presented an ‘investigation’ into Dominion and Smartmatic.”

The filing further states that in a text to The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld, Watters wrote: “Think about how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL.”

Fox has since given Watters two promotions — he gained his own weekday evening show in January 2022, and that program took over the network’s “pivotal” 8 p.m. timeslot in June 2023.

---

---

MMA

Right-wing media champion migrant detention camps amid reports of horrific conditions

Pro-Trump podcaster: “You got to break a couple eggs in order to make an omelet”

Written by Chloe Simon & Gideon Taaffe

Published 08/13/25

Since taking office, President Donald Trump’s administration has held thousands of undocumented immigrants — including many without a criminal record — in a network of domestic and international detention centers. Two of these, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) and the newly opened “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, have already been criticized for appalling conditions and human rights abuses.

As firsthand accounts of these detention centers began to be widely reported, right-wing media have justified the conditions by claiming that people being sent there are “the worst of the worst”; arguing that Alligator Alcatraz is meant as “a deterrent more than punishment"; and suggesting that “you got to break a couple eggs in order to make an omelet.”

The Trump administration has ramped up arrests, targeting many who reportedly have no criminal record

A Nicaraguan migrant alleged that guards “chained me to the ground,” called him racial slurs, and put him “in a four-by-four-foot square in the recreation yard” that “was directly in the Everglades sun and heat, for several hours, with no water.” NBC News reported one detainee got foot fungus seemingly due to “limited access to showers and poor sanitation.” Another detainee “reported that people held in Alligator Alcatraz ‘are only allowed one meal a day (and given only minutes to eat), are not permitted daily showers, and are otherwise kept around the clock in a cage inside a tent,’” citing “instances of physical assaults and excessive use of force by guards, along with a lack of medical care and attention.” The Washington Post, [7/17/25; WLRN, 7/22/25; NBC News, 7/22/25, 8/6/25]}:

//

  1. ### This segment exemplifies how Fox feeds garbage anti-immigrant slop to its audience

08/08/25 10:11 AM EDT

  1. ### Inside the alliance between right-wing media and Trump “Border Czar” Tom Homan

08/07/25 9:09 AM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media's campaign against due process for immigrants

08/05/25

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MMA

Jesse Watters demands Republicans “destroy Democrat representation where we can”

08/06/25

August 6, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): Katie, I believe we should just gerrymander the bejesus out of these maps and just destroy Democrat representation where we can, and it's just -- we're in a war now. We're in a war, they screwed around and now they're about to find out.

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mma 7 25

Fox News scoffed that Andry Hernandez was “just a gay barber” when Trump sent him to a torture prison. Now, Fox ignores reporting that he was sexually assaulted there.

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/04/25

Fox News regularly downplayed concerns that the Trump administration’s denial of due process had resulted in immigrants sent in error to a notorious foreign prison, with one host mocking interest in the plight of a man he described as “just a gay barber.” That man, Andry Hernández Romero, said last week that he was beaten by guards, one of whom forced him to perform oral sex, during his 125 days in captivity.

Fox personalities were elated in March when the Trump administration dubiously invoked a rarely utilized wartime authority to deport over 250 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a megaprison known for its brutal conditions. The network had spent 2024 concocting a bogus narrative about a “migrant crime wave,” and they quickly and uncritically adopted the administration’s justification that it had targeted violent Tren de Aragua gang members for this treatment.

While Fox’s stable of propagandists bleated that the deportees were “the worst of the worst,” CBS News reviewed the names and found that three-quarters had no criminal record in the United States. Indeed, the group included people like Hernández, a gay 32-year-old makeup artist who entered the U.S. legally and passed a preliminary asylum screening. He had no criminal record or removal order but was detained and ultimately shipped to El Salvador over concerns about his wrist tattoos — crowns with the words “Mom” and “Dad” next to them.

Rather than express concerns over the U.S. government using such slight evidence to send people to a foreign prison known for its brutal conditions, Fox hosts ran cover for the administration. They accused critics of sympathizing with “illegal alien gangbangers,” accused them of pushing “false sob stories,” denounced news outlets that “only focused on” the innocent people sent to the torture prison rather than the supposedly guilty ones, and denied the importance of providing due process to determine which group is which.

Fox’s Jesse Watters on Andry Hernández: “It’s just a gay barber”

Perhaps the most disturbing discussion came during the March 31 edition of The Five, when Jessica Tarlov, the panel show’s lone Democrat, drew derision from right-wing co-hosts Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld for repeatedly directing the show’s attention to Hernández’s plight.

Video

Citation

From the March 31, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

“Time magazine was there when the gay barber from Venezuela who had a crown tattoo that said ‘mom’ was being processed coming into the El Salvadoran — oh, am I boring you again?” Tarlov said at one point. “I'm sorry.”

“No,” Watters replied. “But you've been talking about this gay barber from El Salvador with some stupid tattoo for weeks. Weeks, Jessica.”

“It's just a gay barber,” Watters added.

“He’s not into you,” Gutfeld interjected.

“He's an innocent guy who got swept up in a deportation, and hopefully we get it figured out and straightened out,” Watters continued. “But a lot of people in this country, Jessica, get arrested for things that they didn't do, get falsely accused, falsely convicted.”

“That doesn't mean you stop arresting criminals because one guy was arrested who was innocent,” Watters concluded. “It just means you just try to do it better the next time.”

What we did to Andry Hernández

Four months after that segment, the Trump administration managed to have Hernández returned to Venezuela as part of a prisoner exchange. Unfortunately, the administration didn’t “get it figured out and straightened out” before he was brutalized by guards, one of whom forced his penis into Hernández’s mouth and made him perform oral sex, Hernández subsequently told interviewers.

“Hernandez says the prison was hot and quiet. Guards would drag inmates out of their cells and beat them if they made too much noise,” NPR’s Manuel Rueda reported on July 27. “He slept on a metal plank without a mattress and shared his cell with up to 19 people. There was a toilet in each cell but no walls to separate it from the rest of the room.”

Rueda further reported that, according to Hernández, he was punished with confinement in a smaller cell “after guards caught him bathing outside regulatory hours. He says he was beaten with batons by three wardens in the small room and forced to perform oral sex on one of the guards.”

“In that prison, human rights don't exist, and the guards take pleasure out of seeing others suffer.” Rueda translated Hernández saying.

NBC News likewise reported on July 28 that Hernández said that “one day during his imprisonment he was taken to solitary confinement, where prison staff ‘made me kneel, perform oral sex on one person, while the others groped me and touched my private parts’ and ‘stroked me with their batons.’”

Fox has not reported on Hernández’s account, according to a Media Matters review.

And while Watters had expressed his vague hope for Hernández that “we get it figured out,” The Five is instead focused on issues he apparently finds more important.

---

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AN AH 7 25

ALTHO... es Gunn's new "Superman" movie is performing well at the box office, many right-wing media outlets are attacking it as "woke." The film touches on immigration, much to the chagrin of Fox News and others.

In an biting article published on July 21, Salon's Amanda Marcotte argues that right-wing media attacks on Gunn's film aren't just silly, but underscore their troubling view of the world.

"Every time there's a pop cultural phenomenon — a blockbuster movie, a chart-topping single, a hot new fashion trend — conservative media and MAGA influencers rush to denounce it as anti-American, anti-family or even demonic," Marcotte observes. "Labubu dolls are Satanic. The 'Barbie' movie is anti-male. Conservative men are being traumatized by rap songs informing them that women can experience sexual arousal — not that said conservative men are willing to believe it."

READ MORE: 'Can't beat the president': Former Trump lawyer issues major prediction about Rupert Murdoch

Marcotte continues, "The reasons right-wing pundits engage in this are transparent. The biggest is simple attention economics. Glomming onto popular topics is a good way to attract new audiences, especially those who may not be that political, and lure them into engaging with reactionary content. It also helps feed the paranoia that fuels the right, by propping up the narrative that all of pop culture is out to destroy them and their way of life."

IFrame Content

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The "MAGA talking heads" attacking Gunn and his "Superman" film, Marcotte observes, are "mad" because "Superman is an immigrant" in the movie.

"My initial reaction when I saw right-wing media conduct its all-too-predictable tantrum over the new 'Superman' movie was that it’s just more of the same: Claim it’s 'woke' propaganda, work the audience into a tizzy of boycott threats and reap the reward of alienating their base further from the rest of society so that the MAGA cult is all they have left," Marcotte explains. "Which, to be fair, is bad enough. But the actual content of the complaints made this whole exercise even more sinister."

The Salon journalist continues, "The attacks on 'Superman' are part of a larger effort by the right to completely rewrite history, so they can pretend that being a patriotic American means embracing authoritarian values…. Immigrants and kindness are both canceled in Donald Trump’s America, so the right was outraged. Jesse Watters of Fox News 'joked' that Superman should have 'MS-13' on his cape…. There have been a lot of dutiful, fact-check-style responses pointing out that Superman is an immigrant and the character was always 'woke,' in that he has a history of fighting fascists and KKK members. But in a sense, that was unnecessary, because everyone already knows this. That's where this Fox News gambit goes from being stupid to deeply sinister: They are asking their audience to deny not just the facts, but a fact we all grew up with, something woven into the DNA of our American identity."

READ MORE:'Reeks of regret': Republicans suffering 'remorse and shame' over 'grudgingly' obeying Trump

:{Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

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mma

Fox News host Jesse Watters, who once claimed to be “leading the charge to expose Jeffrey Epstein’s list of fixers, clients, and famous friends,” tied himself in knots on Thursday night as he attempted to explain to viewers why Democrats are in the wrong as they call for President Donald Trump’s administration to release Epstein-related documents.

Trump offered a campaign pledge, albeit a wishy-washy one, to “declassify the Epstein files,” which he has not lived up to in office. Now, House and Senate Republicans have stymied Democratic congressional initiatives aimed at forcing additional Epstein disclosures while Trump demands that his supporters move on from the story.

For Watters — who spent the last six years discussing Epstein across more than 100 episodes of his programs and denounced the “powerful people [who] want to keep you from knowing about Epstein’s world” — the real villains here are the Democrats, because they are allegedly late to the story and acting with impure motives.

Watters complained on his July 17 Fox prime-time show that “Epstein used to be a forbidden word for Democrats,” but “now they can't get it out of their mouth.” He went on to ask why the party is suddenly “so focused on the Epstein files, of all things.”

“The left doesn't care about Epstein, they never have, and they definitely don't care about the victims or the corruption or the cover-up,” Watters concluded. “They're just now doing the opposite of what Trump does.”

Video

Citation

From the July 17, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Watters’ argument is indistinguishable from that of the White House, as indicated by the clip from press secretary Karoline Leavitt that he aired amid his gripes. It also raises more questions about Watters’ commitment to justice for Epstein’s victims than it does about the Democrats’.

It is certainly true that the left and right have modeled different versions of concern for Epstein’s “victims or the corruption or the cover-up” since the disgraced financier’s death in jail while awaiting trial for child sex-trafficking in 2019.

The left’s version involved conducting a meticulous, yearslong congressional investigation into the sources of Epstein’s money and successfully prosecuting his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, securing a 20-year prison sentence for her crimes on Epstein’s behalf.

The right’s version did involve MAGA propagandists like Watters doing a bunch of discourseabout how Trump was about to blow the case wide open by releasing the Epstein files. But at the same time, the movement’s decision-makers wished Maxwell well and then fired her prosecutor; hired the lawyers who secured the sweetheart federal nonprosecution agreement that allowed Epstein to get out of prison and allegedly sexually abuse more underage girls; and ultimately reneged on releasing more Epstein documents.

Your mileage may vary as to which of those fact sets demonstrates real “care about Epstein.”

I also think it’s true that Democrats and progressive commentators are talking more about the Epstein case after the last two weeks of revelations. Consider:

The Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation released an unsigned statement about the Epstein case which contradicted past statements by the attorney general, FBI director, and FBI deputy director.

The FBI deputy director reportedly skipped work in protest while contemplating resignation.

The fracas triggered a MAGA revolt which featured calls from Trump allies for the attorney general’s removal.

Trump responded by ordering his supporters to cease discussion of the “Epstein Files,” which he alleged had been “written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.” Everyone seems to assume that this argument, which contradicted past MAGA theories and for which the president provided no evidence, is a bald-faced lie.

The president subsequently claimed that he didn’t understand why his supporters were so interested in the Epstein saga because it is “pretty boring stuff”; described the Epstein controversy as a “Hoax,” a “SCAM,” and “bullshit”; and said that MAGA influencers who talk about it are “weaklings” and “stupid people” who are “wasting their time with a guy who obviously had some very serious problems, who died three, four years ago.”

The Wall Street Journal published a story revealing that Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell reviewed an album Maxwell made for Epstein’s 50th birthday which includes a “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s name which concludes: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

I don’t think it is surprising that that sequence has led to increased interest in the Epstein case.

The question, I think, is why those events have made Watters — someone who claims to be interested in exposing Epstein not due to political expediency but because of the victims, corruption, and cover-up — less interested in talking about it.

Why can’t Watters take the left’s “yes” for an answer? It seems quite obvious that the reason is that Trump wants him to say “no,” and Watters is a shill who does what he is told.

//

  1. ### How MAGA propagandists responded to Trump’s demand to shut up about Epstein

07/16/25 10:17 AM EDT

  1. ### Trump's Jeffrey Epstein post contradicts what top Fox hosts have argued

07/14/25 12:23 PM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media eat their own after Trump administration denies their Epstein conspiracy theories

07/07/25

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MMA 7 25

July 15, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): Gavin has transitioned back into a man and we're proud of him. Because before Gavin detransitioned he sounded like this.

(VIDEO BEGINS)

GAVIN NEWSOM (GOV. CA): Black community does not need to change. We need to change.

One thing is clear to me, we have a hierarchy of values in this country that diminishes certain people based on the color of their skin.

(VIDEO ENDS)

(VIDEO BEGINS)

NEWSOM: History, though, must acknowledge the shameful mistakes of our country's past. After all, America was literally built on the backs of Black people.

(VIDEO ENDS)

WATTERS: Newsom is America's first AI politician. His Silicon Valley donors figured out how to make an algorithm to make him electable outside of California. And after undergoing political sex change surgery, Gavin is now a patriotic, anti-lockdown, trans surgery, pronoun, and pro-border governor who loves capitalism, the Second Amendment, and the founders. Would Gavin admit he was wrong about everything if he wasn't running for president?

---

// INGR ON HYPE FEARM SHE HAS HOMAN

July 7, 2025, edition of Fox News' *Jesse Watters Primetime

STEPHEN MILLER (GUEST): Why is it that Democrats are so insistent that unlimited numbers of illegals from countries that are incapable of managing their own affairs come here? Countries like Somalia, countries like Haiti, countries that have no history of successful self-government, and they want unlimited numbers of illegals from those countries and refugees from those countries to come here with no chance -- at the pace, the scale, the scope of arrivals -- at being able to assimilate and integrate into the American way of life.

What has it done to our schools? What has it done to our hospitals? What has it done to just traffic in our cities? Every issue that affects our quality of life, Jesse -- public safety, drugs, crime, education, health care, waiting in the emergency room -- are all exacerbated, worsened, and undermined by mass illegal immigration. ICE officers are heroes and they need the support of the American people. President Trump is liberating our towns just as he was promised, just as the American people overwhelmingly voted to give him a mandate to do just five months ago.

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): It's straight up treason and everybody knows it, and we shouldn't be afraid to say it. AFRAID OF WHO?

---

The Democratic governor is seeking more than $787 million — and if that figure sounds at all familiar, there’s a good reason for that.

ref

Trump’s condemnations of the nation’s free press are painfully routine, though the president has been a bit more hysterical than usual this week, and there’s no great mystery as to why.

Two days after the Republican declared that U.S. military strikes had “completely and totally obliterated” Iranian nuclear sites, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency completed a preliminary intelligence assessment that found the airstrikes were less effective than Trump claimed. A great many news organizations, naturally, shared that information with the public after the assessment was leaked to reporters.

Trump and his team lashed out wildly, not only because of the leak, but because independent media outlets reported the news. In fact, on Wednesday, Trump’s personal lawyer threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN, claiming that the newspaper and the network damaged the president’s reputation by running reports that Trump considers, among other things, “false” and “unpatriotic.”

Time will tell what, if anything, comes of such an odd threat, but as it turns out, the Republican isn’t the only political leader targeting a media outlet under related circumstances. NBC News reported:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Fox News on Friday, accusing host Jesse Watters of defamation by falsely claiming that Newsom had lied about a phone call with President Donald Trump during a dispute over the use of the National Guard in Los Angeles. The lawsuit ... claims that Fox ‘operates as a propaganda machine for President Trump’s radical right-wing agenda.’

Politico was first to report on the suit.

The Democratic governor is seeking more than $787 million — and if that seemingly unusual figure sounds at all familiar, it’s because that’s roughly the amount of money the network paid in 2023 to settle a defamation case filed by Dominion Voting System.

Or put another way, Newsom and his lawyers engaged in a bit of political trolling when they chose this specific dollar amount.

“By disregarding basic journalistic ethics in favor of malicious propaganda, Fox continues to play a major role in the further erosion of the bedrock principles of informed representative government,” the lawsuit states. “Setting the record straight and confronting Fox’s dishonest practices are critical to protecting democracy from being overrun by disinformation and lies.”

The incident that sparked the litigation came earlier this month. On June 10, a reporter asked Trump when he’d last spoken to Newsom, and the president replied, “A day ago.” The Californian quickly responded that he had no idea what Trump was talking about, adding that the two had no interactions on June 9.

The president later clarified that he was off by a couple of days in his initial comments, and the story (such as it was) faded from view.

But on Fox News, the story unfolded a little differently. In fact, on June 10, after airing an edited clip of the president, Watters told viewers, “Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?” The on-screen text read at the time: “Gavin Lied About Trump’s Call.”

In reality, the governor didn’t say that Trump “never called him”; he said Trump’s claim about a June 9 call was wrong, and on that point, the president himself soon after conceded that Newsom was correct.

“If Fox News fails to issue a formal retraction and on-air apology, we will proceed with the lawsuit so that a jury can determine Fox News’s culpability and assign a monetary value to its ‘blatantly unethical’ conduct,” the governor’s lawyers Michael Teter and Mark Bankson wrote in a letter.

Fox added in a statement of its own: “Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him. We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed.”

As a legal matter, Newsom faces a tough challenge. As Politico’s report noted, “Public officials must clear an extremely high legal standard to prevail in defamation cases, as the U.S. Supreme Court established six decades ago in New York Times v. Sullivan.”

Watch this space.

  1. ### Jesse Watters calls CNN “treasonous” for reporting on the Pentagon’s Iran bombing damage assessment

:{:{06/26/25}:

June 26, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS: You know, everyone's feeling this huge swelling of patriotism and then CNN comes along and sullies it. Now, CNN says, "We didn't do anything wrong," but CNN spent 48 hours with guests at the top of every single hour saying, "The mission failed," saying, "The bombs didn't work," says, "The Iranians still have a nuclear program." What kind of effect does that have? You're basically taking classified information and using it to undermine the commander-in-chief and cast doubt on the effectiveness of the American military capabilities, and putting the commander-in-chief at a disadvantage when he's trying to maintain a ceasefire. It's treasonous. That's the t-word, Jessica.

And Kash and Bongino are going to be looking at these congressmen now, because I have a suspect list. I feel like I know who this person was, and you could easily find them, there's a limited amount of people that had access to this intelligence. You go and see who got access to it and then you narrow it down and then you get a warrant for their phone. So they better lawyer up, because someone's going to go to prison for a very long time.

// Laura Ingraham says Senator Alex Padilla was performing “a carefully choreographed stunt” at DHS briefing

06/12/25

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/laura-ingraham-says-senator-alex-padilla-was-performing-carefully-choreographed-stunt-dhs)

Fox parroted DHS claim Padilla “lunged toward” Noem. Video debunks it.}:

06/13/25

After the Department of Homeland Security tried to justify Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) violent removal from a press conference by falsely claiming that he had “lunged toward” Secretary Krisi Noem, Fox News propagandists chimed in, alleging the senator “ran at” and tried to “bum-rush” the secretary. But video from the event shows Padilla standing calmly across the room from Noem, interrupting her event by asking her a question, as agents begin shoving him away.

Padilla was manhandled, forced to the ground, and ultimately handcuffed by federal agents after interrupting a Noem press conference at a Los Angeles federal building on Thursday. “I’m Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla, whose subcommittee oversees Noem’s department, said as the agents began forcing him from the room.

Democratic senators and political commentators responded with shock, anger, and revulsion as video of Padilla’s forcible removal circulated. But DHS, rather than apologize, issued a statement claiming Padilla “chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem.”

In fact, video from the scene shows Padilla did not “lunge” at Noem, instead standing and speaking in a level tone as he began asking his question and then saying, “I am Sen. Alex Padilla,” as federal agents pushed him out of the room.

Video

Citation

CBS News video

But Fox’s propagandists ran with DHS’ lies.

“Now Democrat senators are joining the riots,” Fox host Jesse Watters claimed on his prime-time show, as on-screen text read, “Senator cuffed after charging Noem.”

“Alex Padilla, the senator from California, got handcuffed inside a federal building this afternoon for lunging at a cabinet secretary,” he continued. “Kristi Noem was in Los Angeles giving a press conference about the riots when the senator barged in and ran at her, yelling and screaming.”

Watters added that Padilla was “lunging at” Noem and “screaming hysterically.”

The Five co-host Emily Compagno similarly said that “Padilla barged his way into DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's news conference on the LA riots, only to be forcefully removed and handcuffed while on the floor,” adding, “The DHS called it theater. They said he didn't identify himself. He had no senator pin. He forcefully lunged. Would you describe this as a stunt by the senator?”

Co-host Greg Gutfeld responded in part: “Padilla shows why you need order and grown-ups. This is a microcosm. Some guy bursts into a presser shouting, expects to be treated preferentially. He expected his invasion to be allowed. What does that sound like? Their policy with illegal criminals.”

Watters agreed with Gutfeld, claiming that Padilla had “bum-rushed a woman” and that he “seemed like a crazy man impersonating a senator.”

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country. We will hold this administration accountable,” Padilla told reporters following his release on Thursday.

To which one could add, if this is how DHS and Fox hosts lie about a senator when there’s video disproving their claims, you can only imagine how they’re lying about everyone else.

---

---

AN 6 25

Social media reacted badly to Fox News deceptively editing video to claim Gov. Gavin Newsom lied about a disputed phone call.

Last week, President Donald Trump told reporters he had “called” Newsom and suggested he “do a better job” over violent protests of Trump’s immigration policies.

“He’s done a bad job, causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death. If we didn’t send out the National Guard, and last time we gave him a little additional help, you would have — Los Angeles would be burning right now,” Trump claimed.

READ MORE: This scheme is so mind-boggling even Republicans have stopped lying about it

Newsom denied ever getting the call, however, and called Trump “a stone-cold liar” for making the claim.

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“We talked for almost 20 minutes and he barely—this issue never came up,” Newsom told reporters. “I tried to talk about L.A., he wanted to talk about all these other issues. … He never once brought up the National Guard. He’s a stone-cold liar. He said he did. Stone. Cold. Liar. Never did.”

Newsom called trash on what Trump described as a “Monday” call, but Fox News entertainer Jesse Watters, of Jesse Watters Primetime, aided the president by muddying the waters on the exact date of the call. Watters removed Trump’s claim of calling Newsom “aday ago(meaning Monday),” and instead began Trump’s quote with“Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he’s doing a bad job …”

Watters then accused Newsom of lying: “Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?”

READ MORE:Navy veteran warns Americans that we're getting to the dangerous point of no return

Conservative talk radio show host Doug Kellett railed Fox for the tampering. “FNC goes out of its way to prop up a failing and shameful President,” Kellett posted on X.

“How the hell is this legal,” complained another critic on Bluesky.

“I'm sure that @JesseBWatters will be taken off the air for this ... or that the @FCC will have something to say about it,” sniped another X user, possibly referencing the strong hand Trump’s FCC is wielding against news organizations that aren’t Fox News.

In March, Trump’s FCC commissioner Brendan Carr announced he was opening an investigation into the Walt Disney Co. and its ABC television network to see whether they are “promoting invidious forms of DEI discrimination.” Trump himself recently sued CBS ’60 Minutes’ for allegedly ‘manipulating’ footage of a Kamala Harris interview by deleting the former democratic candidate’s “word salads” regarding violence in Gaza.

READ MORE: 'Cry harder': MAGA Republicans brutally mocked after pushing Walmart boycott

CBS later released full transcripts and video of the Harris interview, showing the company had presented different parts of the interview for two different shows.

Read MediaITE’s full post at this link.

---

mma

  1. ### Jesse Watters brushes aside talk of a Trump enemies list: “Who’s Trump arrested other than bad hombres and the linebacker in Congress?”

05/29/25 8:42 PM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters: “Teachers are too stupid and too lazy to buckle down and really go the extra mile for these kids”

05/29/25

---

MMA

Contrary to right-wing media claims, the GOP's Medicaid cuts are for far more than “able-bodied men”

While right-wing media yell about “able-bodied men,” in truth Medicaid work requirements would hit caregivers the most — and they are disproportionately women

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Sophie Lawton

Published 05/22/25

Right-wing media figures are telling their audiences that proposed work requirements for Medicaid will be targeted at men who are unwilling to look for a job, when the actual population most likely to be affected is poor, rural women who are taking care of elderly parents or adult children.

The discussion comes as congressional Republicans negotiate a budget bill that is widely predicted to deliver massive tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations while gutting social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. The House passed its version of the bill on May 22, which included what Axios described as “the biggest Medicaid rewrite in the history of the safety-net program, which will likely result in millions of Americans losing their health insurance coverage.”

One of the ways the House's legislation reduces Medicaid costs is by introducing arduous and unnecessary work requirements for beneficiaries that would begin at the end of 2026. The Congressional Budget Office, which provides nonpartisan economic analysis to lawmakers, estimated that 10.3 million people would lose their Medicaid by 2034 if the bill was passed in its May 14 form. The New York Times cited the same figure in its coverage of the House bill’s passage. (The bill also adds work requirements to SNAP, which could put almost 11 million people at risk of losing some of their food assistance.)

Much of the right-wing commentary supporting the bill mischaracterizes Medicaid beneficiaries by claiming there is a large pool of “able-bodied” people who refuse to seek employment. In fact, 92% of people on Medicaid are working, have a disability, or are performing duties — such as going to school or caregiving — that could qualify for an exemption from meeting work requirements.

It’s true that there is a group of people who qualify as able-bodied, nonworking Medicaid recipients without a young child who also aren’t enrolled in school. But contrary to conservative punditry, that population is overwhelmingly made up of women (79%), mostly living in rural areas, who are caring for elderly parents or adult children and have low levels of formal education and have recently left the workforce, according to new research from the University of Massachusetts Boston.

“Work requirements would primarily target this population,” the researchers write.

Fox News’ Jesse Watters says Medicaid work requirements target men in their 20s who “sell ecstasy on the side"

Fox News, Fox Business, and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page — three gilded properties in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire — have pushed for cuts to Medicaid, either by adding work requirements or through an outright rollback of the program’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Slashing Medicaid is incredibly unpopular, including among supporters of President Donald Trump, so on some occasions Fox has misled its viewers into thinking the Republican budget doesn’t pose a threat to the program.

But as Trump has thrown his weight behind the bill, so too has Fox modified its austerity-heavy rhetoric.

Following the House’s passage of the bill, Fox national correspondent Aishah Hasnie said some Republicans from states that have “a lot of constituents on Medicaid” were “worried there were going to be massive cuts.”

“Really, Republicans wanted to go after illegal immigrants that were using Medicaid and able-bodied men that were on Medicaid,” she continued. “They wanted to add work requirements, and those work requirements now will start in 2026. It’s a huge win for fiscal conservatives.”

Video

Citation

From the May 22, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

On May 19, host Jesse Watters said, “If you're a young, able-bodied, healthy American man — 26 years old, you don't even want to go to work — you can get on Medicaid.”

“You can live at your parents’ house, play softball on the weekend, sell ecstasy on the side, not even look for a job — and you can get free health care,” Watters added. “That’s what they’re doing. They’re just closing that lazy loophole."

Video

Citation

From the May 19, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

The same day on Fox & Friends, on at least two occasions co-host Charlie Hurt falsely argued that work requirements strengthened Medicaid.

“A major Democrat attack on the bill is they claim it cuts Medicaid,” Hurt said. “What it actually does is it saves Medicaid by not paying, first of all, people who are ineligible for it, but also because it doesn’t — it puts in work requirements for, you know, 30-year-old, able-bodied males without dependents, and it says, you know, if you are going to get welfare from the government, you're going to need to work, and that seems like a really low standard to a regular person."

Video e

Citation

From the May 19, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

Elsewhere in the program, Hurt argued the bill strengthens Medicaid and “protects it by getting people off that — able-bodied, 30-year-old men … without dependents ought to be working."

Steve Bannon says Medicaid work requirements for able-bodied men should be “40 to 60 hours” at a “minimum”

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has attempted to present himself as both a defender of Medicaid and an advocate for large cuts to the program. One of the ways he tries to reconcile that contradiction is by dividing Medicaid users into the deserving and undeserving poor, using rhetoric strikingly similar to Fox’s.

...

---

mma

May 20, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): They thought they could get away with it because they've been breaking the law and getting away with it for years. That day is over. They think, these people at Biden's Justice Department, are afraid of a little controversy? They think Kash, Bongino, Bondi, Pirro, Alina Habba are afraid of what the media is going to say if they arrest a Democrat for breaking the law? You guys have no idea how much fun we're having. This is a dream come true. Jessica, you started this. You raided Trump's house. You put shackles on Navarro. People were walking around the Capitol peacefully and patriotically and they're in prison for two years. She broke the law --

JESSICA TARLOV (CO-HOST): You're actually saying January 6 was patriotic and peaceful? Jesse.NO ANSWER

WATTERS: She broke the law on camera with a few forearm shivers. This linebacker really put her weight into it, Jessica. PUSHED FROM BEHOND?

There's nowhere to run and there's nowhere to hide. You're having margaritas with MS-13 and you're trying to bust out illegal alien rapists from prison, and you think the public backs you? Trump survived lawfare because he had a lot of cash. Does McIver have money? Is she going to ask Democrat donors to pony up for her lawyers to fight federal charges? The donors are tapped out, Jessica. Hakeem's not going to pay for this. She is going to lose, and she is going to lose big.

---

  1. ### Watch Jessica Tarlov break the news of Moody's downgrading America's credit as Jesse Watters brags about a Trump “masterclass”

:{05/16/25

---

Marc Morano

Weekly update ⋅ May 2, 2025

Climate Depot's Morano: Bill Gates Through Harvard Funding 'Radical, Risky' Global ...

Breitbart

Thursday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Jesse Watters Primetime," Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano warned of "risky" ...

Thursday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano warned of “risky” experiments conducted by Harvard University and bankrolled by billionaire Bill Gates in the name of global warming.

Gates likened the efforts to injecting pollution back into the atmosphere.

“Talk to me about this geoengineering,” fill-in host Rachel Campos-Duffy said. “What is it? A lot of people wonder what it is.”

“All it is, is retro 1970s — in the 1970s, they said fossil fuels caused global cooling,” Morano replied. “Now, of course, they say global warming. So, they proposed all kinds of geoengineering back in the 70s. They wanted to put black soot on the Arctic, use nuclear energy to heat up the Arctic in order to melt it, because they thought the ice was growing too much. Fast forward, now they want to block the sun and inject sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to try to block the sun and cool the Earth. It’s not just England doing it. Bill Gates through Harvard University is funding studies and have been pushing this. A lot of the other billionaire class have been pushing this kind of radical, risky experiment, and it makes absolutely no sense.”

He continued, “We spent decades since the first Earth Day, cleaning up our atmosphere, and now they want to inject pollution back in. It truly is, they want to prove a point, I think, in the end, that global warming is man-made and climate change is man-made, and it’s because governments are injecting these chemicals into the sky to alter the Earth. I think they’re ultimately probably not going to go through with it. It’s a scare tactic to say you’re not supporting the Green New Deal or Net Zero. We’re going to have to do this radical, risky experiment on our atmosphere.”

*Follow Jeff Poor on X @jeff_poor

---

mma

April 29, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSICA TARLOV (CO-HOST): There are Americans that are being detained by ICE, and it's not just one person, it's not two people. Yesterday, the story from Oklahoma, a woman and her daughters, her minor daughters, asleep in their home. ICE busted --

JEANINE PIRRO (CO-HOST): You already talked about that.

TARLOV: No, I didn't, it was another -- that's the thing --

PIRRO: Oh, this is another mother with two kids?

TARLOV: Well, the first mother had three kids, I'm glad you're so interested. But yes, this is multiple families being devastated by ICE. But this one is American and that's why it matters. ICE came into the house. There had been people, immigrants, who had lived there and they moved out a few weeks earlier. This family had just moved in. They came in, they made them go outside, including the girls, were taken outside in their underwear. They took their money and their electronics. This is an American family. If that happened to any --

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): Alright, Jessica. No one even believes your stories anymore. They always fall apart.

PIRRO: Yeah, and you know what, they rectified it.

[CROSSTALK]

TARLOV: Literally none of it has fallen apart.

WATTERS: What about the Maryland dad? Whatever happened to him?

TARLOV: That didn't fall apart. He's still some prison --

WATTERS: He's MS-13, Jessica.

TARLOV: He is not --

PIRRO: And there are two orders of deportation on him and he lied about being afraid to go back to El Salvador because he had to admit he was an MS-13 gang member --

TARLOV: Keep going back to one person that you think you have a case about --

[CROSSTALK]

PIRRO: Jessica, let me tell you something --

TARLOV: If someone dragged you out of your house in the middle of the night, you would kill somebody. Literally.

---

NO PIX VID SEE BUKELE

mma

YouTube content creators have earned more than 200 million views on videos of their visits to El Salvador’s CECOT prison

Both the Trump and Bukele administrations have also used social media as propaganda celebrating the megaprison

Written by Jack Winstanley (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/jack-winstanley)

Research contributions from Payton Armstrong (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/payton-armstrong)

Published 04/24/25

Since 2024, at least five YouTube content creators have been granted access to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, the megaprison to which the Trump administration began sending immigrants last month.

The resulting YouTube videos have been viewed over 200 million times, and at least one creator has appeared on Fox News four times to discuss what he saw while filming. He suggested during one appearance that “if the United States was smart, they would do something just like this as well.”

Both President Donald Trump’s administration and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s government have used social media to push propaganda films celebrating the megaprison as well, despite concerns of potential human rights abuses at the site, and right-wing media have also praised the facility.

The Trump administration is deporting immigrants to El Salvador's CECOT prison without due process}:

Bukele opened CECOT in 2023, earning praise from right-wing media figures

In early 2023, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele opened the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT (https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-opens-40000-person-prison-arrests-soar-gang-crackdown-2023-02-01/), as part of his campaign against criminal gangs operating within the country. Since then, experts (https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/g-s1-54206/el-salvador-mega-prison-cecot#::text=Cristosal%20and%20other%20advocates%20have%20accused%20authorities%20of%20human%20rights%20violations.) have raised concerns (https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/20/human-rights-watch-declaration-prison-conditions-el-salvador-jgg-v-trump-case) about the prison’s harsh conditions (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/04/la-cooperacion-represiva-entre-eeuu-y-el-salvador/#::text=In%20the%20light,Amnesty%20International%2C%20said%3A) and “massive and arbitrary deprivation of liberty,” including the extreme levels of isolation (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/world/americas/bukele-abrego-garcia-elsalvador-prison.html#::text=Extreme%20isolation%2C%20and%20%E2%80%98a%20huge%20silence.%E2%80%99) experienced by the prisoners. One visiting filmmaker called it a “tropical gulag” and an expert described it as “the Salvadoran version of going to Siberia.”

But right-wing media figures have celebrated (https://www.mediamatters.org/candace-owens/activists-are-raising-alarm-about-new-mega-prison-el-salvador-american-right-wing) the facility and suggested that the United States should create similar infrastructure within the country, praising Bukele’s authoritarianism (“This is my kind of authority, baby”) and suggesting that a megaprison would help with America’s “serious crime problem.”

In March 2025, the Trump administration began deporting individuals to CECOT

During an official visit in February 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said (https://www.npr.org/2025/02/04/g-s1-46352/rubio-el-salvador-deportees-americans) Bukele had offered to accept deportees from the U.S., including “dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentence in the United States even though they're U.S. citizens or legal residents.” The following month, President Donald Trump invoked (https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/14/politics/alien-enemies-act-1798-trump-cec/index.html) the Alien Enemies Act to send (https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/16/politics/trump-administration-deportations-alien-enemies-act/index.html) hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador to be imprisoned at CECOT.

Despite ongoing (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/18/trump-deportations-alien-enemies-act-00299474) legal challenges to the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to justify deporting individuals to El Salvador with little to no due process (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/supreme-court-trump-deportations#::text=What%20does%20habeas%20have%20to%20do%20with%20it%3F), Trump stated during a press briefing alongside Bukele that he is exploring (https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/nx-s1-5366178/trump-deport-jail-u-s-citizens-homegrowns-el-salvador) detaining U.S. citizens and imprisoning them in El Salvador as well.

YouTubers have earned millions of views on content after visiting CECOT

02/07/24

Mexican YouTuber Luisito Comunica posted a tour of the facility, thanking Bukele’s press secretary for granting him access

In Mexican YouTuber Lusito Comunica’s video, which has been viewed over 56 million times, he says in Spanish that touring the facility “gives a certain feeling of empowerment to a simple citizen like me.” Comunica also spoke positively of the conditions within the facility, stating, “It is easy to suddenly be moved, to touch your heart, to say, 'Wow, what harsh abuse inside the prison.' But when you find out the inhumane atrocities they committed, it makes sense.” YouTube,\2/7/24 (https://youtu.be/69qKUoGhoQo), accessed [4/23/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029515)]

07/26/24

Right-leaning American YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a tour of CECOT and appeared on Fox News at least 4 times to discuss his visit

Pro-Trump YouTuber Nick Shirley’s video, which features a tour of CECOT and Shirley interacting with a group of individuals imprisoned there, has earned over 5.7 million views. Prior to touring CECOT, Shirley had made videos criticizing the Biden administration’s immigration policy and focusing on illegal immigration into the U.S. YouTube,\7/26/24 (https://youtu.be/I34FnQSXpw8&themeRefresh=1), accessed 4/22/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029516);Reuters, [6/13/24 (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pro-trump-influencers-fire-up-fears-migrant-invasion-ahead-us-election-2024-06-13/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&fbclid=IwY2xjawJ04EFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFnNVdra3V2c1FUYzY2TjdJAR45czaz0JGaDIsgazJrb0mONAFckoJIZcqwGA_6waDl8owPil2H3NzNkVYnJA_aem_oc0gJpuaFtxY7BMzWEQqZA)]

The following week, Fox News’ Jesse Watters hosted Shirley to discuss his tour, introducing him as an “investigative journalist” and showing portions of the YouTube video. Shirley told Watters that “if the United States was smart, they would do something just like this as well, to make sure that no criminal gets treated like a normal person.” Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, [8/2/24 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029500)]

Following the Trump administration’s decision to deport individuals to El Salvador, Shirley appeared on Fox at least another three times. On Fox & Friends Weekend, Shirley stated that he worked “for months and months” to get permission to tour the facility, and he ended his appearance by cheering, “Let’s go, El Salvador.” Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, \2/7/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029498); Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 3/29/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029499); Fox Deportes, Fox Noticias, [3/28/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029501)]...

...

---

WTF?

April 9, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): We didn't want to kill Barack Obama, we just didn't think he was legally qualified to be president because of where he was born. And then Hillary, we didn't want to kill, we were just so afraid of her, we thought she'd kill us first.

But we do this in other countries. The CIA literally uses the same exact propaganda to stir up cultures in other countries to topple dictatorships we don't like. Now, we're doing it in our own country, and it's like almost working.

---

mma tariff BS

Steve Bannon and guest argue rising bond yields mean “tough times ahead” if Trump doesn't secure trade deals and “get government spending down”

04/10/25 2:52 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: “If you wanna see a real bull market, the president should fire Peter Navarro today”

04/10/25 12:32 PM EDT

  1. ### “Art of the Deal”: Fox propagandists spin wildly for Trump’s “huge” tariff “win”

04/10/25 11:51 AM EDT

“Art of the Deal”: Fox propagandists spin wildly for Trump’s “huge” tariff “win”

Written by Matt Gertz

:{Published 04/10/25

Fox News’ propagandists cheered President Donald Trump’s tariff climbdown as a “huge win” that shows he was playing “3D chess” and executing the “Art of the Deal.” Meanwhile, reporters at outlets including Fox pointed out that Trump had “capitulated” out of fear that his unilateral imposition of massive taxes on all of our trading partners was triggering a collapse in the bond market.

Trump announced on Wednesday a 90-day pause on the massive tariffs he had proposed the previous week on dozens of countries and farcically described as “reciprocal,” with the countries instead subject to a still-high 10% tariff during bilateral trade negotiations. At the same time, he increased tariffs on China, the largest U.S. trading partner, to a total of a whopping 145%, and left unchanged sectoral tariffs he has proposed or implemented on steel, aluminum, and cars (he also proposed this week additional tariffs on lumber and pharmaceuticals).

The president and his top advisers had repeatedly said that no pause was being contemplated, and the abrupt reversal reportedly took even some close aides by surprise. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who had been defending the planned tariffs in a House hearing when Trump announced the pause, said he had not been informed of the policy change beforehand.

North Korean state TV anchors would blush at the fervor with which Fox’s hosts announced their support for the move on their programs that night.

“We begin with the art of the deal -- told you this was going to happen,” Fox host and Trump political operative Sean Hannity crowed at the top of his show. “It was inevitable. Donald Trump's in a perpetual state of negotiation. A huge win for the president. A huge win for the country. His biggest accomplishment of the second term and there have been many.”

:{Video

Citation

From the April 9, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Laura Ingraham trumpeted the tariff shift as “Trump’s 3D chess move,” claiming that the president was “on a roll” and “thinking three steps ahead” while his “naysayers” were left “grasping at straws.”

“Trump created maximum leverage for himself, and now his team’s sitting pretty, taking meetings and doing deals that put America first. And if we don't like how the negotiation is going, our partners have seen the kind of pain we can cause, and they're motivated to do what we want, or else we'll make them feel the same pain,” offered Jesse Watters.

Their narrative that Trump is cooly executing a deliberate plan is total nonsense — he was responding to “a mass sale of bonds” the night before which indicated that “people are losing confidence in the U.S. economy” and could have triggered a financial crisis, as Fox Business’ own senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino reported earlier that day.

“I want to tell you right now that Donald Trump outsmarted the world,” Gasparino said on Fox after Trump’s announcement. “Trust me. I'm an American, I support my president. But that's not really what happened here from what I understand.”

“It's the bond market and the sort of lending markets that's the plumbing of the economy. And those markets were imploding last night and that's why we have a 90-day freeze,” he explained.

“It is the White House who capitulated, based on everything I hear, and all of my sources,” Gasparino reported in a second segment. “And the reason why is because of the bond market and what happened last night.”

IFrame Content

Gasparino’s reporting is consistent with that from outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN.

Indeed, Trump himself publicly acknowledged on Wednesday afternoon that his reversal came because people “were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” and in particular were “queasy” over the bond market.

That reality is apparently toxic for Fox’s Trump shills.

When Watters’ Democratic co-host Jessica Tarlov pointed to the bond market gyrations on Wednesday’s edition of The Five, he told her, “You don’t even know what you’re talking about. You don’t even know what a bond is.”

Likewise, Hannity mocked the “stupid people” who deny that “this was the [Trump’s] plan all along,” which he claimed to have “pretty much understood because I know the guy so well.”

Rather than a brilliant plan carefully executed, we are left with a trade agenda that has unclear goals, will cripple small businesses, and will raise prices for American consumers on everything from coffee to cars — and could change at any time based on the whims of one mercurial man.

But that man is the focus of Fox’s cult, and so its high priests are genuflecting and offering sacrifices.

:{many vids?]

---

  1. ### Fox Business guest on results of Trump's tariffs: “The damage is done”

04/10/25 11:41 AM EDT

  1. ### Steve Bannon suggests the Trump administration “immediately revoke” all Chinese student visas

04/10/25 11:36 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News keeps misleadingly telling its viewers Trump isn't a threat to Medicaid. A new poll helps to explain why.

04/10/25 11:04 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox host on White House capitulation on tariffs: “This is the art of the deal. This shows how strong our president is.”

04/10/25 9:33 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax's Greg Kelly says it's “totally legitimate” for Trump direct DOJ to investigate specific individuals

04/10/25 9:26 AM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters: “We didn't want to kill Barack Obama, we just didn't think he was legally qualified to be president because of where he was born”

04/09/25 6:28 PM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters interrupts and insults co-host describing the destructive repercussions of Trump’s trade policy

:{04/09/25

  1. ### As Trump and Fox cite the bond market for the pause of some tariffs, Sean Hannity mocks “stupid people” who deny that “this was the plan all along”

04/09/25 5:01 PM EDT

  1. ### Charlie Gasparino: “It is the White House who capitulated”

04/09/25 4:39 PM EDT

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mma

Watters attacks wife and daughter of judge who ruled against Trump 03/19/25 6:22 PM EDT](https://www.mediamatters.org/five/jesse-watters-attacks-wife-and-daughter-judge-who-ruled-against-trump)

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colbert called out z on reframe of epa mission BS

mma

How Fox manufactured legitimacy for Zeldin’s destructive climate and environmental rollbacks

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Research contributions from Harrison Ray

Published 03/13/25

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has used his extensive appearances on Fox News and Fox Business to justify freezing environmental programs and slashing climate-related funding. A Media Matters analysis found that Zeldin has made at least 22 appearances on cable news since his confirmation on January 29, with 21 of those on Fox networks.

This pattern of strategic media appearances has enabled the Trump administration to reframe essential climate initiatives as corrupt and wasteful while avoiding substantive media scrutiny of its climate and environmental rollbacks, shielding it from the consequences of these harmful policy shifts. Moreover, Zeldin has used these appearances to create a feedback loop in which harmful narratives aimed at climate funding are repeatedly echoed by Fox personalities until they become conventional wisdom across the network.

Fox provided Zeldin a shield from scrutiny, echoing past Trump EPA media strategies}:

Zeldin used his Fox appearances to create a feedback loop in which these talking points were introduced, echoed by hosts, and then repeated in later segments — laundering false claims and misleading narratives into conventional wisdom spread across Fox networks.

At the same time, Fox hosts consistently failed to challenge Zeldin on policy rollbacks targeting key environmental protections. Despite appearing on Fox twice after the Supreme Court’s March 4 ruling weakening the Clean Water Act, Zeldin was never asked about how the decision could impact the EPA’s ability to regulate pollution. Similarly, Fox did not press Zeldin on reports that he urged the Trump administration to reconsider the endangerment finding, the EPA’s determination that “planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare,” which forms the legal basis for regulating emissions.

This strategy doesn’t just obscure policy impacts — it actively misleads the public. By laundering misinformation through repetition and friendly framing, Fox creates an echo chamber in which attacks on climate programs are treated as fact while the real-world consequences of slashing climate funding are ignored, effectively shielding Zeldin from accountability for the full scope of his EPA agenda.

As the Trump administration advances its fossil fuel agenda, from gutting the Clean Water Act to dismantling the legal foundation for climate regulation, Fox's selective coverage ensures that the consequences of these policies remain hidden from public scrutiny — allowing the real impacts of these destructive environmental rollbacks to remain largely unexamined.

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mma

  1. ### Jesse Watters begged Trump to spare his veteran friend from federal workforce firings. Now he's back to defending mass firings.

02/26/25

“I don't care if it makes some poor people unhappy” – Greg Gutfeld gushes over Donald Trump’s plan to sell citizenship for $5 million

02/26/25

  1. ### Fox News host Jesse Watters defends firing national park rangers

02/26/25

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MMA

The stars of Fox News have used their shows to defend President Donald Trump’s banning of Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the wire service refuses to adopt the administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” They’ve characterized the AP’s actions as “deadnaming” the Gulf and said that “the White House is right” to restrict its access in response.

But Fox has also reportedly signed on to a letter calling on the Trump White House to restore the AP’s access and characterizing the ban as “serious breach” of the First Amendment's protections for the press. So has Newsmax, whose on-air talent praised the White House response while attacking the “Fake News AP” as “Associated Propaganda.”

The disconnect demonstrates how Trumpist propaganda channels like Fox and Newsmax occasionally try to bolster their standing by play-acting as legitimate news channels which share the values of the free press, even as their on-air product plays to their right-wing viewership base.

Oliver Darcy reported Wednesday that “40 news organizations have signed onto a confidential letter circulated by the White House Correspondents’ Association supporting the AP,” including both legitimate news outlets and “the pro-Trump channels Fox News and Newsmax.”

Darcy published the letter, which said in part:

The First Amendment prohibits the government from asserting control over how news organizations make editorial decisions. Any attempt to punish journalists for those decisions is a serious breach of this Constitutional protection.

The decision to exclude The Associated Press from covering the president aboard Air Force One and in the Oval Office is an escalation of a dispute that does not serve the presidency or the public. News organizations must be free to make their own editorial decisions without fear of government intrusion.

...

We once again ask the White House to lift this ban on the AP immediately and to underscore its support for press freedom.

But that sort of defense of the First Amendment principles and repudiation of the Trump White House’s actions is a far cry from what the viewers of Fox and Newsmax have been hearing on those channels.

Indeed, the night before Darcy’s report, Fox star Jesse Watters said of the controversy on his prime-time show: “The Associated Press took Mexico's side. They're deadnaming the Gulf, so they got kicked out of the White House.”

Watters likewise said on his February 12 show, “The Associated Press is sticking with Mexico, and now they are banned from the Oval Office,” adding, “Kick them out. Kick them out, and kick some other people out while you're there. I have a list.”

Video

From the February 12, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Watters’ colleagues were similarly blithe about the prospect of the federal government reducing access to reporters due to the editorial decisions of their outlet.

“So-called journalists in the media mob are ramping up their petty anti-Trump reporting,” Jason Chaffetz offered while guest-hosting the February 14 edition of Hannity. “For example, The Associated Press is still refusing to refer to the Gulf of America by its new name, despite recognition from Google, Apple, and other major outlets.”

After reading a quote from a White House official who said the AP’s decision is “not just divisive, but it also exposes The Associated Press' commitment to misinformation,” he commented, “The White House is right.”

Chaffetz later asked Fox contributor Joe Concha for his view of the White House’s restrictions on the AP. “It’s the best unintentional comedy of the week, Jason, hearing how The Associated Press, because they haven't been permitted onto Air Force One, into the Oval Office, that's somehow a threat to free press and a chilling attack on the First Amendment,” Concha said.

Other Fox hosts focused on mocking former CNN anchor Jim Acosta’s call for the press corps to take collective action and stop attending events from which the AP was barred. Greg Gutfeld said on the Wednesday edition of his show that the press would “love any excuse not to cover all of Trump's wins” and commented, “Your scam is up, media, and trust me, the hits are going to keep coming.” And guest-hosting Friday’s edition of The Ingraham Angle, Charles Hurt said of Acosta’s remarks, “I think that this derangement syndrome is in full swing, not just in celebrity la-la land, but also among our press brethren.”

Special Report, the flagship “news” show hosted by Bret Baier, has not addressed the controversy according to a review of its transcripts in the Nexis database.

Likewise, Newsmax hosts Rob Schmitt, Rick Leventhal, and Ed Henry teamed up to mock the AP and any concerns over whether the White House had breached the First Amendment during the February 13 edition of Schmitt’s show.

Video

Citation

From the February 13, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Rob Schmitt Tonight

On-screen text castigated the “fake news AP” and called the outlet “Associated Propaganda” as Schmitt introduced the segment, blaming The Associated Press for “refusing to accept Gulf of America” and said that “the media has no right to be” in the Oval Office.

Henry, a former president of the WHCA, began his response by saying that he would not be a “hypocrite” and “always stand up for the First Amendment.” But he went on to criticize the AP on the grounds that “it’s called the Gulf of America,” adding, “If you are not going to follow the actual name of the body of water, then I can understand why they don't want to give you access. You’re not playing with the basic facts.”

Leventhal also criticized the AP, saying that “they are supposed to be free of bias and opinion” and that by refusing to adopt the Gulf of America moniker, “you're saying you don't agree with the president, you don't like what the president did, and you're not going to play by his rules. That is completely opposite of what The Associated Press is supposed to be.” He added: “You can't make those kinds of unilateral decisions. You report the news, Associated Press.”

“That's exactly right,” Schmitt replied.

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