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A guide to Sean Hannity’s role as Trump’s chief White House propagandist

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 01/22/25 12:56 PM EST

Fox News host Sean Hannity — President Donald Trump’s pick to provide his first Oval Office interview, which airs tonight — shattered every imaginable ethical standard during Trump’s first term as he transformed his program into a nonstop White House propagandafest.

Hannity, long a consistent mouthpiece for GOP talking points and naked partisan cheerleading, became the sitting president’s confidant and adviser. The Fox star became known within the West Wing as Trump’s “unofficial chief of staff,” shaping policy outcomes and widespread conspiracy-minded counternarratives through both his private conversations with the president and his public program, which Trump regularly watched. Hannity’s on-air propaganda and unethical actions drew outrage from his colleagues, but his bosses were largely unconcerned with his dual role as network host and Trump political operative.

Hannity didn’t stop propagandizing on Trump’s behalf when he left the White House in disgrace in 2021. The host worked tirelessly to help the president fend off his legal problems, return to power within the GOP, smear Democrats, reposition for the general election, defuse potentially damaging critiques, and ultimately win the presidency again.

Trump theoretically crossed a red line for Hannity with Tuesday’s pardons of hundreds of January 6 insurrectionists charged with violent offenses such as assaulting law enforcement during Trump’s 2021 coup attempt — a decision Trump claims to have made after determining that some of them “love our country.” But knowing the Trump/Hannity relationship means understanding that the Fox host will either ignore the move or do everything in his power to help Trump sell it.

Below is a timeline of the Trump-Hannity relationship during the president’s first term — including a sequence of ethical morasses that would lead to the termination of a host at any remotely credible news outlet.

Jump to year

• ### 2016

• Hannity “provided a private jet” for Fox contributor Newt Gingrich “to fly to Indianapolis to meet with Donald Trump about being vice president on the Republican ticket.”
  • Trump and onetime campaign chair Paul Manafort “talked to Sean Hannity in their offices often” during the campaign, Rick Gates, Manafort’s former deputy, later told the FBI.
  • Hannity endorsed Trump in an official Trump campaign video, drawing a Fox statement that he “will not be doing anything along these lines for the remainder of the election.”
• ### 2017

• Hannity reportedly “strategized with the Trumps about how to keep” news of Donald Trump Jr.’s Trump Tower meeting with Russians offering “dirt” about Hillary Clinton “from coming out, and what to say if it did.” He then hosted Trump Jr. for a softball interview about the incident.
  • Trump reportedly backed off a deal with Democrats that would have secured legal status to “Dreamers” after “Hannity made clear in a phone call and on his show that Trump must draw a harder line on broader immigration enforcement as his price” and “Trump sided with Hannity” over his then-chief of staff, John Kelly.
  • Conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow agreed to join Trump’s legal team responding to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, reportedly due in part to Sekulow’s “relationship” with Hannity, who had previously retained Sekulow and regularly hosted him on his show.
  • While using his show to regularly denounce Mueller’s probe, Hannity began serving as a “back channel” between Trump and associates like Manafort whom Mueller was investigating, according to text messages released later. After the FBI raided Manafort’s home, Hannity privately urged him to “stay strong.”
• ### 2018

• Hannity became “so close to Trump that some White House aides have dubbed him the unofficial chief of staff,” The Washington Post reported. The Post further reported that “Trump is known to cite Hannity when he talks with White House advisers” and that in regular phone calls several times a week, the pair “discuss ideas for Hannity’s show, Trump’s frustration with the ongoing special counsel probe and even, at times, what the president should tweet.”
  • Hannity was revealed as a secret client of Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, a fact the Fox host had not disclosed in his commentary on Cohen’s case.
  • Hannity convinced Trump to hire his longtime friend and former producer Bill Shine as White House deputy communications director. Shine’s exit the next year for a campaign role reportedly came in part because Trump “feels he was sold a bill of goods by Hannity.”
  • Hannity appeared on stage and spoke at a Trump political rally on the eve of the 2018 midterm elections — after Fox and the host had both said he would not be attending to campaign for Trump. Both responded to the ensuing firestorm by neither admitting fault nor promising that it wouldn’t happen again.
• ### 2019

• Trump reportedly sought strategic advice from Hannity after shutting down the government in a ploy to garner funding for a border wall in December 2018, and subsequently cited Hannity's influence in declaring a border “emergency” to obtain the money.
  • According to a pool report chronicling Trump’s January 2019 border tour: “Sean Hannity has special access here. He huddled with Bill Shine and [Homeland Security] Secretary [Kirstjen] Nielsen and is following along on Trump’s tour, only standing with the staff and federal officials as opposed to the press corps.”
  • Trump’s campaign credited Hannity after the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into the Mueller probe in pursuit of the Fox host’s “deep state” conspiracy theories.
  • Hannity was a central figure in the Ukraine disinformation plot that triggered Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives.
• ### 2020

• After Trump “briefed” a vacationing Hannity on the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, Hannity then “called in to his own show to recite what Trump had told him.” Hannity regularly served as a mouthpiece for Trump in this way, attributing the sitting president’s statements to “sources.”
  • Hannity’s claim that the emerging COVID-19 pandemic was a “hoax” by the media and Democrats aimed at the president became a Trump talking point early in the response.
  • Hannity reportedly scripted an ad for Trump’s reelection campaign. (It aired only once, on his Fox program.)
  • Hannity sought, received, and carried out marching orders from the Trump White House on what to say on Election Day 2020, text messages with then-chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed.
• ### 2021

• Hannity, who zealously supported Trump’s lies that the 2020 election had been stolen, texted Meadows a warning in the lead-up to the January 6, 2021, insurrection: “I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told.”
  • Hannity texted Meadows during the January 6 insurrection, urging Trump to make a statement asking his supporters to leave the Capitol.
  • Hannity texted with White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany after the insurrection, providing what McEnany called a “playbook” for how to manage Trump and prevent more “stolen election talk.”
  • In January 10, 2021, texts with Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Hannity said, “We have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days. He can’t mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say, and I don’t like not knowing if it’s truly understood.”

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The dishonest doctors who were Fox News’ most frequent medical guests in 2021

These 10 guests made nearly 700 combined appearances on Fox this year – and often spread medical misinformation on-air

WRITTEN BY REBECCA MARTIN

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALICIA SADOWSKI

PUBLISHED 12/30/21

Politico recently admonished Dr. Anthony Fauci for his choice not to appear on Fox News, saying it deprived Fox viewers of “the Biden administration’s most public-facing figure in the effort to contain Covid-19.” But an appearance by one credible public health communicator wouldn’t be able to correct the imbalance of the network’s concerted effort to serially misinform its viewers about the pandemic.

Fox has repeatedly villainized Fauci, instead hosting a parade of dubious medical guests to justify the network’s skewed political narrative by spreading false or misleading statements to viewers. And because many in Fox’s guest lineup hold an advanced degree in public health or medicine, their willingness to lend credibility to the spread of misinformation is even more dangerous.

With the help of its rotating roster of supposed medical experts, Fox News turned vaccine passports and mandates into culture war battles because it’s “great for ratings.” According to a Media Matters study, Fox News undermined vaccines nearly every day over a six-month period. (Ironically, Fox’s own vaccine and testing policies are more stringent than those put forward by the Biden administration.)

Guests and hosts on Fox also spread many questionable “miracle cures” for COVID-19, including bear bile, vaping, and sunlight. Notably, Fox helped fan the flames of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin misinformation, leading to shortages of these medications which are crucial for treating other ailments.

These kinds of public health misinformation are deadly, especially when it comes from people who should know better. The frequent bad actors listed below each have a history of spreading misleading and false medical advice on Fox News, which gives these medical misinformers a huge platform to spread that bad advice to its viewers.

Here are the top 10 most frequent medical guests on Fox News in 2021:

• ## 1. Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel (193 appearances)

CitationMolly Butler / Media Matters

• Siegel holds a medical degree and teaches clinical medicine at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, where he is also a practicing internist. Siegel has an extensive record of downplaying epidemics and pandemics like swine flu, SARS, avian influenza, and COVID-19. His 2005 book False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear blamed government, media, and pharmaceutical companies for “artificially” producing a panic from threats of disease. A Harvard study on misinformation found that Siegel contributed to false theories about COVID-19 early on the pandemic because he compared the virus to influenza. In 2020, Siegel declared the “worst case scenario” for COVID-19 was that “it could be the flu” and claimed that “it’s almost impossible you are going to die” from the disease if you’re “under 70.”

In 2021, Siegel routinely contributed to persistent anti-science propaganda on Fox:

• • In September on America Reports, Siegel fearmongered that migrants and asylum-seekers would be vectors for disease. Siegel said, “they are going to leak into the neighboring communities,” and that Haitians are “clearly spreading COVID.” (Blaming migrants for disease spread is a longtime racist myth.)
  • On Fox & Friends in October, he worried that vaccine effectiveness is waning and blamed the public health policies for “causing great depression and anxiety” rather than the pandemic itself.

• • In November on America's Newsroom, Siegel criticized public health policies, like COVID-19 vaccinations for children ages 5-11, that “are not factoring in natural immunity at all.” “Two million kids in that age group have already had COVID, and I want that factored in,” Siegel declared. “I want them to say maybe wait a while, or maybe you get one mRNA shot that cements immunity at the lower dose.”

• • In November on Fox & Friends, Siegel declared “I don’t believe in mandates, period” because they are “counterproductive” and will “lead to a divisive political battle.”

• ## 2. Fox News contributor Dr. Martin “Marty” Makary (142 appearances)

*

CitationFrom the November 8, 2021, edition of Fox News' Primetime

• Makary holds a masters degree in public health and specializes in abdominal laparoscopic surgery. He is a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University. Makary has been described as “a darling of the anti-vaxxers” for contradicting current vaccine consensus among medical professionals. Makary has also written that there is “no compelling case” for vaccinating “healthy” children and claimed that he is “not aware of a single healthy child in the U.S. who has died of COVID-19 to date” – discounting all cases that involved disabled children with underlying health conditions.

Despite Makary making numerous false predictions (saying, for example, that the United States would reach herd immunity by April) and being called out by other public experts for downplaying the risk of infectious disease, Fox regularly invited him back on-air in 2021 to undermine public healthefforts:

• • In March on The Story with Martha MacCallum, Makary predicted there was low risk of new variants causing COVID-19 surges, and on Your World with Neil Cavuto, he accused public health experts of “cry[ing] wolf” over the threat of new variants.
  • In June on America Reports, Makary went so far as to complain that discussion of new variants is “fearmongering” to “manipulate people to get vaccinated,” saying, “I’m for vaccines, but this has turned into a tool to try to coax people into it.”
  • In June on Special Report, Makary claimed it's time to “move on and live a normal life” comparing COVID-19 cases to influenza: “right now we’re about at 150th the daily cases of a regular seasonal flu in the middle of that flu season. So people have a distorted perception of risk.” According to Makary’s own employer, Johns Hopkins, COVID-19 has a mortality rate 10 times higher that of the flu.
  • On Your World with Neil Cavuto in November, Makary undermined efforts to vaccinate children, saying kids with natural immunity should not be vaccinated. He went on to fearmonger about potential side effects of vaccinations.

• • On Fox News Primetime in November, Makary claimed to be pro-vaccine but said he stands against “obsolete” vaccine mandates, especially for children. Makary falsely asserted that “public health officials have brushed under the rug the fact that kids have died from the vaccine, it's rare” citing myocarditis occurrences in young boys. (However the real risk of myocarditis is from COVID-19, not vaccines, and most people who develop myocarditis recover quickly.)

• ## 3. Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier (113 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

• Saphier holds a medical degree and practices radiology, a medical discipline that uses imaging like X-rays to diagnose and treat diseases. She has also long advocated against government intervention in public health. Saphier’s foundational views of medicine and health, outlined in her many books, blame individual people for “bad behaviors” and big government for causing health crises. She has also argued against vaccinating “young” or “healthy” people, including children, based on incredibly rare vaccine side effects. Saphier is still comparing COVID-19 to the seasonal flu and recently came out in support of allowing new variants to “circulate.” (This pro-infection strategy runs counter to the consensus of infectious disease experts).

Saphier has routinely undermined public health measures and downplayed the pandemic on Fox in 2021:

• • In July on America Reports, Saphier minimized children’s risk from COVID-19, stating: “We have ample data that shows us that children really are at a very, very low risk of a severe outcome from COVID-19” and insisted that children should not be masked in schools.
  • In July on Hannity, Saphier discussed dangerous side effects of vaccines but omitted informing viewers of the low chances of these side effects.
  • In July on America Reports, Saphier advocated against mask and vaccine mandates, claiming these policies cause hesitancy: “We have to stop with the fearmongering, and if you keep telling people to wear masks after they are vaccinated and while transmission is low, people are not going to go and get vaccinated.”
  • In November on America’s Newsroom, Saphier declared vaccine mandates for children were unnecessary and that “parents should be rest assured that their children are going to be safe either way, whether to vaccinate or not.”

• ## 4. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) (51 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021 edition of Fox News' Primetime

• In addition to his career as a politician, Paul holds a medical degree and specializes in ophthalmology, a branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders in the eye. Paul has been accused by other physicians of spreading false and misleading medical information, and his YouTube account was temporarily suspended after some of his comments about masks infringed on the platform’s policy prohibiting medical misinformation. Paul was the first senator to test positive for COVID-19 in March 2020 and he has claimed that his natural immunity to COVID-19 is better than vaccinated immunity, which is counter to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Paul is also still promoting the antiparasitic drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19, despite insufficient evidence for its effectiveness.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss the pandemic in 2021, Paul has habitually echoed right-wing media narratives and spread misinformation:

• • On Your World with Neil Cavuto in April, Paul claimed that talking about COVID-19 variants is “fearmongering.”
  • In July on The Ingraham Angle, Fox host Laura Ingraham interviewed Paul to dismiss fears of the delta variant, asking, “Is it really a disease if you don’t get any symptoms?” Paul went on to repeat misleading this talking point, asking, “What kind of disease is it that has no symptoms?”
  • In August on Fox & Friends, Paul likened potential vaccine passports for air travel to terrorist no-fly lists calling the suggestion “authoritarian” because vaccinations are “personal medical decisions.”
  • In November, Paul declared masks and mask mandates to be useless, and went on to assert that COVID-19 vaccines are “not working very well” on Fox & Friends.

• ## 5. Dr. Brett Giroir (45 appearances)

*

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' Special Report

• Giroir is a former four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who holds a medical degree and specializes in pediatrics. Giroir also served as assistant secretary for health in the Trump administration and was on the White House coronavirus task force. Giroir defended the Trump administration response to the early pandemic, though he qualified that they “could have done better.” Giroir also defended the slow rollout of testing early in the pandemic, as he was testing czar.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss the pandemic in 2021, Giroir has often spread misinformation:

• • Also in May on America’s Newsroom, he claimed business’ vaccine passports “makes no public health sense” and predicted influenza deaths will outpace COVID-19 deaths by the end of the year, musing that people may “have to show an influenza passport[.]… This is a very slippery slope.”
  • In June on America’s Newsroom, Giroir said Fauci’s statements about the virus’ origins were “obvious[ly] to be antagonistic” to then-President Donald Trump, because Trump had amplified the lab leak theory. Giroir has also promoted the lab leak theory.
  • In August on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Giroir stated he does not support state or school mask mandates and prioritized the economy over public health measures.
  • In September on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Girior called vaccine mandates “the result of a failure of leadership,” continuing that “the federal government has decided to coerce” people into getting vaccinated, despite the fact that mandates have a long legal precedent.
  • Girior has spoken in supportof COVID-19 booster shots, but claimed in October on Fox News Primetime that natural immunity “should be taken as equivalent to a vaccine” while talking to notorious anti-vax Fox host Will Cain.
  • In November 2021 on Special Report, Giroir attacked Fauci, claiming “He’s become much more political.”

• ## 6. Fox News contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat (37 appearances)

*

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

• Nesheiwat holds a medical degree and specializes in family and emergency medicine. In the early days of the pandemic, Nesheiwat repeatedly promoted supplemental zinc as a treatment for COVID-19 or to be taken to prevent the disease. The National Institute of Health found there is insufficient evidence “to recommend either for or against the use of zinc for the treatment of COVID-19.”

In her appearances on Fox to discuss COVID-19 in 2021, Nesheiwat attempted to justify criticism of public health measures and made misleading statements:

• • In June on The Story with Martha MacCallum, Nesheiwat cautioned “the young male population” against being vaccinated due to potentially rare myocarditis side effects.
  • In July on Fox & Friends, Nesheiwat said that CDC guidance calling for vaccinated people to wear masks indoors under some circumstances is “confusing and frustrating” and complained about school mask mandates: “I don’t like the fact that we’re putting the burden on our children. We don’t have data and evidence that tells us there is an overall net benefit to putting a mask on a young child.”
  • In July on Fox & Friends, she dismissed the serious risks for children contracting COVID-19 as “extremely low” and emphasized that vaccinations should be a “personal choice.”
  • In September on America Reports, Nesheiwat has cautioned against booster shots for children due to possible side effects of myocarditis, but did not mention that myocarditis is also a negative outcome from COVID-19 infection itself.

• ## 7. Dr. Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya (33 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

• Bhattacharya holds a medical degree and is a professor of health policy at Stanford University specializing in health economics. He is also associated with the Hoover Institution, a right-wing think tank at Stanford. Bhattacharya received widespread backlash in 2020 for supporting the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, which called for building up herd immunity through “natural infection” -- a strategy that would have risked millions of lives. Bhattacharya has also promoted ivermectin to treat COVID-19 despite FDA warnings. He also informally advised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about lockdowns and school reopenings. In April, YouTube removed a video of a roundtable discussion hosted by DeSantis for violating its policy prohibiting medical misinformation, due in part to Bhattacharya’s claim that it is “developmentally inappropriate” for children to wear masks.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss the pandemic in 2021, Bhattacharya has habitually spread misinformation:

• • In April on The Ingraham Angle, Bhattacharya called Fauci “the No. 1 anti-vaxxer in the country” for endorsing continued masking in addition to vaccines for COVID-19.
  • In July on The Ingraham Angle, Bhattacharya undermined vaccine efficacy and promoted natural immunity instead, claiming the mandate “is bad for public health and it ignores the science” because it “discriminates against all of the working class people who’ve come down with COVID, recover from it, because we deem them essential, didn’t protect them while protecting the laptop class. Now we say, OK, that natural immunity doesn’t count for anything.”
  • In August on The Ingraham Angle, he declared that “vaccine passports make absolutely no sense.”
  • In August on The Ingraham Angle, after the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine, Bhattacharya was asked by host Laura Ingraham, “Did they not push this FDA approval too fast, especially when you compare it to the normal approval process?” Bhattacharya responded: “They did. Normally it would take years to get a vaccine tested and approved through the FDA approval process.” He later added that “the FDA approval does not change the fact that we don't have long-term safety data with the vaccine.”
  • In September on The Ingraham Angle, Bhattacharya claimed that vaccine mandates are “actually very, very harmful to public health,” but went on to admit “there may be vaccines where it makes some sense,” insisting, “in the context of COVID, this is going to create some enormous vaccine hesitancy.”

• ## 8. Dr. Harvey Risch (32 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 24, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

• Risch is a professor of epidemiology at Yale University who holds a medical degree and specializes in cancer and chronic disease. Risch’s place of employment, the Yale School of Medicine, wrote a statement pushing back on his misleading claims about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19, and 24 other Yale faculty spoke out against Risch’s serial misinformation: “He is not an expert in infectious disease epidemiology and he has not been swayed by the body of scientific evidence from rigorously conducted clinical trials, which refute the plausibility of his belief and arguments.” Risch has also undermined the COVID-19 vaccine and railed against vaccine mandates.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss COVID-19 in 2021, Risch has often spread misinformation:

• • In February on The Ingraham Angle, Risch speculated that COVID-19 vaccines were a conspiracy by Big Pharma, claiming that “to call them a lifesaving measure is totally beyond the pale of anything that is scientific and knowable. I think they’re selling vaccines basically.”
  • In August on The Ingraham Angle, he declared vaccine passports are “a useless idea” because vaccinated people can still be infected and transmit COVID-19.
  • In September on Fox News Primetime, Risch claimed “natural immunity” rather than vaccination is “the only way we will get out of this whole COVID pandemic” and claimed that “the vaccinated people create the variants.” Advocating for uncontrolled infection of a deadly virus is against every public health and epidemiology teaching, and The Lancet medical journal calls this approach “a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.”
  • In October on Life, Liberty & Levin, Risch undermined the effort to vaccinate children stating “your child’s life is on the line” and he would rather homeschool his child than comply with school vaccine mandates because vaccines are “a risk.”
  • In October on The Ingraham Angle, Risch fearmongered about the COVID-19 vaccine’s adverse effects and misled viewers that vaccines caused “12,000 deaths,” citing the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database. (The VAERS database’s self-reported entries are not confirmed to be linked to vaccination, and the CDC lists this disclaimer: “The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.”)
  • In November on The Ingraham Angle, Risch claimed “there isn’t any justification” for children being vaccinated against COVID-19 and warned that “there will be way more deaths caused by the vaccines than the number of deaths in healthy kids that are occurring.”

• ## 9. Dr. Scott Atlas (30 appearances)

• Atlas holds a medical degree and specializes in neuroradiology, a specialty which focuses on diagnosing abnormalities of the brain, spine, head and neck. Like Bhattacharya, Atlas is affiliated with the Hoover Institution. After spreading medical misinformation on Fox News at the onset of the pandemic, Atlas was tapped to join the Trump administration as a senior adviser on the White House coronavirus task force, which exemplifies the feedback loop between Fox propaganda and federal policy. Other members of the task force have accused Atlas of downplaying the pandemic, while Stanford faculty voted to condemn Atlas’s misinformation. He has repeatedly pushed a controversial strategy of returning to life as normal with little to no mitigation policies.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss COVID-19 during 2021, Atlas consistently spread misinformation:

• • In May on The Ingraham Angle, Atlas undermined faith in elected public health experts: “The American people have been harmed tremendously by the policies and now what we are seeing is people don’t know who to turn to, because the trust in experts is essentially gone. And honestly rightfully so. It’s a disgrace.”
  • In June on The Ingraham Angle, Atlas declared it’s “irrational” to “go for a zero-COVID world or a zero-risk world.”
  • In September on The Ingraham Angle, he asserted masks were “worthless” and have “very minimal impact” in decreasing symptomatic cases according to the study discussed.
  • In September on The Ingraham Angle, Atlas fearmongered about vaccinating children against COVID-19: “It’s almost surreal to think that we have devolved into a society where we’re injecting experimental drugs into young children.”
  • In November on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Atlas attacked public health officials for focusing on “stopping an infection” using mitigation strategies rather than allowing infections to occur and also railed against vaccine mandates. This follows regular pro-infection praise from Atlas, which infectious disease experts have called “pseudoscience.”

• ## 10. Dr. Peter McCullough (23 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 30, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

• McCullough holds a medical degree and specializes in cardiology. He also holds a masters degree in public health. McCullough has been discredited by most in the scientific and media communities for claims that the COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe and for his continual praise for debunked treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. He has shared that he maylose his medical certification from the American Board of Internal Medicine based on his continual misinformation. His former place of employment, Baylor health, filed a lawsuit against him, citing “irreparable reputational and business harm” for claiming to be affiliated with the institution.

In his appearances on Fox in 2021 to discuss COVID-19, McCullough has repeatedly spread misinformation that undermines the public vaccination effort:

• • In July on The Ingraham Angle, McCullough stated “no one under age of 30” should be vaccinated against COVID-19.
  • In July on The Ingraham Angle, McCullough said “we can’t vaccinate our way out of this” and promoted pseudo-cures like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
  • In October on The Ingraham Angle, McCullough promoted a conspiracy theory paper that claimed vaccines are more deadly than COVID-19 for children, which is counter to all known evidence.
  • In October on The Ingraham Angle, he railed against vaccine mandates, stating that COVID-19 vaccines “are certainly not good enough to be mandated in any way, shape, or form” and fearmongering about potential vaccine side effects like myocarditis.
  • In October on The Ingraham Angle, he stated that “natural immunity is really the backstop of us getting out of the pandemic” while undermining vaccinations as causing “excess harm.”

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SEE FOX BIZ

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big on trump abortion triangulation leave to states

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The dishonest doctors who were Fox News’ most frequent medical guests in 2021

These 10 guests made nearly 700 combined appearances on Fox this year – and often spread medical misinformation on-air

WRITTEN BY REBECCA MARTIN

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALICIA SADOWSKI

PUBLISHED 12/30/21

Politico recently admonished Dr. Anthony Fauci for his choice not to appear on Fox News, saying it deprived Fox viewers of “the Biden administration’s most public-facing figure in the effort to contain Covid-19.” But an appearance by one credible public health communicator wouldn’t be able to correct the imbalance of the network’s concerted effort to serially misinform its viewers about the pandemic.

Fox has repeatedly villainized Fauci, instead hosting a parade of dubious medical guests to justify the network’s skewed political narrative by spreading false or misleading statements to viewers. And because many in Fox’s guest lineup hold an advanced degree in public health or medicine, their willingness to lend credibility to the spread of misinformation is even more dangerous.

With the help of its rotating roster of supposed medical experts, Fox News turned vaccine passports and mandates into culture war battles because it’s “great for ratings.” According to a Media Matters study, Fox News undermined vaccines nearly every day over a six-month period. (Ironically, Fox’s own vaccine and testing policies are more stringent than those put forward by the Biden administration.)

Guests and hosts on Fox also spread many questionable “miracle cures” for COVID-19, including bear bile, vaping, and sunlight. Notably, Fox helped fan the flames of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin misinformation, leading to shortages of these medications which are crucial for treating other ailments.

These kinds of public health misinformation are deadly, especially when it comes from people who should know better. The frequent bad actors listed below each have a history of spreading misleading and false medical advice on Fox News, which gives these medical misinformers a huge platform to spread that bad advice to its viewers.

Here are the top 10 most frequent medical guests on Fox News in 2021:

• ## 1. Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel (193 appearances)

CitationMolly Butler / Media Matters

• Siegel holds a medical degree and teaches clinical medicine at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, where he is also a practicing internist. Siegel has an extensive record of downplaying epidemics and pandemics like swine flu, SARS, avian influenza, and COVID-19. His 2005 book False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear blamed government, media, and pharmaceutical companies for “artificially” producing a panic from threats of disease. A Harvard study on misinformation found that Siegel contributed to false theories about COVID-19 early on the pandemic because he compared the virus to influenza. In 2020, Siegel declared the “worst case scenario” for COVID-19 was that “it could be the flu” and claimed that “it’s almost impossible you are going to die” from the disease if you’re “under 70.”

In 2021, Siegel routinely contributed to persistent anti-science propaganda on Fox:

• • In September on America Reports, Siegel fearmongered that migrants and asylum-seekers would be vectors for disease. Siegel said, “they are going to leak into the neighboring communities,” and that Haitians are “clearly spreading COVID.” (Blaming migrants for disease spread is a longtime racist myth.)
  • On Fox & Friends in October, he worried that vaccine effectiveness is waning and blamed the public health policies for “causing great depression and anxiety” rather than the pandemic itself.

• • In November on America's Newsroom, Siegel criticized public health policies, like COVID-19 vaccinations for children ages 5-11, that “are not factoring in natural immunity at all.” “Two million kids in that age group have already had COVID, and I want that factored in,” Siegel declared. “I want them to say maybe wait a while, or maybe you get one mRNA shot that cements immunity at the lower dose.”

• • In November on Fox & Friends, Siegel declared “I don’t believe in mandates, period” because they are “counterproductive” and will “lead to a divisive political battle.”

• ## 2. Fox News contributor Dr. Martin “Marty” Makary (142 appearances)

*

CitationFrom the November 8, 2021, edition of Fox News' Primetime

• Makary holds a masters degree in public health and specializes in abdominal laparoscopic surgery. He is a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University. Makary has been described as “a darling of the anti-vaxxers” for contradicting current vaccine consensus among medical professionals. Makary has also written that there is “no compelling case” for vaccinating “healthy” children and claimed that he is “not aware of a single healthy child in the U.S. who has died of COVID-19 to date” – discounting all cases that involved disabled children with underlying health conditions.

Despite Makary making numerous false predictions (saying, for example, that the United States would reach herd immunity by April) and being called out by other public experts for downplaying the risk of infectious disease, Fox regularly invited him back on-air in 2021 to undermine public healthefforts:

• • In March on The Story with Martha MacCallum, Makary predicted there was low risk of new variants causing COVID-19 surges, and on Your World with Neil Cavuto, he accused public health experts of “cry[ing] wolf” over the threat of new variants.
  • In June on America Reports, Makary went so far as to complain that discussion of new variants is “fearmongering” to “manipulate people to get vaccinated,” saying, “I’m for vaccines, but this has turned into a tool to try to coax people into it.”
  • In June on Special Report, Makary claimed it's time to “move on and live a normal life” comparing COVID-19 cases to influenza: “right now we’re about at 150th the daily cases of a regular seasonal flu in the middle of that flu season. So people have a distorted perception of risk.” According to Makary’s own employer, Johns Hopkins, COVID-19 has a mortality rate 10 times higher that of the flu.
  • On Your World with Neil Cavuto in November, Makary undermined efforts to vaccinate children, saying kids with natural immunity should not be vaccinated. He went on to fearmonger about potential side effects of vaccinations.

• • On Fox News Primetime in November, Makary claimed to be pro-vaccine but said he stands against “obsolete” vaccine mandates, especially for children. Makary falsely asserted that “public health officials have brushed under the rug the fact that kids have died from the vaccine, it's rare” citing myocarditis occurrences in young boys. (However the real risk of myocarditis is from COVID-19, not vaccines, and most people who develop myocarditis recover quickly.)

• ## 3. Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier (113 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

• Saphier holds a medical degree and practices radiology, a medical discipline that uses imaging like X-rays to diagnose and treat diseases. She has also long advocated against government intervention in public health. Saphier’s foundational views of medicine and health, outlined in her many books, blame individual people for “bad behaviors” and big government for causing health crises. She has also argued against vaccinating “young” or “healthy” people, including children, based on incredibly rare vaccine side effects. Saphier is still comparing COVID-19 to the seasonal flu and recently came out in support of allowing new variants to “circulate.” (This pro-infection strategy runs counter to the consensus of infectious disease experts).

Saphier has routinely undermined public health measures and downplayed the pandemic on Fox in 2021:

• • In July on America Reports, Saphier minimized children’s risk from COVID-19, stating: “We have ample data that shows us that children really are at a very, very low risk of a severe outcome from COVID-19” and insisted that children should not be masked in schools.
  • In July on Hannity, Saphier discussed dangerous side effects of vaccines but omitted informing viewers of the low chances of these side effects.
  • In July on America Reports, Saphier advocated against mask and vaccine mandates, claiming these policies cause hesitancy: “We have to stop with the fearmongering, and if you keep telling people to wear masks after they are vaccinated and while transmission is low, people are not going to go and get vaccinated.”
  • In November on America’s Newsroom, Saphier declared vaccine mandates for children were unnecessary and that “parents should be rest assured that their children are going to be safe either way, whether to vaccinate or not.”

• ## 4. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) (51 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021 edition of Fox News' Primetime

• In addition to his career as a politician, Paul holds a medical degree and specializes in ophthalmology, a branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders in the eye. Paul has been accused by other physicians of spreading false and misleading medical information, and his YouTube account was temporarily suspended after some of his comments about masks infringed on the platform’s policy prohibiting medical misinformation. Paul was the first senator to test positive for COVID-19 in March 2020 and he has claimed that his natural immunity to COVID-19 is better than vaccinated immunity, which is counter to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Paul is also still promoting the antiparasitic drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19, despite insufficient evidence for its effectiveness.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss the pandemic in 2021, Paul has habitually echoed right-wing media narratives and spread misinformation:

• • On Your World with Neil Cavuto in April, Paul claimed that talking about COVID-19 variants is “fearmongering.”
  • In July on The Ingraham Angle, Fox host Laura Ingraham interviewed Paul to dismiss fears of the delta variant, asking, “Is it really a disease if you don’t get any symptoms?” Paul went on to repeat misleading this talking point, asking, “What kind of disease is it that has no symptoms?”
  • In August on Fox & Friends, Paul likened potential vaccine passports for air travel to terrorist no-fly lists calling the suggestion “authoritarian” because vaccinations are “personal medical decisions.”
  • In November, Paul declared masks and mask mandates to be useless, and went on to assert that COVID-19 vaccines are “not working very well” on Fox & Friends.

• ## 5. Dr. Brett Giroir (45 appearances)

*

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' Special Report

• Giroir is a former four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who holds a medical degree and specializes in pediatrics. Giroir also served as assistant secretary for health in the Trump administration and was on the White House coronavirus task force. Giroir defended the Trump administration response to the early pandemic, though he qualified that they “could have done better.” Giroir also defended the slow rollout of testing early in the pandemic, as he was testing czar.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss the pandemic in 2021, Giroir has often spread misinformation:

• • Also in May on America’s Newsroom, he claimed business’ vaccine passports “makes no public health sense” and predicted influenza deaths will outpace COVID-19 deaths by the end of the year, musing that people may “have to show an influenza passport[.]… This is a very slippery slope.”
  • In June on America’s Newsroom, Giroir said Fauci’s statements about the virus’ origins were “obvious[ly] to be antagonistic” to then-President Donald Trump, because Trump had amplified the lab leak theory. Giroir has also promoted the lab leak theory.
  • In August on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Giroir stated he does not support state or school mask mandates and prioritized the economy over public health measures.
  • In September on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Girior called vaccine mandates “the result of a failure of leadership,” continuing that “the federal government has decided to coerce” people into getting vaccinated, despite the fact that mandates have a long legal precedent.
  • Girior has spoken in supportof COVID-19 booster shots, but claimed in October on Fox News Primetime that natural immunity “should be taken as equivalent to a vaccine” while talking to notorious anti-vax Fox host Will Cain.
  • In November 2021 on Special Report, Giroir attacked Fauci, claiming “He’s become much more political.”

• ## 6. Fox News contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat (37 appearances)

*

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

• Nesheiwat holds a medical degree and specializes in family and emergency medicine. In the early days of the pandemic, Nesheiwat repeatedly promoted supplemental zinc as a treatment for COVID-19 or to be taken to prevent the disease. The National Institute of Health found there is insufficient evidence “to recommend either for or against the use of zinc for the treatment of COVID-19.”

In her appearances on Fox to discuss COVID-19 in 2021, Nesheiwat attempted to justify criticism of public health measures and made misleading statements:

• • In June on The Story with Martha MacCallum, Nesheiwat cautioned “the young male population” against being vaccinated due to potentially rare myocarditis side effects.
  • In July on Fox & Friends, Nesheiwat said that CDC guidance calling for vaccinated people to wear masks indoors under some circumstances is “confusing and frustrating” and complained about school mask mandates: “I don’t like the fact that we’re putting the burden on our children. We don’t have data and evidence that tells us there is an overall net benefit to putting a mask on a young child.”
  • In July on Fox & Friends, she dismissed the serious risks for children contracting COVID-19 as “extremely low” and emphasized that vaccinations should be a “personal choice.”
  • In September on America Reports, Nesheiwat has cautioned against booster shots for children due to possible side effects of myocarditis, but did not mention that myocarditis is also a negative outcome from COVID-19 infection itself.

• ## 7. Dr. Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya (33 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

• Bhattacharya holds a medical degree and is a professor of health policy at Stanford University specializing in health economics. He is also associated with the Hoover Institution, a right-wing think tank at Stanford. Bhattacharya received widespread backlash in 2020 for supporting the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, which called for building up herd immunity through “natural infection” -- a strategy that would have risked millions of lives. Bhattacharya has also promoted ivermectin to treat COVID-19 despite FDA warnings. He also informally advised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about lockdowns and school reopenings. In April, YouTube removed a video of a roundtable discussion hosted by DeSantis for violating its policy prohibiting medical misinformation, due in part to Bhattacharya’s claim that it is “developmentally inappropriate” for children to wear masks.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss the pandemic in 2021, Bhattacharya has habitually spread misinformation:

• • In April on The Ingraham Angle, Bhattacharya called Fauci “the No. 1 anti-vaxxer in the country” for endorsing continued masking in addition to vaccines for COVID-19.
  • In July on The Ingraham Angle, Bhattacharya undermined vaccine efficacy and promoted natural immunity instead, claiming the mandate “is bad for public health and it ignores the science” because it “discriminates against all of the working class people who’ve come down with COVID, recover from it, because we deem them essential, didn’t protect them while protecting the laptop class. Now we say, OK, that natural immunity doesn’t count for anything.”
  • In August on The Ingraham Angle, he declared that “vaccine passports make absolutely no sense.”
  • In August on The Ingraham Angle, after the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine, Bhattacharya was asked by host Laura Ingraham, “Did they not push this FDA approval too fast, especially when you compare it to the normal approval process?” Bhattacharya responded: “They did. Normally it would take years to get a vaccine tested and approved through the FDA approval process.” He later added that “the FDA approval does not change the fact that we don't have long-term safety data with the vaccine.”
  • In September on The Ingraham Angle, Bhattacharya claimed that vaccine mandates are “actually very, very harmful to public health,” but went on to admit “there may be vaccines where it makes some sense,” insisting, “in the context of COVID, this is going to create some enormous vaccine hesitancy.”

• ## 8. Dr. Harvey Risch (32 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 24, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

• Risch is a professor of epidemiology at Yale University who holds a medical degree and specializes in cancer and chronic disease. Risch’s place of employment, the Yale School of Medicine, wrote a statement pushing back on his misleading claims about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19, and 24 other Yale faculty spoke out against Risch’s serial misinformation: “He is not an expert in infectious disease epidemiology and he has not been swayed by the body of scientific evidence from rigorously conducted clinical trials, which refute the plausibility of his belief and arguments.” Risch has also undermined the COVID-19 vaccine and railed against vaccine mandates.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss COVID-19 in 2021, Risch has often spread misinformation:

• • In February on The Ingraham Angle, Risch speculated that COVID-19 vaccines were a conspiracy by Big Pharma, claiming that “to call them a lifesaving measure is totally beyond the pale of anything that is scientific and knowable. I think they’re selling vaccines basically.”
  • In August on The Ingraham Angle, he declared vaccine passports are “a useless idea” because vaccinated people can still be infected and transmit COVID-19.
  • In September on Fox News Primetime, Risch claimed “natural immunity” rather than vaccination is “the only way we will get out of this whole COVID pandemic” and claimed that “the vaccinated people create the variants.” Advocating for uncontrolled infection of a deadly virus is against every public health and epidemiology teaching, and The Lancet medical journal calls this approach “a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.”
  • In October on Life, Liberty & Levin, Risch undermined the effort to vaccinate children stating “your child’s life is on the line” and he would rather homeschool his child than comply with school vaccine mandates because vaccines are “a risk.”
  • In October on The Ingraham Angle, Risch fearmongered about the COVID-19 vaccine’s adverse effects and misled viewers that vaccines caused “12,000 deaths,” citing the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database. (The VAERS database’s self-reported entries are not confirmed to be linked to vaccination, and the CDC lists this disclaimer: “The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.”)
  • In November on The Ingraham Angle, Risch claimed “there isn’t any justification” for children being vaccinated against COVID-19 and warned that “there will be way more deaths caused by the vaccines than the number of deaths in healthy kids that are occurring.”

• ## 9. Dr. Scott Atlas (30 appearances)

• Atlas holds a medical degree and specializes in neuroradiology, a specialty which focuses on diagnosing abnormalities of the brain, spine, head and neck. Like Bhattacharya, Atlas is affiliated with the Hoover Institution. After spreading medical misinformation on Fox News at the onset of the pandemic, Atlas was tapped to join the Trump administration as a senior adviser on the White House coronavirus task force, which exemplifies the feedback loop between Fox propaganda and federal policy. Other members of the task force have accused Atlas of downplaying the pandemic, while Stanford faculty voted to condemn Atlas’s misinformation. He has repeatedly pushed a controversial strategy of returning to life as normal with little to no mitigation policies.

In his appearances on Fox to discuss COVID-19 during 2021, Atlas consistently spread misinformation:

• • In May on The Ingraham Angle, Atlas undermined faith in elected public health experts: “The American people have been harmed tremendously by the policies and now what we are seeing is people don’t know who to turn to, because the trust in experts is essentially gone. And honestly rightfully so. It’s a disgrace.”
  • In June on The Ingraham Angle, Atlas declared it’s “irrational” to “go for a zero-COVID world or a zero-risk world.”
  • In September on The Ingraham Angle, he asserted masks were “worthless” and have “very minimal impact” in decreasing symptomatic cases according to the study discussed.
  • In September on The Ingraham Angle, Atlas fearmongered about vaccinating children against COVID-19: “It’s almost surreal to think that we have devolved into a society where we’re injecting experimental drugs into young children.”
  • In November on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Atlas attacked public health officials for focusing on “stopping an infection” using mitigation strategies rather than allowing infections to occur and also railed against vaccine mandates. This follows regular pro-infection praise from Atlas, which infectious disease experts have called “pseudoscience.”

• ## 10. Dr. Peter McCullough (23 appearances)

CitationFrom the November 30, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

• McCullough holds a medical degree and specializes in cardiology. He also holds a masters degree in public health. McCullough has been discredited by most in the scientific and media communities for claims that the COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe and for his continual praise for debunked treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. He has shared that he maylose his medical certification from the American Board of Internal Medicine based on his continual misinformation. His former place of employment, Baylor health, filed a lawsuit against him, citing “irreparable reputational and business harm” for claiming to be affiliated with the institution.

In his appearances on Fox in 2021 to discuss COVID-19, McCullough has repeatedly spread misinformation that undermines the public vaccination effort:

• • In July on The Ingraham Angle, McCullough stated “no one under age of 30” should be vaccinated against COVID-19.
  • In July on The Ingraham Angle, McCullough said “we can’t vaccinate our way out of this” and promoted pseudo-cures like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
  • In October on The Ingraham Angle, McCullough promoted a conspiracy theory paper that claimed vaccines are more deadly than COVID-19 for children, which is counter to all known evidence.
  • In October on The Ingraham Angle, he railed against vaccine mandates, stating that COVID-19 vaccines “are certainly not good enough to be mandated in any way, shape, or form” and fearmongering about potential vaccine side effects like myocarditis.
  • In October on The Ingraham Angle, he stated that “natural immunity is really the backstop of us getting out of the pandemic” while undermining vaccinations as causing “excess harm.”

• :{## Methodology....

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mma

Fox News misinterprets results of study to blame millions of “excess deaths” on the COVID-19 vaccine

WRITTEN BY HELENA HIND

:{PUBLISHED 06/13/24

A segment from one of Fox News’ daytime “straight news” programs cited a study to claim that the COVID-19 vaccine caused millions of “excess deaths” in the U.S. The journal that published the study had clarified nearly a week earlier that this interpretation was false.

The study, published June 3, 2024, in the British Medical Journal, found that excess mortality rates in Western nations were high from 2020 to 2022 “despite the implementation of containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines.” The researchers also encouraged governments to examine the underlying causes of excess mortality to inform public health policy.

During the June 12 edition of America Reports, Fox anchor John Roberts characterized the findings differently: “A new study suggests COVID vaccines could be at least partially to blame for more than three million excess deaths in the United States and other countries from 2020 to 2022.”

:{Video

CitationFrom the June 12, 2024, edition of Fox News' America Reports

In the report, chief Washington correspondent Mike Emanuel used the study to bolster a series of soundbites from Fox News’ cadre of misinformation-pushing doctors who blamed the excess deaths on the vaccines and lockdowns. “Yet,” Emanuel noted, “the overwhelming message from public health officials was ‘you must get the shot.’"

Last week, multiple other right-wing media outlets (and at least one conservative British outlet) repeated the false narrative blaming the vaccine for excess deaths, prompting the British Medical Journal to issue a statement correcting the misinterpretation of the study’s findings.

Full statement:

Various news outlets have claimed that this research implies a direct causal link between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality. This study does not establish any such link. The researchers looked only at trends in excess mortality over time, not its causes. While the researchers recognise that side effects are reported after vaccination, the research does not support the claim that vaccines are a major contributory factor to excess deaths since the start of the pandemic. Vaccines have, in fact, been instrumental in reducing the severe illness and death associated with COVID-19 infection.

The message of the research is that understanding overall excess mortality since the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial for future health policy, but that identifying specific causes is complex due to varying national data quality and reporting methods.

“Various news outlets have claimed that this research implies a direct causal link between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality. This study does not establish any such link.” The statement continued, “Vaccines have, in fact, been instrumental in reducing the severe illness and death associated with COVID-19 infection.”

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mma 6 24

Hannity suggests Hunter Biden is connected to Chinese spy balloon

06/12/24

hannity: NEWT GINGRICH (GUEST): Kamala's hopeless because she's Kamala. I mean, anybody who watches her knows that the idea of her being president makes Biden look good, which is really hard nowadays.

So, you have to start with the idea that she's imprinted on the country permanently that she is a really shallow, uneducated and uneducable person, and that other than her weird laugh, there's no really significant part to her Now, I do think her efforts in the last month or two on abortion, running around the country on women's rights, she's actually stabilized and sounded semi-serious, but I think basically she's a huge drag on the ticket.

---

Fox News buried Paul Ryan denouncing Donald Trump as “unfit for office”

06/13/24 11:47 AM EDT

2. ### Fox News misinterprets results of study to blame millions of “excess deaths” on the COVID-19 vaccine

06/13/24

3. ### On MSNBC, Alex Wagner explains how Fox News fabricates panic about crime waves

06/12/24

---

see fox = jrnl fail?

dirty trick pseudo-event

6 24

mma

in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, right-wing media are doubling down on deceptive messaging around gas prices to attack President Joe Biden — in part by promoting a campaign launched by Americans for Prosperity, the fossil fuel billionaire Koch brothers' conservative political advocacy group.

• ## Americans for Prosperity has resurrected its nationwide campaign to convince voters that they are “paying more but getting less” because of the Biden administration — specifically when it comes to the gas pump

• • Ahead of Memorial Day, Americans for Prosperity launched its cross-country tour partnering with gas stations to offer lower prices, claiming it was combating “Biden’s war on American energy.” From May 20 to June 3, the group pledged to sell gas for a few hours a day at select stations in 16 states for $2.38 — “near the average price per gallon of gas on the day President Biden assumed office” — while the “national average for a gallon of gas hovering near $3.59 thanks to Bidenomics.” The campaign featured an AFP-branded van with a message painted on the side that said, “Bidenomics costing Americans over $11,400 a year.” Fox Business, [5/20/24; Bidenomics.com, 5/20/24; Americans for Prosperity, 5/20/24]

• • The group also pulled this stunt in 2022 before the midterm elections to highlight “harmful government economic policies.” In 2022, AFP traveled to “more than 60 cities to connect people to the fact that this is Washington’s price hike: You’re paying more but getting less.” The campaign pushed a nearly identical message to the current, ongoing one, in addition to encouraging “solutions that unleash energy abundance, end wasteful spending, and ignite innovation.” Americans for Prosperity, accessed [5/30/24; Fox Business, 4/6/22]

• • In 2022, Time magazine’s Philip Elliott wrote that the AFP campaign signaled a significant strategy shift for Koch organizations from “philosophy texts” to “more direct engagement” to get voters' attention. According to Elliott, going on the road represents “a clear encapsulation of the shifting strategy inside the Koch orbit’s many organizations, led in the political space through Americans For Prosperity. … Now, Koch strategists are starting to pivot to more direct engagement through digital targeting, mail, and some guerilla marketing that even a short time ago would be dismissed as low-brow tactics beneath the dignity of a high-minded network that distributes philosophy texts and disruption manifestos at its conferences.” Time magazine, [8/2/22]

• ## Gas prices have been relatively stable, and are determined by market forces and not presidents

• • Finance columnist Rick Newman wrote, “Market forces that no US president can control explain the recent history of oil and gas prices far more than anything Trump or Biden has done,” adding, “ Anybody who thinks Trump would take some kind of decisive action to lower energy prices if he wins a second presidential term is likely to end up deeply disappointed.” The article continues: “Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ nations have cut production during the last two years to keep prices high. … Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine created other snags in global energy flows, putting upward pressure on prices even now, more than two years later.” Yahoo Finance, [5/2/24]

• • The Energy Information Administration says, “The United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time ... for the past six years in a row,” adding, “The crude oil production record in the United States in 2023 is unlikely to be broken in any other country in the near term.”U.S. Energy Information Administration, [3/11/24]

• • Gas prices have been steadily decreasing compared to 2022 and 2023, and this trend is expected to continue barring extreme weather. As of March, the average gas price was about 12 cents lower than it was in 2023, when “prices were $0.43 less … than in 2022 on average.” According to GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan, prices should continue to fall “towards what most Americans would consider normal prices at the pump.” However, high summer temperatures and an intense Atlantic hurricane season might negatively impact energy markets. Yahoo Finance, [3/16/24; CNN, 12/27/23; U.S. Energy Information Administration, 5/22/24; Bloomberg, 5/30/24]

• ## Fox News and Fox Business propped up the AFP campaign “to highlight ‘Biden’s war on American energy’”

• • Fox Business promoted the PR stunt with the headline: “Conservative group partners with gas stations to highlight ‘Biden’s war on American energy’: Here’s how.” The article quoted Akash Chougule, AFP’s vice president of government affairs, who said, “From shutting down the Keystone Pipeline to banning energy leases on federal land, Joe Biden’s top-down policies have stifled our country’s energy resources and made even the things like a family road trip more expensive. … This week, we are spotlighting what gas prices could be with policies that unleash our country’s energy potential.” FoxBusiness.com, [5/20/24]

• • Fox host Lawrence Jones promoted the campaign on Fox & Friends and interviewed AFP’s vice president of government affairs, Akash Chougule. Showing a map of all the cities where AFP is traveling, Lawrence said, “As Americans struggle with high inflation and gas prices, one conservative group [is] reminding them how much cheaper it was to fill up the car before Biden took office.” Chougule then said that “Americans don't need to be told life is expensive. What we’re doing is explaining to them why it’s expensive, and the reason is Bidenomics — the $6 trillion in additional spending, thousands of pages in regulations that are making their life costlier.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [5/21/24]

• • Fox Business host Cheryl Casone discussed the campaign and quoted AFP: “Biden’s war on American energy has had disastrous results and Americans are reeling from high gas prices going into the summer.”Casone continued, “From shutting down the Keystone pipeline to banning energy leases on federal land, Joe Biden’s top-down policies have stifled our country’s energy resources and made even things like a family road trip more expensive.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends First*, [5/21/24]

• • OnFox & Friends, Jones said that AFP is getting gas prices “back to when Trump was there,” claiming that “it’s all tied to the green energy policy of Joe Biden.” “Yesterday we had AFP on,” Jones said. “They are going to about 30 to 40 different gas stations and they’re paying for the gas to get back to when Trump was there to show Americans what life was about. But they did some analysis on why the gas prices are going up and it’s all tied to the green energy policy of Joe Biden.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [5/22/24]

• • On Fox Business’ Cavuto: Coast To Coast, a chyron read, “Americans for Prosperity offers gas at ‘pre-Biden’ prices.” Fox White House correspondent Edward Lawrence asked Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) about the campaign: “Last week, you pumped gas as the group Americans for Prosperity rolled back prices at [a] station in Wyoming to the levels of when before President Biden took office, when former President Trump was in office. What was that about?” In response, Lummis blamed the Biden administration for “not producing as much as we need to have prices that the American people can afford within their own budgets.” Fox Business, *Cavuto: Coast To Coast*, [5/28/24]

• ## The AFP stunt is just the latest example in a drumbeat of right-wing media coverage trying to pin high gas prices solely on Biden

• • On Fox, former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore dismissed record oil production to claim that the Biden administration is responsible for high gas prices. Moore said that “Biden has massively increased spending on these green energy programs like solar energy, like wind energy, like battery energy, and yet we’re still using record amounts of fossil fuels,” claiming that “the worst way to deal with our high gas prices is to diminish and deplete our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” Fox News,*America Reports*, [4/22/24]

• • After the Biden administration announced last year that it would cancel seven oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Fox Business host Elizabeth MacDonald asked whether Biden “really wants like $10 gas? I mean, who is he president of? Is he president of us or his climate change political donor base, because now we’re going to have to import more oil.”Fox Business, *The Evening Edit*, [9/7/23]

• • Fox contributor Tammy Bruce said Biden canceled the leases because “they want people to drive less, and having gas prices be high, they figure, is going to do that.”“When you cut those leases, it signals to everyone that, you know, you are not really serious about making sure we are energy independent,” Bruce said. “You think those polls are bad now? Gasoline will continue and it is going up again. So will home heating oil prices.” Fox News, *The Faulkner Focus*, [9/7/23]

• • On America’s Newsroom, Fox anchor Sandra Smith suggested that Biden is blaming oil companies instead of taking responsibility for high gas prices. “It's been OPEC, it's been now the Saudis, it's been Vladimir Putin, and most recently it's also been pinning a lot of blame on the oil companies themselves,” Smith said. “The president has been putting the onus on the oil companies, that he told he was going to bring the end of the fossil fuel industry, to ramp up their production.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [10/14/22]

• • Climate contrarian and frequent Fox News guest Michael Shellenberger claimed that “by working against domestic oil production, it’s Biden who has allowed the Russians & Saudis to raise gas prices.” Twitter/X, [10/7/22]

• ## Right-wing media also recently took aim at Biden’s Energy Department for releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from reserve sites in New Jersey and Maine, often conflating the temporary Northeast sites with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

• • While the reserve was initially created for emergencies like Superstorm Sandy, Congress mandated the sale in March as part of a spending package to prevent a government shutdown. According to The Washington Post, “A 2022 report by the Government Accountability Office said the gasoline reserve, which has never been tapped, would provide minimal relief during a severe shortage. The reserve costs about $19 million a year to maintain.” The Washington Post, [5/21/24]

• • The administration has stated that the release was timed to help lower gas prices, but it will likely only have a minimal impact for most of the country. “The Energy Department said the sale of 1 million barrels, about 42 million gallons, was timed to provide relief for motorists as the summer driving season begins,” according to The Associated Press. But GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan told The Washington Post that the “sale of the Northeast reserve would have little impact on gasoline prices nationally, although there ‘may be a slight downward pressure on prices’ in the Northeast. The million-barrel reserve only amounts to about 2.7 hours of total U.S. gasoline consumption, he said.” The Associated Press, [5/21/24; The Washington Post, 5/21/24]

• • Fox contributor Sean Duffy said that instead of releasing the Northeast reserve, Biden should “just support American oil and gas and their drilling.”“Again, he sees the politics of gas prices, but this is pretty simple, senator,” Duffy said in an interview with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI). “Just support American oil and gas and their drilling as opposed to Joe Biden and Democrats attacking American oil and gas. You don't have to release a million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, just pump more oil!” Fox News, *Sunday Morning Futures*, [5/26/24]

• • Citing gas prices, Fox contributor Jason Chaffetz and former Trump adviser Stephen Moore chastised Biden for not getting inflation under control. Moore said Biden should be increasing “the supply of goods and services” so prices go down. “That's especially true in gas, “ he said. “Why aren’t we producing more oil and gas here at home?” Filling in for host Sean Hannity, Chaffetz claimed, “We were energy independent and made a choice not to and now Joe Biden, in order to bring down the price of gas, is tapping into a strategic petroleum reserve. He's doing it for political purposes.” Fox News,*Hannity*, [5/24/24]

• • Fox host Laura Ingraham claimed Biden’s “anti-oil and gas policies” forced him to release the reserve irresponsibly.“Well, Biden is suddenly scrambling to lower gas prices,” Ingraham said. “Unfortunately, because of his administration’s anti-oil and gas policies and domestic drilling off the table, he has only one way of doing this — yeah, by draining our Strategic Petroleum Reserve again,” calling the move “a tool to boost an intellectually and physically sagging incumbent.” Fox News,*The Ingraham Angle*, [5/21/24]

• • In an interview with Newsmax host Rob Schmitt, MAGA podcaster Monica Crowley said that the Biden administration “created this crisis” and called the move to release the Northeast Reserve “treasonous behavior.” Crowley claimed the administration is trying to resolve a “political emergency that they themselves created by their war for the last three and a half years on fossil fuels, driving up the cost of energy across the board and helping to drive up inflation.” She continued, “This is actually borderline treasonous behavior, if not straight-up treasonous behavior.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [5/21/24]

//

Right-wing media used OPEC oil cuts to blame Biden for domestic gas price volatility

10/24/22

2. ### Fox News attacks Biden for “surging” gasoline prices as they fall for 27th consecutive day

07/11/22

3. ### Fox News accusing the Biden administration of deliberately spiking gas prices represents a cynical narrative escalation

06/16/22

---

===

mAGA media rage in response to Trump's 34 guilty verdicts

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ & JOHN WHITEHOUSE

PUBLISHED 05/31/24

Fox News stars and other MAGA media commentators have responded to former President Donald Trump’s historic criminal conviction in a New York court with apocalyptic rhetoric and demands for retribution.

On Thursday, a jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, which were intended to prevent Daniels’ claims that she had an affair with Trump from becoming public during the 2016 presidential election.

Right-wing media have followed the same time-tested strategy deployed in innumerable previous Trump scandals. Since the charges were brought, they have worked hand in hand with the former president to run interference, denounce Trump’s foes, and shape the way the GOP base perceives the events, thus keeping the Republican Party squarely behind him.

The convicted former president’s media allies responded to Trump’s indictment and arraignment last March by claiming that Trump was the victim of a politicized persecution that made the U.S. a “Third-World banana republic” and demanding legal retribution against Democrats.

Over the last seven weeks, the MAGA media sought to delegitimize every aspect of the trial. They attacked the judge, jury, prosecutors, and witnesses while pushing an array of false claims about the case.

• ### Following the guilty verdict, Trump’s media allies piled more attacks on the justice system

• Fox News co-host Jeanine Pirro claimed America had “gone over a cliff,” called the verdict “warfare,” and spoke of the country being “born of revolution.” Media Matters, [5/30/24, 5/30/24, 5/30/24]

• • War Room host Stephen Bannon claimed that Trump’s convictions for falsifying business records to cover up his affair with a porn star were really an attack on his viewers: “It's not President Trump they're trying to destroy — they're trying to destroy you.” Earlier in the show, he had reassured viewers about the damage Trump might take as a result of the verdict. *War Room*, [5/30/24, 5/30/24]

• • Prompted by a quote from actor Rob Schneider, Donald Trump Jr. argued that “we don't have a choice” and that the GOP will have to prosecute Trump critics as retribution. *Triggered*, [5/30/24]

• • On his radio show, Fox News host Sean Hannity lashed out at Judge Juan Merchan. *The Sean Hannity Show*, [5/30/24]

• • Fox News guest Brett Tolman: “I really blame the judge.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [5/30/24]

• • A Newsmax host made clear that Trump jurors can never go anywhere without being harassed. Newsmax, [5/30/24]

• • Fox News reporter Shannon Bream hyped criticism of the judge’s jury instructions. Fox News, *Special Report*, [5/30/24]

• • Laura Ingraham speculated that two attorneys on the jury steered the rest of the jury’s deliberations. Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [5/30/24]

• • A Fox News guest called Trump’s conviction a result of a “show trial” and said it shows why presidents “need immunity from criminal prosecution to do their jobs.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [5/30/24]

• • Newsmax guest Joseph di Genova warned jurors to be “very careful.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [5/30/24]

*

---

---

mma

Clay Travis: “We’re in a real war. Legal warfare is afoot and it’s time to return fire.”

05/31/24 9:05 PM EDT

2. ### Laura Ingraham says Democrats could use reaction to Trump conviction to “maybe even declare martial law”

05/31/24 7:45 PM EDT

3. ### Jesse Watters predicts “there will be a revolution” if Donald Trump receives jail time

05/31/24 6:10 PM EDT

4. ### Sean Hannity calls Judge Merchan “the most corrupt judge I've ever seen in my lifetime”

05/31/24 4:09 PM EDT

5. ### Jack Posobiec endorses “reciprocity” after Trump's 34 guilty verdicts: “Get the message across by any means necessary”

05/31/24 3:17 PM EDT

6. ### Project 2025 plans to dismantle the federal agency that tracks hurricanes

05/31/24 3:07 PM EDT

7. ### Matt Walsh: “Donald Trump should immediately create and publish a list of 10 high-ranking Democrat criminals who he will have arrested when he takes office”

05/31/24 2:21 PM EDT

8. ### CNN and MSNBC fact-checked Trump's complaints about his guilty verdicts. Fox News repeated them.

05/31/24 1:01 PM EDT

9. ### MAGA figure Mike Davis fantasizes about a Trump DOJ prosecuting Biden, Garland, and legal figures in Trump's trials: “There is absolutely gonna be retribution”

05/31/24 12:42 PM EDT

10. ### Steve Bannon attacks House Republicans, calls for a “vast investigation” into Trump's 34 guilty verdicts

05/31/24

---

Steve Bannon: “It's not President Trump they're trying to destroy -- they're trying to destroy you”

05/30/24 6:19 PM EDT

Newsmax host says the jurors in Trump's hush money trial “can never go anywhere without worry about being harassed”

05/30/24 6:07 PM EDT

Reacting to Trump's guilty verdict, Jesse Watters promises to “vanquish the evil forces that are destroying this republic”

05/30/24 6:24 PM EDT

Fox News coverage of Trump's guilty verdicts

Fox co-host on Trump's 34 guilty verdicts: “Lawfare is far too soft. It's far too benign. This is warfare.”

05/30/24

Steve Bannon's initial reaction to 34 guilty verdicts: “This is not going to damage President Trump at all”

05/30/24 5:41 PM EDT

Watch Fox News' initial reaction to Donald Trump being found guilty of 34 felonies

05/30/24 5:35 PM EDT

The Fox News campaign to undermine the jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial

05/09/24 11:22 AM EDT

---

Myths and facts: Debunking right-wing lies and misinformation about Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial

04/19/24 10:37 AM EDT

---

How Trump's Fox News feedback loop powers his Manhattan trial defense

05/20/24 8:57 AM EDT

fox Business host falsely claims New York trial and conviction of Trump “was Biden's idea” and is “election interference”](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-business/fox-business-host-falsely-claims-new-york-trial-and-conviction-trump-was-bidens-idea)

05/31/24 11:02 AM EDT

2. ### Megyn Kelly on Trump's 34 guilty verdicts: “The only way to save the republic now is to give them a taste of their own medicine”

05/31/24 10:57 AM EDT

3. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, May 31

05/31/24 10:49 AM EDT

4. ### Fox guest brings up “stolen election,” “warfare” rhetoric in response to Trump conviction

05/31/24 10:44 AM EDT

5. ### MAGA media rage in response to Trump's 34 guilty verdicts

05/31/24 9:23 AM EDT

6. ### Newsmax guest tells the jurors in Trump's hush money trial to be “very careful”

05/31/24 8:38 AM EDT

7. ### Jesse Watters calls for an investigation into “whether Soros was involved” in Trump's conviction

05/30/24 9:34 PM EDT

8. ### Donald Trump Jr. promises that the GOP will “retaliate” for the conviction of Donald Trump

05/30/24 8:37 PM EDT

9. ### Watch Andrew Weissman eviscerate the MAGA attacks on Trump's conviction

05/30/24 7:57 PM EDT

10. ### Donald Trump Jr. calls Fox News' Shannon Bream a “fucking dolt” for questioning Trump's claim that his felony trial was partisan

05/30/24

===

===

hush money trial BS mma 5 24

Fox News has relentlessly assailed Judge Juan Merchan

05/28/24 11:03 AM EDT

How Trump's Fox News feedback loop powers his Manhattan trial defense

05/20/24 8:57 AM EDTFox News begged for Robert Costello's testimony in Trump's criminal hush money trial. It was a disaster.

05/21/24 4:48 PM EDT

Myths and facts: Debunking right-wing lies and misinformation about Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial

04/19/24

no lnx

Myths and facts: Debunking right-wing lies and misinformation about Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial

As Trump’s first criminal trial begins, right-wing media repeat his lies and push new falsehoods

WRITTEN BY AUDREY MCCABE, REED MCMASTER, PETE TSIPIS & GIDEON TAAFFE

PUBLISHED 04/19/24

Update (last updated 5/1/24): This article has been updated to include additional examples.

On April 15, former President Donald Trump walked into a Manhattan courtroom for the first day of his trial for charges of falsifying business records in order to conceal hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump and right-wing media immediately began spreading lies about the trial.

Right-wing media have wrongly claimed: that a gag order the judge issued on Trump is a violation of his freedom of speech, that the judge has barred Trump from attending his son’s graduation, that Trump should have been charged with misdemeanors rather than felonies, and that Trump should not be prosecuted because Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the Steele dossier is similar and yielded only a fine.

In reality, the case centers on Trump’s attempts to conceal hush money payments to Daniels, who allegedly had an affair with the former president. Trump funneled the payments to Daniels through his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the scheme as well as other crimes. Prosecutors allege that Trump violated election law in paying off Daniels as it was part of a coordinated effort to assist his 2016 campaign and may have also violated state tax law by mischaracterizing Cohen’s reimbursement.

Experts say Merchan’s gag order is consistent with case law. Merchan also declined to answer Trump’s request to be excused from court on May 17 to attend his son’s graduation, stating that it was too early to make a decision but signaling an openness to it.

Myth: Trump’s gag order is unconstitutional and a violation of his freedom of speech

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett stated that “the gag order is a clear violation of the First Amendment.” He then claimed that “judges get away with it because by the time it’s challenged on appeal the case is over.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/15/24]

Jarrett again criticized Trump’s gag order, saying that especially as the leading candidate for president, Trump has a “constitutional right to speak out to defend himself.” He also claimed that “the judge wants to gag Trump so he can’t respond to some of the accusations against him.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 4/15/24]

Conservative judicial activist Mike Davis claimed that Trump’s gag order is “illegal” and that “gag orders are supposed to protect criminal defendants.” Davis continued, “You don't put a gag order on a criminal defendant to gag him during a criminal trial, especially when that criminal defendant is a candidate.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room with Steve Bannon, 4/15/24]

Trump ally and anti-Muslim bigot Laura Loomer tweeted that she would “gladly pay the fine for President Trump so he can have free speech.” Trump has amplified Loomer’s content attacking Merchan’s family members, leading Loomer to claim that she would pay Trump’s legal fines “if this asshole named Judge Merchan is really going to target Trump for sharing my videos on Truth Social.” [Twitter/X, 4/15/24; Politico, 4/15/24]

Fact: Experts say the gag order is consistent with New York law and precedent

Merchan has issued a gag order preventing Trump from making public statements that are meant to interfere with the case, including statements about witnesses and their potential testimony, prosecutors, court staff and their family members, and the members of Merchan’s and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s families. Trump has repeatedly disparaged Merchan’s daughter online and has a history of attacking individuals involved in his legal proceedings. [Reuters, 4/12/24; The Washington Post, 4/17/24]

Experts say that Merchan was following case law that goes back decades, that gag orders are rarely found to violate the First Amendment, and that Trump “is free to discuss the criminal justice system but not to make ad hominem attacks on particular people associated with the case.” The gag order does not prevent Trump from speaking about the case, as he can “raise political arguments as he sees fit” as well as comment on Merchan and Bragg. [PolitiFact, 4/11/24; Just Security, 3/27/24; The Associated Press, 4/9/24]

Merchan initially resisted imposing the gag order, urging Trump not to make statements that could incite violence and stating that he was “bending over backwards” to give the former president every opportunity “to speak in furtherance of his candidacy.” After Merchan expanded the initial gag order on April 1, Trump reacted on Truth Social, “They can talk about me but I can’t talk about them???” [The Washington Post, 4/9/24]

Myth: Merchan is blocking Trump from attending Barron’s graduation

After leaving the courtroom on Monday, Trump stated to reporters, “It looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son.” He later reiterated the claim on Truth Social, claiming that he is “being prohibited from attending.” [Associated Press, 4/16/24]

Newsmax host Carl Higbie claimed that Merchan barred Trump from attending Barron’s graduation. Higbie then encouraged Trump to dare Merchan to hold him in contempt, saying, “If I was Trump, I would say, ‘You know what, man? Bring it. Put me in jail. I beg you.’” [Newsmax, Carl Higbie Frontline, 4/15/24]

Fox News personality Rachel Campos-Duffy claimed that Democrats are “trying to demoralize” Trump by not allowing him to attend his son’s graduation. Campos-Duffy added, “This feels super communist.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 4/16/24]

Fox Nation host Piers Morgan, appearing on The Five, also encouraged Trump to get himself arrested by attending Barron’s graduation. Morgan stated, “If you're watching, President Trump, just go to the graduation. Every parent in America, whether they like you or hate you, will go, ‘Yeah. I’d have done that too.’” [Fox News, The Five, 4/15/24]

Right-wing influencer Dom Lucre tweeted that it was “barbaric” to not allow Trump to attend his son’s graduation. [Twitter/X, 4/15/24]

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk urged Trump to risk arrest by attending Barron’s graduation. Kirk stated, “I think Donald Trump should defy the New York judge order and go to Barron's graduation. I think he should just defy the order and go to Barron's graduation. Get arrested. It's just more indictments, not as if you're already not facing 700 years in federal prison.” [Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 4/17/24]

Fact: Merchan has not made a decision yet regarding Barron’s graduation

When asked if Trump would be excused from attending court on May 17 for the high school graduation of his son, Merchan said it was too early in the trial for a decision but signaled an openness to it if the trial proceeds on schedule. [Rolling Stone, 4/16/24]

Myth: Trump should have been charged with misdemeanors, and the charges were filed outside of the statute of limitations

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld cited Fox legal contributor Jonathan Turley to claim Trump’s charges were an elevated misdemeanor. Gutfeld said, “According to legal expert Jonathan Turley, Trump is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Turley added that it's 'a misdemeanor and the statute of limitations ran out.' Somehow none of that matters in New York City, where guys who randomly punch kids are given a pat on the back and a key to the city, but when it comes to porn star payments you’d better keep records more detailed than a CVS receipt.” [Fox News, Gutfeld, 4/16/24]

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade claimed that Trump’s felony charges are actually misdemeanor crimes. He stated, “So they have to show that the felony charges, the prosecutors must show that Trump not only falsified or caused business records to be entered falsely, which would be misdemeanor, but they also have to show an intent to commit and conceal a second crime. But so far Alvin Bragg hasn't told us what that second crime is. So when are we going to find out what the second crime is? And don't you think defense needs to know?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/15/24]

Fox News legal editor Kerri Kupec Urbahn stated that Bragg “has somehow manufactured these very low-level misdemeanor charges into felonies.” Washington Times editor Charles Hurt also called the crime a “paperwork violation” with “no victim.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/15/24]

In an appearance on Fox, Turley called Trump’s hush money trial a “Frankenstein case” made up of a “dead misdemeanor” and “dead alleged federal felony.” According to Turley, “They took a dead misdemeanor, they attached it to a dead alleged federal felony and zapped it back into life. So — many of us are just amazed to watch this actually walk into court because it’s not a recognizable crime that any of us have seen.” [Fox News, America Reports, 4/15/24]

Right-wing radio host Sean Hannity complained on his show that the alleged infraction is a “misdemeanor, unless they can prove it was done with intent to commit or conceal another crime, and this guy has not even brought that up.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 4/16/24]

Fact: Trump was charged with felonies because he allegedly concealed an underlying crime, and the statute of limitations was extended

Under New York state law, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor, but it becomes a felony if the defendant altered the records to conceal an underlying crime. Prosecutors have three theories demonstrating Trump’s violation of federal and state election law and New York tax law. [Politico, 6/13/23]

Forbes: “The timeline for bringing criminal charges was extended by more than a year during the pandemic, and prosecutors could also argue the five-year clock was paused whenever Trump spent extended periods living in Florida.” PBS reported: “In New York, the clock can stop on the statute of limitations when a potential defendant is continuously outside the state. Trump visited New York rarely over the four years of his presidency and now lives mostly in Florida and New Jersey.” [Forbes, 4/15/24; PBS, 3/11/23]

Myth: Trump should not be prosecuted because Hillary Clinton only paid a fine for the Steele dossier misreporting

Turley falsely compared Trump’s charges to Hillary Clinton and the Steele dossier. He wrote in the New York Post, “Once again, the contrast to other controversies is telling. Before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign denied that it had funded the infamous Steele dossier behind the debunked Russian collusion claims.” [New York Post, 4/14/24]

Far-right troll Jack Posobiec posted, “In 2022, Hillary Clinton quietly settled a campaign finance violation over reporting the Steele Dossier funding as ‘legal services.’ She paid a fine and was never arrested. The same thing Trump is on trial for right now.” [Twitter/X, 4/16/24]

Gregg Jarrett argued Trump’s prosecution was unfair, because Clinton was only fined for the Steele dossier despite also incorrectly booking the expense. He argued, “Hillary Clinton did pretty much the same thing. She too used a lawyer to secretly pay for the phony Steele dossier and booking it as ‘legal expenses.’ She was fined by the FEC but she wasn’t prosecuted.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/15/24]

Roger Stone posted, “Hillary Clinton falsely reported the payments by her campaign for the fabrication of the ‘Steele dossier’ as ‘legal expenses.’ I don't recall her being prosecuted. #TwoTieredJustice.” [Twitter/X, 4/16/24]

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway promoted Turley’s article and highlighted the Clinton comparison. She wrote, “Excellent point from Turley here. When DNC/Hillary Clinton lied about the 2016 campaign funding of the Steele Dossier, there were no criminal charges or media calls for accountability. But the Trump NDA gets charged?? Rule of law destroyed.” [Twitter/X, 4/15/24]

Fact: Trump’s hush money payments allegedly involved the falsification of business records to conceal a crime, rather than mischaracterizing campaign expenditures

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign hired a firm to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, which led to the compilation of a dossier by former MI6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele. The report made salacious allegations about Trump, many of which have since been discredited. [CNN, 11/18/21]

The campaign misreported the spending as legal services rather than opposition research. Under an agreement with the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign paid $105,000 and $8,000 in fines, respectively. [The Associated Press, 3/31/22]

Unlike in Trump’s case, the civil penalty paid by Clinton’s campaign and the DNC “appears to relate to highly technical rules about how campaign spending through an intermediary should be reported.” The DNC and Clinton campaign were fined for improper reporting, while Trump was charged with falsifying business records to allegedly conceal a crime. [Politico, 3/31/22]

The Washington Post reported that “This analogy isn’t terribly strong, given, first, that the campaign and the Democratic National Committee faced punishment for the reporting and, second, that it centered on the mechanics of properly reporting campaign spending to the FEC.” [The Washington Post, 3/21/23]

Myth: All Trump did was use a nondisclosure agreement, which is perfectly legal

On The Faulkner Focus, former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky said, “It would have been perfectly legal … and was legal” for Trump to make a payment for the NDA “to get rid of this nuisance that business people get rid of all the time.” He argued that cases like this end in acquittal “when you have a good jury.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 4/15/24]

Fox News host Mark Levin disregarded the theory of the case and said, “It's not hush money. They're nondisclosure agreements.” [Westwood One, The Mark Levin Podcast, 4/24/24]

Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy focused on the NDA, saying, “It’s not illegal to bury compromised or politically-damaging information.” He added, “There is nothing criminal about that. Nondisclosure agreements are a staple of civil litigation in the United States.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 4/26/24]

On Fox News, former Trump attorney Jim Trusty claimed Trump's NDA usage “does not actually constitute anything criminal.” He called the case against Trump “tawdry scandalous distasteful stuff” and complained that, “If nondisclosure agreements were criminal, Congress would be in prison right now.” [Fox News, America Reports, 4/25/24]

Fact: The trial is not about the NDA, but whether Trump illegally tried to cover up the payment for the NDA

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has specifically refuted the idea that the NDA was criminal, but asserts that the crime was in how Trump hid that payment. In an interview, Bragg stated, “We would say it's about conspiring to corrupt a presidential election and then lying in New York business records to cover it up.” [USA Today, 4/15/24]

While there is nothing inherently illegal about a nondisclosure agreement, when an NDA is used to cover up a crime or the money paid is an illegal payment, the NDA can become a criminal matter. As Tess Wilkinson-Ryan of the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law explained to Slate: “It’s legally OK if the information being kept confidential is not about a crime, or if keeping it confidential doesn’t otherwise violate the law. If the payment itself is illegal—imagine bribery or blackmail—that’s a matter of criminal law.” [Slate, 3/27/23]

Myth: Prosecutors are charging Trump over killing negative stories, which isn't a crime

Fox News legal editor Kerri Kupec Urbahn said, “It is not a crime to do a catch-and-kill scheme.” She continued, saying, “It is not a crime to suppress bad stories about yourself, whether you are running for president or not. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/26/24]

Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen misleadingly claimed that Trump was “accused of suppressing a negative news story.” He added, “If that was a crime, every campaign press secretary in America would be prosecuted.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 4/26/24]

On The Faulkner Focus, former Assistant District Attorney Phil Holloway claimed David Pecker’s testimony is proof the prosecution is “having a very difficult time finding anything that was actually illegal.” Holloway claimed it is not election interference, but rather “normal campaign conduct.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 4/26/24]

Fox News contributor Sol Wisenberg argued, “The idea that paying for a catch-and-kill story could constitute election interference in a way that lifts this misdemeanor into a felony … is a joke.” [Fox News, Ingraham Angle, 4/26/24]

Fact: The legality of the catch-and-kill scheme is not in question; it is part of the prosecution's argument that Trump was trying to protect his electoral chances

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified to paying Playboy model Karen McDougal for the rights to her story about having an affair with Trump and then never releasing the story. According to the Associated Press, there had been “some talk of reimbursement from Trump’s orbit, but Pecker was ultimately never paid” for the McDougal story. [Associated Press, 4/25/24]

Pecker testified that he believed Trump wanted the McDougal story killed in order to help protect Trump’s presidential bid. Pecker speculated that Trump’s interest in squashing McDougal’s story was “basically [about] what the impact would be to the campaign and the election.” [The Washington Post, 4/25/24]

The prosecution brought forward the catch-and-kill scheme described by Pecker in part to establish a pattern in which Trump and his associates buried negative news stories close to Election Day, not to question the criminality of the scheme itself. Pecker’s testimony also helps the prosecution introduce other aspects of their argument, including Michael Cohen’s alleged role as an intermediary for Trump. [The Guardian, 4/26/24]

Myth: Legal analysts don’t understand what crime Trump is being accused of committing

Fox News contributor Todd Piro told Laura Ingraham that he can’t say what the crime is, adding, “We’ve read legal scholars say they can't figure out the crime.” He said after watching courtroom testimony he still doesn’t know what the crime is. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/25/24]

Fox News legal editor Kerri Kupec Urbahn claimed it is still “unclear what this underlying crime is that Donald Trump is alleged to have concealed.” Summarizing the first part of the trial, Kupec said, “They did not reveal anything that was criminal in nature or that directly related to Donald Trump's payments to Michael Cohen who paid Stormy Daniels.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/25/24]

Fox anchor John Roberts questioned, “Where is the crime?” and emphasized similar comments from Fox News contributors Andy McCarthy and Jonathan Turley, as well as Trump’s argument that the trial should “be over” because there is “no underlying criminal behavior here.” Fox anchor Shannon Bream said prosecutors will have to convince jury members that there is an underlying crime. [Fox News, America Reports, 4/26/24]

Fact: The alleged underlying crime is about Trump committing fraud to better his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election

Trump was charged with 34 felony counts on the basis that business records were allegedly falsified to conceal an underlying crime of violating state and federal election law as well as New York tax code. While New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg still needs to prove that Trump had intent to violate the law, Bragg has extensively explained the underlying crime Trump is accused of committing. [Media Matters, 4/15/24]

---

“I think I'd fall asleep if I was there”: MAGA media praise Trump for nodding off in court

04/23/24 11:42 AM EDT

The Fox News campaign to undermine the jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial

05/09/24

Fox moved the goal posts on immigration after CBP report shows fewer migrant encounters at the border

05/23/24

===

:{mma 5 24

accident day after hush money def implodes after fox pushed fail guy?

over a handful of hours on Tuesday, the right’s conspiracy theory ecosystem concocted a sinister plot by President Joe Biden to assassinate his predecessor out of the banal fact that FBI agents received standard instructions on the use of force before conducting a court-ordered search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022.

Hundreds of pages of filings were unsealed on Tuesday in Trump’s classified documents case, revealing that the former president — who is charged with 40 federal criminal counts related to his alleged willful retention of documents after leaving the White House — had multiple documents marked “classified” in his bedroom that were discovered months after the 2022 search.

Credible outlets reviewed the documents and produced a wave of news stories detailing what a judge described as “strong evidence” of Trump’s allegedly criminal acts. Meanwhile, Trump’s MAGA media supporters ginned up a counternarrative based on a credulous reading of a deceptive argument from Trump’s lawyers that was included in the unsealed documents.

The story that emerged from the right-wing media echo chamber posits that pro forma language provided to FBI agents before the 2022 search which stated that “law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary” was actually part of a Biden scheme to assassinate Trump. This is both a horrific accusation to make without evidence and facially absurd for any number of reasons. (Why would the Biden administration issue assassination orders in writing and then conduct the Mar-a-Lago search on a date specifically selected because Trump would be in New York instead?) But it spread quickly from its initiation by a key figure in the right’s January 6 disinformation community, through the ranks of MAGA influencers, to Trump himself, and then to the Fox News airwaves.

By Tuesday night, Trump’s campaign had issued a fundraising email in which the presumptive Republican presidential nominee alleged of the Biden administration, “You know they’re just itching to do the unthinkable … Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”

The startlingly quick adoption of an unhinged conspiracy theory shows how the right-wing media apparatus operates, dreaming up convoluted but inflammatory nonsense and bombarding their audience with it. Here’s how it happened.

Right-wing fabulist turns standard FBI policy into “mind-blowing” story

The right-wing writer Julie Kelly, in a series of Tuesday afternoon posts on X (formerly Twitter), purported to reveal the “bombshells” she had uncovered by scouring the unsealed documents.

“Tons of new unsealed filings on classified docs case--I will try to post as much as I can (there goes the workout) but this is mind-blowing,” she posted at 1:21 p.m. ET. “FBI authorized the use of deadly force at Mar-a-Lago.”

She included a screenshot of a filing from Trump’s lawyers which stated that the FBI’s “Operations Order” for the Mar-a-Lago search “contained a ‘Policy Statement’ regarding ‘Use of Deadly Force,’ which stated, for example, ‘Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary.’”

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Kelly went on to post the “Policy Statement” and claim that the instructions show that “the FBI risked the lives of Donald Trump, his family, his staff, and MAL guests for a publicity stunt to make it look like Trump stole national security files.” She added, “People need to be arrested for this.”

In reality — and as more credible journalists pointed out — those instructions are standard for FBI searches.

“These are the rules that apply to FBI agents whenever they do anything,” Reuters reporter Brad Heath wrote in response to Kelly’s initial claim on X. He added, “Agents - like all cops - can use deadly force when met with a sufficiently serious threat. The policy the FBI followed here applies all the time; they are the same rules agents follow when walking down a sidewalk.”

“One clue that this is the generic DOJ use of force policy — not something cooked up for Mar-a-Lago, let alone ordered by the president — is that it talks about the use of warning shots in prison,” Heath noted in response to Kelly’s post with the “Policy Statement.”

The FBI would later issue a statement confirming that the bureau had “followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force.”

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Kelly is among the foremost proponents of the right’s January 6 counternarrative. She has argued that the violent rioting at the U.S. Capitol by Trumpists who assaulted scores of law enforcement officers “was probably the biggest instance of police brutality that this country has seen since the Civil Rights movement,” described a police officer who testified before the January 6 select committee as a “crisis actor,” and suggested that the FBI fabricated the pipe bombs discovered at the Republican and Democratic national headquarters that day because it is “an enforcement arm, a surveillance arm of the Democratic Party.” And her interpretation of the filings made no sense and was quickly debunked.

None of that slowed down the ranks of MAGA influencers, who quickly seized on her story.

MAGA influencers run with “assassination” nonsense

Within minutes, influential figures in the MAGA movement adopted Kelly’s interpretation and effectively began competing for the most overwrought response as they furiously posted on X. Many alleged that the document showed a Biden-directed assassination plot against Trump.

“The FBI authorized the use of **deadly force** when they raided Mar-a-Lago,” Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk commented. “You read that right. They were authorized to kill Trump employees, possibly even assassinate Trump himself, to exact their political revenge.”

“The FBI authorized the use of deadly force when they raided Mar-a-Lago?” wrote podcaster and former One America News host Liz Wheeler. “Were they hoping to assassinate Trump or his family or employees? This is insane.”

“So that was the real reason for the FBI raiding a president’s home: an excuse to use deadly force against Donald Trump,” offered The Federalist’s Sean Davis. “The court case was just plan B for the corrupt DOJ and FBI.” He added, “The FBI is a domestic terrorist organization.”

Trump ally Laura Loomer similarly argued that the document shows “a possible assassination attempt of President Trump by the Biden regime and FBI!”

Trump and the GOP lie that this shows Biden is “A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY”

Trump and his campaign are very attuned to the nonsense his online supporters generate, and within hours they adopted their bogus narrative.

At 5:21 p.m. ET — just four hours after Kelly’s initial post — Trump posted on his Truth Social account: “WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE — 25TH AMENDMENT!”

Trump’s campaign posted his comment to X, where it was quickly reposted by an arm of the Republican National Committee.

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The former president’s most unhinged congressional supporters chimed in.

“The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light. Does everyone get it yet???!!!!” commented Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

His biggest media supporters were not far behind.

Fox “news” and “opinion” sides parrot the MAGA spin

Right-wing commentators have spent the last nine years figuring out how to respond to Trump’s massive lies. At this point, everyone who retains a major platform knows their role is to, at the least, soft-pedal his unhinged claims, and at most, to prove they are on board with the MAGA movement by treating them as truth.

That’s what played out on Fox’s airwaves after Trump declared that the FBI’s use of standard orders for the Mar-a-Lago search showed that Biden is “A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY.”

Fox could have provide credible reporting tamping down on the lies circulating online. The network employs people who report on the Justice Department and FBI and even has Kerri Kupec Urbahn, a former top aide in the Trump DOJ, on the payroll. If the network wanted to find out if the FBI orders were standard, it would be really easy to do so.

But Fox’s business model and its political agenda both depend on propagandizing for Trump, so that’s not what happened. Instead, around an hour after Trump’s Truth Social post, FoxNews.com sent the following push alert: “BREAKING NEWS New docs reveal Biden DOJ authorized ‘deadly force’ in Mar-a-Lago raid.’” Here’s how the story’s promotion looked on the website’s front page:

From FoxNews.com at approximately 6:23 p.m. on May 21, 2024.

When the network first discussed the story later that hour on the flagship “news” show Special Report, the segment focused on the same “deadly force” language Kelly had flagged.

Bret Baier, the network’s chief political anchor, opened by highlighting that “former President Trump's attorneys argue the Biden administration Justice Department authorized the use of deadly force if necessary” during the Mar-a-Lago search. Correspondent Kevin Corke responded that the order is “quite shocking.”

Baier went on to downplay the notion that the FBI instructions were standard.

“There may be some people, Kevin, who say that this is just a policy statement of standard operating procedures put inside this operations order for this specific raid,” he said. “But obviously it's not standard operating procedure when you're going into the house of the former president, who happens to be protected by Secret Service.”

Video file

CitationFrom the May 21, 2024, edition of Fox News' Special Report.

When Baier offered a similar comment later in the hour during a panel segment, contributor Byron York described the situation as “kind of worrisome” because the FBI was supposedly “loaded for bear and prepared for the possibility of some sort of violent confrontation with the Secret Service. … The idea that it was prepared for this way, as opposed to, say, worked out in advance, is really troubling.” (In fact, the FBI ensured that “the Secret Service would receive a heads-up a few hours before FBI agents arrived to avoid any law enforcement conflict,” The Washington Post has reported.)

Fox’s “opinion” hosts have been running with the story ever since.

CitationFox News screenshots, 5/21/24 and 5/22/24

“They were actually thinking of using deadly force, or it's on the table that might be necessary at Mar-a-Lago?” Laura Ingraham asked Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO). “Deadly force? OK. It’s really lawfare, it’s not funny. Something actually could have gone down I guess at Mar-a-Lago, beyond just looking for the documents.”

Jesse Watters and Jeanine Pirro went even further on Watters’ show, with the host declaring, “Authorized armed agents to use deadly force in the Mar-a-Lago raid. That is insane. Is there any justification for that?”

“Absolutely not,” Pirro replied, adding that “my mind as a prosecutor goes to maybe they wanted the engagement of physical force. Maybe they wanted to come in without FBI, without DOJ, without all of that identifying so that they could engage in deadly physical force.”

Sean Hannity called the “deadly force” language a “shocking new revelation.” He acknowledged it was “boilerplate language” but nonetheless asked, “Why was Merrick Garland prepping for a possible, what, shootout?”

Fox was still carrying Trump’s water on Wednesday morning:...

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Fox News' Jeanine Pirro and Jesse Watters suggest the FBI “wanted” to “engage in deadly physical force” during Mar-a-Lago search]

(https://www.mediamatters.org/jesse-watters/fox-news-jeanine-pirro-and-jesse-watters-suggests-fbi-wanted-engage-deadly-physical)

05/21/24

===

mma 5 24

Right-wing media figures are misrepresenting a recent shift in casualty reporting to imply the United Nations has reduced estimates of the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza.

The U.N. recently began reporting more detailed casualty numbers from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, providing exact figures of women and children killed who have been fully identified. These detailed breakdowns are lower than larger previous estimates sourced by the U.N. from a different Gazan ministry, as thousands have not yet been definitively identified; the U.N. specified that the overall death toll estimate has not changed and that the new fully identified casualty numbers are expected to rise.

Right-wing media have nonetheless latched onto the new reported figures to falsely suggest the international body had been inflating or lying about various death tolls and casualty figures, and imply that the total estimated death toll of around 35,000 has changed.

• ## U.N. reports on casualties sourced from Gaza’s Ministry of Health were recently updated to reflect those who have been fully identified

• • The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been regularly reporting estimated casualty numbers for the current conflict in Gaza, drawing on several official sources. The U.N. has regularly updated its online reporting of death toll figures, sourcing casualty numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Health and Government Media Office as well as Israeli authorities. This reporting includes an estimated overall Palestinian death toll as well as casualty breakdowns for men, women, and children. OCHA, [5/20/24; The New York Times, 5/14/24]

• • The OCHA figures were recently updated to reflect a smaller number of individuals who have been fully identified in its breakdown of men, women, and children killed. A U.N. spokesperson clarified that the newest breakdowns for men, women, and children casualties are notably lower than in previous reports because the U.N. replaced estimates from Gaza’s Government Media Office with more conservative, verified numbers from the Gazan Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health numbers reflect only those who have been fully identified. From The New York Times:

The change came because the United Nations switched to citing a more conservative source for its numbers — the Gazan Ministry of Health — rather than using Gaza’s Government Media Office, as it had in recent weeks. Both offices are part of the Hamas-run government in the enclave.

Many international officials and experts familiar with the way the health ministry verifies deaths in Gaza — drawing from morgues and hospitals across the territory — say its numbers are generally reliable. The New York Times, [5/14/24]

• • The number of casualties confirmed to be women and children by the Ministry of Health are currently about 50% of the estimates made by the Government Media Office, and casualty specifics will be “re-established once the full identification process is complete.” A U.N. spokesperson noted, “There's about another 10,000 plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those - which of those are children, which of those are women - that will be re-established once the full identification process is complete.” NBC News, [5/14/24; Reuters, 5/13/24]

• • Officials explained that the overall estimates have not changed and that having more identification information “is a step forward.” In a Geneva press briefing, several officials further clarified the data and explained they expect casualty breakdown numbers to continue rising as more bodies are identified. From Reuters:

“Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing in response to questions about the toll. “The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward,” he added.

...

He added that it was “normal” for death tolls to shift in conflicts, recalling that Israel had revised down its own death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to 1,200 after checks.

“We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?” Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the same briefing. “And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are 1,000s missing under the rubble.” Reuters, [5/14/24]

• • The U.N. further specified that the overall death toll of approximately 35,000 remains unchanged and that Ministry of Health figures are generally accurate. The U.N. as well as many other international agencies and experts have further underscored that Ministry of Health figures are generally reliable. The Guardian, [10/27/23, 5/13/24; Reuters, 5/13/24;The New York Times, 5/14/24]

• • Critics have seized on this recent change and “confusion over the discrepancy” to fuel further debate over the accuracy of death toll estimates and suggest the U.N. had been “exaggerating the toll.” According to NBC, “Israeli officials incorrectly suggested that the data showed a significant drop in death toll numbers — and that this bolstered their claims that health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave inflate the number of children and women among the dead to disguise the large number of militant fighters killed.” The New York Times, [5/14/24; The Guardian, 5/13/24; Reuters, 5/14/24, NBC News, 5/14/24]

• ## Right-wing media figures confused the facts on death toll figures and claimed the U.N. has been “lying” about casualty numbers

* Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro began a brief discussion of the new numbers by saying the U.N. had “admitted that they’d been lying about casualty figures.” Shapiro aired some quotes from a U.N. official about the number change but did not explain the shift from one agency’s numbers to the others or the verification of dead, nor did he note that the overall death toll estimate had not changed in the segment. Instead, he went on to criticize the practice of counting individuals under the age of 20 as children, saying, “A huge number of terrorists are 16, 17, even 15 or 14 years old.” From The Ben Shapiro Show:

BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): So yesterday, the U.N. admitted that they’d been lying about casualty figures. They’d been taking Hamas’ casualty figures for granted and they were simply lying about it. The U.N. admitted that they were off by 50 percent -- five zero percent -- on the original estimate of women and children who had died in the war in Gaza. The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [5/14/24, 5/14/24]

• • Fox anchor Trace Gallagher introduced discussion of the number change with, “Now we know that they have lowered the death toll in Gaza.” Gallagher went on to briefly read from a news article about the new casualty figures of women and children. The segment did not specify the context for the updated reporting or clarify that the overall death toll has not changed. Fox contributor Kiron Skinner reacted by suggesting that the Ministry of Health’s “numbers are never right” and that the U.N.’s decision to switch to its figures put “everything that comes out of Gaza, that Israel has hit a hospital, that Israel has hit a humanitarian truck — it puts it all under a suspect way of looking at what’s going on.” Fox News, *Fox News @ Night*, [5/13/24]

• • Newsmax host Rob Schmitt told viewers that the U.N. was “forced to retract their numbers.” He did not explain the shift in numbers or clarify that the total death toll estimate had not changed. Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [5/13/24]

• • One America News host Dan Ball misinformed that the overall death toll estimate had changed from “nearly 35,000 killed” to “almost less than 15,000.”From Real America with Dan Ball:

DAN BALL (HOST): So the United Nations just revised the Gaza death count, and just the deaths of women and children was exaggerated by Hamas by over 50 percent. So when they claim there was nearly 35,000 killed, the numbers actually pencil out to almost less than 15,000.

Not that that’s not horrific, but I like facts. And the fact is this isn’t a genocide because the numbers were doubled and inflated by Hamas. The Ministry of Health for Gaza, which is run by Hamas, put those numbers out the last few months and American sympathizers have swallowed that whole bait, hook, line, and sinker. One America News Network, *Real America with Dan Ball*, [5/13/24]

• • Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade repeatedly framed the changed figures as a correction to “wrong” earlier estimates. Kilmeade began discussion of the story by confusingly implying the overall death toll estimate “had been wrong by about 50 percent.” He went on to specify more about the new figures and note the current death toll estimate, but he did not explain the meaning of the different numbers. From Fox & Friends:

> BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Not many people know this, but on May 6 the U.N. came out with a report on the death toll in Gaza. It turns out that they were wrong by about 50 percent. They say that total number of deaths is about 34,000 but the number includes 4,959 women, 7,797 children, a total of 12,756 civilians, as opposed to a number that was double that. How do you explain that? That means they’ve killed more Hamas fighters and less civilians.

...

Right, so there’s 24,000 civilian deaths, that’s what they thought, it turns out there was 12,000. Big difference. Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [5/14/24]

• • A Fox Business segment misleadingly suggested that the U.N. cut the total casualty count “in half.” A May 14 Varney & Co. segment implied that the overall death toll had been cut by half. The segment began with Varney asking whether the U.N. update had raised “the total casualty count” or lowered it, to which reporter Lauren Simonetti replied, “They cut it in half.” A chyron on screen read “U.N. Cuts Reported Casualties In Half.” The segment did not specify that the total death toll estimate had not changed. From Varney & Co.:

STUART VARNEY (HOST): Ah, this is interesting. The U.N. quietly changed the number of casualties in Gaza since the start of the war. OK. Did they raise the total casualty count, or lower it?

LAUREN SIMONETTI (REPORTER): They cut it in half. They cut it in half. So, these are the numbers, the casualties of women and children in Gaza. Originally, 14,000 children were victims. This week the agency said, well, no, 7,797. Originally 9,500 women. Now, less than 5,000. What’s the takeaway? The U.N. was using and trusting statistics that came from Hamas.

…

VARNEY: It makes the use of the word “genocide” outrageous in this context, absolutely outrageous, and they should never do that. That’s my opinion. Fox Business, *Varney & Co.*, [5/14/24]

• • On his radio show, Fox host Mark Levin implied the overall death toll had been cut. Levin began by reading from a Washington Free Beacon article that misleadingly implied the overall death toll had been cut. From The Mark Levin Show:

MARK LEVIN (HOST): United Nations cut its Gaza death toll figures by half, confirming that Hamas officials have been lying for months -- this is the U.N. doing it -- about the total number of casualties and statistics repeatedly cited by the U.N. and the American government as proof Israel is harming civilians.

The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs drastically reduced its child fatality figures, dropping them to 7,700 on May 8 from 14,500 just days before. It also revised the figures for the number of women killed, lowering them from 9,500 to 4,900.

And by the way, how many of those deaths are due to what Hamas is doing to their own citizens, putting them in harm’s way? This is urban warfare.

...

The U.N. has been citing artificially inflated figures for the last two months. And since it relies on information published by the Hamas-controlled Government Media Office in Gaza, Israeli officials and regional experts have cast doubt on these figures since the war broke out, saying that Hamas is known to inflate casualty figures as part of its global media campaign to paint Israel as an aggressor.

These figures have been used by the U.N. and the American government for months to accuse Israel of intentionally targeting citizens, including women and children. But the massive revision indicates Hamas’ figures are riddled with inaccurate -- It would be like World War II, our media would be reporting figures put out by Nazi Germany. How sick is this?

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health is the primary source for these numbers, which international organizations generally deem credible — that’s the bigger figures — but do not differentiate between Hamas fighters and civilians. So on top of all that, they don’t differentiate between the terrorist and the civilian. So it goes on and on. Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [5/13/24; The Washington Free Beacon, 5/13/24]

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mma 5 24

fox personalities now claim that January 6 prosecutions are political. At the time, many condemned the attack: “Deplorable, reprehensible, downright criminal”

Laura Ingraham on January 7, 2021: “Many who stormed the Capitol will likely face jail time. Good. Anyone who broke the law should.” She now claims that prosecutions were “targeted” and “unfair.”

WRITTEN BY JANE LEE, HELENA HIND, ALICIA SADOWSKI & ISABELLA CORRAO

PUBLISHED 05/21/24

On January 6 and in the immediate aftermath, Fox News took a strong stance condemning the insurrection, despite refusing to describe it as such. Hosts, contributors, and frequent guests alike denounced the insurrectionists for storming the Capitol building, drawing comparisons to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and insisting that conservatives stood for law and order and were above such criminal behavior. Some Fox personalities even went so far as to blame Trump directly for inciting his followers to attack the Capitol.

Now, three years later, Fox personalities downplay January 6 insurrectionists as peaceful and unarmed. (That rioters who sacked the Capitol building were all unarmed is a long-debunked claim.)

Fox News’ about-face on January 6 reflects the network’s return to its role as Trump’s top sycophant, supporting whatever the former president wants, even at the cost of democracy. Trump has pledged that pardoning January 6 “hostages” would be a priority for the first day of his second term, or, as he has also described it, his single day of dictatorship.

Below are numerous examples of Fox hosts, contributors, and regular guests denouncing January 6 as it occurred and in the days that followed, and then a series of Fox personalities defending the insurrectionists in the present:

In and immediately after January 6, Fox News condemned the insurrection, claiming that conservatives were for law and order and criminals should be charged

• • Chief political anchor Bret Baier remarked, “This is an extraordinary image, it’s an extraordinary day, but you can't take away and subtract what the president said on the mall that leads to this moment. The two are connected.” Fox News, *The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino*, [1/6/21]

• • Fox Business anchor Liz Claman said Trump “did not himself walk down Pennsylvania Avenue … but by planting that seed, they immediately began marching and then they, of course, have now taken over.”Fox Business, *The Claman Countdown*, [1/6/21]

• • Later on The Claman Countdown, Fox contributor Robert Wolf stated, “I blame the president.” He added: “He said the other day that this rally was going to be wild. He turned a blind eye when people went into a Michigan statehouse with Gov. Whitmer with rifles. And this is not a peaceful protest.” Fox Business, *The Claman Countdown*, [1/6/21]

• • Anchor Martha MacCallum said that the “group of people who breached these walls are — that’s a crime.” She added: “They’ve committed a crime and they should be prosecuted for it. Eric Trump was tweeting that. You know, other supporters of the president are tweeting that.” Fox News, *Your World with Neil Cavuto*, [1/6/21]

• • MacCallum: “The people who broke into this building are extremists, and they have perpetrated violence against this building.” She added: “And, just as we have talked about throughout the course of this year, that’s a line that cannot be crossed.” Fox News, *The Five*, [1/6/21]

• • While commenting on the insurrection, Fox host Dana Perino said, “There’s not a legal definition yet, but domestic terrorism is a real crime.” Fox News, *The Five*, [1/6/21]

• • On his radio show, Fox host Mark Levin said of the protesters, “What they did was criminal.” He said: “I want to know who these people are. I want to know if they’re going to be charged. Because they should be. They broke the law. What they did was criminal. No, it wasn't a constitutional crisis. No, they didn’t stop us from counting electors. But what they did was criminal, lawless, idiotic, moronic. And we cannot have groups — I don’t care who they are, I don’t care what their cause is — taking over our governmental buildings. Period, stop, that's it. That’s it. And I want these people punished. I want them identified and I want them punished. I want to know who they are.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [1/6/21]

• • Levin condemned the January 6 insurrectionists: “I don't care what signs you're holding, you do a grave disservice to the country and you do a grave disservice to us.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [1/6/21]

• • On Tucker Carlson Tonight, conservative radio host Buck Sexton said, “It's also important, however, for us now to make sure we see that those who broke the law, those who crossed that line, are held to account.” He added: “It's on us to make it very clear why we have principles that we don't violate even in these extreme times.” Host Tucker Carlson agreed, saying, “That’s for sure. The idea that people would smash windows in the Capitol Building, are you kidding? We spent our entire life on this show going after the people in charge and they absolutely deserve it. But no, you’re not allowed to break windows or encourage people to break windows.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [1/6/21]

• • Host Sean Hannity said, “Those who truly support President Trump, those that believe they are part of the conservative movement in this country, you do not — we do not support those that commit acts of violence.” He continued, “They — people — we don't believe should be vandalizing our nation's capitol, attacking the brave men and women that keep us safe in law enforcement. They don't storm the Capitol, they don’t place pipe bombs at the RNC or anywhere else. And all of today's perpetrators must be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But, every good and decent American, we know, will and must condemn what happened at the Capitol. Fox News, *Hannity*, [1/6/21]

• • Then-Fox contributor Dan Bongino: “We can't ever, ever normalize political violence, ever.” He continued: “You know, there’s a famous quote by Ellis that civilization is a thin crust on a volcano. But what is that thin crust made of, right? Well, it’s made of law, order, the Constitution — rules that apply to everyone. But Sean, the rules don't apply to everyone. Whereas people on this network and me today who’ve said, ‘Listen, what happened today was not normal and should not be accepted and should be called out.’ And we have. Period, full stop.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [1/6/21]

• • Fox host Laura Ingraham: “But those who breached the Capitol Hill security today, whoever they were, they were criminals.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/6/21]

• • Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy said: “The attack on law enforcement yesterday was jaw-dropping.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [1/7/21]

• • Fox contributor Tammy Bruce declared, “What the American people must demand is arrests.” She added: “We saw people allowed to leave who were bloodied. We've got to know who these people are and what their associations are.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [1/7/21]

• • Fox host Jesse Watters spoke out against the insurrection: “I condemn it fully.” He continued: “And I want to speak to the people that think it wasn't that big of a deal. Yes, you’re allowed, as a member of the public, to go into the people's house, but you have to go through the front door and you have to pass through a metal detector. You can't smash windows, spray police with chemical agents, assault police officers, loot, and vandalize. An unarmed woman was shot dead, and what did it accomplish? It accomplished absolutely nothing. So I want to make that very clear.” Fox News, *The Five*, [1/7/21]

• • Fox host Greg Gutfeld expressed agreement with Watters, adding: “I condemn this equally because we aren't them.” He added: “We are better than them. … Republicans are always outraged by bad behavior because they consistently, consistently embrace law and order and condemn the destruction of private and public property. … You will not see Republicans bailing out those who were arrested. See, that is a vital contrast. And Americans know this. Americans do not need lectures from hypocrites in hair and makeup who pick and choose their favorite protesters, right? So, I’m glad that the Democrats are finally outraged by this disgusting behavior. Join the club. I’ve been there for a year. I do not play favorites with mobs.” Fox News, *The Five*, [1/7/21

• • MacCallum said, “The people who broke in and disrupted and vandalized the United States Capitol are being sought by the FBI, as they should be this evening — and both sides, I think, feel strongly about that.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [1/7/21]

• • Hannity called for a “full, transparent investigation into what went wrong” on January 6 and said rioters who “[broke] the law,” “breached the building,” and “committed vandalism” should be “arrested and prosecuted.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [1/7/21]

• • Hannity stated, “Unlike fake news CNN, this program — we’re going to condemn all violence.” He added: “We condemn the far left riots over the summer, we condemn what happened yesterday at the Capitol.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [1/7/21]

• • Ingraham declared, “Many who stormed the Capitol will likely face jail time. Good. Anyone who broke the law should.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/7/21]

• • Fox contributor Sean Duffy commented that “to see the thugs storm our Capitol with such disrespect made me so angry.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [1/8/21]

• • Fox contributor Marc Thiessen stated, “We can't skirt the fact that Donald Trump is responsible for what happened on Wednesday.” He continued: “He invited this crowd to Washington, he incited them with lies, he raised their expectations that somehow something was going to happen to overturn the election, setting them up for disappointment, he blamed members of Congress for not being strong enough, he said — he told the crowd on Wednesday, ‘We’ve got to get rid of the weak members. I want you to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and take back our country.’ And that's what happened. They tried to do.” Thiessen then praised conservatives for saying, “‘This is unacceptable, we condemn this, and we lay blame for it with the president for inciting it.’” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [1/8/21]

• • Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway said, “I haven't seen any legitimate person, or anyone, say that what happened on Wednesday was in any way OK. You have unanimity of thought on this.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [1/8/21]

• • Fox contributor Mike Huckabee said of January 6 insurrectionists, “They were criminals.” He added: “When you go and break the glass at the Capitol and overrun police officers and you begin to destroy public property, it is exactly the things that we said a year ago, when it was being done in many American cities, that it was mob behavior, it was anarchy. We can't call it anything else. It was the same thing, and it's wrong. I don't care who does it. I don't care what their political ideology is. We’ve got to condemn it.” Fox News, *Outnumbered Overtime with Harris Faulkner*, [1/8/21]

• • Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock described insurrectionists as “extremists” and added, “I've never seen such a staggering act of political self-sabotage in my life.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [1/8/21]

• • Fox host Jeanine Pirro: “The actions at the United States Capitol three days ago were deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal.” Pirro declared that “anyone watching this must condemn it.” Fox News, *Justice with Judge Jeanine*, [1/9/21]

• • Fox contributor Pastor Robert Jeffress remarked, “We’ve got to acknowledge that what happened Wednesday at the Capitol was not only a crime, it was a sin against God.”He added: “The people who stormed that Capitol, the people who killed that police officer, were not a part of the kingdom of God, as some people claimed, they were a part of the kingdom of Satan.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [1/10/21]

• • Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), “So who was this and what was behind this heinous, disgusting move to put an assault on our democracy by breaking into the Capitol on Wednesday? Where is the accountability there?” Jordan replied with a declaration “to hold people who did these terrible things accountable,” continuing, “You know, people are responsible for their actions and these terrible actions that were taken, they need to be held accountable and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Fox News, *Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo*, [1/10/21]

• ## Trump declared that he would pardon January 6 insurrectionists

• • On March 11, 2024, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared in a Truth Social post that one of his first acts if reelected as president would be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” Trump won the Republican presidential nomination the next day. Truth Social, [3/11/24; PBS, 3/12/24]

• • This isn’t the first time Trump has pledged support for January 6 insurrectionists. At a January 2022 rally, Trump suggested, “If it requires pardons, we will give them pardons,” and complained that rioters were being treated “so unfairly.” In September 2022, Trump stated he would issue full pardons and an apology to rioters and even divulged that he was “financially supporting” some defendants, adding, “It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to them. What they’ve done to these people is disgraceful.” During a CNN town hall, Trump said that he was “inclined to pardon many” insurrectionists.

• • Media Matters, [1/31/22; The Washington Post, 9/1/22; NBC News, 5/10/23]

• ## Fox News now defends January 6 insurrectionists and downplays their actions

• • Fox contributor Tyrus Murdoch dismissed any existing threat to democracy, claiming, “There’s, like, less than six left out on the street from January 6.” Tyrus added, “Even if someone says, ‘Hey, my birthday's on January 6,’ there's a good chance your ass is going to jail.” Fox News, *Gutfeld!*, [1/4/24]

• • Greg Gutfeld downplayed January 6: “It's probably the only coup in history that didn't have any arms.” Gutfeld’s claim that insurrectionists were unarmed is not true. Fox News, *The Five*, [1/5/24]

• • Fox contributor Sean Duffy described the insurrectionists as “peacefully walking, giving themselves a tour of the Capitol.” He and questioned, “Maybe they shouldn't have been there, but should they be prosecuted? Should they be felons? Should they go to prison for, you know, a year or two years?” Fox host Will Cain and failed New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin complained that the FBI was spending its limited resources on tracking down insurrectionists. Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/5/24]

• • In a segment on the Justice Department supposedly targeting January 6 insurrectionists, frequent guest Victor Davis Hanson said, “It was a buffoonish riot, but there was not an armed insurrection. Nobody had a weapon inside the Capitol.” This is not true; as of 2021, 23 people had been charged with having deadly or dangerous weapons during the attack. Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/8/24; FactCheck, 3/10/21]

• • Mark Levin attacked Judge Florence Y. Pan for denying the appeal of Russel Alford, a January 6 insurrectionist. After reading from tweets by Julie Kelly, a conspiracy theorist who has defended January 6 and sought to rewrite its history, Levin remarked, “He was inside there 11 minutes, roaming around, did absolutely nothing.” Fox News, *Life, Liberty & Levin*, [1/14/24]

• • Gutfeld accused Democrats of “violating constitutional norms,” such as “weaponizing the IRS” and “using the FBI to set up citizens — from parents at school board meetings to anybody within five miles of the Capitol on January 6.” Fox News, *Gutfeld!*, [1/17/24]

• • Ingraham complained that migrants involved in a brawl with New York police officers in Times Square got “zero consequences,” but January 6 defendants face consequences “because they were political enemies.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [2/1/24]

• • Gutfeld said of a proposed bill that would charge pro-Palestine protesters blocking traffic as domestic terrorists, “How soon would this be used against parents, Trump supporters, pro-lifers? I mean, they're kind of already doing it to parents at school board meetings and January 6 protesters.” Later in the segment, after co-host Jessica Tarlov pushed back against his claim that the government would weaponize the law against conservatives, Gutfeld referred to insurrectionists as “political prisoners.” Fox News, *The Five*, [2/14/24]

• • Gutfeld said that “all the major critics of the left have been targeted by lawfare” including January 6 protesters. He said: “I think the bigger picture here, when you step back, is how all the major critics of the left have been targeted by lawfare. So, whether it's January 6 protesters, Trump, Lindell, Musk, Giuliani, Bannon, Fox, there are lesser known names who are being targeted. It is time, probably, to return fire. You know, you don’t bring a slingshot to a gunfight.” Fox News, *The Five*, [2/23/24]

• • Ingraham commented on a fence encircling the perimeter of the Capitol building, saying, “This fence is giving the January 6 vibes. Are they going to put us all in solitary confinement too?” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [3/7/24]

• • Fox host Pete Hegseth complained that the federal government is “distracted” at the border because the focus has been on “mostly peaceful protesters on January 6.” Fox News, *One Nation with Brian Kilmeade*, [3/16/24]

• • Gutfeld minimized January 6 insurrectionists’ actions by claiming that “the January 6 protesters were squatting in the Capitol for a few hours, and look how the government reacted — they actually shot one to death.” Fox News, *The Five*, [3/20/24]

• • Ingraham claimed that Americans on January 6 “were targeted, people who weren't even in the Capitol were targeted, and, you know, various charges brought, many of them unfair, long periods of solitary confinement.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [3/21/24]

---

crm

alternet-no lnx

When it comes to 'rage' of white rural voters, liberals may not be asking the right questions

Former President Donald J. Trump arrives to deliver remarks Thursday, August 6, 2020, at the Whirlpool Corporation Manufacturing Plant in Clyde, Ohio. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Reverend Daniel Schultz May 16, 2024

Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman have a new book out titled White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy. It has proved controversial. There are two major objections, as I understand them. First, Schaller and Waldman may have misrepresented or misunderstood scholarship on the rural context. Second, their thesis — white rural voters pose a unique threat to American democracy — may be overstated and under-supported.

I've known of Schaller and Waldman's work for a long time, and know Tom himself at least a little. So I was a bit surprised to see the vehemence and breadth of the pushback on the new book. I was equally surprised to see other folks I know strongly defend their thesis. The authors got their own word in at The New Republic.

Is it rural or is it race?

It may surprise you to hear this, but I am neither a rural sociologist or political scientist. I decided I was in no place to give an authoritative assessment of these arguments. Then, while I was groping around for what I did want to say, Noah Berlatsky ... just went ahead and nailed it?

Democrats struggle not with rural voters in general, but with white rural voters in particular. And white rural voters do not vote for the GOP because they are rural. They vote for the GOP because they are white.

That's pretty much it. As one scholar argues, if you control for other factors, the difference between rural and urban voting patterns essentially disappears. Race is a much stronger predictor than things like income, religion or place of residence.

Let's put that more anecdotally. I've known some straight-up, stone-cold racists in rural areas. But then I've also known some in urban areas.

It's not quite as simple as saying that rural whites are a bunch of racists. But for at least some people, it's a straightforward enough syllogism:

Cities are the source of all our problems.

Black people live in cities.

Democrats run cities.

Ergo, Democrats and everything they stand for are bad and wrong.

There are variations on this theme. Illegal immigrants are overrunning our society! Democrats let them all in! Therefore, etc. Or: covid is a city problem, Democrats run cities and liberals run health departments. Therefore, we're not interested in getting vaccinated or practicing social distancing.

As with any white people, rural or urban, the supremacist elements of these formulas are more or less explicit, depending on the individual and their community. It could be that rural whites are more prone to bias due to lower levels of education. But other than that, racists are racists, no matter where you find them.

Social incentives

There is one factor particular to rural areas that deserves consideration before we look at potential answers to the "rural problem." Rural folks traditionally don't move around as much as city folks.

Deep roots feed social capital through rich networks of relations, neighbors and friends. Rural communities are able to offer impressive support to those in need or to accomplish shared goals. Think food pantries, volunteer fire companies, churches that persist with a handful of members.

But those same roots provide lots of incentives not to rock the social boat. This boils down to "Don't tick off the neighbors because you're stuck with those assholes for a long time and you never know when you might need their help." That makes it difficult to confront your loudmouth bigoted uncle. It makes it even harder to disagree with those weird dudes down the road with all the AR-15s. It also can create a "culture of bullying" that reflexively smashes down anyone who doesn't conform to gender, political or racial norms.

Asking better questions

I don't say these things to valorize or demonize rural areas. It's just that knowing them helps us to ask the right questions.

For example, Kathy Cramer, author of The Politics of Resentment, tells Tyler Austin Harper:

The question of our time is not who are the bad Americans, but what is wrong with our systems — our government, our economy, our modes of communication — that means that so many people feel unseen, unheard, and disrespected by the people in charge? And what can we do, constructively, about that?

On the surface, this seems like a decent enough question. But it falls apart when you consider its easiest answer. Some people feel unseen, unheard and disrespected because they're bigots who have been spoon-fed a diet of resentment and entitlement courtesy of rightwing media. That leads to the practical but not very satisfying conclusion that they're best ignored in any kind of political project to the left of Attila the Hun.

You might also ask, as Thomas Frank did, What's The Matter With Kansas? Or as Frank's thesis is often formulated: Why do white rural residents vote against their economic interests?

The usual hot take is that they've been hoodwinked by Republicans into voting on culture rather than cold hard cash. But that doesn't give them much credit. They're not fools. What if they know what they're doing? What if there's something they value more than economics?

To put it more exactly: What is it that white rural voters are willing to sacrifice so much for? It could be maintaining various forms of privilege, especially racial hierarchies. Or it could be saving a rural way of life that they perceive to be under threat of vanishing. (These options are not mutually exclusive.)

Getting better answers

Whatever the case, I suspect the most productive response to the situation will involve two things. They might seem like pie-in-the-sky projects at first. But I at least think there's some cause for a bit of optimism for each of them.

Democrats and progressives will need to do a lot less writing off rural districts as hopeless and a lot more intentional work on developing solidarity with them. A revived union movement such as we're currently seeing could go a long way toward meeting this goal. So could a new "green economy." It would help if there were a leftwing media ecosystem to push the good news coming out of those developments. Rural voters may not be fools, but there is evidence that messages of economic success aren't getting through to voters. There is also a desperate need for more positive racial narratives than the ones provided by Fox News and AM radio. But that might be too much to ask, given the kind of investment it would take.

And in the end the answer to overcoming divisions between rural and urban areas will have to come from within the communities themselves. They'll never accept a solution imposed from outside, and it is their community, after all.

It may very well be that cultural differences and the tensions between extractive and information economies are too big to bridge. On the other hand, maga extremism might prove finally too much even for country mice. Trump's unpopularity might create an opening for home-grown — and less extreme — leadership to emerge. And as Schaller and Waldman point out in their New Republic piece, there is a sizable rural minority population to build upon.

On the third hand, I despair.

Why bother?

But on the fourth hand, I'm pleased to see homegrown rural Democratic candidates emerging to challenge Republican hegemony. I'm also encouraged to hear of communities adopting more inclusive policies out of self-interest, if nothing else. With time and investment, I'm fairly confident liberal messages can get through to rural voters and a progressive vision can take root.

Rural white voters aren't more extreme than anyone else in my experience. Nor are they more racist. Your mileage may vary. They are, however, primed to support Republicans in a lot of ways. It would take a lot of time and investment to overcome those factors. There are legitimate arguments to be had about how worthwhile the effort would be. I've made some of the same arguments about religious outreach.

But it can be done, and I think it should at least be attempted. It won't win Democrats the next election, probably not the next few either. But if the nation is ever to emerge from the shadow of racialized politics, it will have to confront white beliefs and practices. White racism may not be all that different in the cities than it is in the country. Still, it's as good a place to start as any. Which, come to think of it, is the tacit motto of a lot of rural places.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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Greg Gutfeld claims Democrats are “cooking up” ways to illegally steal the presidential election

05/13/24

5 24

fox News and the MAGA media are lining up their shot at American democracy

The bullet is in the chamber

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

PUBLISHED 05/14/24

With the presidential election less than half a year away, evidence is everywhere that the right is planning to end the American experiment in representative government if it fails to legitimately return Donald Trump to the White House.

It was clear just a few months after Trump’s seditious plot to subvert the 2020 presidential election concluded with a violent mob of his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol that the right-wing propaganda apparatus was laying the groundwork to try again in 2024. Fox News and the rest of the MAGA media, which spent the weeks after the 2020 election fabricating and amplifying a host of election fraud lies and conspiracy theories to undermine the results, had begun working to institutionalize Trump’s lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him and to construct an alternative path to the presidency in which compliant party officials would secure a Republican victory by any means necessary.

Fox had become a loaded gun aimed at American democracy. Three years later, the bullet is in the chamber.

The disinformation ecosystem which revolves around Fox is telegraphing a plan to reject the results of the 2024 election if Trump loses. The former president’s propagandists will once again use baseless allegations of widespread fraud as a pretext to seek to overturn the vote — and GOP leaders are publicly signaling their willingness to comply.

IFrame Content

Ultimately, this preordained coup scheme may not matter. As in 2020, Joe Biden might win by too large a margin in too many states for the plot to succeed. Or, as in 2016, Trump might win outright.

But in the event that Biden triumphs in a close election, the MAGA faithful have developed and road-tested a plan to steal it.

Fox stars aided Trump’s 2020 subversion plot. They were lying. And they’ll do it again.

It is sometimes unclear whether Fox’s falsehoods are deliberate lies. But filings in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit, which the network settled in April 2023 for $787.5 million, demonstrate beyond dispute that Fox’s coverage of the 2020 election results was rooted in malicious fabrication.

Fox’s top executives and biggest stars knew for a fact that Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, even as the network’s coverage sought to undermine the legitimacy of the vote. The network, filings show, was intentionally peddling conspiracy theories in support of Trump’s stolen-election deception in order to compete with its far-right rivals.

These lies mattered. Communications revealed by the suit show that top Fox executives were aware the network was “uniquely positioned to state the message that the election was not stolen” but did not out of fears of losing viewers. They further show that when then-Fox Corp. Chair Rupert Murdoch asked his employees for evidence Fox had “fed the story that the election was stolen and that January 6 [was] an important chance to have the results overturned,” he received a list of 50 examples in response.

But the only lesson Fox’s executives apparently learned from fueling an attempted coup is that they need better lawyering to keep their damning internal emails and text messages off the front pages and avoid paying a record settlement.

Fox retained and even promoted some of its most unhinged election deniers, while punishing or even firing employees who fought the false narratives. In the years that followed, the network restocked its prime-time lineup with Trump loyalists who parrot whatever the former president says, put Trump allies and even a family member on the payroll, and replaced “news side” veterans with GOP operatives.

It’s no wonder that former employees keep loudly warning that Fox is a dangerous cesspool that produces Trumpian propaganda. The cogs who remain on the job, meanwhile, know without a doubt that they are part of a machine that manufactures lies. The pressure the network faces to hold on to its audience — including by promoting voter fraud conspiracy theories and other right-wing extremism — is stronger than ever. And so if Trump demands that Fox’s propagandists again focus on building him a pretext to overturn an election, they will do it.

The emerging right-wing scheme to overturn the 2024 election

Trumpists in the media and elsewhere have spent the years since Trump’s defeat laying the groundwork to rerun his subversion plot, systematically removing the guardrails that helped stymie the scheme in 2020, and helping him back to the Republican nomination. The result is a turnkey operation prepared to generate false election fraud claims and convert them into a rationale for Republican political leaders to reverse the results of the election and reinstall Trump in the White House.

MAGA propagandists are priming their audiences to disbelieve the election results and take action in response. They keep viewers in a state of terror with incendiary warnings that Biden is a jack-booted dictator who is deliberately trying to endanger their families, ensuring that some fraction would seek his removal by any means necessary. They valorize the January 6 insurrectionists as honorable patriots who did what they thought was right and were smeared by the media and punished by “deep state” malefactors. They flood the right-wing information ecosystem with lies and conspiracy theories about Democrats tainting past election results.

And they have already begun warning that the 2024 election will be rife with election fraud — and that only such cheating could explain a Trump defeat.

Video

CitationFrom the March 25, 2024, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): There are no “issues" with the 2020 election — they stole it. Let me repeat that. They stole it. And they hate when we say this. They stole it. And they're on notice. They're not going to be able to steal it again. People are doing a ton of work on this, and that's still not enough, but it's going to get better. The hairy eyeball is going to be on them.

The only way they defeat Trump is to steal it. The only way they defeat Trump is they steal it. The only way they defeat Trump is they steal it. He is unstoppable.

We saw how this played out in 2020: Trump’s coup plan relied on blanketing right-wing media with stolen-election lies in order to provide cover for GOP partisans to reverse the outcome in states Biden won. Under pressure from the Fox-addled rank and file, Republican election officials would refuse to certify results in key areas, GOP state legislators would overturn the results, and GOP members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence would hand Trump the election.

This scheme failed in part because too many Republican officials were unwilling to aid the effort. But since then, Trumpist propagandists like War Room host Steve Bannon and Fox’s lineup of right-wing stars have helped make election denial a core GOP value, and now, the guardrails are collapsing:

• Republicans purged their ranks of the sorts of GOP officials who resisted Trump’s subversion effort at the local, state, and federal level.

• Election lies seem to have become a benefit in GOP primaries and effectively a job requirement at the Republican National Committee, one enforced by the MAGA chorus.

• Prominent election deniers are recruiting their followers to take positions within the election infrastructure.

• In the House, Rep. Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) zealous efforts to overturn the election helped garner him the speakership, while in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is on his way out of the leadership after voting to certify the electoral votes and criticizing Trump’s role in the insurrection.

• Pence is effectively a party outcast after rejecting Trump’s entreaties to overturn the 2020 election results, and the politicians seeking to replace him on the GOP ticket are pushing voter fraud lies and refusing to say they will accept the results of the 2024 election.

Donald Trump will once again stand as the Republican presidential nominee this fall, less than four years after he attempted a coup to remain in office. He still maintains, unbowed by time, notoriety, or criminal charges, that the 2020 election was stolen. At the same time, he has embraced the January 6 offenders, regularly describing them as “hostages,” promising to consider blanket pardons for their actions, and treating their attack on the Capitol as “not a moment of national shame but of celebration,” as NPR described it.

None of this seemed to give right-wing propagandists much pause as Trump romped to the nomination. The Murdochs may have begun the primary season with other plans, but Fox had spent years crafting a political environment in which any criticism of Trump was inherently illegitimate, and its stars ultimately rallied to his side.

As Trump’s victory became inevitable, his vanquished rivals were reduced to complaining — accurately — that Fox and its ilk had taken Trump’s side, while the few right-wing commentators who had criticized Trump and endorsed his primary opponents bent the knee.

If he loses in 2024, Trump will reject the results and seek to overturn them, as he has throughout his political career. Indeed, he began laying the groundwork for such a strategy during the GOP primaries, warning that only Democratic “cheating” could explain such an outcome. And he has no apparent qualms over whether his deliberate radicalization of his supporters leads to right-wing political violence. Indeed, he is signaling that is exactly what he wants.

No one can say they didn’t know what was coming

Here’s part of an interview with Trump that Time magazine published on April 30, six months before Election Day:

Mr. President, in our last conversation you said you weren't worried about political violence in connection with the November election. You said, “I think we're going to win and there won't be violence.” What if you don't win, sir?

Trump: Well, I do think we're gonna win. We're way ahead. I don't think they'll be able to do the things that they did the last time, which were horrible. Absolutely horrible. So many, so many different things they did, which were in total violation of what was supposed to be happening. And you know that and everybody knows that. We can recite them, go down a list that would be an arm’s long. But I don't think we're going to have that. I think we're going to win. And if we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election. I don't believe they'll be able to do the things that they did the last time. I don't think they'll be able to get away with it. And if that's the case, we're gonna win in record-setting fashion.

Polls suggest that the 2024 presidential election will be close. But according to Trump, he’s “way ahead” and on track to win “in record-setting fashion.” The only thing that can prevent that outcome, Trump claims, is “the things that they did the last time,” i.e. the Democratic election fraud conspiracy theories he’s been hocking since before the 2020 vote. And if that happens, Trump says, his supporters might respond to such a result with violence.

None of this is even remotely subtle.

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, some political commentators expressed doubts over whether Trump would really respond to defeat by refusing to accept the election results and taking action to try to remain in office.

But that is precisely what Trump did. Now he is saying quite clearly that he will do it again if given the chance. And his propagandists in the right-wing media will have had four years to lay the groundwork to ensure his plot’s success.

Five days after the Time interview dropped, Semafor founder Ben Smith published a Q-and-A with Joe Kahn, the executive editor of The New York Times. The interview began like this:

Ben Smith: Dan Pfeiffer, who used to work for Barack Obama, recently wrote of the Times: “They do not see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power.” Why don’t you see your job as: “We’ve got to stop Trump?” What about your job doesn’t let you think that way?

Joe Kahn: Good media is the Fourth Estate, it’s another pillar of democracy. One of the absolute necessities of democracy is having a free and fair and open election where people can compete for votes, and the role of the news media in that environment is not to skew your coverage towards one candidate or the other, but just to provide very good, hard-hitting, well-rounded coverage of both candidates, and informing voters. If you believe in democracy, I don’t see how we get past the essential role of quality media in informing people about their choice in a presidential election.

To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda. It is true that Biden’s agenda is more in sync with traditional establishment parties and candidates. And we’re reporting on that and making it very clear.

It’s also true that Trump could win this election in a popular vote. Given that Trump’s not in office, it will probably be fair. And there’s a very good chance, based on our polling and other independent polling, that he will win that election in a popular vote. So there are people out there in the world who may decide, based on their democratic rights, to elect Donald Trump as president. It is not the job of the news media to prevent that from happening. It’s the job of Biden and the people around Biden to prevent that from happening.

> It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them? I don’t even know how it’s supposed to work in the view of Dan Pfeiffer or the White House. We become an instrument of the Biden campaign? We turn ourselves into Xinhua News Agency or Pravda and put out a stream of stuff that’s very, very favorable to them and only write negative stories about the other side? And that would accomplish — what?

That exchange generated a lot of smart responses. Critics pointed out that Smith’s question mischaracterized Pfeiffer’s critique; that Kahn’s response ignores the actual criticisms mounted by his paper’s critics, including Biden himself; that the Times’ business interests lead Kahn to endorse “a kind of performative neutrality in politics coverage”; and that, contra Kahn’s claims, the Times does not generally base its coverage decisions on polling and, if it did, the result should be a greater focus on the impact of Trump’s policy proposals on inflation and immigration than the paper actually provides.

What strikes me most about Kahn’s answer is his apparent lack of urgency. A former president left office after using the lie that the election he lost had been rigged to try to reverse the outcome, culminating in a violent assault by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol. He has all but promised to try again, and after transforming his party into a personality cult which treats the insurrectionists as heroes and his election lie as unvarnished truth, he very well could succeed.

That is the central reality of the 2024 presidential election, one that should be foregrounded to the readers and viewers on news outlets at every opportunity but often fades from the discourse. The former president’s media allies are foreshadowing their eagerness to take every possible opportunity to participate in his scheme. And the leader of the nation’s most powerful mainstream press organ gives no indication that he has considered those implications in any but the shallowest way. We are all in a lot of trouble.

//

Fox News propagandists and GOP leaders are pushing the country toward the abyss

11/06/20

Fox News is a loaded gun aimed at American democracy

05/14/21

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

mma 5 24

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Well, those types of slogans, of course, have been chanted and posted since after October 7th. Huh. What took him so long? Joining us now is Dennis Prager, radio host, founder of Prager U, one of my absolute favorite people in America. Dennis, you do such a great job every day. I'm so excited to talk to you. What about his approach today and should we assume it's heartfelt and he's standing strongly with Jewish Americans?

DENNIS PRAGER (GUEST): So I'll have an answer for you that you probably won't expect. I don't care about heartfelt in almost anything except perhaps, you know, my children and my wife and my closest friends. In life, what people do is much more important than what their heart feels. So, I am happy if he says these things whether or not they're heartfelt. All I can tell you is what he won't say and I want to salute him for what he did say, okay? I'm not a fan of his. But it's critical to give credit where it is due.

But, what he won't say is where all of this Jew hatred comes from. And it comes from only two sources, the left, not liberals, the left, I always make a distinction and the newest generation of immigrants from Muslim countries, not long-time Muslim residents of the United States who go back many generations like neighbors of mine who are terrific human beings. But, this newest wave of Jew-hating Muslims, and there are Muslims who don't hate Jews, but they're a minority. And he won't say that. He won't say where it's from.

So, it's like -- isn't one of the first things we want to know when somebody is murdered who did it? Isn't who did it a very important consideration? The who did it has not been addressed here. It's the people who have taken over his party, the left and this new Ilhan Omar type Muslim immigrant to the United States who brought with them from the Middle East a hatred of Jews that we have not known since the Holocaust and the Middle Ages.

---

another jrnl fail (foreign migrant shoplifter//

After Fox News promoted a hoax about homeless veterans being “evicted” from New York hotels to house migrants last year, some of the network’s anchors said they would provide viewers more information “as we get it.” That promise was apparently disingenuous: Fox has yet to report that the originator of the bogus story now faces federal fraud charges.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged Sharon Toney-Finch, an Army veteran whose Yerik Israel Toney Foundation claims to “help homeless and low-income military service veterans in need of living assistance,” with multiple counts of fraud. They alleged that she raised funds for the group by falsely claiming to have received a Purple Heart after surviving a terrorist attack and spent the group’s money on personal expenses. They also alleged she received “hundreds of thousands of dollars in disability benefits” by falsifying her military discharge paperwork to match her story.

Toney-Fitch drew notoriety as the source for a May 12, 2023, New York Post report in which she alleged that nearly two dozen homeless veterans her organization had been helping were kicked out hotels in upstate New York to make room for migrants.

The story became a cause celebre for right-wing commentators seeking to demonize migrants and attack Democratic politicians. But Toney-Smith’s tale collapsed within days, as local news outlets reported that she had fabricated her story and the homeless veterans had never existed.

Fox, which relentlessly portrays migrants as dangerous criminals conducting an “invasion” of the United States, picked up Toney-Fitch’s hoax the day after the Post published its initial story. Fox News and Fox Business gave the story, which Fox claimed to have “confirmed,” more than an hour of credulous coverage over six days.

“This is pretty infuriating, homeless vets who served our great country, they’re being put out on the street and replaced by illegal immigrants,” prime-time star Sean Hannity alleged in one such segment.

But as the story unraveled, Fox personalities began backtracking and admitting they had been duped. On May 24, 2023, several Fox anchors read an on-air statement which said in part, “We've since learned that veterans advocates misled local officials, and it now turns out those eviction claims were false. We want to update you on this story, make sure the record was set straight, and we’ll get more to you as we get it.”

Apparently the “veterans advocate” behind the story facing criminal charges after allegedly faking a Purple Heart and defrauding the government of hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits wasn’t worth mentioning.

an 5 23

during a recent segment on Jesse Watters Primetime, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy cracked a joke at the expense of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-California) husband, Paul, in reference to an incident where he was hospitalized after a home invasion.

The Daily Beast reported that Campos-Duffy made the remark while discussing President Joe Biden awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the United States' highest non-military honor — to the former speaker at a recent White House ceremony. Other recipients included Team USA Gymnastics Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, former Secretary of State John Kerry and a posthumous award for assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers, among others.

At one point, guest host Pete Hegseth and Campos-Duffy bandied about other names for hypothetical future medal of freedom ceremonies they felt were more deserving. Campos-Duffy's list included conservative singer Kid Rock, anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines, members of the U.S. Border Patrol and billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, for "absolutely caring about freedom of speech" (Musk's social media platform, X, punishes users for tweeting the word "cisgender").

READ MORE:['Drop the hammer': Judge releases footage of 'violent attack' on Paul Pelosi

"It’s probably more likely to go to Paul Pelosi, Susan Rice and Gavin Newsom,” Hegseth predicted, referring to the former Obama administration official and the governor of California presumed to run for president in 2028. “So I think your list is correct but a little off-brand for ‘Big Joe.’”

"Well maybe Paul Pelosi needs the — the hammer instead of the medal," Campus-Duffy said in response, holding up her hand as if clutching a hammer.

"It's metal," said Hegseth.

"It's metal!" Campus-Duffy said with a laugh.

READ MORE:**:{Paul Pelosi's suspected attacker claimed House Speaker Nancy used 'fake evidence to spy on' Donald Trump**}:

The attack on Paul Pelosi happened in 2022. Far-right Holocaust denier David DePape was charged after the attack and eventually convicted on two felony counts: Assault on the immediate family member of a federal official, and kidnapping a federal official.

In a DOJ press release, FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp said that DePape's attack was the fault of his "misguided ideology," and stated he was confident that Pelosi's attacker "will face the full weight of justice."

"Our public servants and their families deserve to work and live without threats and violence. Defendant’s violent plan to kidnap then-Speaker Pelosi was rooted in his virulent disagreement with her as a result of her official position," U.S. attorney Ismail J. Ramsey said in a public statement. "His violent plan ended with the assault on Mr. Pelosi. Today’s verdict brings justice to the Pelosi family and to the idea that violence has no place in politics."

DePape due to be sentenced on May 17, and faces a maximum potential sentence of 50 years in prison.

Click here to read the Beast's report in full (subscription required).

READ MORE:[Trump lawyer writes conspiratorial post questioning Paul Pelosi hammer assault

===

===

Fox host calls for professors engaging in protests to be fired](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-host-calls-professors-engaging-protests-be-fired)

04/29/24

fox News host Jesse Watters tells QAnon influencer he loves and follows him on social media: “We'll be in touch”](https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/fox-news-host-jesse-watters-tells-qanon-influencer-he-loves-and-follows-him)

04/29/24

RSS

mma 4 24

Murdoch-owned media outlets are pushing a smear campaign to undermine President Joe Biden’s middle-out economic agenda, falsely claiming he is “going to raise taxes on the middle class” if re-elected this year. In fact, Biden has repeatedly promised to maintain lower and middle-class tax rates and to let scheduled expirations of Trump's 2017 trickle-down tax cut scheme go into effect only for individuals with incomes above $400,000.

Trump's tax plan — a giveaway that overwhelmingly benefitted wealthy individuals and highly profitable and powerful corporations — was passed by the Republican-controlled Congress on a party-line vote in both the House and Senate in 2017 as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Trump and the Republican Party own all of the effects of the legislation, including the scheduled expiration of the income tax cuts at the end of 2025, which Republicans wrote into the law. (The GOP-controlled Senate failed to pass a permanent extension of the Trump tax cuts for individuals in 2018.)

*Trump wants media to blame Biden for his own signature legislation

In an April 15 post on Truth Social, former president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump misleadingly claimed that under Biden, “you will soon be facing colossal tax HIKES” due to the expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cut legislation. FactCheck.org explained, however: “As he has since the 2020 campaign, Biden’s FY 2025 budget vows not to increase taxes on people earning less than $400,000.”

“In order to keep that pledge, Biden would have to extend most of the individual income tax provisions enacted in the [2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] that are set to expire at the end of 2025,” FactCheck.org further explained. “And that’s what Biden says he would do — but only for individual filers earning less than $400,000 and married couples making less than $450,000.” (As of 2022, an income of $400,000 was more than five times the median household income of nearly $75,000, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.)

This isn’t the first time Trump and his right-wing allies have run this playbook against Biden. In 2021, just a few months into his term, President Biden produced a budget proposal that did not include permanent extensions of Trump’s fiscally disastrous tax policies. In response, a chorus of right-wing media figures falsely claimed that Biden had broken his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class and framed the looming sunset of Trump's tax policies as “a Biden tax hike.”

The situation is reminiscent of a right-wing smear campaign directed at then-President Barack Obama in 2010 and 2012, when former President George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were set to expire. At the time, Fox News warned viewers that the Obama administration would enact the “largest tax hike ever,” ignoring Obama’s promise (which is similar to the one Biden makes now) to preserve income tax cuts for all but the top 2% of earners. The resulting deal between Obama and a Republican-controlled House of Representatives in January 2013 preserved most of the Bush Era tax cuts, with the exception of those benefiting just the top 1% of incomes.

Murdoch media falsely claim that Biden “would raise taxes on most Americans, not just the wealthy”

• The Murdoch media empire — including Fox News, Fox Business, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal — are accusing Biden of breaking his promise to not raise taxes on households making under $400,000 by claiming that he will allow all of the Trump tax cuts to expire. In these instances they either ignore that his budget proposals actually keep that promise or dismiss his proposals as simply untruthful.

These outlets are also relying heavily on a blog post from March by the right-leaning Tax Foundation, which generally supports reducing taxes and government spending. That post, however, simply analyzed what would happen if all the tax cuts expired, as they were designed to do by the Republicans who drafted and enacted them, and did not include context about Biden’s proposals to allow them to expire only for the highest tax brackets. In another analysis posted this week, the Tax Foundation also noted as precedent that after the Obama Era fight over Bush's lingering tax policies in 2010 and 2012, “Ultimately, most of the tax cuts were made permanent, with the exception of the reduction in the top marginal tax rate.”

• • New York Post: “Biden floats tax hikes for all, says Trump cuts will ‘stay expired’ if re-elected — prompting WH walk-back.”The article mischaracterized a speech Biden made to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, in which he described Trump’s tax cuts as having “overwhelmingly benefited” the wealthy, and further declared, “It’s going to expire. And if I’m reelected, it’s going to stay expired.” The New York Post dishonestly stated that Biden had proposed “tax hikes for all.” New York Post, [4/19/24; The White House, 4/19/24]

• • The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman wrote that “failing to extend the expiring provisions of Donald Trump’s signature reform would raise taxes on most Americans, not just the wealthy.”Freeman claimed that the expiration of all the tax cuts was “a promise Mr. Biden will keep if voters give him another term,” with no mention of Biden’s long-standing commitments to preserve cuts for those making less than $400,000 per year. The Wall Street Journal, [4/24/24]

• • Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy falsely claimed that the scheduled Trump tax cut expiration would break Biden’s “promise not to raise taxes on anybody making less than $400,000 a year.”Doocy continued: “According to the Tax Foundation that finds if President Biden lets the Tax Cut and Jobs Act expire at the end of next year, which he says he’s going to do, somebody making $75,000 a year is going to pay about 1,700 more every year in taxes.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [4/25/24]

• • Fox White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich: “Biden also announced plans this week to let the Trump era tax cuts expire. Analysis from the Tax Foundation says that doesn't jive with his pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than 400 grand a year.” Fox News, *Special Report*, [4/25/24]

• • Fox Business host David Asman: “President Biden says he plans to let Trump-era tax cuts expire next year. That would raise taxes for millions of Americans who earn less than $400,000, breaking his pledge.” Fox Business, *Varney & Co.*, [4/25/24]

• • Fox Business anchor Dagen McDowell: “Biden thinks letting the Trump tax cuts expire — translation: the biggest middle class tax hike in modern history — is actually a good thing.”Fox Business correspondent Grady Trimble added: “President Biden has vowed for years that under his tax plan, middle class Americans wouldn’t have to pay more. Letting the Trump tax cuts expire at the end of 2025 does seem to contradict that promise, but the White House says that is not the case. Instead, it’s saying the president is proposing cuts for those making less than $400,000 a year while proposing hiking taxes on the wealthy and corporations.” Fox Business, *The Bottom Line*, [4/25/24]

• • Fox Business host Elizabeth MacDonald: “President Biden wants to get rid of the Trump tax cuts and raise taxes. That's going to raise taxes on the middle class.” Fox Business, *The Evening Edit*, [4/25/24]

• • Fox Business host Charles Payne: “Whatever happened to the promise? Remember? No one under 400,000, which is such a nebulous number to begin with.”Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones opened the segment by claiming, “President Trump’s tax cuts are set to expire and President Biden won't do anything to stop it, meaning tax hikes are on the horizon for many Americans.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [4/26/24]

• • Fox Business host Jackie DeAngelis claimed that the Biden administration would “spin” the news by claiming not to have raised taxes on incomes under $400,000, but only to have“let those tax cuts expire” for middle and lower-income families.Earlier in the segment, Fox correspondent Grady Trimble said the White House was “clarifying” that Biden does not want to raise taxes on lower income brackets, but DeAngelis seemed to ignore these remarks. Fox Business, *The Big Money Show*, [4/26/24]

• • Trimble stated in a prepackaged report, “President Biden says if he’s reelected, he’ll kill the Trump era tax cuts … seemingly contradicting his campaign promise not to raise taxes on those making under $400,000 a year.”The report then included a comment from Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo declaring that Biden would not raise such taxes, but would instead “increase taxes modestly on the wealthy and also on corporations.” Trimble had already poisoned the rhetorical waters, however, by beginning with the false claim that Biden intended to raise taxes for middle class Americans. Fox News, *Special Report*, [4/26/24]

• • Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo declared, “So much for middle-class Joe’s big campaign promise that he’s not going to raise tax on anybody making less than $400,000 a year.” Bartiromo then read out the Tax Foundation’s analysis of the increases that would take place if all of the 2017 tax cuts were to expire. She included neither context about the Biden administration’s plan to preserve the lower and middle-end tax cuts, nor the Tax Foundation’s own recognition that the 2012 fiscal cliff had resulted in tax increases for only the higher-end tax brackets. Fox Business, *Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street*, [4/26/24]

• • Fox News anchor Dana Perino said, “President Biden is promising to let Trump-era tax cuts expire next year if he wins a second term, meaning that millions of Americans could soon face steeper tax bills.”Neither Perino, co-anchor Bill Hemmer, or Fox Business host Charles Payne even acknowledged Biden’s proposals to keep the tax cuts below the $400,000 income level. Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [4/29/24]

• • Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner proclaimed: “So much for Scranton Joe, they say. President Joe Biden is now floating a tax hike for millions of working-class Americans.” Fox Business correspondent Edward Lawrence noted a response from the White House clarifying that Biden intends only for tax cuts for the wealthy to expire before rebutting, “But that’s not what he says, and he can't pick and choose what part of the law expires.” Lawrence failed to note that the 2017 tax cuts are set to expire because that is how the Republican-controlled Congress wrote the law in the first place, thereby requiring a new package to be passed in Congress in order to prevent the cuts’ expiration. Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [4/29/24]

• • Fox anchor Sandra Smith claimed it was “the talking point from this White House, that those lower earners are not going to be affected, and it just does not appear to be the case.” Fox’s afternoon “straight news” program hosted Trump economic adviser Steve Moore, who asked rhetorically, “So how can Joe Biden say he's not going to raise taxes on people who make less than $400,000, at the same time that he wants to retire these tax cuts?” Fox News, *America Reports*, [4/29/24]

related

Fox falsely claims Trump’s trickle-down tax cuts for the wealthy were directed at the middle class 04/16/24

2. ### Fox continues to mislead about grocery inflation

04/11/24

3. ### Misinformation has Americans depressed about the economy

04/04/24

April 25, 2024 rww

• Yvonne Wingett Sanchez @ The Washington Post: Meadows, Giuliani and other Trump allies charged in Arizona 2020 election probe

An Arizona grand jury on Wednesday indicted seven attorneys or aides affiliated with Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign as well as 11 Arizona Republicans on felony charges related to their alleged efforts to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an announcement by the state attorney general. Those indicted include former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Christina Bobb, top campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman.

• Pema Levy @ Mother Jones: The GOP’s “Election Integrity” Lawyer Was Just Indicted for Election Subversion

Christina Bobb tried to overturn the 2020 election, and Arizona just charged her for it.

• Kate Briquelet @ The Daily Beast: Bogus Furry Panic Overtakes Utah School District

Group chats viewed by The Daily Beast reveal that parents were involved in planning students’ anti-furry protests—and securing right-wing media attention.

• Angry White Men: Heather Mac Donald: ‘The Great Replacement Theory Is Real’

On The Megyn Kelly Show, Heather Mac Donald endorsed the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Mac Donald, a fellow at the right-wing Manhattan Institute, declared that the “Great Replacement theory is real,” and that we’ve “decided to destroy our birthrate” and “flood our country with cultures” that are “not compatible.”

• Media Matters: Trump ally Laura Loomer: “You are an enemy to this country if you do not vote for Donald Trump”

Loomer: Jews who support Democrats “might as well just go put yourself in a gas chamber yourself if this is how you’re gonna behave.”

• Nikki McCann Ramirez @ Rolling Stone: Trump Lawyer Says Having Political Rival Killed Could Constitute ‘Official’ Presidential Act

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday on the former president’s bid to secure sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution.

---

Newsmax's Greg Kelly claims the Trump fake elector scheme that led to indictments in Arizona "happens every election cycle" | Media Matters for America

After Arizona indictment of Trump fake electors, Fox News host Mark Levin claims "there's nothing illegal" about the scheme | Media Matters for America

===

mma 4 24

the hosts of Fox News’ popular midday news program Outnumbered trotted out misleading statistics from the right-wing Federation for American Immigration Reform — doused with Fox’s own patented brand of paranoid xenophobia — to fearmonger about the supposedly unsustainable financial burden immigrants place on American society. The report underpinning Fox’s segment is an apparent reproduction of a 2017 FAIR study that was roundly criticized for methodological omissions and exaggerations. At no point did anyone at Fox acknowledge how much immigrants contribute to American society or how much immigration contributes to economic growth and prosperity.

During the April 16 edition of Outnumbered, co-host Emily Campagno introduced a segment about the supposed financial burden imposed by illegal immigration.

“As the bloated government processes our taxes, we are learning just how much of your money is going toward the migrant crisis,” she began, before pivoting to data from FAIR; “The total net fiscal cost of illegal immigration is $150 billion.”

“So let’s run through some of those numbers, guys,” Campagno continued. “At the federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers are shelling out about $14 billion for welfare, $42 billion for medical care for the illegal immigrants, and that boils down to each individual taxpayer paying an estimated $1,100 a year, which Americans, I think we well know, don’t have.”

Seemingly riffing on the findings outlined in the FAIR report, right-wing radio host Ben Ferguson invoked the xenophobic “great replacement” conspiracy theory, arguing that the “Marxist, socialist, and communist” Democratic Party understands “that if you bankrupt a country, and you bring in new voters in the process, which we’re doing literally by the millions right now, then you can fundamentally change the United States of America in one generation.”

Dialing up the paranoia, Ferguson then suggested that supporting migrants was related to the Democratic Party’s supposed efforts to hook Americans on government benefits. “The government’s there to hand you your food and your housing and your medical,” he said. “They own you like a modern-day slave.”

Outnumbered co-host Harris Faulkner then narrated an on-screen scroll of government programs and agencies that cost less than the $150 billion allegedly spent on so-called “illegal immigration.”

Video

CitationFrom the April 16, 2024, edition of Fox News' Outnumbered

There’s just one problem. The entire set-up for this segment was based on false information. The study from FAIR — an anti-immigrant organization founded by a white nationalist and defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — is junk.

In fact, the 2023 study Fox cited in today’s broadcast — “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers” — appears to follow the same methodology as a 2017 report that the libertarian Cato Institute comprehensively debunked the same year. From Cato (emphasis added):

FAIR’s report reaches that conclusion by vastly overstating the costs of illegal immigration, undercounting the tax revenue they generate, inflating the number of illegal immigrants, counting millions of U.S. citizens as illegal immigrants, and by concocting a method of estimating the fiscal costs that is rejected by all economists who work on this subject.

FAIR’s Errors

Merely using the correct numberswhen it comes to the actual size of the illegal immigrant population, the correct tax rates, and the effect of immigrants on property values lowers the net fiscal cost by 87 percent to 97 percent, down to $15.6 billion or $3.3 billion, respectively.

Fox News relied on a report that seemingly overstated the actual costs of illegal immigration by “87 to 97 percent.”

In line with Cato’s 2017 findings, FAIR admits in its 2023 methodology that its estimate of the undocumented population “is higher than those offered by most mainstream immigration research organizations” and that it intentionally “includes costs incurred by minor, U.S.-born children” in its calculation even though those children are Americans with the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship. (Anti-immigrant groups often use statistical gimmicks to exaggerate the supposed problems created by immigration, like lumping American citizens in with those in the country without permission or speculatively extrapolating the costs of government programs.)

Fox News depicting immigrants as an unsustainable fiscal burden imperiling American society falls in line with the network’s other routinely xenophobic portrayals of migrants.

Just this month, a Fox guest warned that immigrants were “poisoning the bloodline in this country,” while a long-time Fox Business host used the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge to claim that migrant workers were “destroying the country.”

Earlier this month, a Fox prime-time host warned that immigration would turn America into a “third-world dumping ground.”

On another occasion, a Fox guest warned that “illegal immigrants” voting in elections was “part of a political endgame for the Democrats to hold power.”

Fox’s hard turn into anti-immigrant rhetoric, and its embrace of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, in particular, has only heightened as the 2024 election goes into full swing.

THE LATEST

1. ### Steve Bannon on Republican support for Trump during his criminal trial: “Why is there crickets?”

04/17/24 12:53 PM EDT

2. ### MAGA media melt down over Trump hush money trial

04/17/24 11:09 AM EDT

3. ### Right-wing media falsely claim FBI, Biden administration are “cooking the books” on crime data

04/17/24 10:01 AM EDT

4. ### Newsmax guest Ted Nugent: “Anybody that's against Donald Trump, really is against America”

IN THIS ARTICLE

• [### Immigration

](https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration)

• [### Federation for American Immigration Reform

](https://www.mediamatters.org/federation-american-immigration-reform)

• [### Fox News

](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news)

Related

1. ### Right-wing media promote anti-immigrant group’s misleading report to falsely suggest immigrants are stealing American jobs

02/20/24 10:20 AM EST

2. ### Fox News’ highest rated evening programs spread white nationalist rhetoric in nearly half of their immigration segments

02/13/24 10:22 AM EST

3. ### Fox leaned into dehumanizing and vile rhetoric about migrants most days in January

02/09/24 12:33 PM EST

===

mma 2 24

:{:{T.W. SHANNON (FORMER OKLAHOMA HOUSE SPEAKER): Listen to this: We've had 2 million people cross into this country illegally because of this open border policy. Many of them are from al Qaeda. I just did an op-ed on Fox.com that talks about how Chinese nationalists — the Chinese party is actually in the United States in rural Oklahoma. }:

:{And the worst that he can come up with as a threat to democracy is his political opponent. That sends shivers down my spine. Every American should be concerned when the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, considers his political opponent a threat to democracy.

That's a problem. Our Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves. Joe Biden should be ashamed. And the truth is the real threat to democracy are the policies of Joe Biden like the open border that's destroying this country. It is poisoning the bloodline in this country because we are allowing illegals to vote. We're supplying them with all types of resources.}:}:

HARRIS FAULKNER (ANCHOR): Alright, T.W. I'm going to step in for one second. We're going to go now, I'm asking my team. This is the former president.

---

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Greg Gutfeld says Black people "didn't earn" reparations | Media Matters for America

===

mma 4 24

Fox News contributor compares policies to expand voter registration and access to 9/11

Fox's Liz Peek: “George [W.] Bush talked about a failure of imagination accounting for 9/11. This is Republicans’ failure of imagination.”

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD

PUBLISHED 04/09/24

Fox News contributor Liz Peek wildly exaggerated the effects of a Biden administration executive order aimed at protecting voting rights and expanding voter registration and access — which, according to Peek’s telling, represents a looming political threat tantamount to the deadly terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

During a Fox Business appearance promoting her opinion piece on Fox Digital, Peek latched onto an executive order issued by President Joe Biden in March 2021 calling on federal agencies to “promote voter registration and voter participation” and to assist “in a manner consistent with all relevant State laws” with distributing and filling out voter registration and vote-by-mail application forms.

In Peek’s telling, this means federal employees would directly supervise people “filling out their early ballots,” seemingly in a nefarious plot to force them to vote for Biden. (In reality, the only references in the executive order to providing direct assistance to voters have to do with registration and application forms, not actual ballots.)

“And I think, again, you know, George [W.] Bush talked about a failure of imagination accounting for 9/11,” Peek said. “This is Republicans’ failure of imagination. Who could imagine that you’re going to have this number of people out there working on behalf of Joe Biden?”

In fact, Peek's misleading characterization of the Biden administration’s efforts to expand voter registration and access as threats to democracy inverts the reality in which presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s political allies, through an initiative called Project 2025, actually do intend to remodel the federal government into a right-wing political machine if he is elected again in November.

Video file

Video

CitationFrom the April 9, 2024, edition of Fox Business’ Varney & Co.

STUART VARNEY (HOST): Let’s get back to politics, and Liz Peek, still with us here in New York. The op-ed she just wrote, “Biden’s stealth but clever strategy to maintain control of the White House,” end quote. You say Biden’s going to do whatever it takes to win. Like what, Liz?

It’s a pretty — it’s actually an unbelievable thingLIZ PEEK (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Well, we’ve seen that he’s willing to throw his opponent in jail. But beyond that, he has, he issued early in his presidency, like in March of 2021, an executive order that commands — commands — every single federal agency basically to loose their federal employees to register voters, and to use their agencies to promote voter registration, including assisting people filling out their early ballots, filling out their applications for early ballots, etc..

It has been challenged by some Pennsylvania lawmakers. It probably will be heard by the Supreme Court. Whether it’ll get there in time to stop this, I don’t know.

But, Stuart, there are 3 million federal employees. A report by a group of 50 left-leaning organizations reported that if this was done right, they could register over 3 million new voters. I mean, I don’t think Republicans have any idea what they’re up against. And I got to tell you with the Hatch Act, remember that, that was supposed to make electioneering illegal by federal employees, apparently that’s only if you’re in uniform or on duty. So all of these people — I mean, this is an incredible thing.

And I think, again, you know, George [W.] Bush talked about a failure of imagination accounting for 9/11. This is Republicans’ failure of imagination. Who could imagine that you’re going to have this number of people out there working on behalf of Joe Biden?

VARNEY: And they’ll go that far to win.

PEEK: Yeah.

:{------

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mma 4 24

STEPHEN MOORE (FORMER TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER): You know, we’ve been talking a lot about the stock market, and what are threats to stock market, what’s going to happen with interest rates.

But I want to remind people that by far, by far the biggest risk to the stock market is what Joe Biden is proposing on taxes. If you did anything at all remotely near what he wants to do — which is double the capital gains tax, increase the dividend tax, increase the U.S. corporate tax rate from 21 to 28% — you’re talking about taxes on investment that would go as high as 50%. And so, what’s interesting is, you know, you just came out with that Fox poll a couple days ago that shows that Trump is in the lead I think in four of the five key battleground states—

MARIA BARTIROMO (FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR): Six out of seven, yes.

MOORE: Six out of seven. I just wonder if maybe the market is pricing in a little bit, you know, and employers, too, the idea that maybe we’re going to get a new president in November.

BARTIROMO: We’ll see. Does that work into your looking at markets, the idea that we could see policy changes next year? What do you think, Bob Doll?

BOB DOLL (CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CROSSMARK GLOBAL INVESTMENTS): Yeah,has to. The policy differentials between these two guys is pretty significant, I agree with all Steve has said. One of my concerns, however, is the massive tariffs that Trump is thinking about putting on, that’s not great for our economy. But the rest of the tax issues, it’s a clear-cut differential.

BARTIROMO: Yeah, he certainly wants to keep China in check.

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a panel on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Thursday highlighted the role right-wing misinformation is playing in distorting perceptions about the state of the economy and the rate of inflation, which a majority of Americans incorrectly believe is headed in the wrong direction.

Wall Street Journal economic reporter Greg Ip drew attention to the enormous disparity between perception and reality when it comes to consumer sentiment about the economy in an April 4 article, titled “What’s Wrong With the Economy? It’s You, Not the Data.” Ip pointed to public opinion data showing that a vast majority of respondents incorrectly believed inflation has gone up in the past year, when indeed it has fallen significantly and stabilized in the nearly two years since peaking in June 2022. Furthermore, Ip highlighted a survey showing that by 40-to-60 point margins, respondents think the overall U.S. economy is getting worse while their own state economy is getting better. He also cited data indicating that by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, a majority of Americans wrongly believe the economy — which has enjoyed robust job creation and GDP growth — has gotten worse over the past year.

Ip's article spurred a conversation on the set of MSNBC's Morning Joe, where co-hosts Mika Brzenski and Joe Scarborough and New York Times columnist and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin keyed in on the role played by the partisan misinformation ecosystem in fomenting pessimism and distorting reality.

“The misinformation that’s been put out across the country about this issue is so shocking, because of the way people feel versus the actual reality of the numbers,” said Sorkin. “It’s hard to tell people that you shouldn't feel one way, and I know that is true, but the numbers are directionally, shockingly, going in a good place.”

NBC News national affairs analyst John Heilemann chimed in that while the economy has improved, the tapering of inflation happened slowly, and that from a political standpoint for the Biden White House, “You cannot argue people out of their feelings,” with Heilemann recommending a different approach.

“You have to figure out a way to say to them, hey, we know that prices are still too high, we know you're still feeling it in your pocketbook now, but look at all the progress we've made,” Heilemann said. “Give us some more time, because you know it's just going to be worse with Donald Trump. He's not on your side. We're on your side, we fixed a lot of stuff. This thing still, we need some work, we've made some progress, but not enough.”

Indeed, liberal and conservative economists agree that Trump’s policies would make inflation worse — but mainstream media outlets have barely covered this.

Scarborough then contrasted the poll findings that people thought their own state economies were doing well while the rest of the country was doing badly, then turned the question back to the sheer volume of right-wing media misinformation.

“I'm sorry but, you know, if you looked at certain cable news channels you would think we were in the middle of a Great Depression, that illegal immigrants were racing through schools across America stabbing people in the face, and that leprosy is going to be spread by migrants going across the border, and that trans athletes are coming to your middle school to beat up your, you know, sixth-grade girl,” Scarborough declared. “I mean, seriously, turn it on any time. Turn it on any time, and it’s the economy is in free fall, migrants are coming to kill you, and trans athletes. I mean, it's constant — it’s a constant, constant churning of these messages. And it has an impact on polls after [airing] 24/7.”

Right-wing media have often painted the completely false picture of the dystopian, even post-apocalyptic America that Scarborough described. On those exact topics that Scarborough mentioned, for example, Fox News has ignored or dismissed positive economic news, falsely depicted a “war on fossil fuels” when in fact the country is producing more energy than ever, and depicted minimum wage increases as a danger to the economy and American way of life. Fox has also run an obsessive level of coverage depicting migrants as a criminal threat to the country, and hyped supposed new threats without any empirical evidence. (Scarborough’s reference to immigrants purportedly carrying leprosy was actually a Fox News narrative from 2018.)

And of course, Fox has engaged in a vast culture war against transgender people, and the network drastically picked up its coverage in 2021 as soon as Democrats took control of the White House and Congress. This intense coverage has continued for years, including targeted hate campaigns, treating urban legends as if they’re real news, and whipping up new cultural battles via days of relentless coverage and dishonestly edited footage.

Watch the full segment from Morning Joe below:

SOME RUBBER GLUE DEFLECTION FROMTRUMP COUP J6?

TRUMP SPUTS bs W/ [SOME]PPL ARE SAYING? SHE GOES WITH UNNAMED REPUBLICANS

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Fox News Business host Maria Bartiromo is promoting the thoroughly debunked claim an executive order signed by President Joe Biden allows “illegal immigrants” and “felons” to vote.

Bartiromo, in pushing the false claim, told Fox News viewers, “Republicans are warning that there’s a Biden order, executive order, which allows illegal immigrants and felons to vote.”

There is no such order.

“It doesn’t appear that Joe Biden can win on his policies,” Bartiromo said Wednesday. “A Wall Street Journal poll this morning shows Trump leading Biden in six out of seven swing states, that’s Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania. In Wisconsin, the two are tied in a head-to-head matchup. So how does Biden win? Republicans are talking about the potential of an election that is tampered with. Republicans are warning that there’s a Biden order, executive order, which allows illegal immigrants and felons to vote.”

READ MORE: Jack Smith’s ‘Blistering’ Response to Judge Cannon Could ‘Remove Her From the Case’: Experts

The conspiracy theory appears to have come from Mississippi’s Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson three years ago, a conspiracy theory Watson himself resurfaced last month.

Fox News several weeks ago reported Watson had sent the U.S. Dept. of Justice a letter “asking it to stop enforcing a Biden executive order that he warns is being used to attempt to register ineligible convicts and illegal immigrants to vote.”

“As you are aware, on March 7, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order No. 14019 which sought to turn the Department of Justice agencies from their historical missions of law enforcement to voter registration and get out the vote operations,” Watson wrote, according to Fox News. “These efforts are an intrusion into state matters and are a misuse of federal revenue and resources. In addition, it appears that these efforts have led to agencies under your charge attempting to register people to vote, including potentially ineligible felons and to co-opt state and local officials into accomplishing this goal.”

The fact-checking website Verify makes clear: “No, Biden’s executive order doesn’t allow ineligible people to vote.” It also says it’s “not true” that Biden’s order “would make it easier for ineligible people to vote.”

READ MORE: ‘Says You!’: Kirby Smacks Down Doocy

A USA Today fact check arrives at the same conclusion: “No, Biden didn’t (and can’t) allow immigrants in US illegally to vote.”

“Experts said the claim is nonsense. Biden has issued no such order, and he does not have the power to decide who votes.” Also, the paper notes, “in 1996, Congress made it illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.”

When he was a state lawmaker Watson voted against making it easier for college students to register to vote, and in 2021, as Mississippi Secretary of State, Watson said “he is worried that the nation will suffer if more ‘woke’ and ‘uninformed’ college students become registered voters,” the Mississippi Free Press reported at the time. The news outlet took a deep dive into Watson’s extensive claims, also debunking them.

MSNBC’s Ari Melber in 2021 highlighted Watson’s remarks, and called them, “just one of many occurrences of GOP officials unintentionally revealing they don’t want everyone to vote.”

Watch Bartiromo below or at this link.

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Texas and 15 states sue Biden admin over climate agenda targeting gas projects | Fox News

fox no lnx

Texas and 15 states sue Biden admin over climate agenda targeting gas projects

'I will not stand by while Biden attacks Texas,' Attorney General Ken Paxton says

Thomas Catenacci By Thomas Catenacci Fox News

Published March 22, 2024

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Biden's halting of liquified natural gas projects is 'utter nonsense': Marc Morano

Climatedepot.com Executive Director Marc Morano discusses the impact on American energy from the Biden administration's halt of liquified natural gas projects and reacts to Davos saying that drinking coffee causes climate change.

A coalition of 16 Republican states, led by Texas and Louisiana, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, challenging its recent climate action pausing proposed energy projects.

The multistate coalition filed its complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, listing President Biden, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and the Department of Energy (DOE) among the defendants in the case. According to the complaint, the DOE's move earlier this year pausing major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal projects violated long-standing federal energy laws.

"Biden’s unilateral decree disregards statutory mandates, flouts the legal process, upends the oil and gas industry, disrupts the Texas economy, and subverts our constitutional structure," said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

"The ban will drive billions of dollars in investment away from Texas, hinder our ability to maximize revenue for public schools, force Texas producers to flare excess natural gas instead of taking it to market, and annihilate critical jobs," he continued. "I will not stand by while Biden attacks Texas."

GOP LEADERS CONFRONT BIDEN’S NEW CLIMATE CZAR ON KEY SECURITY RISKS LURKING IN GREEN AGENDAPrice Futures Group senior analyst Phil Flynn and Copenhagen Consensus Center President Bjorn Lomborg on the concerns with bans on natural gas for costs and reliability.

Ken Paxton in front of Supreme Court

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 1, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

According to Paxton, the LNG export moratorium is unconstitutional, ignores the 1938 Natural Gas Act’s "presumption in favor of exports" and discards decades of DOE energy policy.

In arguing the alleged unconstitutionality of the policy, the states' complaint notes Article I of the Constitution vests Congress with "[a]ll legislative Powers," including the power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations." Therefore, since blocking LNG exports can be considered a regulation of commerce, the DOE violated the Constitution, according to the lawsuit.

TIKTOK ACTIVIST SAYS HE ADVISED WHITE HOUSE ON BIDEN'S NEW NATURAL GAS MORATORIUM

"The LNG Export Ban implicates an issue of profound national importance. LNG exports account for billions of dollars to the economy and thousands of jobs," the complaint states. "They also raise serious questions of national security. And this is an issue that has been the subject of proposed legislation and public attention in and outside of Congress."

President Biden ordered pending natural gas export projects to be halted in a stunning move in January. (Getty Images)

The complaint accuses DOE of violating the Administrative Procedure Act which governs the procedures of administrative law. The states highlight that DOE failed to host any public comment period before finalizing its LNG policy without "good cause to forego the notice and comment requirement."

Additionally, the states argue the DOE failed to properly consider the Natural Gas Act and its provision that states the agency issue an export license before hearing from the public.

DOZENS OF FORMER TOP FEDERAL OFFICIALS CALL ON CONGRESS TO STRIKE DOWN BIDEN'S NATURAL GAS CRACKDOWN

"The Biden administration’s illegal attacks on American energy jeopardizes the livelihoods of thousands of hard-working Louisiana men and women, millions of dollars in tax revenue, and billions of dollars in infrastructure," said Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.

"LNG continues to have an enormous positive economic impact for our state — especially on our hard-hit coastal communities, which continue to recover from a recent series of devastating hurricanes. Jobs like these grow the economy, reduce crime, and help address the out-migration problem," she continued. "The people of Louisiana are proud to power this nation. I’m ready to fight for them."

An LNG tanker is pictured at the Elbehafen port in Brunsbuettel, Germany. American LNG has been critical in helping Germany and other European nations wean off Russian gas. (Bodo Marks/picture alliance via Getty Images)

In a surprise move in January, Biden ordered the DOE to pause pending permits for LNG export facilities while federal officials conduct a rigorous environmental review assessing the projects' carbon emissions, which could take more than a year to complete. The action was lauded by climate activists who have loudly called for such a move, which they said would help combat global warming.

However, the move was blasted by industry groups, former federal officials and bipartisan lawmakers, who noted energy exports are vital for aiding allies in Europe and Asia. In the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine two years ago, U.S. LNG largely filled the void left by Russian natural gas as U.S. allies sought to wean off Russian exports and punish the nation's economy, a plan Biden endorsed at the time.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Opponents also argued that LNG exports bolster domestic energy production and boost the U.S. economy. Fossil fuel industry groups recently cited research indicating that LNG exports could add as much as $73 billion to the U.S. economy by 2040, create 453,000 American jobs and increase U.S. purchasing power by $30 billion.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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Fox News wants its viewers to think that one of yesterday’s witnesses at the House GOP’s impeachment hearing is untrustworthy.

But the network isn’t concerned about the one who testified from federal prison after a fraud conviction, or the one who admits to having a grievance with Hunter Biden.

No, the guy Fox wants viewers to disbelieve is the witness who told the committee that he played a key role in concocting the anti-Biden Ukrainian disinformation campaign that played out on Fox’s airwaves.

Fox has long known Lev Parnas lacked credibility, thanks to research by its own staff. But now it’s finally useful to the network’s narratives to say so.

Back in 2019, Parnas was part of a Rudy Giuliani-driven campaign to smear Joe Biden and his son Hunter as corrupt because of actions and positions the senior Biden took regarding Ukraine when he was vice president. Giuliani worked with a motley crew of Fox News staples such as conservative writer John Solomon and Republican attorneys Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing to launder Russian-linked disinformation into the right-wing media ecosystem. The goal was to lay the groundwork for attacking then-President Donald Trump’s most likely opponent in the 2020 presidential election.

Parnas, along with fellow Soviet-born con man Igor Fruman, worked closely with Giuliani to feed him an endless supply of lies about Joe Biden and his supposed corruption. This effort ultimately got Trump impeached for attempting to blackmail Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden, but it’s nonetheless most familiar now for serving as the incredibly shaky foundation of the right’s current efforts to impeach Biden.

Media Matters extensively documented the key role Fox News played in laundering this smear campaign into the media.

Giuliani’s strategy hinged on the network’s active participation. Working with con men like Parnas and other Trump cronies, he pursued an “investigation” into Ukraine that he claimed showed both Ukrainian collusion with Democrats in 2016 and evidence that Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine to benefit his son. He provided his “report” to allies in Congress to exploit while also feeding the story to conservative columnist John Solomon, who at the time worked at The Hill and dutifully reported out Giuliani’s claims in dozens of columns. During that same time period, Solomon appeared on Fox News or Fox Business at least 72 times. Fifty-one of those appearances were on Hannity alone, with host Sean Hannity weaving Solomon’s reporting into his ever-evolving conspiracy theories that “deep state” elements were out to get Trump.

Despite what played on the network’s airwaves, behind the scenes Fox News' researchers warned that Parnas and his allies’ information was not reliable. As The Daily Beast reported, “Fox News’ own research team has warned colleagues not to trust some of the network’s top commentators’ claims about Ukraine.”

According to The Daily Beast, the 162-page brief compiled by researchers for what was then known as Fox’s Brain Room “openly” questioned “Fox News contributor John Solomon’s credibility, accusing him of playing an ‘indispensable role’ in a Ukrainian ‘disinformation campaign.’”

The document also specifically called into question Parnas’ credibility, noting: “Reading the timeline in its entirety—not a small task—makes clear the extensive role played by Rudy Giuliani and his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, in spreading disinformation.”

Indeed, when Parnas was arrested for allegedly making illegal campaign donations to Republican candidates and committees, he was at the airport, preparing to leave the country in order to facilitate an interview with disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for none other than Sean Hannity.

Shortly after his arrest, Parnas flipped, and he has since repeatedly sought to expose the misinformation campaign he facilitated and the key players behind it. During Trump’s 2019 impeachment trial, Parnasprovided evidence about the pressure Trump allies were placing on Ukrainian officials to provide information about Biden.

With Parnas’ change in position, Fox suddenly became much more publicly skeptical of the claims he was making. And yesterday, when he testified in the latest of the House Republicans’ doomed efforts to invent a reason to impeach Joe Biden, he specifically called out Fox’s tendency to run with the dubious, unverifiable claims he had given to John Solomon:

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): At what point did the campaign to dig up dirt on Biden become a campaign to spread disinformation and lies about Biden?

LEV PARNAS: At some point when we hit a few brick walls, all of a sudden, then I saw the shift between the BLT group, which included John Solomon, the media personality, and Rudy Giuliani and other Trump lawyers, to start trying to push narratives that were — we had no, they were not validated. We had no way to validate them. Basically, a letter would come over from somebody in Ukraine, I'd hand it over to John Solomon. Next thing you knew he was on Fox TV two hours later with Sean Hannity.

Predictably, Fox has sought to discredit Parnas’ testimony by attacking his credibility.

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade complained that Parnas “went to jail for lying and is talking about Ukraine” (Parnas was convicted of wire fraud and campaign finance violations, not anything related to his work with Giuliani) and said his testimony was nothing but a “head fake” on the part of the Democrats who invited him to testify.

So-called “straight news” anchor John Roberts said of Parnas: “The credibility of a witness clearly depends on which side of the political aisle you sit, because the Democrats were happy to have Lev Parnas testify there in person. He’s been in jail for wire fraud, among other things, but Jason Galanis, who’s currently in jail, oh, he had no credibility. So, I mean, pick and choose your villains here, right?”

It's convenient how Fox suddenly develops journalistic standards when the claims Parnas is making no longer fit the network’s anti-Biden narratives.

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right-wing Fox News host Dana Perrino recently expressed her frustration with House Republicans' dysfunctional campaign to impeach President Joe Biden.

Perrino, who served as White House press secretary in the George W. Bush Administration, told her colleague Bill Hemmer that "it just feels like" House Republicans "keep doing the same hearing over and over again" — adding, "And people are starting to wonder: At some point, do you fish or cut bait and do something about a vote or not, and move on to the general election?"

But Perrino's comments are a major departure from all the Fox News segments that have been hyping a possible Biden impeachment and promoting the investigations of House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

READ MORE:Fox News host rips House Republicans for holding same impeachment hearing 'over and over again'

In a biting op-ed published by MSNBC on March 22, Media Matters' Matt Gertz calls out the Fox News hosts who have encouraged an impeachment campaign that went nowhere — especially Sean Hannity.

"It’s time to call it: The House GOP's shambolic inquiry into the impeachment of President Joe Biden expired on Wednesday night at 9:01 p.m.," Gertz argues. "That’s when Sean Hannity opened his Fox News show by promising 'highlights' from the day's 'explosive' hearing with Hunter Biden's former business partners — and then immediately pivoted to a monologue not about its revelations, but about the president's poll numbers."

Gertz adds, "Hannity did more than perhaps any other single figure to will the impeachment probe into existence. Since 2018, he has led a Fox propaganda campaign aimed at using lies about the younger Biden's foreign business interests to damage his father's political standing."

For months, Comer and Jordan — with Fox News' blessing — hyped former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov as the impeachment star witness who would bring down Biden's presidency. But their impeachment campaign suffered a major blow when Smirnov was arrested for allegedly lying to the FBI — and yet another blow over reporting that Smirnov was getting bogus "information" from Russian government intelligence.

READ MORE:Why was GOP’s star witness re-arrested? He may have been trying to flee the country: report

Gertz notes that House Republicans' baseless impeachment probe "has utterly failed to produce evidence of wrongdoing by the president that would convince anyone other than the network's most fervent fans."

"If even Hannity can no longer feign enthusiasm about the impeachment effort," the Media Matters senior fellow writes, "it is truly toast — and Fox itself deserves a big share of the blame for leading Republicans into this debacle."

READ MORE:'Maybe the guy did lie': Jordan admits indicted FBI informant’s Biden claims not credible

*Matt Gertz's full MSNBC op-ed is available at this link.

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Earlier this week, right-wing media returned to their time honored tradition of publicly freaking out about the beloved educational program Sesame Street, charging that the Biden administration is using the comical over-eater Cookie Monster as part of a woke political agenda to attack innocent corporations — or even more bizarrely, that perhaps President Joe Biden is only responding to inflation in general, and a specific phenomenon known as “shrinkflation,” because of a public protest by the furry puppet character.

The latest iteration of conservatives’ bizarre anti-Sesame Street fixation seemingly began on March 4, when the official X account for everyone’s favorite gluttonous children’s character tweeted a complaint, “Me hate shrinkflation! Me cookies are getting smaller,” then followed up over an hour later, “Guess me going to have to eat double da cookies!” (Perhaps the lovable monster subscribes to his local newspaper, The New York Times, which just published a feature on “shrinkflation” on March 1.)

The White House’s own official account then responded later in the afternoon:

IFrame Content

Then, at a White House event on March 5 about fighting corporate price gouging — another topic that has right-wing media attacking the president — Biden further chimed in on shrinking product sizes: “I’ll tell you what — I’ll tell you who did notice: the Cookie Monster. He pointed out cookies are — his cookies are getting smaller. He’s paying the same price. I was stunned when I found out that’s what actually happened.” The president also announced the launch of “a new Strike Force” targeting “Unfair and Illegal Pricing to crack down on companies who break the law while keeping prices high for American consumers.”

Yes, Cookie Monster, big companies are price-gouging

The aforementioned New York Times article on “shrinkflation” found that companies are still reducing package sizes despite inflation having cooled off: “After peaking at 9.1 percent in July 2022, it had eased to 3.1 percent as of January. And consumers might be less willing to accept shrinkflation now that firms are facing less severe cost pressures, especially because food company profits have been — and in many cases remain — high. They may simply feel ripped off.”

“Shrinkflation” is really one aspect of the overall inflation problem — and multiple analyses have found that “greedflation” was an exacerbating factor in inflation these past few years. Following supply chain disruptions as the global economy recovered from the pandemic and an increase in oil prices in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, companies took advantage of the public’s economic alarm to justify further price increases beyond just the increased costs of production.

A study last year by two progressive think tanks in Britain, reported in Fortune, found that corporate profits increased at a faster rate than costs did. Another study reported in Fortune, from the American think tank Groundwork Collaborative, found that profits drove 53% of inflation during the second and third quarters of 2023, and more than one-third overall since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and caused inflation to be 1 to 3 points higher than otherwise might’ve occurred.

Bloomberg recently reported on an analysis by Goldman Sachs finding that companies are quick to raise prices in the face of increased costs, but then slow to actually lower them again once their own costs go back down. An article in The Wall Street Journal in May 2023 actually made the argument for bilking consumers: “‘Greedflation’ Is Real — and Probably Good for the Economy.”

Conservatives breathlessly warn of conspiracy between Biden and Sesame Street to serve his “political agenda”

• During the daily White House press briefing, Fox Business correspondent Edward Lawrence accused the White House of only speaking up about inflation due to Cookie Monster’s post: “Why did it take the Cookie Monster to speak up, or an election year, for this strike force to go?”White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre balked at the notion, stating “If anything, it feels like the Cookie Monster is responding to us and what we’ve been saying about shrinkflation.” (Jean-Pierre also laughed at the absurdity of the whole question.) Fox Business, *Kudlow*, [3/5/24]

• Fox Business host Brian Brenberg claimed, “Apparently, Cookie Monster gets his [Biden’s] attention,” and exclaimed, “We’re being governed by these people — this is our economic policy, response to Cookie Monster?”Brenberg further claimed that legal costs to corporations from government actions would only further raise costs and prices, “and we’re going to have a worse situation than we have right now, because he wants to look like he’s doing something so Cookie Monster’s cookies don’t get smaller.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [3/5/24]

• On his radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity criticized Cookie Monster’s dismay at his cookies shrinking, stating “Well, then first off, you don't have to buy them. … If you feel that you're getting ripped off, then don't buy it.”Hannity continued, speculating that Biden will make shrinkflation an integral part of his State of the Union address or even invite Cookie Monster to speak during the speech. Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [3/5/24]

• RedState accused Democrats of using childhood icons like Cookie Monster to “spin at us” and “compromise for their political agenda.” The article also feigned shock at Biden speaking out against inflation while implying that he does not give the same attention to border security. RedState, [3/5/24]

• Appearing on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Wall Street Journal Editor-at-Large Gerry Baker accused the Biden administration of trying to deflect blame for the rate of inflation. Baker asserted, “Nobody buys this silly idea about shrinkflation and Cookie Monsters; it’s just an indication, again, of how desperate I think this administration is.” Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, [3/5/24]

• Fox News anchor Dana Perino said that Fox host Jesse Watters should do “an investigation” into who operates and is “being political” with the Cookie Monster X account. Fox News, *The Five*, [3/5/24]

• CPAC Now host Mercedes Schlapp suggested that Cookie Monster is “now a Democrat.” Newsmax, *Eric Bolling: The Balance*, [3/5/24]

• On Fox News’ The Bottom Line, co-host Sean Duffy claimed that “Joe Biden will only respond to the Cookie Monster” on political issues.Duffy continued, questioning whether Cookie Monster should also post about immigration and crime because “maybe Joe Biden will go, ‘Oh these are real issues for the American people,’ because the Cookie Monster said so.” Fox Business, *The Bottom Line*, [3/5/24]
• Conservative outlet American Wire asserted that Cookie Monster’s tweet was a coordinated effort and the latest attempt of the Biden administration using entertainers for “gaslighting the American public” into blaming “corporate greed … for consumer woes.”American Wire, [3/6/24]

• A NewsBusters article also accused the Biden administration and ABC News’ Good Morning America of coordinating with Cookie Monster’s X account to promote an image of inflation being caused by “corporate greed,” which the article asserted as a “cartoonish image” and “a lazy answer.”NewsBusters, [3/5/24]

• Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo also accused the Biden administration of coordinating with Cookie Monster’s X account, declaring that “I’m not buying that the Cookie Monster is an independent.”Bartiromo also claimed that Biden is more focused on inflation than “migrants being apprehended and committing migrant crime.” Fox Business, *Mornings with Maria Bartiromo*, [3/7/24]

• Newsmax host Rob Schmitt claimed that the Cookie Monster account is “spewing Joe Biden’s political talking points.”Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [3/6/24]

Right-wingers regularly attack Sesame Street, because they don’t get the whole point of the show

While right-wing media sees a political conspiracy in the Cookie Monster account’s latest pronouncements on current events, The Washington Post pointed out that the account previously “has appeared to post about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, has spoken about therapy and has endorsed self-care,” while another recent post from the character Elmo’s account inadvertently started a public dialogue about mental health.

But even deeper than that, the show has always been dedicated to teaching children (and maybe some parents, too) how to get along in a diverse world. “Since 1969, children and adults alike have flocked to the place where multiethnic, multigenerational, and even multispecies residents coexist in harmony,” says a PBS site explaining what the show is all about. “The people on this very special street learn life's lessons together, provide viewers with strong role models, and teach children that everyone brings a special ability to the community. Here, children learn to use their imaginations, build social skills, and respect people's differences.”

All of which is to say, right-wing media has been attacking this cultural treasure of a program for many years.

• “I've always said that Elmo is a groomer”: Right-wing media figures did not appreciate “woke” Elmo teaching children that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is safe and effective.Elmo and his dad Louie got vaccinated against COVID-19 in June 2022, with Elmo explaining to all of the children at home that he felt okay after “a little pinch” and his dad discussing questions that he talked about with his pediatrician before getting vaccinated. This sensible advice was met with abject paranoia from One America News’ Dan Ball and BlazeTV host Chad Prather.

• YouTube,[; OAN, Real America with Dan Ball, 7/5/22]

• Fox contributor Sean Duffy claimed that Sesame Street is “trying to indoctrinate your children” when discussing the episode where Elmo gets vaccinated. Fox News, *Fox & Friends First*, [6/29/22]

• While discussing the debut of Ji-Young, a Korean-American character, former Fox host Tucker Carlson ranted that “tribalism” has become a part of Sesame Street with the introduction of characters who have unique and identifiable ethnicities.Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [1/7/22]

During an earlier effort to increase public awareness about the

importance of vaccinations, co-hosts on Fox & Friends Weekend claimed that Sesame Street was feeding “propaganda” directly to children.Co-host Rachel Campos- Duffy claimed the programming “looks like a Big Pharma commercial on Sesame Street. It's so creepy.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [11/7/21]

• Carlson devolved into an unhinged rant against Sesame Street’s special on 2020’s George Floyd protests discussing police brutality. On the now-canceled Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson accused those fighting against police brutality of “trying to take over your country” and “eliminate our centurieslong tradition of tolerance … and free expression.” Carlson also claimed that said protesters cause “weak leaders” to “reflexively bend to their demands, no matter what those demands are,” citing Sesame Street’s programming to claim that anti-American indoctrination “starts very young.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [6/9/20]

• Fox News’ Eric Bolling said Sesame Street spreads a “left-wing Communist diatribe,” while reporting on the 46th season of the hit show. Fox News, *The Five*, [1/14/16]

• After then-presidential nominee Mitt Romney called for ending federal money for public broadcasting, Fox News called Big Bird a “taker” of federal funding and said it was “time you flew the coop.” Fox News hosts and commentators also called the show a potential “multi-billion dollar goldmine” that “has made more money than a lot of Wall Street firms.” In fact, the Sesame Workshop’s expenses were higher than its revenues. Moreover, all federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (not just this one show) made up just 0.012% of the federal budget. Media Matters, [10/10/12]

• Fox commentator Andrea Tantaros called Muppet programming, including Sesame Street, “brainwashing in the most obvious form.” Tantaros further complained: “I thought Sesame Street was supposed to be sharing and being nice to people, but over the years they've gotten more liberal.” Fox Business, *Follow the Money*, [12/2/11]

• Fox host Eric Bolling claimed that Sesame Street was getting “pretty political” and said that showcasing Lily, a character affected by poverty, is too harsh for children to see. Continuing, Bolling questioned whether the show will showcase an “evil Republican or Tea Party-er that they’re going to blame little Lily’s poverty on.” Fox Business, *Follow the Money*, [10/7/11]

• Right-wing blogs such as TheBlaze and The Gateway Pundit ridiculed Sesame Street’s new character whose family faced ongoing food insecurity. Lily’s introduction to the show was used by right-wing media as a cheap shot against former President Barack Obama and the rates of poverty during his administration. Media Matters, [10/6/11]

• Fox host Sean Hannity hosted a panel attacking Sesame Street for a segment that supported letting boys play with dolls and girls play with fire trucks. In response, right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro joked that he would like to “cap” Elmo, while former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell called it a “direct assault on this country's moral foundation.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [6/1/11]

//

1. ### Fox News lets Trump ramble on about inflation — which his policies would actually make worse

03/05/24 3:18 PM EST

2. ### Laura Ingraham praises companies for contributing “shrinkflation”

02/12/24 8:22 PM EST

3. ### Tens of millions of Americans are inundated by credit card junk fees — and now right-wing media are rallying to defend this price gouging

03/06/24 4:26 PM EST

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the Biden administration is cracking down on “unfair and illegal” price gouging by major corporations

• • On March 5, President Biden launched a “Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing” co-chaired by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. Biden launched an interagency strike force to tackle “unfair and illegal” price increases by large corporations, which according to CNBC “Biden sees as a major reason why consumers are not yet feeling the impact of cooling inflation rates and a strong economy.” FTC Chair Lina Khan announced to reporters that the strike force “builds on the FTC’s far-reaching work to promote competition and tackle unlawful business practices that are inflating costs for Americans.” The White House, [3/5/24; CNBC, 3/5/24]
  • The strike force's launch coincides with a new CFPB restriction that caps credit card late fees at $8. Citing CFPB data, the New York Times reported that such late fees “have become a major profit source for credit card issuers, generating more than $14 billion in 2022.” According to the Times, the bureau also indicated that credit card issuers have been exploiting a loophole in a 2010 Federal Reserve rule that allowed credit card issuers to adjust late fees based on inflation and raised “their fees far beyond the actual costs they incur when payments arrive late." NPR noted that “by law, the fees are supposed to be tied to a credit card issuer's own costs associated with the late payment,” but the bureau “found that even as banks have adopted cheaper processes for dealing with late payments, the fees have continued to climb.” The New York Times, [3/5/24; NPR, 3/5/24]
  • CFPB: An estimated 45 million Americans who incur late fees will save an average of $220 each year — a total savings of $10 billion annually — by capping credit card late fees. “For over a decade, credit card giants have been exploiting a loophole to harvest billions of dollars in junk fees from American consumers,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said of the bureau’s move to cap late fees. “Today's rule ends the era of big credit card companies hiding behind the excuse of inflation when they hike fees on borrowers and boost their own bottom lines.” The bureau's press release stated that the rule applies “to the largest credit card issuers, those with more than 1 million open accounts," which “account for more than 95% of total outstanding credit card balances.” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, [3/5/24]
  • A February 2023 poll found “overwhelming bipartisan support” for capping credit card late fees to $8. According to the poll conducted by progressive research group Navigator, 79% of registered voters supported the Biden administration “lowering the limit credit card companies can charge per late fee from $41 to $8.” Those numbers included 74% of independents and 68% of Republicans. Navigator, [3/2/23]
  • Potential Trump VP pick Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is trying to block the rule capping credit card late fees. Bloomberg reported that “Senator Tim Scott, a potential Trump vice presidential pick and the top Republican on the Banking Committee, said Tuesday he would push the Senate to take action to block the new regulation” through a Senate vote via the Congressional Review Act. “It will decrease the availability of credit card products for those who need it most, raise rates for many borrowers who carry a balance but pay on time, and increase the likelihood of late payments across the board,” Scott argued in a public statement. Bloomberg, [3/5/24]
• ## Conservative media responded to Biden's efforts to save Americans money by attacking him and the new CFPB rule
  • Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo repeatedly accused Biden of prioritizing reducing credit card late fees over other issues. On March 5, Bartiromo criticized Biden for “what the president is spending his time doing.” Bartiromo said, “This morning he's [President Biden] talking about late fees, and he's talking about corporate America, and it's companies' fault that people are facing inflation.” The next day, Bartiromo continued this line of attack: “We have so many serious priorities,” she said. “I mean a woman is dead because she was murdered by an illegal migrant in Georgia and now we're talking about late fees.” Fox Business, *Mornings with Maria Bartiromo*, [3/5/24, 3/6/24]
  • On Newsmax, conservative economist Peter Morici accused Biden of initiating the cap on late fees as a scheme to buy votes. At first, Morici downplayed the number of Americans the new rule would help, before adding: “Think about who's always paying late fees. They're probably the kind of folks that would vote for Democrats. This is a way of motivating them to go out and vote,” he said. “This administration is now getting desperate looking at the polls, and they're looking at every conceivable way to buy a vote.” Morici later compared the rule to Soviet-era price fixing. “If you want the government setting prices, then let’s resurrect the old Soviet Union," he said. Newsmax, *The National Report*, [3/5/24]
  • Outkick host Tomi Lahren: “We have an invasion at our southern border that is costing our country billions, and your sleepy President is going after junk fees. Unbelievable.” Twitter/X, [3/5/24]
  • WSJ editorial: “The Biden ‘Strike Force’ Is Coming for You.” Instead of blaming credit card companies for charging consumers exorbitant fees, The Wall Street Journal's editorial board characterized the CFPB rule as a “burdensome government regulation,” adding that “such fees have proliferated under Mr. Biden because business costs have increased.” Even though the new rule is expected to save consumers billions, the editorial board concluded that “The Biden Presidency is becoming more expensive for Americans by the day.” The Wall Street Journal, [3/5/24]
  • Fox's The Five mockingly described the new initiative as Biden’s “shrinkflation” strike force. After The Five co-host Jeanine Pirro opened a segment by criticizing Biden for the new strike force, co-host Dana Perino piled on, saying, “This is a brainless decision.” She added: “The market is the strike force. But if Biden is interested in doing this, you could look at all of the issues that we're talking about in terms of where he is polling badly. Why is there no strike force to go after the border? How about, could we have a strike force to bring home hostages who are being held in Gaza? What about a strike force on fixing COVID learning loss? I mean we could go on and on.” Fox News, *The Five*, [3/5/24]
  • Fox's The Story portrayed the Biden administration’s attempt to rein in illegal and unfair price increases as an attempt to “squash capitalism.” “I was reading a piece this morning about how capitalism is the defining characteristic that sets this country apart from all of our enemies,” Fox host Martha MacCallum said. “So if you squash capitalism, you're going to put that into remission.” Fox Business host Brian Brenberg added, “This is the anti-rich, anti-wealth crusade that they're [Democrats are] on.” Fox News, *The Story*, [3/5/24]
  • mma 3 24

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Maria Bartiromo’s Fox shows pushed the indicted FBI informant’s story more than 200 times in 2023 | Media Matters for America

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an 3 24

On Monday, Jonathan Kott — a former aide to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) — appeared on a panel hosted by Fox News' Harris Faulkner, and recalled when former President Donald Trump dined with an avowed Nazi at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022. Faulkner then bristled at his comment. Washington Post columnist Philip Bump opined that Faulkner's refusal to acknowledge that event is likely due to her employer's refusal to adequately cover the story.

During a discussion about President Joe Biden's age, Kott said that he would "rather have a president who maybe has a stutter once in a while than one who spews conspiracy theory, racist nonsense and has dinner with Nazis." Both Faulkner and conservative radio host Tammy Bruce pushed back, though Kott defended the accusation. Faulkner then complained that Kott was "sadly" resorting to name-calling despite her previous praise that he didn't engage in low-brow tactics.

In a Tuesday analysis for the*Post*, Bump said that Faulkner and Bruce may have genuinely been unaware that Trump hosted rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) for dinner along with far-right influencer Nick Fuentes, due to the network's bare-bones coverage of the event. At the time, Trump defended the dinner as "quick and uneventful" and argued that he only invited Ye, while the rapper invited Fuentes and two others without Trump's knowledge.

READ MORE:White supremacist who dined with Trump calls for 'death penalty' for non-Christians: report

Kott describing Fuentes as a "Nazi" is an appropriate term, given his past public statements. The Texas Tribune wrote in October that Fuentes "often praises Adolf Hitler and questions whether the Holocaust happened."

"He has called for a 'holy war' against Jews and compared the 6 million killed by the Nazis to cookies being baked in an oven," the Tribune reported. "He wants the US government under authoritarian, 'Catholic Taliban rule,' and has been vocal about his disdain for women, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community and others.”

Bump noted Fuentes dining with Trump was a major news story, given his openly racist and anti-Semitic viewpoints. Last year, CBS News — which described Fuentes as a "white supremacist and Holocaust denier" — reported that Fuentes' views were too odious even for the organizers of the far-right Conservative Political Action Conference, which kicked him out of the America Conservative Union's 2023 gathering (CPAC may have since softened its views on having nazi attendees, with NBC News finding that nazis were seen mingling at CPAC 2024 and were not kicked out).

In December of 2022, according to Bump, the Trump/Ye/Fuentes dinner story was "mentioned in 89 segments on CNN and more than twice that number on MSNBC."

READ MORE:DeSantis says Fox News too scared to hold Trump to account: 'Worried about losing viewers'

"On Fox, though? It was only mentioned seven times, total," he wrote. "This is very much in keeping with a long-standing pattern at the channel. News that is bad for Trump is muted or limited — including poll numbers from the network’s own pollsters."

To emphasize his point, Bump broke down coverage of similar major news events that were unflattering for the former president, and contrasted how many times Fox's competitors covered that story with the scant mentions the story received on Fox's airwaves. He observed that while CNN and MSNBC carried the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack's primetime hearings, Fox not only refused to broadcast it, but instead allowed then-host Tucker Carlson to air counter-programming downplaying the significance of the siege on the US Capitol.

Bump also analyzed coverage of writer E. Jean Carroll's sexual abuse and defamation lawsuits against the former president, finding that while MSNBC covered them in 4,800 15-second segments and CNN ran 2,000 segments, Fox News ran just 240. This pattern continued in coverage of Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents — while CNN and MSNBC ran roughly 4,900 segments on the story since August of 2022, Fox gave the story approximately 80% less airtime. However, the network has offered significantly more coverage of stories unflattering to President Joe Biden. Bump reported that Fox has ran approximately 38,000 segments about Biden's son, Hunter, since 2021, including more than 4,200 segments in just one month.

The columnist wrote that the network may counter that it "simply serves as a counterpoint to an organized left-wing narrative, hence its focus is different than CNN and MSNBC." Fox News' longtime motto, "fair and balanced," was officially dropped in 2017, after Trump assumed the presidency.

:{:{READ MORE:Nearly 40 percent of Fox News viewers believe FBI organized deadly January 6 riot: survey}:

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see hannity fail guardian angels 2 24

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Former Australian Prime Minister calls Fox News “angertainment”: “It’s doing unbelievable damage to your country” | Media Matters for America

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Fox News' attempt to manufacture a Biden crime crisis runs into a problem: Violent crime is down | Media Matters for America

Fox News host melts down over Joe Biden's accurate assertion that crime is down | Media Matters for America

'There’s no evidence': Experts debunk Trump’s claims of 'migrant crime' wave in US cities - Alternet.org

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Fox can’t stop pushing this falsehood about Biden’s liquefied natural gas policy

Fox hosts are mischaracterizing the new policy as win for Putin, as the two-year anniversary of Russia's invasion approaches

Special PROGRAMSCLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ILANA BERGER

PUBLISHED 02/23/24

Fox News continues to make misleading statements about President Joe Biden’s commitment to providing liquefied natural gas exports to Europe, which has sought to move away from relying on Russian energy since the country invaded Ukraine in 2022.

On January 26, the White House announced it would be reviewing the process it uses to evaluate whether new LNG export facilities are in the public interest, “with the exception of unanticipated and immediate national security emergencies.” In the years since this process was last updated, scientists have published important new research concerning the likely underestimated health and environmental impacts of methane pollution. Now, the Department of Energy is set to pause approvals for some new facilities that are pending while it reconsiders how the construction would drive climate change.

Importantly, this decision will not restrict gas supplies to Europe. Several new export facilities have already been approved or are under construction, and those projects will not be affected by the recent announcement. But that hasn’t stopped Fox personalities from claiming that Biden’s decision is akin to abandoning our European allies to the benefit of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

During a February 22 interviewwith Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Fox News anchor Bret Baier claimed that the Biden administration is “stopping the selling of liquid natural gas, which means that Russia may actually start selling liquid natural gas to Europe again. Do you have a problem with that?” Zelensky replied that European countries are “becoming independent from the energy standpoint.”

Baier pushed back, telling Zelensky that while the Biden administration is “trying to support you [and] push back on Russia, at the same time, in essence, by a climate change rule, they are supporting Russia to get more money.”

Video file

CitationFrom the February 22, 2024, edition of Fox News' Special Report

Speaking with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in a February 21 segment of America’s Newsroom, Fox anchor Dana Perino referenced the “fallout from President Biden's decision to end all LNG permitting,” suggesting the announcement would undermine U.S. aid to Ukraine and strengthen Russia’s position.

Perino then questioned Ambassador Bridget Brink whether she would “ask the Biden administration to reverse that LNG permitting decision.” After Brink correctly pointed out that “we've been increasing our LNG exports for quite a while now,” Perino again insisted that “the president just ended all of the new permits,” even though he did no such thing.

Video file

CitationFrom the February 21, 2024, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

“The president canceled all new natural gas contracts,”Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed in a February 16 segment. “And when you stop the contracts on natural gas, that’s got to get our allies who are right in what would be the battlefront nervous.”

This statement, too, is completely false. The U.S. is still the world’s largest liquefied natural gas supplier, exporting LNG to Europe and Asia at record levels in 2023. And as Business Insider notes, our export capacity is set to nearly double by 2028, “when at least five more terminals could be online. The expansion isn't impacted by the White House's pause, which only applies to terminals that haven't received federal approval yet.”

//

The fossil fuel industry and right-wing media are losing their minds over Biden's decision to pause part of a dangerous LNG buildout

02/02/24 1:54 PM EST

2. ### CNN's Jim Acosta hosts frontline community activist to discuss climate justice implications of Biden's decision to pause LNG export permits

02/01/24 4:07 PM EST

3. ### “That's finished now”: Fox Business hosts incorrectly suggest the US is no longer exporting liquefied natural gas to allies

02/09/24

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1st to break? no record on immigration? rank hypoc on ukraine $?

Fox News' Neil Cavuto blames Donald Trump for the failure of border bill | Media Matters for America

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After Navalny’s death, a Fox host ignores Trump’s pro-Putin past | Media Matters for America

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Fox News’ highest rated evening programs spread white nationalist rhetoric in nearly half of their immigration segments | Media Matters for America

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How Fox hosts are reacting to the collapse of their FBI “informant” story

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

:{PUBLISHED 02/20/24

The right’s flagging effort to impeach President Joe Biden took another blow last week when the Justice Department said that Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant, had made up his accusation that Biden and his son Hunter had each taken $5 million bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch, and charged him with lying to the bureau.

Smirnov’s tale, chronicled in a much-ballyhooed FBI FD-1023 report released last year, was described by House Republicans as the “heart” of their case against the president. “The most corroborating evidence we have is the 1023 form from this highly credible confidential human source,” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) said in a January interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

Right-wing Fox propagandists like Hannity had relentlessly promoted the informant’s claims, touting his purported credibility while ignoring the flimsy, sensational nature of his Biden bribery allegations. But they aren’t responding to his arrest by leveling with their viewers or reflecting on why they were taken in by unverified claims that “proved” what they desperately wanted to believe. Here’s what they’re doing with the news instead.

1. Ignoring it

Fox provided a mere 31 minutes of coverage of Smirnov’s indictment from Thursday through Monday. That total is noticeably scant given how loudly the network previously trumpeted the informant’s allegations; Fox mentioned “Biden in the context of ‘bribe’ or ‘bribery’ more than 2,600 times” in the year before his arrest, The Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported.

Several shows that typically provide robust coverage of the Hunter Biden probe ignored it; Fox & Friends provided only a single headline read, while The Ingraham Angle did not address the story at all (the latter featured interviews with a “body-language expert” as well as purported comedian Jimmy Failla on Thursday).

2. Claiming this actually makes Republicans look good

Hannity has been pilloried by the press for his credulous treatment of the informant’s claims; he promoted them on his Fox show in at least 85 segments last year, touting them as evidence of “public corruption” and “bribery.”

When the host finally addressed the informant’s arrest on Friday, rather than acknowledging that he had served as the willing tool of the Republican politicians who sought to inject the informant’s story into the public discourse, Hannity claimed that the new developments actually make those Republicans look good.

Video file

CitationFrom the February 16, 2024, edition of Fox News' Hannity.

The Fox host acknowledged that he had “talked a lot about” the 1023, but presented it as “very damning, but a very, very small part of what is the large body of evidence in the Biden impeachment inquiry.” After rattling off a string of falsehoods familiar to his show’s regular viewers but inscrutable to normal people, Hannity claimed that Smirnov’s arrest “raises a lot of questions” — but for the FBI, not Republicans like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who released the 1023 form, or right-wing media figures like himself who promoted it.

“When presented with information from a source that the agency so trusted for what, now 14 years, the FBI, as exposed by Sen. Grassley, they sat on that 1023 document and they did so for years,” Hannity claimed. “He was still working for the FBI and without any performance of any due diligence, they never looked into it.”

“So it's clear that only after Sen. Grassley made the 1023 public that the FBI then investigate the allegations of the document,” he added.

Hannity was somewhat more candid on his radio show Friday. “I'm mad that the FBI informant, the 1023 form in this case, that now this guy has been charged,” he said. “It appears that Alexander Smirnov was not to be trusted.”

“I guess I was stupid,” he concluded.

3. Layering on more conspiracy theories

The right-wing media have spent the last several years constructing a ludicrous, overarching conspiracy theory that federal law enforcement agencies are left-wing institutions which persecute conservatives. Some of Fox’s biggest conspiracy theorists are leaning on that to explain Smirnov’s arrest, alleging that the informant’s story is true and he’s only being charged with a crime because the deep state is trying to help Biden.

Prime-time host Jesse Watters — who has promoted a lengthy list of conspiracy theories, including spreading doubt about the brutal assault of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband during a home invasion — claimed on Friday that Smirnov had been arrested because “he was too credible.” He attributed the charges to the president directly, alleging that “this is the second informant Biden has arrested for blowing the whistle about his bribes” (it is true that this is the second indictment of a supposed “whistleblower” whose unverified, dramatic claims were previously touted by Republicans and right-wing media).

Watters went on to claim that “everyone who blows the whistle on the Biden syndicate or is connected to it has been arrested.” He then brought on former FBI agent Stuart Kaplan, who claimed that the Bidens “took out a hit on this informant, Smirnov. They have now disabled him, and now the public is going to believe, well, this guy is a liar.”

Video file

Maria Bartiromo, whose treatment of purported election fraud during the 2020 election helped put Fox on the hook for a record defamation settlement, offered a similar reaction to Smirnov’s indictment on her Fox Business show on Friday.

4. Diverting viewers to a different, similarly dubious Biden scandal

Some Fox hosts are following the right's typical cycle by moving on to a new MacGuffin after the failure of the old one.

Fox host Brian Kilmeade, for instance, presented Smirnov’s arrest as part of a “rollercoaster week” for “the Biden family business drama.” He briefly noted that Smirnov had been charged with fabricating the Biden bribery story, adding that it “turns out not to be true, but keep in mind that is an FBI informant, nothing to do with Republicans.”

Video file

CitationFrom the February 17, 2024, edition of Fox News' One Nation with Brian Kilmeade.

Having relieved Republicans and their media allies of any responsibility for endlessly promoting Smirnov’s tale, Kilmeade moved on to the new shiny object: the deposition of Tony Bobulinski, a disgruntled former business partner of Hunter Biden.

“He knows it all,” Kilmeade raved. “He testified that he has got receipts. He's got emails. He has got text messages showing that this business existed and thrived.”

“I cannot wait to see this publicly,” he concluded. “I can't wait to read the transcripts. That's all coming your way, he is going to testify.”

Sure, Bobulinski told his story on Fox’s own airwaves nearly four years ago and it dissolved under scrutiny. But this time … this time is going to be different.

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MASSIVE FAIL FBI INDICT RUSSIAN DISINFO

STUDY: How Sean Hannity helped build the GOP’s collapsing Hunter Biden impeachment case | Media Matters for America

Fox News host Sean Hannity and his House Republican allies spent 2023 trying to manufacture an impeachable offense against President Joe Biden out of their fact-free obsession with the president’s son, Hunter. Hannity’s Fox show aired at least 325 segments about Hunter Biden in 2023, 220 of which featured at least one false or misleading claim, according to an extensive Media Matters review of the program for nine categories of misinformation.

But the Hunter crusade now appears to be collapsing, with Republicans telling reporters that the House may not even vote on articles of impeachment and pointing fingers at House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and his habit of conducting his investigation via right-wing media appearances.

The looming debacle is a black mark for Hannity, who has been fixated on Hunter Biden’s potential to damage his father’s political standing since[ vid]

](https://youtu.be/mo3LpGOFIAY), serving as the key clearinghouse for Hunter allegations and a cheerleader for the resulting impeachment push. Bogus Hunter Biden claims and conspiracy theories have been a fixture on Fox and throughout the broader right-wing media — but Hannity made them part of his program’s core mission.

When House Republicans triumphed in the 2022 elections, Hannity touted their newfound ability to use the investigative process to find how “the big guy himself, Joe Biden,” had “ended up using his crack-addicted son as a bag man” — allegations he promised would lead to Biden’s impeachment. Over the following year, the notorious GOP propagandist provided a ready platform for House investigators to offer up their thin-gruel findings, and would then trumpet those claims over and over again to his viewers.

Hannity’s most frequent guest for his program’s Hunter Biden segments was Comer, who made an eye-popping 43 Hannity appearances to discuss the president’s son last year. Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO), the other two members of the House GOP troika overseeing the impeachment investigation, were also among the most-frequent Hannity guests for Hunter Biden discussions in 2023.

The group has assembled a massive trove of Hunter Biden minutiae, full of decontextualized snippets that become buzzwords like “the big guy” and “Hunter’s laptop,” the “FBI 1023 Form” and “the IRS whistleblowers.” The terminology, utterly incomprehensible for anyone without a Ph.D. in Sean Hannity Studies, is somehow meant to add up to “potentially the biggest bribery, money laundering scandal in American history,” as Hannity puts it, in which foreign companies and governments paid Hunter Biden for access to Joe Biden, the son kicked back money to the father, and the father took state action to help his son’s partners.

But no substantive evidence linking Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings has ever emerged, with several committee witnesses telling investigators they had no knowledge of any wrongdoing or involvement by the president (even as far more direct evidence showed then-President Donald Trump’s own businesses receiving millions from hostile foreign governments while he was in office). The purportedly nefarious Hunter allegations, removed from Hannity’s hothouse atmosphere, wither under tough questions from Democratic members of Congress and journalists at other outlets (and even, somehow, *Fox & Friends’* Steve Doocy).

Comer, Jordan, and Smith constantly return to Hannity’s show precisely because he offers nothing resembling scrutiny of their claims. And their colleagues suggest that the result has been that the investigators got high on the likes of Hannity’s supply. Republicans “have grown tired of Comer’s frequent TV hits on conservative networks like Fox News and Newsmax in which they say he promises bombshell information, but then fails to produce impeachable evidence to meet the bar he himself has set too high,” The Messenger reported last month.

There's still plenty of time for House Republicans to unite for a partisan impeachment. But it now seems plausible that Hannity’s Hunter Biden fixation will go down in history for resulting in the impeachment of Donald Trump — but not that of Joe Biden.

sean Hannity's Hunter Biden obsession, by the numbers

• Media Matters identified and reviewed every Hannity segment about Hunter Biden in 2023 — all 325 of them.

The Fox host averaged more than one segment per night and ran as many as 56 Hunter Biden segments in a single month — August, when Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he had granted special counsel powers to David Weiss, the Trump-appointed prosecutor who had been investigating Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges.

Media Matters analysts (including myself) reviewed the transcripts of each segment to determine whether they promoted one of nine categories of misinformation (described below).

We found that 220 of the Hannity segments featured at least one of the examples of misinformation, or 68% of the total of 325 segments. In some months, the figure exceeded 80%. (Note that the absence of the particular categories of misinformation we reviewed does not imply that the segments in question were wholly accurate.)

The conspiracy theory that Joe Biden took corrupt action in Ukraine as vice president to benefit his son’s employer was mentioned in 115 segments, for example, while the falsehood that Hunter Biden paid his father half his salary was referenced in 52.

Seventy-one of the 220 Hannity segments about Hunter Biden were monologues by the host. Of those segments, 59 (83%) included at least one of our misinformation categories.

We also identified the guests appearing in segments about Hunter Biden. Comer made the most appearances, with 43. His fellow House investigators were also among the most frequent guests: Jordan had the fourth-most appearances, with 32, while Smith had the seventh-most, with 11.

Other regulars featured inHannity’s Hunter Biden segments included Fox legal analyst Gregg Jarrett (40 appearances), right-wing journalist John Solomon (37), New York Post columnist Miranda Devine (15), and former Trump impeachment lawyer Alan Dershowitz (12). Fox contributor and former Trump White House aide Kellyanne Conway, former Trump acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) rounded out the top 10 with 10 appearances each.

• ## The Ukraine conspiracy theory
• Hannity’s show aired at least 115 segments in 2023 promoting the falsehood that then-Vice President Joe Biden corruptly pressured the Ukrainian government during a December 2015 meeting to fire its then-prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, for conducting a probe into Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter Biden sat at that time. Of those 115 segments, 28 were Hannity monologues.

The Fox host and his House Republican allies have treated these claims as the heart of a Biden impeachment push — even though it was thoroughly debunked during Trump’s first impeachment. Here’s Jordan trying to lay the theory out after Hannity asked him for the “four facts that never change” following a September impeachment inquiry hearing:

• > JIM JORDAN: Hunter Biden gets put on the board of Burisma. Fact No. 2, he’s not qualified to be on the board, he’s said so himself. Fact No. 3, Burisma executives ask him to weigh in and relieve the pressure. Fact No. 4, Joe Biden does just that, weighs in, relieves the pressure, and that last fact is entirely consistent with what the confidential human source told the FBI and they recorded in the 1023 form. And then the final fact is the Justice Department tried to sweep it under the rug. Sean, this is a tale as old as time, politician takes action that benefits his family financially, and then they try to conceal it. That is as old as the hills, and that is exactly what it looks like played out.

• This account is totally incomprehensible to someone who isn’t steeped in the deep lore of the Hannity archives. It’s also a version of facts which requires the witting or unwitting involvement of a wide array of figures on multiple continents and contradicts the narrative of Shokin’s firing established by the testimony of several U.S. officials appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, government documents, and contemporaneous and more recent reporting.

In reality, U.S. policy called for firing Shokin, who was viewed as unwilling to prosecute corruption by U.S. diplomats, foreign governments, international bodies, and Ukrainian anti-corruption groups, and his office had not been actively investigating Burisma at the time Vice President Biden sought his removal.

• ## The Biden “shell companies”
• We identified 89 segments in 2023 in which Hannity or his associates suggested that Hunter Biden used an array of “shell companies” for shady and nefarious purposes. They often insinuated that the “shell companies” were a mechanism for laundering money from foreign sources. Of those 89 segments, 20 were Hannity monologues.

Here are some examples:

• > - Hannity, May 12, 2023: “Now, according to an ongoing investigation from the House Oversight Committee, there are over 20 shell companies we learned about this week, mostly formed during Biden's time as VP. … Why were all of these Bidens allegedly now receiving payments from foreign nationals funneled through multiple shell corporations as James Comer is claiming?”

Kevin McCarthy to Hannity, August 7, 2023: “I don't know of any other family that puts together in government 20 shell companies while you're the vice president of America.”

Hannity, December 6, 2023: “According to the House Ways and Means Committee and Jason Smith, Scherwin was the architect of the Biden family's systems of shell corporations. They have identified dozens of them used to distribute foreign funds. These were not real businesses as far as James Comer is concerned.”

• This allegation appears to originate with Comer, who claims his committee identified “20-plus shell companies that the Bidens have created to launder the money they were receiving from foreign nationals down to their personal bank account” and regularly uses the terminology on Hannity’s show and elsewhere.

But The Washington Post found that the Oversight staff memo actually identified only a single “named ‘shell’ company,” which the partners had quickly decided to dissolve; “virtually all” of the other entities “had legitimate business interests” or “clearly identified business investments.”

• ## The Burisma bribe
• Hannity’s show aired at least 85 Hunter Biden segments in 2023 promoting the dubiously sourced and wholly unproven notion that Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian oligarch who controlled Burisma, paid a $5 million bribe to Joe Biden. This is an extension of the Ukraine conspiracy theory with all the problems detailed above, in addition to its own issues, but nonetheless is treated credulously by the Fox host. Of those 85 segments, 28 were Hannity monologues.

In May 2023, Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) put out a joint statement demanding the release of “an FBI-generated FD-1023 form” which showed that Biden “allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national.” As The Washington Post reported:

• > That allegation was based on an FBI interview of an informant who had spoken with Mykola Zlochevsky, founder of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. If validated, it would mark not only a significant legal violation on the part of Biden, but the first time that Comer’s breathless efforts to tie Biden to foreign payments was actually demonstrated.

It was not validated. Comer and Grassley — who were already familiar with an FBI form detailing the contents of the interview — spent a few weeks demanding that the FBI release the interview to the public. The FBI, concerned both about putting the informant at risk and about making public unsubstantiated claims, decided to offer a redacted version of the memo for legislators to see. Comer and Grassley then started complaining about the redactions as they demanded more people be able to see the interview. Eventually, Grassley just went ahead and released a lightly redacted version on social media.

• The document Grassley released in July indicates that the FBI informant said that Zlochevsky told them “it costs (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden” to help Burisma.

Hannity provided breathless coverage of the FD-1023 allegations, culminating the night Grassley published it. “There are now real and growing concerns that your president, the president of our country, is compromised,” Hannity said, arguing that through the form, Joe Biden had been “very credibly accused of public corruption on a scale this country has never seen before.”

Hannity crony Jarrett, in a subsequent segment, accused Joe Biden of “extortion” as well as “conspiracy, violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” “money laundering, tax fraud, not to mention racketeering,” and “bribery and treason,” which he stressed “are impeachable offenses in addition to being felonies. So, you know, this is a blockbuster scandal that could doom Biden's presidency.”

But as the Post recounted, the House GOP reviews of the finances of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and other Biden family members and associates have not found a trace of the purported $5 million payment to Joe Biden or the $5 million payment to Hunter Biden, raising the prospect that the Zlochevsky claim was “part of what the informant identified as a tendency in the region for business executives to brag — as Zlochevsky may have been doing about his purported connections and savvy.”

• ## Hunter Biden’s purported admission that he gave “half” his “salary” to his dad
• At least 52 of the segments on Hannity alluded to a 2019 text message Hunter Biden sent his daughter to suggest that he had admitted handing over a large portion of the profits from his business dealings to his father. In the message, Hunter Biden said, “don’t worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary.” Of those 52 segments, 28 were Hannity monologues.

“Did Joe profit from his son's shady international business deals?” Hannity asked in May. “Now, based on texts and emails from Hunter's laptop from hell, there is evidence that appears to show that Hunter complained bitterly about having to hand over half his salary to ‘Pops.’”

But a New York Times investigation revealed the interpretation provided on Hannity’s show is wildly incorrect. “Rather than referring to money Hunter Biden received from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma or from a venture with a Chinese partner, Hunter Biden was alluding to his financial support for his own children and his school days, when his father allowed him to keep half the paycheck from part-time jobs but asked that he turn over the other half to help pay for room and board,” the paper reported.

• ## The $20 million foreign entities supposedly paid “the Bidens”
• At least 45 Hannity segments reference the Comer-promoted claim that foreign sources paid $20 million to “the Bidens and their associates.” This is often shortened as the money going to “the Bidens” or “the Biden family.” Of those 45 segments, nine were Hannity monologues.

“Now, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer says the Bidens overall have taken in tens of millions of dollars from foreign entities in Russia, Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan, Romania and many other countries,” Hannity said in September, demanding that the White House “explain what the Bidens did to earn all of this money, tens of millions of dollars.”

But when The Washington Post reviewed the Oversight Committee’s staff memo, the Post found that two-thirds of the money had gone to Biden business partners who were not members of the family. The paper reported that the committee had identified “about $23 million in total payments from foreign sources. Of that, nearly $7.5 million can be fairly attributed as going to ‘Bidens,’ but virtually all of it went to Hunter Biden. No money has been traced to Joe Biden.”

• ## Joe Biden as “the big guy” who got “10 percent”
• At least 43 Hannity segments about Hunter Biden suggested malfeasance by referencing a 2017 email in which Hunter Biden business associate James Gilliar suggested that a 10% stake in a business deal would be “held” by Hunter “for the big guy,” presumably Joe Biden. Of those 43 segments, 21 were Hannity monologues.

“Bribery, corruption allegations against the big guy, Joe Biden himself swept under the rug,” Hannity complained in June. “The country is in serious trouble. It will only get worse if your big guy wins reelection.”

But as the Times noted, none of this ever came to pass: Gilliar “told The Wall Street Journal in 2020 that his suggestion never went anywhere. The former vice president did not get involved with their business, and the proposed deal never produced any profit for anyone to split. … In an interview with the F.B.I., Rob Walker, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, described suggestions of getting Hunter’s father involved with the business as ‘wishful thinking.’”

• ## Joe Biden purportedly “sitting” in with Hunter’s Chinese business associate
• At least 39 segments referenced a 2017 WhatsApp message Hunter Biden sent a potential Chinese business partner in which he stated, “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to know why the commitment has not been fulfilled.” Of those 39 segments, 14 were Hannity monologues.

Hannity and his cronies regularly cite this message as evidence that Joe Biden was an active participant in Hunter’s foreign business dealings. Hannity said in June the message shows that while Joe Biden has denied involvement with Hunter Biden’s business dealings, “it appears Joe is a critical part of that business.” In a representative August monologue, Hannity said the message shows Joe Biden is “potentially, even likely compromised when it comes to China.”

But Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer has testified that while they attempted to sell an “illusion of access,” Joe Biden played no substantive role in their operations. The Times reported regarding the WhatsApp message: “Democrats have argued it is more likely an example of Hunter Biden’s bluster than an accurate statement of Joe Biden’s involvement in a shakedown. A lawyer for Hunter Biden says he does not remember sending the message. The president has denied he was present at the time.”

• ## The false claim that Joe Biden received laundered money from his brother
• At least 13 segments promoted the false GOP claim that Joe Biden’s receipt of $240,000 from his brother James constituted money laundering from foreign business sources. Of those 13 segments, three were Hannity monologies.

In fact, as the Times notes, evidence shows “Joe Biden had first loaned money to his brother before being repaid.”

• ## When Jim Biden worked with Hunter’s “father alone.”
• Three segments included the false suggestion that a 2018 text to Hunter Biden in which his uncle, James Biden, wrote, “I can work with you father alone !! We as usual just need several months of his help for this to work,” was a reference to their business dealings. One of the segments was a Hannity monologue.

In fact, as the Times pointed out, “another text in the chain makes clear James Biden was referring to working with Joe Biden to get help for Hunter Biden as he struggled to keep up with his bills, get sober and find a place to live.”

• ## Methodology

• Media Matters searched transcripts in the Nexis database for all original episodes of Fox News Channel's Hannity for either of the terms “Hunter” or “Biden” from January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023.

We included segments, which we defined as instances when Hunter Biden was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of Hunter Biden. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed Hunter Biden with one another.

We then reviewed the identified segments for whether any Fox personality or guest made any of the following false GOP claims at least once:

• > 1. Suggesting that a Hunter Biden message referring to “half [his] salary” meant Hunter regularly gave his father, President Joe Biden, half of any ill-gotten gains.

2. Suggesting that the phrase “10 percent for the big guy” in messages with an associate meant Hunter Biden gave his father a stake in his business dealings.

3. Suggesting that the message from James Biden, President Biden's brother, that he “can work with [Hunter's] father alone” referred to business dealings.

4. Suggesting that loan repayments of $240,000 from James to President Biden were actually money laundering.

5. Suggesting that Hunter's invoking President Biden with a business partner was meant to apply pressure for a payment rather than simply bluster on part of Hunter.

6. Suggesting that President Biden took illicit action to benefit Hunter in business dealings with the Ukrainian company Burisma Holdings Limited.

7. Suggesting that an FBI informant claimed Burisma's founder sent President Biden a $5 million bribe.

8. Suggesting that foreign sources have paid “the Bidens and their associates” $20 million.

9. Suggesting that Hunter used “shell companies” to launder money from foreign sources.

//

1. ### Hunter Biden, David Weiss, and the right’s perpetual bad-faith scandal machine

08/14/23 2:36 PM EDT

2. ### Fox News is dragging the GOP into an inane, inevitable impeachment of Joe Biden

09/06/23 10:31 AM EDT

3. ### After disastrous first impeachment hearing, House GOP chairs retreat to Hannity

09/29/23 12:12 PM EDT

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Fox News host asks if migrants are connected to a case of bubonic plague in Oregon | Media Matters for America

2 24 same day

Jesse Watters says Joe Biden is going to "drop a migrant bomb" on America | Media Matters for America

New York City is trying to streamline its spending on migrants. Fox News hypes false claim that it's giving them “prepaid credit cards.” | Media Matters for America

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Fox News’ Trace Gallagher says we should stock the Rio Grande full of alligators to keep migrants from drowning | Media Matters for America

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mma 2 24

On January 31, Fox News host and serial climate denier Jesse Watters pushed debunked misinformation to argue that climate scientists are “cooking the books.”

In an effort to disprove that 2023 was the hottest year on record, Watters repeated a bogus claim that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s placement of thermometers on urban concrete skewed temperature data.

“Concrete and asphalt attract heat and retain heat a lot more than the countryside,” Watters said. “No wonder we think the earth’s warming. We’re literally cooking the books."

:{:{Video}:

CitationFrom the January 31, 2024, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Watters then cited a post from X user @_ClimateCraze claiming that “improperly located” thermometers “produce unrealistic warming through the Urban Heat Island effect.” Conveniently, Fox News cropped out a portion of the post — a link to a debunked “study” from junk science blogger and climate denier Anthony Watts. The 2022 report, produced by fossil fuel-funded think tank the Heartland Institute, falsely claims that 96% of U.S. climate data is “corrupted” due to thermometer placement

Multiple news outlets and fact-checkers have disproved the Heartland Institute’s bogus study as it spread across social media, with Agence France-Presse noting that past claims about biased data from urban temperature monitoring sites have been “thoroughly refuted.”

PolitiFact pointed out that Heartland’s false claim that the data is corrupted “ignores key facts” including:

First, climate scientists know that weather station data can be impacted by poor siting, and they adjust data accordingly.

Second, climate change analysis focuses on changes over time.

Further, PolitiFact noted that the scientific community has rejected this claim:

"The correct approach is to write a scientific paper and submit it to a scientific journal," said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist currently serving as research lead at Stripe, a San Francisco-based technology company. "In this specific case, the author of the report, Anthony Watts, submitted a paper on the topic around 10 years ago, but was unable to successfully convince other scientists of the validity of his findings and to pass the peer review process."

Watters’ reliance on climate misinformation is no surprise; Fox News has repeatedly proved itself to be a shameless climate denial machine.

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fox fail hannity corrects why?

thom 3 an 2 24

— Fascism Fear, Fear, Fear and Even More Fear Alert! While Sean Hannity was interviewing Curtis Sliwa — who was on a midtown street in New York City — on Hannity’s Fox “News” show, there was a kerfuffle off-camera. Turns out a group of the “Guardian Angels” thought they’d caught an “illegal” walking by and tackled him to the ground and beat him up, if press reports are accurate. Sliwa bragged to Hannity:

“The Guardian Angels spotted him, stopped him, he resisted, and let’s just say we gave him a little pain compliance. His mother back in Venezuela felt the vibrations. He’s sucking concrete, the cops scraped him off the asphalt, he's on his way to jail, but they’ll cut him loose. We gotta take 42nd Street back, Sean. These illegals think they own this street, they think they rule the night. This is our country, if they can't abide by the rules, then we’re gonna kick ’em back from where they came.”

Later, the press reported, it turned out the guy wasn’t an “illegal” and wasn’t a criminal: he was just a Hispanic guy walking down the street minding his own business. Did I mention “bullies and thugs”?...

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mma 2 24

jesse Watters says migrants are “storming the beaches of San Diego like it’s Normandy”

02/01/24

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As abortion protections continue to win at the polls, Fox News is directing Republicans to hide their unpopular anti-abortion agenda | Media Matters for America

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see alt fact ~ empirical see kudlow admits 2x

Fox & Friends ignored “blockbuster” jobs report for second month in a row

353,000 jobs were added in January, nearly double what economists expected

WRITTEN BY ZACHARY PLEAT

PUBLISHED 02/02/24

Fox News’ flagship morning show, Fox & Friends, once again failed to cover a strong monthly jobs report. Instead of reporting on the gain of 353,000 jobs over the past month, the program spent time fearmongering about crime (even as crime rates plummet nationwide) and showing viewers how to make Tom Brady’s favorite dessert.

The Associated Press reported that the huge number of jobs added is “the latest sign of the economy’s continuing ability to shrug off the highest interest rates in two decades.” This adds to the 333,000 that were added in December, “a figure that was itself revised sharply higher,” and the unemployment rate “stayed at 3.7%, just above a half-century low.”

Washington Post columnist Heather Long, who was previously an economics correspondent at the paper, wrote in a social media post that it was a “blockbuster” jobs number, “far exceeding expectations of 180,000.” She added, “This is a really healthy economy,” and noted that the annual wage growth of 4.5% is “far ahead of” the 3.4% inflation rate.

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Instead of reporting on these stellar jobs numbers, Fox & Friends busied itself fearmongering about crime and showing viewers how to make quarterback Tom Brady’s favorite dessert — avocado chocolate ice cream, if anyone was genuinely curious. Fox anchor Dana Perino even mentioned during the crime segment that “the economy could get better” between now and Election Day — without mentioning that the current state is quite good.

*Fox & Friends* also ignored the December jobs report a month ago, and multiple Fox personalities in January misleadingly attacked President Joe Biden’s economy in an effort to help former President Donald Trump’s presidential run.

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, who repeatedly pushed these false attacks on the Biden economy, has already offered a “mea culpa” and admitted he was “wrong about” predicting a slowdown and a recession.

Dismissing positive jobs reports and a record-high stock market, Fox News is laying the groundwork for Trump to attack Biden’s economy | Media Matters for America

//

1. ### Fox & Friends ignores “strong” jobs report after interviewing diners about their economic concerns01/05/24

2. ### Dismissing positive jobs reports and a record-high stock market, Fox News is laying the groundwork for Trump to attack Biden’s economy01/31/24

3. ### Now that Joe Biden is president, Sean Hannity doesn’t find a record high stock market all that impressive01/22/24

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PSY-OP ERRUPTION 1 24 AROUND TAYLOR SWIFT SUPERBOWL TIGHT END PFIZER AD VACCINE

OAN host calls nude AI images of Taylor Swift "another psyop" | Media Matters for America

Fox News' Charlie Hurt gives credence to conspiracy theory that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are working with Joe Biden | Media Matters for America

Charlie Kirk: "I don't really watch movies because they're all CIA psychological operation programming" | Media Matters for America

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INVASION HIST

mma 1 24

The bogus premise that migrants entering the United States in search of a better life are conducting an “invasion” of the country has moved from the fringes of the right-wing media to its core over the past decade. The idea of an imminent threat to personal safety and national identity posed by columns of faceless brown masses marching on the border is now a fixture of right-wing commentary, from the depths of the online fever swamps to the talk-radio world of Rush Limbaugh to the heights of Fox News. And this incendiary talking point is now the pretext for a looming constitutional crisis.

Texas and the U.S. government are in a standoff over whether the state’s government can defy orders from federal officials by constructing and maintaining razor-wire barriers along the border with Mexico to prevent migrants from crossing into the country. On January 22, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated an appeals court order which had barred the U.S. Border Patrol from taking down the barriers at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, near the Rio Grande — but Texas officials are still preventing federal agents from entering the area.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a January 24 statement that due to President Joe Biden’s “lawless border policies,” Abbott had “declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself,” and that state officials would continue “acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.”

Legal experts have skewered Abbott’s contention that his state is suffering an “invasion” and that that overrules the federal government’s constitutional supremacy over immigration policy and the maintenance of national borders. They note that mentions of “invasion” in the Constitution refer not to metaphorical examples like migration but to literal armed incursions by hostile foreign powers.

“The claim that a large increase in the number of would-be migrants gaining entry at the southern border constitutes an ‘invasion’ under Article IV is constitutional nonsense,” University of Missouri law professor Frank O. Bowman III wrote for Just Security. “It cannot be sustained by any reasonable reading of the text of the Constitution, the original understanding of the Constitution, or subsequent interpretations of the Constitution by courts or constitutional scholars.”

Indeed, three different federal appeals courts summarily rejected the idea in the 1990s, as Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted.

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But constitutional arguments be damned, the right wants to increase the salience of a chaotic border (while preventing both bipartisan legislation that would provide more money for border security and increases in legal immigration) because they think that will help Donald Trump win the presidency. Every Republican governor but one and numerous Republican members of Congress are supporting Abbott’s effort, as are the full constellation of right-wing commentators (some of whom are hyping a potential civil war).

It’s impossible to disaggregate the Republican Party’s full-throated adoption of the bogus “invasion” analogy as a constitutional argument from the right-wing media’s use of that rhetoric.

Language once limited to far-right figures like Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Steve King, and the Minuteman militia has become commonplace among the movement’s demagogues. Right-wing stars like Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson, who strive to terrify their audiences with the prospect of dangerous immigrants, popularized the “invasion” framing in order to gin up support for the GOP and its ethnonationalist wing and to make space for extraordinary measures at the border. Republican Party leaders, up to and including Trump, have followed in their wake. And along the way, armed white nationalists spouting the same talking point conducted a series of massacres, with targets ranging from an El Paso Walmart to a Pittsburgh synagogue.

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Here’s the history, ripped from the Media Matters archives.

2005 — 2012: Pat Buchanan and the “Reconquista”

There is a long American tradition of right-wing bigots warning that immigrants would contaminate and ultimately destroy the country. But President George W. Bush’s ultimately unsuccessful effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation during his second term brought the issue to the fore this century and exacerbated a schism between the right’s pro-business, pro-immigration reform wing and its nationalist, immigration-restrictionist wing.

Right-wing restrictionists used the increasing migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border during that period, an overwhelming majority of which involved Mexican citizens, to claim that the United States was suffering an “invasion” by that country.

“This is an invasion, the greatest invasion in history,” Buchanan wrote in his 2006 book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. “We are witnessing how nations perish. We are entered upon the final act of our civilization. The last scene is the deconstruction of the nations. The penultimate scene, now well underway, is the invasion unresisted.”

Buchanan and his allies, like Michelle Malkin, argued that the migrant influx was part of the “Reconquista,” a purported plot by Mexico’s government and Hispanic politicians in the U.S. to reclaim the American Southwest. “Chicano chauvinists and Mexican agents have made clear their intent to take back through demography and culture what their ancestors lost through war,” Buchanan explained. He argued that the “invasion” would cause a “balkanization of America” in which the Southwest “de facto is going to secede from this country.”

The “Reconquista” theory fell out of fashion in subsequent years, as migrants with Mexican citizenship fell from 85% of all border apprehensions to 20%. But even without the involvement of a purportedly hostile foreign nation, “invasion” rhetoric recurred on the right’s fringes whenever the immigration issue returned to the fore — and ultimately spread into its mainstream.

2013 — 2016: Laura Ingraham’s “invasion” talk helps take down Cantor, Breitbart’s lifts up Trump

Immigration reform once more seemed within reach during President Barack Obama’s second term. The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill in 2013 that would have increased border enforcement, expanded legal immigration, and provided a path to citizenship for unauthorized migrants. With Obama promising to sign the bill, the remaining holdup was the Republican-controlled House — and right-wing immigration restrictionists like Laura Ingraham, then a prominent radio host and Fox contributor, demanding that the GOP legislators oppose reform.

But the first months of 2014 saw a near-doubling of unaccompanied minors apprehended at the border over the previous year, which experts attributed to a rise in gang violence in Central America. Obama’s June declaration that the surge constituted an “urgent humanitarian situation” requiring the provision of food, housing, and medical treatment for the children triggered a firestorm on the right — complete with claims that the kids constituted an “invasion.”

“The Obama administration has basically put out the welcome mat at the border: ‘Come on in, we'll feed you, we'll house you, we’ll clothe you, we'll get you medical care,’” Ingraham said in a Fox & Friends appearance. “This is an ongoing invasion into our country, and it is horrifying for our sovereignty and our rule of law.”

Ingraham also blamed Republican Eric Cantor, then the House majority leader and a congressman from Virginia who supported citizenship for young people brought to the U.S. as children, if not necessarily broader immigration reform, for aiding what she described as “an invasion facilitated by our own government.” And she did more than complain about him — she endorsed and campaigned for Cantor’s primary opponent, Dave Brat.

Brat won that June 10 election in a victory widely credited to the anti-immigrant rabble-rousing of demagogues like Ingraham. Cantor’s defeat sent a seismic shock through the GOP, and by the end of the month, House Speaker John Boehner informed Obama that immigration reform would not receive a vote that year. The increasingly powerful right-wing media had exercised its veto over the Republican agenda.

Soon after, immigrant “invasion” rhetoric began gaining traction on right-wing Facebook pages, Media Matters found. Breitbart.com, the far-right website controlled at the time by Trumpist Steve Bannon, sought to capture that fringe-right grassroots energy — and snag market share from Fox — with virulent anti-immigration content. By 2015, the site “became the center of a distinct right-wing media ecosystem,” Harvard researchers reported in a post-mortem on election coverage that cycle.

The right-wing media’s incessant fearmongering over the border eliminated any space within the party for reformers. The ultimate beneficiary was Trump, who launched his presidential campaign claiming that Mexico was sending “rapists” to the U.S. and promised to build a wall and make that country pay for it as his supporters touted his ability to turn back the purported “invasion.”

2017 — 2020: The migrant caravan and the mainstreaming of “the great replacement”

Trump’s ascension to the presidency put his party in control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives and left him ultimately responsible for the border. But as the 2018 midterm elections approached, Trump adopted Fox’s preferred campaign strategy by focusing attention on a caravan of migrants 1,000 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico, an “invasion” he falsely blamed on Democrats.

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The Fox-fueled president’s fevered statements attracted crisis-level coverage from national broadcast shows, cable news networks, and newspapers, though the attention ultimately failed to prevent Democrats from gaining control of Congress.

Trump’s caravan push coincided with a major increase in Fox references to migrants as an “invasion” or “invaders,” a trend that continued even after the GOP’s November defeat, Media Matters found. “Prime-time Fox News hosts and guests used the words to refer to migrants 33 times in the 30 days ahead of the election, up from 25 times in all of 2015, 2016 and 2017,” we reported. “Fox has kept up the attacks in the weeks after the Republicans lost the U.S. House: Prime-time hosts and guests used the terms 48 times between Election Day and the end of November.” A follow-up review found more than 70 Fox references to a migrant “invasion” in the first seven months of 2019.

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As Democrats took power in Congress, Fox commentators began pushing something even darker alongside their constant invocations of a migrant “invasion.” Influential figures like Ingraham and fellow Fox host Tucker Carlson adopted the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, a white supremacist talking point which posits that Democrats are deliberately importing brown migrants to “replace” white Americans in order to corrupt the country and increase their own power.

The “great replacement” rhetoric moved from internet fever swamps to the prime-time hours of the nation’s most-watched cable news network — and to the manifestos of white nationalist spree killers bent on stopping the “invaders.”

2021 — 2024: Forever war

The right’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has been more incendiary than ever since Biden took office in 2021. Border apprehensions and expulsions have increased to record levels as migrants flee political and economic instability in Central and South America for the booming post-COVID U.S., and hundreds of thousands have made asylum claims to authorities at the border.

But for the right, “Biden’s border crisis” is a deliberate effort by a president who does not want to stop the invasion.

Every possible news event, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the end of Title 42 deportation authority to the upcoming presidential election, brings a new wave of fearmongering over the “invaders” who will “replace” the population. They’re using this rhetoric to argue for extreme measures on the border and to denounce Biden for not pursuing them. As Carlson claimed, “Our military could seal the border with Mexico in days. That would save American lives, it would restore order, and it would end the invasion.”

Texas, with its long border with Mexico and numerous Republican politicians eager for the right-wing media’s spotlight and support, is a natural subject for this coverage. Indeed, over a three-day period in July 2022, Media Matters found that Fox aired at least 20 claims that the state was being invaded by migrants. That period overlapped with a push by county officials to get Abbott to declare an “invasion” under the Constitution in order to seize control of border policy from the federal government.

At the time, legal experts pointed out that the effort was ridiculous and based on “a total mischaracterization of what an invasion is.” But the GOP’s propaganda wing currently wields more influence over the party’s legal policy than its legal experts, and 20 months later, Texas is in a standoff with the federal government based on its “invasion” talking point.

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faulkner? mma 1 24

Right-wing media are defending UFC fighter Sean Strickland's anti-LGBTQ remarks | Media Matters for America

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Moments after his show reports that Republicans intentionally stalled a border deal to protect Trump, Fox anchor Bret Baier shifts blame to Biden | Media Matters for America

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// tucker

Fox News host Laura Ingraham calls marijuana a "gateway drug" and argues against softer marijuana restrictions | Media Matters for America

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// fox biz trucker border bs mcdonald?

Fox News falsely claimed that airports are allowing migrants through security without identification | Media Matters for America

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Greg Gutfeld says Rep. Ocasio-Cortez supports immigrants because she's “horny” for “young, virile men who are coming here in droves” | Media Matters for America

Greg Gutfeld calls Nikki Haley "a pandering phony" because she talked about experiencing racism | Media Matters for America

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Donald Trump cites Sean Hannity’s asinine border prediction | Media Matters for America

Fox personalities try and fail to will a Trump pivot into existence | Media Matters for America

As Donald Trump prepared to speak following his unexpectedly narrow victory over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire Republican primary, Trump loyalists Kellyanne Conway and Sean Hannity predicted a courteous and focused performance from the former president.

“I think Trump tonight will continue to be very gracious,” Conway said. The Fox News host responded, “I think you're right, I think he will do that tonight,” adding that Trump’s recent “tone” shows he's “been dialed in in a way that I've not seen, honestly, since 2020.”

That kinder, more deliberate Trump did not appear on stage. Instead, the likely Republican presidential nominee raged throughout his speech. He castigated Haley as “delusional,” criticized her “fancy dress that probably wasn’t so fancy,” suggested that she would be “under investigation” if she won the nomination due to things “she doesn’t want to talk about,” and falsely claimed that he won New Hampshire in the 2016 and 2020 general elections.

After the speech ended, a deflated Hannity said that while Trump's ire with Haley was “understandable,” he wished Trump had instead focused on President Joe Biden.

There’s a long tradition of political journalists declaring that a new tone from Trump is either imminent or has finally arrived, only for the former president to double down on his typically unhinged behavior and make those people look ridiculous. The likes of Hannity, Conway, and several others at Fox who offered similarly rose-colored views of Trump over the last few days seem to be going further than that — they are desperately trying to will such a pivot into existence.

Martha MacCallum, a Fox anchor who the network props up as one of its “straight news” types in spite of her obvious right-wing views, applauded Trump’s “very kind of different, earnest demeanor” in a recent Fox town hall. “I think that his tone was very different,” she told TheWrap in an interview. “He did not talk about a rigged or stolen election at all during the entire hour. I don’t know that you could go back and find it an hour when he hasn’t brought it up since all of that happened back in 2020. I think he wants to broaden his appeal and we’ll see if it works.”

Fox contributor Newt Gingrich also argued that Trump had adopted a new, less polarizing tone. “If you watch his tone, he has very correctly begun to move toward a unifying [message], bring us together, solve problems,” he told Hannity on Monday. “So I am encouraged that this could be a remarkable general election.”

A similar discussion broke out on Fox Business' Varney & Co. after National Review editor Deroy Murdock praised Trump’s “new tone” as “delightful, warm — kind of a kinder, gentler Donald J. Trump.”

“You see that too?” an elated Stuart Varney replied. “It is a different tone, and it started with Fox's town hall.”

“He just seems calmer, less bombast, less name-calling, that sort of stuff,” Murdock said. “And if he keeps that up, that will calm people down. A lot of people just want to see that, and they’re happy to go along with him otherwise.”

Murdock’s comments get to the heart of the matter. Right-wing figures at Fox and elsewhere will inevitably back Trump for financial and ideological reasons. They’re undeterred by the numerous crimes the former president allegedly committed, his naked corruption and authoritarianism, or his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election and end American democracy. But it would be more pleasant for them to rally behind Trump if they didn’t have to alternatively defend or ignore his deranged public statements.

Unfortunately for Hannity and company, that behavior is the core of who Trump is. Defending the indefensible is the life they’ve chosen in exchange for maintaining their audiences and securing a policy agenda of tax cuts for rich people and bans on abortion, and there’s no way around it.

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Fox News repeatedly cut away from Nikki Haley’s primary speech | Media Matters for America

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Several Republican governors responded to the campaign by Donald Trump and his right-wing media allies to undermine the credibility of the 2020 election by signing bills making it more difficult to vote. But Florida’s Ron DeSantis stood out from the pack thanks to the unique venue for his May 2021 signing ceremony: a live, exclusive appearance in front of a cheering crowd of supporters on Fox & Friends, the Fox News morning show beloved by the former president.

DeSantis’ rise to political prominence shows how a canny politician attuned to the right-wing press can use its power to become a plausible presidential contender. But the collapse of his presidential campaign, which came to an end when he endorsed Trump on Sunday before the New Hampshire primary, demonstrates the limitations of such a strategy given the right-wing media imperative to support Trump.

DeSantis first won the governorship in 2018 by running a “Fox first campaign.” When he announced his candidacy — on Fox & Friends, naturally —- he was an undistinguished House backbencher in his third term facing an uphill climb in the GOP primary against a candidate who already held statewide office and had locked up the support of the state’s party establishment. DeSantis countered those advantages by staying in front of Florida’s GOP voters on their favorite right-wing TV channels. He made more than 100 appearances on Fox News and Fox Business — winning Trump’s endorsement with his on-air defenses of the then-president from the Russia probe — and touted his support from Fox hosts Mark Levin and Sean Hannity, the latter of whom appeared with him on the campaign trail.

As governor, DeSantis became a star in the right-wing media by fixating on its obsessions and using state power to cudgel its foes. He first drew plaudits for his lax handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which mimicked the response from Fox hosts and other influential figures downplaying the danger posed by the virus. And after the right responded to Trump’s defeat by refocusing its ire on “critical race theory” and other examples of “wokeness,” DeSantis made those topics the linchpin of his policy agenda. While Fox hosts bemoaned “groomer” public school educators and “woke” universities and entertainment companies, DeSantis signed laws weaponizing his base against the state’s teachers, put right-wing ideologues in command of one of its colleges, and went to war with Disney.

DeSantis’ popularity with Fox hosts and other influential figures in right-wing media made him seem like a plausible contender for president, particularly after his 2022 reelection. He benefited from the support of Rupert Murdoch, who hoped to move past Trump after the horrors of January 6, and anti-anti-Trump figures at outlets like The Daily Wire and National Review, who preferred that Trump not return as the GOP’s presidential nominee. DeSantis sought to stoke that support by giving privileged access to right-wing influencers while freezing out the mainstream press.

But DeSantis’ disastrous presidential announcement — an interview with Elon Musk in a glitchy Twitter Spaces, followed by a Q&A with the right-wing media influencers in attendance that focused on their picayune concerns — was somehow the campaign’s high-water mark. The various accounts of his campaign’s demise point to a slew of reasons he never caught on with Republican voters, but two factors point to the limitations of his right-wing media-focused strategy.

First, DeSantis garnered support from the right-wing press and their audiences by focusing on their grievances and obsessions. But those focuses did not help him grow national support, either because they were no longer major forward-looking political issues, like pandemic response, or because they were niche concerns that were alien to normal people, like his self-identification as a general in the “war on woke.”

Second, Fox’s stars — the most influential in the right-wing media constellation — might like DeSantis, but they are dependent on Trump and his supporters, who make up their audiences. They never broke with the former president; the cult of personality they built for him made it virtually impossible for his rivals to gain traction; and once federal and state prosecutors began indicting Trump on various charges, their ongoing support was crucial in securing his unassailable position. And they did not come to DeSantis’ aid when he came under fire from Trump — even on ludicrous claims, such as Trump’s attempt to brand DeSantis as a “groomer.” Before the first GOP primary votes had been cast, Fox hosts were already preparing a return to their role as Trump’s personal propaganda outlet.

DeSantis spent the final days of his campaign complaining that Fox hadn’t been willing to take on Trump, and drawing attention to one of the few avenues for criticizing him the network hadn’t preempted — the former president’s role in ensuring the development of COVID-19 vaccines. It was a fitting conclusion for a presidential bid that rose and fell on its relationship with the right-wing media.

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Fox News hosts celebrate UFC fighter for wearing an "a woman in every kitchen" t-shirt | Media Matters for America

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Fox News host instructs Republicans to avoid specifics when talking about their plans to restrict abortion | Media Matters for America

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in January 5, Fox host Jesse Watters attacked AP News’ climate coverage, seemingly in response to a story dispelling offshore wind misinformation. The segment repeated the false claim — debunked by several fact checks from a variety of sources — that offshore wind development is killing whales.

The same false claim appeared on Fox News at least as early as December 2022 and proliferated on the network throughout 2023, with at least 54 segments pushing the misinformation seemingly intended to hurt support for offshore wind.

In early 2023, Fox News helped propel the false narrative into a right-wing media story which has persisted even though no evidence supports the link between the slew of whale deaths along the East Coast and offshore wind development.

An analysis by Media Matters found that:

• Fox News aired at least 54 segments suggesting that offshore wind development is causing whale deaths. At least 15 programs on the network have reported on the false link between offshore wind and whale deaths, including the network’s so-called straight news program Special Report With Bret Baier.

• 12 of the 54 (22%) segments appeared on Fox & Friends (on its daily or weekend program), 11 of the 54 (20%) segments appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime, and 9 (17%) appeared on The Story with Martha MacCullum.

• 26 of 54 segments aired in the first two months of 2023. With 14 segments, coverage peaked in February 2023. At least one segment pushing the false claim appeared on Fox every month of 2023 except May and October.

A December report by the Center for American Progress illustrates how the fossil fuel industry is bankrolling offshore wind misinformation, “with money flowing through interest groups, think tanks, and astroturf groups to achieve its ultimate goal of slowing, if not stopping, the expansion of offshore wind in the United States.”

Fox News has played a key role in the proliferation of offshore wind misinformation by regularly airing false claims about the technology and providing a platform to some of the groups identified in the report, including Protect Our Coast NJ and people associated with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Environmental Progress, whose founder and president, Michael Shellenberger, has appeared frequently on Fox News to spread offshore wind misinformation.

Methodology...

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~ baby jail?

Jesse Watters says migrants are "turning their children into little bandits -- banditos" | Media Matters for America

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Trump supporters in right-wing media crown Trump as GOP nominee after Iowa caucuses victory | Media Matters for America

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Fox’s 2024 election denial push is underway** | Media Matters for America

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Fox News guest: "We've got to strike Iran" | Media Matters for America

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Laura Ingraham tells Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to "step aside and endorse Trump" | Media Matters for America

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham predicts Democrats will “game the system or yeah, maybe even cheat” in the 2024 election | Media Matters for America

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Fox News' Martha MacCallum criticizes Joe Biden for "scowling" during January 6 speech | Media Matters for America

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Fox’s purported “news side” glosses over report on Trump’s business payments from foreign governments | Media Matters for America

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National TV news largely ignored FBI report showing crime rates declined significantly in 2023 | Media Matters for America

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FoxNews.com quietly walks back baseless claims about Sen. John Fetterman’s comments on South Africa | Media Matters for America

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow claims climate change is a hoax | Media Matters for America

Major broadcast and print news outlets mostly failed to cover Trump’s abortion comments at Fox News’ Iowa town hall | Media Matters for America

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Fox News host tells young women to sell pictures of their feet to “old people” to solve financial problems | Media Matters for America

JIMMY FAILLA (HOST, FOX NEWS SATURDAY NIGHT): She's using social media all wrong. She shouldn't be yelling at old people. She should be selling them pictures of their feet. She would own that Walmart. She wouldn't be wearing that vest.

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): That's how you make money in this economy.

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during a Tuesday night, October 9 broadcast, Fox News' Jesse Watters claimed that Taylor Swift is part of a "Pentagon psyop" conspiracy.

Watters told viewers, "Have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this? Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A psy-op for combatting online misinformation."

The Fox News host tried to make his case by citing a video that MAGA Republican and Donald Trump ally Jeffrey Clark reshared on X, formerly Twitter.

The Daily Beast's William Vaillancourt notes, "That video was an excerpt from the 2019 International Conference on Cyber Conflict, which was held in Estonia and organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence (CCD COE). The speaker in the clip is Alicia Marie Bargar, a research engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who appears to simply mention Swift as an example of the power of influencers with large followings."

Watters and Clark aren't the only ones on the far right who have been promoting conspiracy theories involving Swift.

Former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller, on December 6, 2023, tweeted, "What's happening with Taylor Swift is not organic."

READ MORE:UC Berkeley’s Taylor Swift course will combine 'literature, economics, business and sociology'

Jack Posobiec claimed that Swift's "girlboss psyop has been fully activated."

Nonetheless, Watters acknowledged that he "obviously has no evidence" that Swift is "a front for a covert political agenda."

READ MORE:Could Taylor Swift be democracy's last best hope?

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1 24 REMINDED OF OBSTRUCTION CAT BY

Laura Ingraham demands Republicans reject deal for government funding to deny Joe Biden “a victory lap” | Media Matters for America

RECALL FOX SOP RAISON D’ETRE IS TO ATTACK DEMS

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NOTE BIDEN MAKES DEMOC KEY 2024 SO RT/FOX/TRUMP MUST REBRAND JAN 6

Fox host praises "passionate point of view" of guest who claimed Joe Biden did not win the election | Media Matters for America

LAWRENCE JONES ( AA CO-HOST): I want to go to my other friend here from Texas. The economy, what's going wrong and what's going right?

DINER: Joe Bite Me is the problem. He should not be in the White House. He did he not win the election. I believe that with my whole heart. And until we get him out and Trump in office, our America is at risk of not being America anymore. And it breaks my heart.

JONES: Wow, such a passionate point of view. A lot of people agree with you as well.

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Trump’s promise to pardon Jan. 6 rioters guarantees 'likelihood of more violence': experts - Alternet.org

Nearly 40 percent of Fox News viewers believe FBI organized deadly Jan. 6 riot: survey - Alternet.org

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1. ### Sean Hannity calls reports that Donald Trump got millions of dollars from China while president “lies”

01/04/24 9:49 PM EST

2. ### Donald Trump to Sean Hannity in 2023: A president receiving money from China would be “compromised”

01/04/24 8:14 PM EST

3. ### Donald Trump to Sean Hannity in 2023: “Could you imagine” if my family had received money from China

01/04/24 7:09 PM EST

4. ### Sean Hannity in January 2023: “There've never been any accusations that Donald Trump got paid by China or his children made deals with China”

01/04/24 4:14 PM EST

5. ### Donald Trump Jr. in 2019: If I took even a dollar from China it would be a scandal

01/04/24 4:04 PM EST

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mma mg 1 24

After years of convoluted attempts by Republicans and right-wing media to somehow prove that China had compromised President Joe Biden via his son Hunter Biden’s business interests, Democrats revealed on Wednesday that China directed millions of dollars straight to Donald Trump’s businesses while he was serving as president.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee detailed the transactions in an extensive new report titled “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump.” Based on records obtained through litigation, the report finds that the government of China and two state-owned entities spent at least $5,572,548 at Trump Tower in New York City and the Trump International Hotels in Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas, Nevada.

The report also finds that “the ability of Trump family businesses to secure trademarks in China improved markedly and rapidly after Trump entered office,” describes these payments and similar ones to Trump-owned businesses from other countries as unconstitutional “foreign emoluments,” and links the payments to how “Mr. Trump inexplicably took positions favorable to specific Chinese interests” as president.

As The New York Times noted in its writeup, “the transactions … offer concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work to build an impeachment case against him.”

Indeed, the right has tried to damage Biden’s political standing by suggesting that he had been compromised by foreign payments to his son’s businesses since at least 2018, when conservative activist Peter Schweizer tried to repeat his success in damaging Hillary Clinton’s campaign. While such claims have collapsed time and time again, they’ve nonetheless become the heart of Republicans’ ludicrous push to impeach Joe Biden.

They’ve also led right-wing media figures to offer comments that seem comically detached from reality given the direct payments detailed in the Democratic report. Commentators have cited payments to Hunter Biden’s businesses as evidence of “the real Biden crimes, potentially treasonous corruption charges after years of selling Joe Biden's power all over the world, including places like China,” said that “we have to know why and where is the president compromised” given that “more money is flowing into the Bidens' bank accounts from China than all the other countries,” and argued that if Joe Biden “can be compromised by the likes of China,” that would make “Watergate look like a smash-and-grab.”

The right’s inept efforts to paint Joe Biden as compromised by China

The insinuations in Schweizer’s book spawned major lines of attack from Rudy Giuliani, John Solomon, Sean Hannity, and other Trumpists that revolved around the bogus conspiracy theory that Joe Biden had taken corrupt action in Ukraine when he was vice president due to his son’s position with a Ukrainian company. Trump’s obsession with this falsehood led him to try to leverage U.S. military aid to Ukraine to get that country’s president to announce an investigation into the Bidens, yielding Trump’s first impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in 2019.

The attacks took on new urgency and refocused on Hunter Biden’s business interests in China in the waning days of the 2020 presidential campaign, when Trump and Fox tried to turn disgruntled former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski into a household name. Bobulinski had alleged that Joe Biden had met with him in 2017 as part of a joint business venture involving Bobulinski, Hunter Biden, and Chinese oil company CEFC China Energy Co.

Right-wing outlets desperately trumpeted the Bobulinski story even as less credulous reporting revealed that the venture reportedly “never received proposed funds from the Chinese company or completed any deals” and corporate records “show no role for Joe Biden,” who denied any role in the business and was in any case neither in public office nor running for one at the time. And Bobulinski himself acknowledged that when they met, Joe Biden did not ask about the proposed deal.

The right’s Hunter Biden push failed to lift Trump to victory in 2020. But they responded with more of the same, spending the first years of Joe Biden’s administration trying to damage his political standing with similar attacks. And when Republicans won the House in 2022, they pledged to follow through with investigations into what Trumpists like Hannity termed the “Biden Crime Family.”

The House Republican investigations produced a series of reports detailing tangential issues to smear Joe Biden that soared on right-wing media outlets and crashed everywhere else.

In one particularly farcical case, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer alleged that a Hunter Biden business entity “made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden” after it “received payments from Chinese-state linked companies & other shady entities,” which purportedly proved that “Joe Biden knew & benefitted from his family's business schemes."

Fox host Jesse Watters, over onscreen text that read “China Paid Hunter’s Company, Who Then Paid Joe,” said this showed that “China, after being threatened by Hunter, wired millions of dollars to him, and then Hunter started sending his dad payments.” For Hannity, Comer had revealed that “not only did Joe Biden discuss his son's business ventures, but he also received direct payments from one of Hunter's corporations.”

In reality, Joe Biden took over many of his son’s expenses during a period when Hunter was in the depths of drug addiction and Joe Biden was out of office. That included buying his son a truck to use. Hunter Biden made three payments, each for $1,380, to repay his father for the initial payments on the truck before taking over future payments directly.

This was happening at the same time the Chinese government was trying to curry favor with Trump — the sitting president — by making payments directly to the companies he owned and that his sons oversaw. And those revelations from the House Democratic report are the tip of the iceberg as far as corruption during Trump’s presidency is concerned.

While Fox shills like Watters have been contorting the facts to declare Joe Biden “a money laundering operation for foreign nationals,” they’ve curiously missed the massive influence peddling that happened right before their eyes. I wouldn’t hold my breath for that to change — as of posting, Fox had not mentioned the Democratic report.

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Sean Hannity: People would be furious if Trump and the Trump organization were making millions from China | Media Matters for America

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): To be very honest, I think we're making a big mistake if we don't get to the bottom of this. I cannot, for the life of me, you know, imagine what the media and how the country and the left in this country would be reacting if Donald Trump and the Trump Organization or the Trump family were making tens of millions of dollars from our top geopolitical foes like China and Russia. I can't imagine the left in this country not going insane, but lo and behold, here we are.

Meanwhile:

Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China.

...

Using documents produced through a court fight, the report describes how foreign governments and their controlled entities, including a top U.S. adversary, interacted with Trump businesses while he was president. They paid millions to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.; Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas; Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York; and Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza in New York.

...

“By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous commander in chief,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, wrote in a foreword to the report.

Among the countries patronizing Mr. Trump’s properties, China made the largest total payment — $5.5 million — to his business interests, the report found. Those payments included millions of dollars from China’s Embassy in the United States, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Hainan Airlines Holding Company.

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Fox host blames the "spider-like cancer" that is diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives for antisemitism | Media Matters for America

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MMA 1 24 MG

Three years after the January 6 insurrection, the initial broad agreement about that day’s depravity lies in ruins. That consensus didn’t unravel on its own — right-wing commentators deliberately dismantled it for power and profit.

Republicans have made their peace with the violent mob of Donald Trump’s supporters that stormed the U.S. Capitol as the culmination of his plot to remain in office, according to a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll the paper reported on Tuesday.

“Republicans are showing increased loyalty to the former president as he campaigns for reelection and fights criminal charges over his attempt to stay in power after losing in 2020,” the Post reported. “They are now less likely to believe that Jan. 6 participants were ‘mostly violent,’ less likely to believe Trump bears responsibility for the attack and are slightly less likely to view Joe Biden’s election as legitimate than they were in a December 2021 Post-UMD survey.”

Right-wing propagandists engineered that shift in GOP views of the January 6 insurrection by creating a revisionist counternarrative out of lies they repeated over and over again. Their work created a permission structure for Republicans to stop caring about the assault of hundreds of law enforcement officers amid an effort to overturn a presidential election by force. That helped ensure that the mob’s leader would remain the GOP’s presumptive nominee in 2024, positioned to carry out the party’s top priorities of cutting taxes for rich people, banning abortions, building huge migrant deportation camps to expel undocumented immigrants Trump claims are “poisoning the blood” of the country, and deploying state power against left-wing “vermin.”

Trump’s 2020 election subversion effort received strong support among his media allies, many of whom backed his claims of a stolen election even as they privately acknowledged those claims were false. When Trump urged the violent mob he had summoned to Washington, D.C., to “fight like hell” to stop the steal — and they responded by attempting to do just that and attacked the Capitol — the right’s propagandists could have washed their hands of the then-president and his violent supporters.

They made a different choice. As I detailed last month:

The right-wing effort to minimize January 6 and Trump’s role in fomenting it began that very day. Fox hosts who knew better told their viewers that Trump’s supporters had been responding to reasonable fears that the election had been stolen, while any violence may have been caused by antifa interlopers.

In the intervening years, Trumpist media stars — led by former Fox host Tucker Carlson — cosseted their viewers with a slew of lies about January 6. There was no “insurrection,” just a “political protest [that] got out of hand” in which “the overwhelming majority” of participants were “orderly and meek.” The rioter shot and killed by law enforcement while trying to breach the speaker’s gallery was a martyr, while the officers who were nearly beaten to death during the attack deserve mockery. The violence was orchestrated by undercover federal agents as part of a sinister plot to imprison patriotic Americans for their conservative views. The events were comparable to staffers for a late-night talk show shooting an unauthorized video in the Capitol complex, or a Democratic congressman foolishly pulling a fire alarm, or progressive protests at state capitols.

Trump’s 2020 subversion effort ultimately failed — but he still claims that he won the election, and gives every indication that he could try again should he lose in 2024. Voters expect as much: Roughly 7 in 10 respondents say Trump won’t accept the results of the election if he is defeated, according to the Post/UMD poll.

After a yearslong right-wing drumbeat of stolen-election lies and insurrection revisionism, and the corresponding purges of dissident Republican leaders and terror campaigns against election workers, the battleground is more favorable to a second attempt to overturn an election through lies and violence.

Colorado, the 14th Amendment, and the right’s January 6 revisionism}:

:{:{12/20/23}:

2. ### Fox News is a loaded gun aimed at American democracy

:{:{05/14/21}:

3. ### Tucker Carlson’s insurrection alternate reality

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huh? wtf

mma 1 24

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): The Central Intelligence Agency has been interfering in our elections for years. 1964, 1968, 2016, 2020, just to name a few. And in 2024, Biden's going to need all the help he can get. Black, Hispanic, youth support -- evaporating. And he's losing to Trump in every battleground.

...

But maybe Biden knows something we don't. Maybe he thinks it's in the bag. Maybe it is in the bag. A former CIA analyst says we can expect the intelligence agencies who've been turbocharged by diversity, equity, and inclusion to reemerge this year and subvert the Republican nominee.

...

So the deep state went woke in order to kneecap Republican presidential candidates who threaten their corporate and ideological agenda. That's what DEI has really been about: using inclusivity as an excuse to hire ideological hit men and hit women to do the dirty work. Remember, you're not allowed to ask recruits about their politics. But if you hire DEI-type recruits, you can assume what their politics are without having to ask.

Also, remember, the CIA does the bidding for corporate America. And if a Republican candidate threatens corporate America's agenda by controlling the border, starting trade wars with China, challenging the Green New Deal, they'll be dealt with by the CIA -- especially a CIA stacked with liberal recruits who think they're saving democracy, but they're only saving a CEO's bottom line.

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far-right MAGA Republicans typically regard Fox News and Fox Businesses as safe spaces, expecting softball questions if they are interviewed by Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham or Maria Bartiromo. But House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) is avoiding the morning show "Fox and Friends" after being mildly challenged by long-time co-host Steve Doocy.

Comer has been pushing for an impeachment of President Joe Biden and trying to link him to his son Hunter Biden's legal problems. But when Comer appeared on "Fox and Friends" on Monday morning, December 11, Doocy told him, "They've connected the dots, the Department of Justice did, on Hunter, but they have not shown where Joe Biden, you know, did anything illegally."

Doocy wasn't especially forceful. But when Comer was interviewed by Newsmax's Eric Bolling the following day, he announced that he has decided to avoid "Fox and Friends."

"He's had that position from the very beginning,” the far-right House Oversight chairman said of Doocy.

Comer told Bolling, "I've quit going on 'Fox & Friends' because of Doocy, you know? I mean, he's the one guy on Fox that's been very critical of the investigation. I have my theory why, and we'll talk about that at a later point. But at the end of the day, he's entitled to his opinion. But I don't think the average viewer of Fox News agrees with Doocy one bit."

The New Republic's Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, in an article published on December 13, emphasized that Comer was triggered by a "tiny hole in the conservative safety net."

"If Comer is too afraid to face down Fox News for even the mildest bout of criticism," Houghtaling writes, "what does that mean for the actual impeachment proceedings, which Republicans seemingly want to keep in the dark? Last week, the caucus threatened to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress if he refused to appear for a closed-door deposition, despite the president's son's previously voiced preference for a public hearing, fearing that information from those interviews would be selectively leaked and used to 'manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public.'"

READ MORE:Maria Bartiromo ripped for pushing 'conspiracy' that Hunter Biden charges are part of a 'cover up'

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review mma 12 23

During his tenure at Fox News, Jesse Watters has risen from compiling blatantly racist on-the-street ambush interviews for disgraced former Fox host Bill O'Reilly to becoming one of the network’s highest-rated hosts.

That rise has been fueled in part by Watters' embrace of the network's favored conspiracy theories, including questioning the integrity of the 2020 election, casting doubt on a 10-year-old rape victim to push radical anti-abortion narratives, and baselessly scapegoating offshore wind energy development for the deaths of endangered whales.

Since the departure of top-rated Fox host Tucker Carlson, Watters has taken up his former colleague’s mantle in the Fox prime-time lineup as the network’s preeminent merchant of nonsense — which, like Carlson, he often camouflages in “just asking questions”-type language. In fact, irresponsibly floating outrageous conspiracy theories with no evidence has become a hallmark of Watters’ top-rated show.

Media Matters found that in 2023, Watters toyed with at least 24 different conspiracy theories, ranging from the threat of “transhumanism” turning everyone into mindless robots to baseless accusations of corruption at the highest levels of government.

• ## Jesse Watters has spread many of the right's favorite debunked conspiracy theories during his decades-long career at Fox News

• • Watters played a pivotal role in a smear campaign denying the existence of a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to Indiana to receive an abortion due to Ohio’s anti-abortion laws. Watters spent multiple shows discrediting the initial report and targeting the doctor who provided the abortion, arguing that the story was a “hoax” to fearmonger about the consequences of restricted health care access. In July, the rapist that Watters said didn’t exist was sentenced to life in prison. Media Matters, [7/13/22, 7/15/22, 7/6/23; The Daily Beast, 7/14/22]

• • Watters was the first Fox News host to falsely claim that offshore wind developments resulted in whale deaths. While he had no evidence to back up his claim, Watters ran numerous segments suggesting that the recent deaths of whales across New York and New Jersey beaches were caused by the development of offshore wind turbines. This narrative became a recurring talking point used by right-wing media and conservative politicians to slow renewable energy development. Media Matters, [2/2/23, 7/17/23; NPR, 2/22/23]

• • Watters has cast doubt on election integrity in the 2020 election. Watters emphasized that Biden “allegedly” got more votes than any previous presidential candidate. Watters also pushed lies about Arizona’s election audit, claiming that tens of thousands of “questionable ballots” were found in Maricopa County. Media Matters, [10/8/22, 1/20/22]

• • Watters was instrumental in spreading doubt about the attack on Paul Pelosi, saying, “If we’ve learned anything about the Pelosis, you just gotta keep asking questions.” Watters continued to “keep asking questions” about Pelosi’s attack even after police released body cam footage that seemingly undermined Watters’ preferred — and extremely homophobic — narrative that Paul Pelosi was attacked by his leftist gay lover: “We still don’t know who opened the door. Was it Paul? Was it the cops? Did they not play that part of the footage in the courtroom? Why is this, such a simple detail, so hard to pin down?” Watters asked. Twitter/X, [10/31/22; Media Matters, 12/16/22]

• ## In 2023, Jesse Watters pushed even more outlandish conspiracy theories

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: The Biden administration is selling oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China in order to buy guns for IRS agents. Watters alleged a scheme between the Biden administration and the Chinese Communist Party to “prop up Democrats before the midterms” by selling “taxpayer oil to the Chinese, the companies with the Hunter connection, and then use the revenues to buy guns for IRS agents.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/2/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: The CIA is working with drug cartels to “destabilize Mexico” and ensure a cheap labor market. Watters claimed it is “suspicious” that the Biden administration seemingly “buries” stories about the threat of cartels at the southern border, then suggested the supposed leniency was due to the FBI and CIA helping Biden win the 2020 election after then-President Donald Trump threatened the cartels with a border wall. Watters cited an unnamed “journalist” to boast that this theory used to be considered a “conspiracy,” but now “everybody just assumes” the CIA is working with cartels. He warned his audience “the U.S. government's working with the narcos” to keep Mexico as an “economic puppet” and “juicy labor with natural resources that our multinationals can take advantage of.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/6/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: PBS gave a softball interview to Biden because he threatened to defund the network. Watters claimed that PBS did not hold Biden accountable “for being crooked” because the public broadcast network is “a government-owned channel” that “is doing interviews with their own boss.” He suggested that Biden threatened to take away the outlet’s funding if it asked uncomfortable questions, saying, “Hey, take it easy on me or I am going to cut your paycheck.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/9/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Global warming is solely “corporate propaganda” encouraged by big businesses to price gouge their products.Watters downplayed the threat of global warming as “a sunburn” and argued that climate change is “more about corporate propaganda. They’re just saying, ‘You have to buy, or you’re going to die.’” Watters explained that “you’ve got to get a new car, you got to get solar panels, you got to get a new stove,” while corporations “get the money and our prices go up.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/1/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Democrats colluded with the FBI, CIA, and Big Tech to censor conservatives and hijack elections. Watters touted the debunked “Twitter Files” to assert that Democrats colluded with the FBI, CIA, and Big Tech to censor conservatives and rig the 2020 election for Joe Biden. Watters claimed that instead of refuting the accusations, Democrats decided to “punish these journalists for blowing up the silent censorship arm of the Democratic Party.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [3/9/23; Media Matters, 12/15/22]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Germany, Denmark, and Great Britain are going to use offshore windmills to spy on the U.S. In an effort to villainize green energy, Watters suggested that offshore wind would become “our biggest national security threat.” He then described how Germany, Denmark, and Great Britain “own our precious coastlines for wind” and warned that those countries could be susceptible to foreign bribes to spy on the United States. “Sure, they're our allies, but every ally can flip,” he said. “Our enemies would pay good money to these countries for a slice of our coast.” In an interview with Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Watters said that “a couple decades ago, we were killing a lot of Nazis,” and questioned whether Germany could put “little espionage technology” into the windmills or even “launch a missile” from them. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [3/24/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: The Biden administration is paying $100 million to “fight extremists” as a bribe to exploit African countries for their resources and ensure the implementation of the Green New Deal. Watters claimed that Biden sent Vice President Kamala Harris to pay off African countries to allow the U.S. to mine minerals needed for electric vehicle manufacturing and the Biden family could make money on “the front and the back end.” Watters called Harris “the Black face of American colonialism” and alleged that the $100 million in security aid Harris announced was a bribe to allow the United States to “plunder every inch of Africa until every American child rides an electric school bus.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [3/27/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Joe Biden is a pivotal member of the “deep state” who orchestrated all of Trump's legal woes, including his impeachments, criminal indictments, and the FBI search in Mar-a-Lago. Watters falsely suggested Biden “spied on the Trump campaign,” sent “a political hitman into the DA’s office” to arrest him in New York, and even “personally signed off on the raid on Mar-a-Lago.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [4/4/23; CNN, 8/29/20; Media Matters, 9/6/22]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Democrats don't want Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to debate Joe Biden because he will expose that the CIA killed President John F. Kennedy. After playing a clip in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed he had “overwhelming evidence” that his uncle was killed by the CIA, Watters suggested that “maybe this is why the Democrats are trying to keep RFK. Jr. off the debate stage” because “they do not want him talking.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [5/8/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Target is working with the “rainbow mafia” to fund gender-affirming surgery in schools. After suggesting that Pride Month is a “Trojan horse” to sexualize kids, Watters decried “the rainbow mafia” and attacked Target for pushing inclusivity a “little too far” by selling trans-inclusive clothing. Watters later cited a report by Fox News Digital to claim that Target is “funding the sex-change surgeries in schools behind parents’ back and the nuking of Mount Rushmore.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [6/5/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: As vice president, Joe Biden was working as “an intelligence op” for the FBI, which then installed Biden as president after blackmailing him for a decade.Watters claimed without evidence that then-Vice President Joe Biden was acting as “one of the FBI’s top informants” and “took a $5 million bribe … from a foreign national in exchange for a policy decision” without President Barack Obama’s knowledge. Watters reasoned that the FBI “put their guy in the White House” because it has blackmail over Biden, who was “installed” by the bureau “so that he can take orders.” Over the next month, Watters repeated this conspiracy theory. On the June 26, 2023, edition of Jesse Watters Primetime, the host declared, “I know Joe Biden is an intelligence op.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [6/5/23, 6/15/23, 6/26/23, 11/30/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: The Secret Service “incinerated” the cocaine found in the White House to protect Hunter Biden. Watters suggested that the incineration was intentionally planned to prevent evidence from coming forward. “Did the White House blow up the coke while they were testing it for fingerprints, or after they tested it?” Watters asked, declaring that “when you destroy evidence, you're participating in a cover-up.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/18/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: The details in the drowning death of the Obama family’s personal chef don’t add up. Citing a Daily Mail report, Watters cast doubt on the circumstances of the death of the Obama family’s personal chef, Tafari Campbell, who drowned in a pond near the ex-president’s home on Martha’s Vineyard. “There is something strange going on with the police call logs on the night Obama’s chef drowned,” Watters said. “In the section where the cops are supposed to write the reason for the call, it was left blank. Could be a mistake, but every other call that night was properly filled out.” Even though police ruled Campbell’s death an accident, Watters baselessly suggested that a conspiracy might be afoot. When police released the audio of two 911 calls reporting the drowning, Watters told his audience those calls were “heavily redacted, likely in order to protect the first family,” before raising a series of bizarre questions about why those calls did not mention the Obamas or the staffer that was supposedly with Campbell when he died. “There's no mention of the Obama's on the call. But we now know the former president arrived at the incident command post after the 911 call was placed and spoke to Secret Service and police. There's also no mention on the call of the female Obama staffer who was paddle-boarding with Tafari when he drowned,” Watters said. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/27/23, 10/24/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: “Big trans” preys on “confused kids” for profit. Watters blamed the media pushing “gender fluid ideology on children,” which he claimed had created “a generation of kids doing harm to themselves” by seeking gender-affirming care. “Big Trans is taking advantage of confused kids and they’ve created a billion-dollar industry that preys on minors,” Watters added. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/27/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Russia's attacks on the Donbas region of Ukraine had something to do with a “blackmail operation” involving Ukrainian energy company Burisma and the Bidens. During an interview with Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy, Watters hinted at an apparent blackmail scheme between the Biden family and the Ukrainian government that supposedly influenced Russia to attack the Donbas region of Ukraine. Watters suggested that Burisma, the now-defunct Ukrainian energy company that once counted Hunter Biden among its board members, “had the oil and gas leases … for the Donbas region,” which supposedly indicated to Watters that a “a big blackmail operation” was underway. “We might have something on this tomorrow,” he teased. Seemingly intrigued by Watters’ vague suggestion of Biden family corruption, Campos-Duffy agreed, “We’re shoveling money there … to cover up the tens of millions of dollars that the Biden family took,” before adding, “I’m really happy you’re on that story, I really think there’s something there.” Watters never revisited the supposed blackmail scheme. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/31/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Grand Canyon National Monument is a Biden scheme to funnel uranium money to foreign governments.Watters claimed that President Biden declared the Grand Canyon a national monument to block uranium mining in the canyon’s surrounding areas to fund “Russia’s dangerous uranium monopoly.” Watters then speculated on Biden’s motives, questioning why the president’s “entire energy policy favors Russia and China.” “Well, does it have anything to do with the three and a half million dollars the Russians paid the Biden's? Or the Porsche Panamera that the Kazakhstanis gifted Hunter? Does it have anything to do with the three and a half carat diamond that the Chinese slipped the first son? There's something very mysterious going on in the international uranium market that involves the Bidens and the Russians.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [8/8/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: The Weather Channel is a Biden propaganda outlet.Watters claimed the Weather Channel gave Joe Biden a softball interview because “the owner of the Weather Channel is a prolific Democrat donor.” He continued, “A corrupt, confused, weak, and terrified man is being protected by the ideological professional class who runs corporate media.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime,* [8/9/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Biden and his team are doing “absolutely nothing” to stop fentanyl trafficking because “they prefer a passive public.” “China’s sending us the fentanyl, the Mexicans are trafficking it here, and Joe’s doing absolutely nothing about it. Why?” Watters asked, before answering his own question. “The professional class decided it's okay to kill yourself. It's pro-euthanasia. They find this behavior acceptable. They prefer a passive public.” Watters added that those in power are “fine” with “tranq heads and fentanyl heads” because — unlike the “wild” people who were addicted to stimulants during the crack epidemic — “they’re not asking questions, they’re not participating, and they’re not a threat.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [8/9/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion training is a “shakedown” to encourage more racism so diversity trainers get paid. Watters argued DEI training was a “shakedown” in which diversity consultants earned “big money” training corporate employees on racism in the workplace so that their companies could publicly broadcast — and profit from — the idea that they are not racist. (“My company is not racist, please buy our products,” Watters described.) Watters’ guest, Erec Smith, a “former diversity trainer” turned supposed whistleblower, argued that diversity trainers like racism because it keeps them in business. “If you’re making all that money off racism, the last thing you want is for racism to go away. You’re going to perpetuate it. You’re going to see it where it isn’t,” Smith claimed. Summarizing Smith’s arguments for his audience, Watters said, “They were seeing racism where it never existed in order to get paid.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [8/28/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: The Biden family’s Chinese business partners paid them in diamonds to avoid the IRS. Watters baselessly claimed that a Chinese company illegally paid the Biden family in diamonds to avoid drawing the attention of the IRS. “Everybody knows diamonds [are] a time-tested way to launder money, and hide that money from IRS agents,” Watters said, adding, “Diamonds and art, both spaces that Hunter plays in. There’s no paper trail or record-keeping with diamond transactions.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/18/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is the victim of a smear campaign engineered by the CIA and the Biden administration as part of a conspiracy to help Democrats. After Menendez, the former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was indicted on charges of bribery, fraud, and extortion related to his dealings with the Egyptian government, Watters argued that the CIA was using “the same Trump playbook they used last time” to smear Menendez as a “traitor” and a spy. Watters baselessly alleged that Menendez — who has since been accused of acting as an unregistered agent of Egypt’s government — was “such a threat to Democrats” that the Biden administration and the CIA “smeared [him] as a spook” to supposedly cover up President Biden’s criminal behavior. “What does gold bar-Bob have on the Bidens? That’s the question,” Watters said. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/29/23; Associated Press, 9/22/23, 10/12/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Biden framed Menendez as a ploy to sell Turkey F-16s and grant Sweden NATO membership.Watters alleged that President Biden had hatched a scheme with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to remove “gold bar-Bob Menendez” from office because he was supposedly holding up the sale of $20 billion worth of F-16 jets to Turkey, which was in turn blocking Sweden’s entrance into NATO. “Look how nicely things fall into place for Biden and his boys, when two gold bars are found in a Senator's house,” Watters said, before adding, “Eh, it's probably a conspiracy theory.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/2/23]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: Joe Biden is installing kill switches to disable cars on Election Day and keep people from voting. Watters falsely claimed a provision in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act stipulating that new vehicles should include drunk driving prevention technology by 2026 was a ploy engineered by “big tech and big government to monitor your freedom of movement.” Watters also speculated that the Biden administration could “hit the kill switch on every pickup truck in Pennsylvania on Election Day” to keep people from voting. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [11/8/23, Associated Press, 3/3/22]

• • CONSPIRACY THEORY: “Transhumanist” tech executives and the Biden administration want to turn you into a mindless “RoboCop.” Watters said “executives in Silicon Valley and the eggheads at the World Economic Forum” want to “transform what it means to be human” through transhumanism: the technological enhancement of human brains and bodies using microchips and other implants. “It’s not just about dominating your attention with their screens, apps, and devices, and extracting all of your information for cash. It’s also about control,” Watters declared.” Once you join their universe, you’re dependent on them — they can control you, track you, or they can turn you off.” Watters hosted Laura Aboli, whom he introduced as an “activist and entrepreneur.” Aboli claimed that President Biden had signed an executive order that would “channel funding and resources to bioengineering and biomanufacturing” for the “transhumanist agenda.” Watters asked, “Like we all get turned into RoboCop?” “I’m afraid that’s probably what they want for us,” Aboli replied. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [11/20/23; The Guardian, 5/6/18]

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12 23 dems cave to maga israel ukr $ ?

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trump-advisor-stephen-miller-and-foxs-jesse-watters-fantasize-about-mass-deportations

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Fox News guest Stephen Miller: "What we are witnessing is the engineered political transformation of the country" | Media Matters for America BORDER bs

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Fox anchor Bret Baier compares Biden’s vaccine mandates and student loan relief to Trump’s attempted coup | Media Matters for America

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Fox News personalities dismiss their co-host when she mentions FBI data showing crime is down | Media Matters for America

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Fox News is dragging the GOP into an inane, inevitable impeachment of Joe Biden | Media Matters for America

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Fox News is dragging the GOP into an inane, inevitable impeachment of Joe Biden | Media Matters for America

house Republicans appear poised to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who called an impeachment inquiry a “natural step forward” during a Fox News appearance late last month, is reportedly strategizing with other top Republicans about how to open one by the end of September, which would likely focus on the business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter during the Obama administration.

House congressional probes of the subject have generated plenty of content for right-wing outlets. But even members of the GOP caucus acknowledge it has uncovered little to no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. As one House Republican (anonymously) put it: “There’s no evidence that Joe Biden got money, or that Joe Biden, you know, agreed to do something so that Hunter could get money. There’s just no evidence of that. And they can’t impeach without that evidence. And I don’t I don’t think the evidence exists.” Absent that proof, political commentators rightfully warn, moving forward with impeachment “would carry considerable risk for the Republican Party.”

McCarthy’s folly is a sign of the hammerlock Fox News has on the Republican Party. The right-wing propaganda network’s stars have long demanded a Biden impeachment as both retaliation and political cover for Donald Trump’s various impeachments and criminal indictments. Since those Fox commentators wield more power within the GOP than most of its putative leaders do, a Biden impeachment inquiry has seemed inevitable, with the only question being what they’d end up backfilling as its rationale. And somehow, they’ve settled on taking a shot with the Hunter Biden minutiae they’ve all spent years feverishly rehashing (but that no one can parse without a PhD in Sean Hannity Studies).

Fox’s stars began calling for Biden’s impeachment before he was elected — or even nominated. Nearly four years ago, as House Judiciary Committee Democrats prepared to approve articles of impeachment against then-President Donald Trump over his corrupt abuse of power in attempting to coerce the Ukrainian government into opening a criminal investigation into Joe Biden, Fox host Mark Levin demanded that the GOP prepare to retaliate in kind.

IFrame Content

“The next Democrat president of the United States must be impeached!” Levin bellowed during a heated December 12, 2019, appearance. “Not to get even, not because we are at their low level, because the Republicans can't live under one Constitution when the Democrats live under another Constitution and it's the only way we're going to stop them!”

Impeachment talk returned to the network’s airwaves in the waning days of the 2020 presidential election, as Fox and other outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch tried to help Trump to victory by calling attention to Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Their allegations were factually dubious, Trump and his family members had far worse conflicts of interest through their own businesses, and the effort ultimately failed to gain traction. But even then, Fox hosts were setting a predicate to impeach Joe Biden if he were elected.

Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery claimed during a late October segment on The Five that because Democrats had supposedly “lower[ed] the bar” by impeaching Trump, a Joe Biden impeachment over Hunter Biden’s business dealings would be fair game. “Why wouldn’t you, if you are using the same threshold and the same standard, why would you not impeach Joe Biden?” she asked.

Fellow co-host Greg Gutfeld likewise suggested that Republicans could “start preemptive impeachment on Joe Biden, in case he wins.”

And Fox host Jeanine Pirro similarly called for Biden’s impeachment based on the bogus conspiracy theory that he had pushed out a Ukrainian prosecutor to benefit his son’s business while serving as vice president, saying, “They can impeach him for what he did in the Ukraine.”

Fox’s Sean Hannity offered the same analysis as Kennedy had, arguing to his radio audience in December 2020, at a time when Trump was seeking to subvert the election he had lost to Biden: “What are you going to do if -- you know, all these people that impeached Trump, how do you not impeach if it's Joe Biden one day? How do you not do it? It's a foreign -- it's a family foreign crime syndicate.”

Republicans were unable to carry out Hannity’s impeachment dream for the next two years, with Democrats in control of both houses of Congress. But just weeks after Republicans won a slim House majority in the 2022 midterm elections, he predicted that an impeachment over Hunter Biden’s business dealings was inevitable.

Sean Hannity predicts Republicans will impeach Joe Biden next year

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

:{:{Audio}:

CitationFrom the November 30, 2022, edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show

“When you look at this evidence, it seems overwhelming where this is going,” Hannity told his radio audience on November 30, 2022. “I don't have the answer whether or not the money has influenced political decisions of Joe Biden, but we do know for sure that Joe Biden lied about talking with his son about these business dealings, and that he was up to his eyeballs in it, way more than he ever indicated, and that's gonna be very problematic for him.”

He concluded: “And where it goes, it could be -- it could be down the road of impeachment. That's my prediction for the year.”

The year that followed has been marked by three overlapping trends: repeated indictments of Trump on state and federal charges, fruitless congressional efforts to uncover damning evidence of Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s businesses, and demands from Fox for Republicans to retaliate against Democrats for the former, including by turning the latter into fodder for impeachment.

On June 9, the day after a federal grand jury indicted Trump on 37 counts over his withholding of highly classified government documents, Fox host Jesse Watters said he wanted Biden impeached as a “distraction” from Trump’s legal troubles.

Fox hosts issued a new wave of calls for Biden’s impeachment in late July and early August, as the nation awaited and reacted to Trump’s federal indictment over his election subversion.

“I say: Impeach away. They wasted our time. Let's waste theirs. And it's deserved,” said Gutfeld.

“The issue is whether or not impeachment is appropriate,” said Pirro. “I think it is. I think it's long past time.”

Watters explicitly said that Republicans needed to move fast on impeachment so it could garner media attention and hurt Biden’s reelection campaign as a “counter” to Trump’s trials.

“Without the impeachment, you have back-to-back-to-back-to-back Trump trials,” he explained. “The media’s not going to cover anything else. Biden’s going to hide and Trump is going to be criminalized on TV. But if Republicans time this right and follow the evidence where it leads, impeachment is going to run counter to the Trump trials next year.”

Watters was saying out loud what has been clear all along. The GOP and its Fox propagandists have settled on renominating a flagrantly corrupt former president who could be convicted on an array of charges, some linked to his attempt to remain in power after losing the 2020 elections. Rather than picking someone who isn’t looking at four state and federal trials on scores of charges, they want to tear down his opponent by ginning up a scandal and hoping that the mainstream press fails to make clear what they’re doing.

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Jan. 6 rioter’s lawyer blamed client’s 'Foxmania' on attack: 'Believing what was being fed to him' - Alternet.org

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Fox News buried the story of a Texas woman prevented from getting an emergency abortion | Media Matters for America

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Fox News' Jesse Watters excuses Donald Trump's declaration that he would be a dictator for a day | Media Matters for America

mma 12 23

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): It really has nothing to do with the environment when you hear "Green New Deal," does it?

MARC MORANO (GUEST): No, absolutely nothing. And as you mentioned, they freely admit that, whether it's AOC's architect or even the UN. They've actually said, they said, "You thought climate treaties had something to do with environmental policy? This is about redistribution of wealth. This is about empowering the bureaucrats." What they're trying to do, it's all about power. It's about making fewer and fewer decisions by fewer and fewer individuals -- more decisions by fewer individuals.

...

All of this is happening so that you can have a regulatory state that we've never experienced in America -- in our American history -- as they take over more and more swaths. This is the intentional collapse of energy, food, transportation, and as a bonus, our free speech, because remember, the UN last year announced, "We own the science on climate change, and that's why we partnered with Google to make sure only UN-approved results on climate science are returned."

This is a frightening world in which we're entering now. And, you know, we really need to push back hard because they are crushing the middle class, and they are literally doing everything they can with 15 minute cities to keep us locked in, the banning of gas-powered cars -- which, by the way, no one's ever voted to ban.

Fox News platforms climate denial and the Great Reset conspiracy theory during COP27

:{:{11/14/22}:

2. ### Fox brings on climate denier to downplay landmark IPCC climate report

:{:{08/09/21}:

3. ### Merchant Of Doubt Marc Morano Concerned Google Won't Promote His Website's Climate Change Denial

:{:{03/06/15}:

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The Fox News diaspora is threatening the network’s business model | Media Matters for America

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Fox News’ Miranda Divine says Republicans who don’t vote to impeach Biden are “being bribed or they’re being blackmailed” | Media Matters for America

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Marc Morano

Weekly update ⋅ December 8, 2023

Marc Morano: China is getting a pass | Fox News Video

Fox News

Climate Depot's Marc Morano discusses John Kerry's remarks at the U.N. COP28 climate conference in Dubai on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

ingraham, extra AC units kery jetsetter india does not care what we think new plants permitted end global coal production, china 1/2 of production open 1 plant/wk; getting cty to cut back on naty gas lead the world in reducing emissions; greta will protest german plant but not in china; on x ingra how much does greta fam make?; li jets from mansion to mansion kite surfing ridiculous; 17m$ budget pvt jet potentate unelected; hillary says --- killing, studies show coal kills more? ej climate fund keep africa locked in poverty, then crush US decree global dictatorship vs trump 99perent drop in 20 yrs? kery and hillary never fact checked; gren reset summit; keruy not senate confirmed, how is that ok? US must take tougher approach on tech to China, says US House committee

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Infowars host: "When you turn on Fox News now, it sounds a lot more like Infowars than it did 10 years ago" | Media Matters for America

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Megyn Kelly used her position as GOP debate moderator to push the primary field to adopt more extreme anti-trans positions | Media Matters for America

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Fox News helps James Comer keep on trucking with Biden impeachment farce | Media Matters for America

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11 23

after airing Sean Hannity's townhall with former President Donald Trump on Tuesday night, December 5, Fox News discussed the event with a panel of six voters the following day on "Fox and Friends." One of the voters was Stamford, Connecticut resident Stephanie Edmonds, who was depicted as the panel's sole Democratic voter.

Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt told Edmonds, "I know you're a Democrat," and a graphic described her as a "Democrat voter." But according to the Daily Beast's Justin Baragona and Media Matters' Eric Kleefeld, Fox News' characterization of Edmonds was misleading — as she's an anti-vax activist who has said that Democratic candidates "are an automatic no-no for me."

Edmonds, Baragona notes, has registered as a Democrat because Stamford is dominated by the Democratic Party. But ideologically, according to Baragona, she is more of a libertarian and calls herself "politically homeless."

"Edmonds, who lost her teaching job in New York City for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, has made several media appearances to discuss her anti-vaccine activism," Baragona observes. "Additionally, she has been very vocal on social media about her overt criticism of the Democratic Party. Tweeting that she only first registered as a Democrat in 2020 in order to support former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's unsuccessful presidential primary bid, Edmonds then praised Gabbard for 'joining the Unaffiliated with me' when the ex-congresswoman left the Democratic Party."

Baragona adds, "She's also said she's 'NEVER voted' for a GOP or Democratic presidential candidate, that 'Democrats are an automatic no-no for me,' and that she would be 'voting down ballot Republican' during the 2022 midterm elections."

In Media Matters, Kleefeld writes, "Edmonds has every right to voice her own opinions, of course. But for Fox to present her as a 'Democrat voter' whose pronouncements generally reflect Democratic voters seems disingenuous. Edmonds has, in fact, described herself as 'politically homeless,' and she seems to have registered with the Democratic Party simply in order to vote in local primary elections in a heavily Democratic area."

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mma 1123 no twt

Fox News falsely reported last Wednesday that a car accident at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara, New York, was an act of terrorism. Much of the network’s coverage was based on reporting from correspondent Alexis McAdams, who attributed her information — later debunked — to anonymous law enforcement sources. A close look at Fox’s treatment of this event shows how the network manufactured a terrorist event out of thin air, and then blamed it on Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, and their supporters.

Fox News personalities and guests made at least 97 claims alleging or speculating that the crash was an act of terrorism or an attack from when the incident happened at 11:30 a.m. ET, until about approximately 5:15 p.m. ET, when Gov. Hochul stated that the explosion was not related to terrorism. From when the network first began reporting the crash, around 1:15 p.m. ET, through Gov. Hochul's statement, Fox News aired 1 hour and 45 minutes of on-screen text that speculated that the car crash at the U.S.-Canada border was an act of terrorism or an attack. Several Fox guests and personalities backpedaled their statements over the course of the timeframe.

The incident occurred on November 22, one of the busiest travel days of the year, at a border checkpoint between the United States and Canada. By 9:40 p.m. ET Wednesday evening, the FBI had concluded its investigation, determining that “no terrorism nexus was identified.” Local police have now taken over the investigation, and a cause of the crash has yet to be released. The Niagara police chief criticized media outlets for spreading misinformation about the crash, which he said had “created significant and unnecessary anxiety in the community.”

Right-wing media outlets including Fox News have consistently fearmongered about the purported threat of Muslims and Arabs looking to cross into the United States to carry out violence following an attack in Israel on October 7 by the armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian organization that governs the occupied Gaza Strip. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack; Israel responded with a bombardment and invasion of Gaza that has reportedly killed more than 14,000 Palestinians, an estimated 10,000 of whom are women and children. Incidents of anti-Muslim discrimination in the United States have skyrocketed over this period.

• ### Fox quickly suggests Niagara crash was terrorism

Fox News was an early source to falsely claim the accident in Niagara was an act of terrorism, with the clear implication that it had been carried out by Islamists.

“High level police sources tell me this is an attempted terrorist attack,” Fox’s McAdams posted on X (formerly Twitter) at 1:53 p.m. ET on Wednesday, November 22. “Sources say the car was full of explosives. Both men inside dead.” By 3:16 p.m. ET, The New York Times reported, “A preliminary investigation has found that the car did not contain explosives,” which users on X added to McAdams’ post as a community note.

CitationFrom the official X account of Fox News correspondent Alexis McAdams

• ### Fox's claim spreads, and a Fox anchor suggests Hamas may be to blame

McAdams’ post spread fast. Fox News border reporter Bill Melugin shared McAdams’ post to his more than 350,000 followers and made his own post paraphrasing and citing his colleague. Melugin later deleted that post, but his repost of McAdams’ initial message is still viewable on his timeline.

Around the same time, Fox News anchor John Roberts read McAdams’ reporting on air, including information not contained in her post.

“Alexis McAdams is reporting that according to high-level police sources, the explosion was an attempted terrorist attack,” Roberts said. “A lot of explosives in the vehicle at the time, the two people who were in the car are deceased, one Border Patrol officer was injured. Driving from the U.S. apparently to Canada, and were trying to drive toward the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] building.”

Video

CitationFrom the November 22, 2023, edition of Fox News' America Reports

Roberts also suggested that Hamas might be behind the attack, claiming the “unrest in the Middle East that has spilled out past Israel” means there “could be operatives in this country sympathetic to terrorists who want to send a message here in the United States.”

Video

CitationFrom the November 22, 2023, edition of Fox News' America Reports

• ### Supercharged misinformation

From there it was off to the races, as other Fox News on-air talent and guests began pushing the narrative that the incident was an act of terrorism. “When you are talking about radical Islamic terrorism and the attacks against the United States, this has happened before," said senior correspondent Eric Shawn.

During the 2 p.m. hour of America Reports, Roberts speculated whether the two people involved were "acting alone” or if the explosion was “part of a larger plot.”

“How long have these people been in the country — are they American, are they foreign-born, are they radicalized, are they just trying to make a statement here?” he continued. “I mean, there’s so many possibilities.”

McAdams joined the program as well, reporting that there may have been a “second car possibly involved” and that the original car was “full of explosives, according to those high-level sources.” She added that “there’s going to be big crowds of people coming here to New York City for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade," insinuating it could be a target, and also repeated that the explosion was “a planned terrorist attack, according to high-level police sources who were on the ground."

Video

CitationFrom the November 22, 2023, edition of Fox News' America Reports

• ### Former Homeland Security adviser suggests “jihadists” may be behind it

Later that hour, former Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend suggested, like Shawn before her, that Hamas or another group of “jihadists” may be to blame.

“We don't know yet whether or not this is attributed — can be attributed to Hamas or another terrorist group, but I will tell you from our own experience we know that this sort of bomb, this kind of a vehicle bomb is sort of a classic technique of, you know, jihadists,” Townsend said. “So I don't think law enforcement yet understands who it was or what the intended target was, but the detonation of an explosive, a vehicle explosive this size, is regrettably — look, there could have been many more casualties — but as I say, very much a hallmark of jihadists.”

Roberts interviewed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who used the opportunity to go on an anti-migrant tirade. “We have a number of people, by the tens of thousands, who have entered this country with bad intentions,” Ramaswamy said.

• ### Fox reporter stands by the terrorism claim even as it falls apart, before finally retracting it

At 4 p.m. ET, McAdams joined Your World with Neil Cavuto to double down on her initial reporting, only to then retract it — all over the course of a few minutes.

“We’ve been checking in with police sources who were very confident just in the past hour or so saying that they believe this was a terrorist attack there, at that border crossing,” McAdams said. But the story had already started to fall apart.

“The bomb techs, who have lots of experience, thought that this was an explosive — that the car, I was told, had explosives in it, several explosives were in that vehicle,” she continued. “Now they’re backing that up, saying it was the way that the car landed that caused such an explosion.”

Finally, McAdams was forced to retract her initial claims. “We started seeing those conflicting reports, but that’s what happens with breaking news,” McAdams said. “They get new information, they give it to us, and we bring it back to the viewers.”

“So as of now, they’ve walked back that it was a possible terrorist attack,” she concluded.

• ### Even after the report was retracted, Fox used the crash to attack Palestinians and migrants

Still, McAdams’ walkback didn’t prevent Fox from continuing to weaponize the incident against Palestinians and migrants.

On The Ingraham Angle, guest host Jason Chaffetz acknowledged the explosion might not have been an act of terrorism, but used it to argue for a nativist immigration policy anyway.

“Today's explosion at the border, regardless of the motive behind it, is a chilling reminder that we are all on high alert and living in a post-9/11 mindset, which means that our borders need to be secure,” Chaffetz said, adding, that the Biden administration doesn’t “have the political will to actually shut down the border."

Later that evening, Fox’s Kayleigh McEnany insinuated that it was only natural to assume the explosion was tied to Hamas or connected with Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.

“The crash was so fierce and in such a sensitive location that everyone's mind of course went to the same place — terror,” McEnany said on Jesse Watters Primetime. “With war in the Middle East, violent domestic protests, radicals calling for days of jihad, the FBI director telling us to be vigilant — we are all on edge.”

• ### Fox's false reporting spread beyond Fox

McAdams’ misinformation reached far beyond the confines of Fox News.

On The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, host Clay Travis interviewed former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie about the incident, also citing McAdam’s reporting. “Alexis McAdams, who is at Fox News, says: 'High-level police sources tell me this is an attempted terror attack,'” Travis told his listeners.

“This should not be surprising to any of us,” Christie concluded.

On X, a paid X Premium account called The Insider Paper posted Fox News’ supposed confirmation that the car crash was an “attempted terrorist attack,” which was reposted by right-wing media figures including Richard Grenell and Colin Rugg, racking up thousands of reposts and millions of views.

Right-wing sites American Greatness, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller, and PJ Media also amplified McAdams’ false report, only to be forced to update their stories after she retracted her initial claims.

There was no terrorist attack at the U.S.-Canadian border on Wednesday, November 22. But Fox News’ manufactured panic was very real, and risks exacerbating the threats that Muslims and Arabs in the United States already face.

• ### Methodology...

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morano gmail 1123 -->

no lnxvid

The slow demise of green energy?

The wheels are starting to fall off the green energy bandwagon

By Kristen Walker Fox News

:{:{Published November 21, 2023}:

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Marc Morano: Biden's green energy agenda is in complete collapse

'The Green Fraud' author Marc Morano joins 'Jesse Watters Primetime' to discuss the collapsing green industry.

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jesse

OIL IS GREAT, MINERAL RUN OUT, BIGGEST BAILOUT IN HISTORY

arnold S global warming solutionsact virtue signal, subsidies.... 2def 1.5 price is rightgame show

mandates,tax credits, germany bailout offshore wind, 1...trillion transition

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50 govsand NJ ~ offshore wind

before to save world have to save ppl 1st

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You can now listen to Fox News articles!

BeyondWords

The wheels are starting to fall off the green energy bandwagon. The rose-colored glasses are clearing up and reality is sinking in. AND OTHER TRITE EXPRESSIONS

The giant push toward a net zero utopia is not practical and has been a complete disservice to the American consumer. Components of the green movement are experiencing major setbacks, namely offshore wind, electric vehicles (EVs), and investments.

Offshore wind projects are struggling to secure financing and stay on track. The biggest blow came last month, when the world’s largest offshore wind developer Ørsted canceled two major projects off the New Jersey coastline, taking the wind right out of Gov. Phil Murphy’s green energy sails. Ørsted is also suspending work on offshore projects in Maryland and Delaware.

President Biden previously set a goal of ensuring 50% of car purchases are electric by 2030. The White House said EPAs recent tailpipe rules would provide a "clear pathway for a continued rise in EV sales."

The EV market is also losing steam. Sales are slumping and manufacturers are scaling back on production. (Anna Moneymaker/Pool/Getty Images | Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Among the wave of cancellations are projects in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Connecticut. Several other projects are on the ropes and a host of companies are paying millions to break their contracts.

BIDEN ADMIN QUIETLY RELEASED STUDY SHOWING GREEN ENERGY RECEIVES FAR MORE SUBSIDIES THAN FOSSIL FUELS

The industry hit another snag recently when Germany-based Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy pulled the plug on its wind turbine blade facility in Portsmouth, Virginia. Siemens Gamesa, one of the world’s leading suppliers, says, "development milestones to establish the facility could not be met."

According to BloombergNEF, at least half of U.S. wind contracts have or are at risk of being terminated. The causes are typically due to skyrocketing inflation, high interest rates, choked supply chains and financial troubles.

Offshore wind is leaving a ‘heavy environmental footprint’ on the East Coast: CFACT’s Craig RuckerVideo

Offshore wind is costly and difficult to implement.

The EV market is also losing steam. Sales are slumping and manufacturers are scaling back on production.

EXPERT WARNS GREEN ENERGY PROJECTS ‘ARE NOT WORTH IT’ AS PRICES SPIRAL ‘OUT OF CONTROL’

Ford Motor Company stands to lose $4.5 billion on its EV business for 2023 and will be delaying many of their EV investments.

General Motors said it was restructuring EV goals, Honda shelved plans to develop affordable EVs with GM, and Hertz said it will slow their rate of purchasing them due to high repair costs. Elon Musk is even considering putting off plans for a $1 billion plant in Mexico.

Nobody wins in this push for electric vehicles besides China: Lisa BootheVideo

Most, if not all, manufacturers are reporting major losses per EV sold. Ford lost $62,000 per vehicle in the third quarter; one luxury electric vehicle company lost an astounding $430,000. Countless others are losing tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle, quarter after quarter.

Car dealers are slashing EV prices. EVs sit on lots nearly twice as long as internal combustion engines. Even industry-leader Tesla has been shaving thousands off their retail prices due to unmet sales expectations.

This kind of loss is not sustainable for any company.

EV MARKET COULD BECOME THE ‘NEXT BIG FLOP’: ECONOMIST

President Biden pushes electric vehicles despite high pricesVideo

The EV market is niche. Those who want one have one. But the rest of America is not convinced they would be better off with an EV on account of a multitude of reliability factors. Nor can they afford the steep price tag.

Consequently, the last few months have seen stock prices drastically dropping in companies across the green spectrum. From wind to solar to EVs to fuel cells, investors are abandoning the "green" energy ship in droves. It might be sinking.

Siemens Energy stock is down 45%; Ørsted, 67%; Power Inc., a hydrogen fuel cell producer, 71%; Charge Point Holdings Inc., an EV charging company, 70%; Blink Charging Co., another EV charging company, 72%; and Nikola Corp., maker of heavy-duty EVs, has gone from $65 a share in mid-2020 to the current price of less than $1 per share.

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ireland 61K more than avg am; epa emission cut as many as2/3 by 20--, war on car, cut x tons emission texas frz ca blackouts china minerals; alliance for automotive innovations; grid resileint, low carbon fuels; legal challenge to govt oveerach end of combust eng put US on top of world; sense doc lost; namesof irish cops lost by thrm;

SHILL: kilmeade radio shill solar wind req3-4x land, mining req, dilure from sun nit debse grind up nature; not gonnahappen, 10% of minerals for energy up to---?, inflation in 2 ways; unrelaibe alt; major bi[part 70-2000a to frack 1 mi undergd; energy indep; biden refusesto frack despite biggest energy crisin on ---yrs; dependence on chinese renewbles

Green energy agenda is ‘environmental nightmare’: Michael ShellenbergerVideo

A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that such companies are "finding it more difficult to secure financing than at any time in the past decade."

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

We need to read between the lines here. The green energy revolution is not working, nor is central planning. You cannot force Americans to buy cars they don’t want any more than you can force energy transitions that aren’t viable.

Green energy is wholly inadequate to meet the needs of all Americans, and turns out, is insanely expensive.

Doug Burgum: Green New Deal spending is buried in Biden's 'Inflation Creation Act'Video

The World Economic Forum says that getting to net zero by 2050 will cost an extra $3.5 trillion a year. The U.S. has already poured hundreds of billions into the effort and continues to keep shoveling. All on the backs of the American taxpayer, to save a mere fraction of temperature. Maybe.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Heritage Foundation’s chief statistician estimates that even if all fossil fuels were eliminated from the United States, not even 0.2 degrees Celsius would be salvaged.

It’s time to quit throwing other people’s money into these projects and let the market dictate the solutions.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM KRISTEN WALKER

Kristen Walker is a policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.theamericanconsumer.org or follow us on Twitter @ConsumerPal.

LNX

The wheels are starting to fall off the green energy bandwagon. The rose-colored glasses are clearing up and reality is sinking in.

The giant push toward a net zero utopia is not practical and has been a complete disservice to the American consumer. Components of the green movement are experiencing major setbacks, namely offshore wind, electric vehicles (EVs), and investments.

Offshore wind projects are struggling to secure financing and stay on track. The biggest blow came last month, when the world’s largest offshore wind developer Ørsted canceled two major projects

BIDEN ADMIN QUIETLY RELEASED STUDY SHOWING GREEN ENERGY RECEIVES FAR MORE SUBSIDIES THAN FOSSIL FUELS

The EV market is also losing steam. Sales are slumping and manufacturers are scaling back on production.

EXPERT WARNS GREEN ENERGY PROJECTS ‘ARE NOT WORTH IT’ AS PRICES SPIRAL ‘OUT OF CONTROL’

EV MARKET COULD BECOME THE ‘NEXT BIG FLOP’: ECONOMIST

We need to read between the lines here. The green energy revolution is not working, nor is central planning. You cannot force Americans to buy cars they don’t want any more than you can force energy transitions that aren’t viable.

The World Economic Forum says that getting to net zero by 2050 will cost an extra $3.5 trillion a year. The U.S. has already poured hundreds of billions into the effort and continues to keep shoveling. All on the backs of the American taxpayer, to save a mere fraction of temperature. Maybe.

*www.theamericanconsumer.org

---

an1123

Fox News host’s claim he spent $90 on a Thanksgiving turkey is getting tremendous pushback and mockery as economists note the price of turkeys, gas, airplane travel, and even complete Thanksgiving Day dinners have all dropped in what one jovially declared a “Thanksgiving miracle.”

“We went to go buy a turkey today — it was $90 for a turkey,” former Republican U.S. Congressman turned Fox News host Jason Chaffetz said Monday (video below).”The price of stamps is up 32% in the last four years. But it’s all a choice by Joe Biden. That is what Bidenomics is.”

The first of a first class stamp today is 66 cents. Four years ago, in 2019, it was 55 cents — that’s a 20% increase. (For the record, here’s the price 0f stamps since 1885.)

Chaffetz was roundly mocked, with many posting ads from their local grocers showing the price of turkeys this Thanksgiving, which CNBC and others report is actually lower than last year.

“On average, Americans can expect to pay $35.40 for a 15-pound turkey this year — an average of $2.36 per pound,” FinanceBuzz reports. “At more than $50 per bird ($52.85), Hawaii has the highest average turkey prices of all the states. In the contiguous U.S., Minnesota and California tie for the highest average price at $41.85.”

READ MORE: Republicans Push to Gut Food Aid Program That Helps Feed Half of All Infants in US

“Almost everything on the Thanksgiving menu is lower – prices for cranberries have dropped 18%,” CNBC reports. “But the main reason for the decrease is due to the star of the show — the turkey. This year, a 16-pound turkey is averaging $27.35, down 5.6% from a year ago.”

Inflation dropped from 9.1% annually in June of last year to 3.2% annually last month — inflation in the month of October was zero.

Indeed, prices are dropping, in some cases tremendously. The price of eggs is down 22%, TVs down 9.4%, butter is down 3.7%, and gas prices are “tumbling,” possibly to under $3/gallon before the end of the year.

Professor of economics Justin Wolfers, who often provides information in a more interesting form than some, served up several charts declaring “turkey prices are crashing,” heralding “turkey deflation,” and celebrating the “Thanksgiving miracle” that “Airfares are plummeting just in time for the holidays.”

Last week Wolfers noted that “Real wages are above pre-pandemic levels.”

Meanwhile, the Chaffetz mockery continues.

“We just bought a ginormous fresh local turkey (a lot pricier than frozen store turkey) and it didn’t cost 90 bucks, so apparently Chaffetz is buying turkeys covered in bling,” wrote The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols. “Because, you know, turkey and Halloween candy are why we need an unhinged dictator in the White House.”

READ MORE: ‘DC Gulag’: Possible Trump AG Wants to ‘Denaturalize’ and ‘Deport’ MSNBC Host

“WHAT?” snarked writer and filmmaker Melissa Jo Peltier. “You mean @POTUS is going around to ALL the poultry farms AND ALL the grocery stores in America, ordering them how to mark up their turkey prices? Phew! That must be exhausting. I couldn’t keep up a schedule like that. Joe sure has stamina!” [many twt ~

Fox’s “news”-side anchor Harris Faulkner repeatedly confused Palestinians and Afghan refugees to attack pro-Palestinian supporters | Media Matters for America

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/jesse-watters-suggests-looters-and-shoplifters-not-being-arrested-establishments-way

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Fox News fearmongered about Middle Eastern terrorists at the border over 400 times in the four weeks after the Israel-Hamas war began | Media Matters for America

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10 23 rolled cried

Jenna Ellis, a Republican lawyer who participated in Donald Trump’s scheme to subvert the results of the 2020 election, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’ election interference case against the former president and his alleged accomplices. Ellis used the airwaves of Fox News and its sister channel, Fox Business, to push false election claims, even as the network’s stars privately disparaged her — but now Fox has all but ignored her guilty plea in Trump’s case.

Ellis, who had faced charges which included participating in what prosecutors called a “criminal enterprise” to reverse Trump’s defeat in Georgia, pleaded guilty to a felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. She has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, which could include giving testimony at trial, and said in a statement to the court that she had “failed to do my due diligence” and feels “deep remorse” for her actions.

Fox has kept its viewers in the dark about Ellis’ plea, which received extensive coverage on CNN and MSNBC. Fox News provided only about 3 minutes of coverage across 2 segments while Fox Business had not mentioned it at all, according to a Media Matters review through 3 p.m. ET.

Fox’s lack of coverage around Ellis’ guilty plea is particularly relevant given that she had used the networks’ platforms to promote election falsehoods. Ellis appeared on Fox News and its sister channel, Fox Business, more than 20 times in the weeks following the 2020 election, according to the Nexis database and Media Matters’ internal database. The bulk of Ellis’ interviews came with hardcore Trumpist election deniers like Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, and Lou Dobbs, though she was also hosted by “news”-side anchors like Harris Faulkner and Shannon Bream.

Ellis used her Fox interviews to promote election lies — including about Dominion Voting Systems, the technology company that subsequently sued Fox for defamation, eventually reaping a record $787.5 million settlement.

And filings in that lawsuit reveal that inside Fox, the network’s stars knew that Ellis was not a credible voice.

When Ellis appeared on then-Fox prime-time host Tucker Carlson’s show on November 4, 2020, she pushed a viral fake news story that in Michigan, “You have 138,000 votes that magically appear that are all 100% Biden votes.”

“The specific case you are referring to, where 100% of the votes, many votes, were cast for Joe Biden. That doesn’t seem plausible. Will those votes count?” Carlson asked. He later added that “100% of anything ought to make you nervous because it’s probably a crock. And that does not seem believable to me.”

But texts revealed in the Dominion suit show that the next day, Carlson was informed that claim was false.

“Just for heads up jenna ellis she was wrong last night when she said there were a 100k ballots and all for Biden,” he was told.

“Many have said that,” Carlson replied.

Carlson would later criticize Ellis’ claims about Dominion to her directly. On November 21, 2020, he texted her, “Circumstantial won’t work with this story. If there’s no one inside the company willing to talk, or internal Dominion documents or copies of the software showing that they did it, this seems shockingly reckless to me. And as you know there isn’t.”

Carlson and Fox host Laura Ingraham also criticized Ellis in text messages two days later during a discussion about the ineptitude of the Trump legal team.

“Let’s just put it this way, when your WH [White House] counsel has a strong view about the quality of the legal team.… Jenna Ellis…Oy vey. No serious lawyer could believe what they were saying,” Ingraham wrote.

“But they said nothing in public. Pretty disgusting,” Carlson replied.

“That she is even connected in any way to the effort is a fucking joke,” Ingraham added.

But Fox producers happily continued booking that “fucking joke” to push the same election lies to their audience, because Fox is a pro-Trump propaganda network that yoked its own success to that of the former president.

Three years after Trump’s defeat, that means declaring the former president’s myriad prosecutions to be the politically motivated salvos of a Stalinist administration — and paying no mind when the one-time regulars it hosted to defend him now plead guilty to associated crimes.

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11 23 mma

Third Republican presidential debate illustrated that Fox News' relentless misinformation about the Green New Deal and Keystone Pipeline is still paying dividends

Special PROGRAMSCLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER

PUBLISHED 11/09/23

During the third Republican presidential debate, candidates invoked the “Green New Deal” and the “Keystone pipeline” — both staples of Fox News’ misleading coverage of climate and energy issues — in response to the moderators' questions around the Venezuelan regime and the rising cost of living in the U.S.

Through Fox’s relentless coverage of the Green New Dealbeginning in 2019, the proposal has become synonymous on the right with socialism and often misapplied to any climate policy.

Similarly, Fox has made the canceled Keystone pipeline a symbol of Biden’s energy policy, which the network has blamed for rising gas prices, and falsely claimed constructing the pipeline would make the U.S. energy-independent or less vulnerable to the global crude oil market.

The moderators' handling of these right-wing media canards was mixed – and it suggests legacy media need to be better prepared to counter these false right-wing media narratives as the election season moves into full swing.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mischaracterized Biden’s climate agenda as the Green New Deal

After regularly attacking the Green New Deal since its introduction in 2019, Fox News spread the bad will it had engendered against the proposal to other climate policies, using the name to label and attack any and all climate action. This included a failed Senate coronavirus relief vote in March of 2020, the modest climate plan President Joe Biden announced in July 2020, the American Jobs Plan introduced in April 2021, and, more recently, the Inflation Reduction Act.

During the November 8 debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed suit:

KRISTEN WELKER (MODERATOR): Many Venezuelan immigrants are settling right here in Florida. Former President Trump and President Biden have taken different approaches to Nicolas Maduro's regime with little result. Former President Trump put economic pressure on Venezuela and backed one of Maduro's rivals. President Biden temporarily eased sanctions to encourage electoral reforms. Gov. Desantis, do you see the political situation in Venezuela as a threat to the United States? And what would your approach be?

GOV. RON DESANTIS: We should never rely on Venezuela for oil like Biden has had to go beg. I am going to unleash all of America's energy potential. On day one I'm taking all the Biden regulations, the Green New Deal, ripping it up, and throwing it in the trash can where it belongs. We're going to lower your gas prices. We're going to create jobs. We’re going to lower energy costs. But we're also going to be more energy independent and secure. … That is good for America's national security. Biden's Green New Deal, that's good for Venezuela. It's good for Russia, it's good for Iran, and it's good for China.

:{:{Video }:

CitationFrom the Republican Presidential Debate aired on NBC on November 8, 2023

Welker failed to challenge DeSantis on his inaccurate characterization of Biden’s climate plan. That plan is mostly encapsulated in the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated a historic $369 billion in climate and energy provisions. Since its passage, 272 clean energy projects have been announced in the United States, representing $278 billion in new investment and creating 170,606 new jobs, according to Climate Power. (Notably, the majority of IRA credits and loans are benefiting red congressional districts, per an analysis by Politico.)

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said he’d “sign the XL Keystone Pipeline”

For years, Fox News hosts, anchors, and guests have touted the Keystone XL pipeline as a solution to domestic high gas prices and global energy insecurity, despite multiple fact checks to the contrary.

LESTER HOLT (MODERATOR): This is a question that will go to all of you. An Iowa voter recently told NBC News, ‘How I am going to make sure my pantry's stocked without breaking the bank?’ You've all said the best way to deal with rising prices is to cut government spending, but that would take time to play out, and Americans are struggling right now. Sen. Scott, I'll start with you. What would you do the moment you take office to help Americans manage the cost of living? So we're talking about short-term here.

SEN. TIM SCOTT: My mother was a single mother who raised me and my brother in a very challenging economic situation. The first thing I can tell you is that when your gas prices are 40% higher right now than they were just a little over two years ago, that's not a problem for my momma — that was a crisis. The first thing I would do as president of the United States is I would sign the XL Keystone pipeline and start seeing resources flow. Second thing I would do is make sure there is certainty and predictability so that those folks who have the leases in our country would have the certainty and predictability to go ahead and become energy independent.

:{:{Video }:

CitationFrom the Republican Presidential Debate aired on NBC on November 8, 2023

Moderator Lester Holt did follow up and challenged Scott on the idea that the pipeline would have any impact on current gas prices, noting, “Your time is up. But let me follow up. The idea of pumping gas, of turning on pipelines, that doesn't make gas cheaper that day.”

Indeed, not only was the pipeline only 8% complete when Biden revoked its permits, but the company building the pipeline officially abandoned the project in June of 2021, so there’s no project to “sign.” And even if the project weren’t dead, as proposed it would have threatened thedrinking waterof indigenous communities whose land the pipeline would cross, and it would have had enormous implications for the climate; renowned climate scientists James Hansen called the project “game over”for the climate.

Both DeSantis and Scott made misleading claims about gas prices and energy independence that reflect Fox News coverage

DeSantis suggested his plan would lower gas prices and make the U.S. more energy independent while Scott, in addition to falsely suggesting that the Keystone XL pipeline would lower gas prices, also claimed that more drilling was needed to make the U.S. energy independent.

None of the moderators challenged candidates' claims around energy independence or the idea that U.S. gas prices can be decoupled from the global market (another staple of Fox News’ energy coverage). The price consumers pay at the pump is determined by the cost of oil, which is tied to the global market and therefore inherently vulnerable to global disruptions, so the idea of achieving energy independence through fossil fuels is a fallacy.

Further, one definition of “energy independence” is exporting more energy than a country imports, and the U.S. has been a total net exporter of energy since 2019. According to the U.S. Energy Information Association, in 2022, U.S. total energy exports were the highest on record, and domestic oil production hit an all-time high last month.

Four years after Fox started pushing its misleading “Green New Deal” and “Keystone XL Pipeline” narratives, the misinformation persists, illustrating the network’s role in shaping the debate around energy and climate issues and the necessity of its media counterparts challenging Fox’s misinformation.

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Fox host calls the United Nations "the greatest antisemitic organization ... outside of the terror organizations" | Media Matters for America

October 31, 2023, edition of Fox News' Outnumbered

EMILY COMPAGNO (CO-HOST): I just want to dig a little deeper into the UN, because as we consistently repeat how the greatest antisemitic organization, essentially, outside of the terror organizations is the UN, I want people to understand and know exactly why and how.

So for example, last year the UN condemned Israel more times than they condemned every other country combined. And when you spoke about the ones that they condemned last year, no condemnations whatsoever toward Turkey, China, Qatar, Venezuela, and more. And not only was that just last year alone, but since 2015, the [United Nations General Assembly] has adopted 140 resolutions condemning and criticizing Israel. Guess how many for the world combined? Sixty-eight. A mere 68.

And I have to point out this, the final point, because we're getting low on time, that just in the beginning of this year, before these atrocities began, before Hamas invaded Israel and butchered their people with the goal of extermination, the UN referred to the ICJ, the International Criminal Court of Justice, they referred Israel for what they called the "prolonged occupation, settlement, and annexation of Palestinian territory." To me, Israel is wasting that effort against – before the UN with these yellow Stars of David they should be so proud to wear, that we all solidarity wear with them. Because that body, more than anyone else, is the deaf ears.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY (CO-HOST): Yep, almost as if the United Nations exists to target one nation, Israel.

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Here’s what right-wing radio listeners are hearing about the Israel-Hamas war | Media Matters for America

Since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israelis, Islamophobic rhetoric has thrived in right-wing media spaces}:

• • Hamas launched its attack against Israel on October 7, with militants from the Gaza Strip targeting both civilians and Israeli military personnel. Since then, Israel has promised to eradicate Hamas, leading the Israeli military to target Gaza in an ongoing conflict that has left more than 1,400 Israelis and nearly 3,800 Palestinians dead. Al Jazeera, [10/20/23]
  • Right-wing media figures fearmongered about a supposed “global day of jihad” transpiring on October 13.The notion of a “day of jihad,” in which Islamic extremists would launch Hamas-inspired attacks around the world, seemed to come in part from the mistranslation of a statement from former Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal. Without a “specific and credible threat” to the U.S., this day failed to materialize. The rhetoric nonetheless sparked increased fears of violence during a time when anti-Muslim violence is already expected to rise. Media Matters, [10/16/23; The Guardian, 10/17/23]
  • An Illinois man who “‘listens to conservative talk radio on a regular basis’ and became obsessed with the war between Hamas and Israel” allegedly stabbed his 6-year-old Palestinian tenant to death in what is being investigated as a hate crime. NBC News, [10/16/23]

• ## Radio hosts and guests fearmongered about Islamic extremists attacking the U.S.
  • Charlie Kirk told people to carry a gun to defend themselves in case sleeper cells are “activated” in the U.S. The Turning Point USA founder told his audience, “This needs to be a wake up call. They are here, they mean harm to the American homeland and I pray that they are not activated. Make sure you have a gun on you.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
  • According to Kirk, “We have imported the dynamite right into our country.” Kirk claimed that “we have invited some of the most disgusting people on the planet into the West,” including “Third World Muslims,” and now “we shouldn’t be surprised” to see a “global day of jihad.” Media Matters, [10/16/23; Salem Media Group, The Charlie Kirk Show, 10/12/23]
  • Kirk claimed that “millions of young, fighting-age Muslim men in America” have the potential to be “activated” as terrorists. Kirk said, “You have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of young, fighting-age Muslim men in America. All it takes is for a couple of them to be activated in this country.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
  • Kirk fearmongered about the potential of Islamic terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and “shooting up a public place in the name of Allah.” Kirk said, “What's to prevent one of these Muslims that came across the border … from getting their hands on a firearm and going and shooting up a public place in the name of Allah?” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/10/23]
  • Sean Hannity told his audience to take the “global day of jihad” seriously despite a lack of evidence. He proclaimed, “Hamas has now called for their supporters to make tomorrow, Friday the 13, a global day of jihad. Now I care about everyone in my audience. I'm gonna urge all of you: Take this seriously.” He added, “You know, it’s a holy war, and they want it worldwide.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/12/23]
  • Hannity claimed there are terrorist cells in the U.S. that have already entered the country illegally and are planning attacks.He said, “I guarantee you that among the 8 million, by the end of this year, of illegal immigrants, I guarantee you people that have connections to terrorism have entered this country and that there are terror cells plotting, planning, and scheming another attack.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show,* [10/17/23]
  • On right-wing pundit Eric Metaxas’ show, a guest spread the conspiracy theory that the Biden administration is allowing men from “Muslim countries” into America to be later used to cause chaos. Appearing on The Eric Metaxas Show, The Stream senior editor John Zmirak claimed, “They were letting in thousands of military-age men from Muslim countries and spreading them all over the country. Why? My theory, my conclusion is this is the next army of political police, of political thugs whom the Democrats will send out onto the streets to riot, to burn, to threaten, to intimidate, to pillage the next time it suits their political advantage.” Salem Media Group, *The Eric Metaxas Show*, [10/11/23]

• ## Right-wing radio hosts spread blatant Islamophobia
  • Steve Deace claimed that Islam has “no compunction or reservation at all about using women and children as human shields.” “Hey, I lose a wife. I've got seven more,” Deace said, mocking Muslims. “I lose a kid, I'll make another kid with the other seven wives. And that kid, you know, was just welcomed by Allah into heaven as a hero.“ Blaze Radio, *Steve Deace Show*, [10/16/23]
  • Charlie Kirk maintained that the “vast majority of Muslims” live “in the 1300s” and hold a “medieval worldview.” Kirk framed the Israel-Hamas conflict as “civilization, aka Western values, versus barbarism.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
  • Kirk claimed Muslims are going to kidnap people “across the world.”According to Kirk, “People are going to start getting kidnapped all across the world if we mishandle this. You’re going to see a string of kidnappings,” Kirk said. “Americans don’t travel internationally nearly as much as Europeans, but we travel internationally a lot, and there's a lot of Muslims out there.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
  • Kirk falsely claimed that Islamic law justifies killing children. “It's perfectly acceptable in Islamic law to go kill kids — perfectly fine,” Kirk said. Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
  • Shapiro claimed that the United Nations is “despicable and vile” and “filled with Islamist countries that support the death of Jews.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/10/23]
• ## Right-wing radio hosts dehumanized Palestinians
  • Charlie Kirk claimed Palestinians in Gaza are “savage animals.” The TPUSA founder and Salem Media Group radio host stated, “To be clear, they will — they'll take you out of the car and cut your head off and parade you through the streets. They're really nice people we got dealing with here. And I'll never forget — as soon as they see an Israeli license plate, they're savage animals, they’ll come after you.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
  • Mark Levin declared, “The Israelis are up against these animals — they’re not even animals,” before calling Palestinians “subhumans.” On his Westwood One radio show, Levin also questioned why the safety of Palestinian civilians should be considered, “particularly when the enemy wants its own civilians killed.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/13/23]
  • Levin: “And I'm supposed to, what, shed crocodile tears, for what's going to happen to these people?”Levin also called people in Gaza “barbarians” and said that their deaths are not Israel’s responsibility. Levin continued, “I'm not. Maybe I'm the only one who will voice it, but I'm not. Israel has every right to throw every damn thing it has at barbarians. And if there are innocent people, quote-unquote ‘civilians’ who are killed, then maybe they ought to organize to take out the government they elected, but it's not Israel's responsibility." Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/10/23]
  • Levin implied that all Palestinians are evil and said that if “there's collateral damage” when Israel attacks Gaza, “so be it.” According to Levin, “One side is immoral and evil. The other side is moral and good. It's that simple.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/17/23]
  • Steve Deace claimed that Palestinians are “basically Arab squatters, people who were kicked out of countries like Jordan, who didn't want them.” The Blaze Radio host said, “There’s no such thing as a Palestinian. It’s a people group that does not exist. They’re basically Arab squatters, people who were kicked out of countries like Jordan, who didn’t want them.” Blaze Radio, *The Steve Deace Show*, [10/13/23]
  • Blaze Radio producer Aaron McIntire claimed that Palestinian civilians “don’t exist” and also called them “squatters.”McIntire said, “What you do with the Palestinian civilians — that don’t exist — what you do with the people, the squatters, who live in the area known as Gaza Strip: Make Egypt take them, make the Arab nations, Arab neighbors take them.” Blaze Radio, *The Steve Deace Show*, [10/13/23]
  • Deace also said, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people as a people group.”He stated, “The people identifying as Palestinians — and they're not all Muslims, they're not all, you know, Hamas crazies, and every one of them's made in the image of God. Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a Palestinian people as a people group. These are folks from other Arab countries, a lot of them, a legacy like in Jordan that were kicked out of those countries, and there's a reason why these Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt are closing their borders to them now. They don't want them back.” Blaze Radio, *Steve Deace Show*,[10/16/23]
  • Charlie Kirk claimed Palestinians are all antisemitic to justify attacking them: “The reality is Hamas and the Arab world, they just hate Jews. They just want Jews dead.” Salem Media Group, T*he Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]

• ## Right-wing radio figures tried to justify withholding aid to Palestinians
  • Sean Hannity said any humanitarian aid to Palestine will help Hamas. Hannity stated, “Any humanitarian aid you want to give the innocent people in Gaza — I don't know what the percentage is because I don't know how deep their indoctrination is — will not go to the civilians. Innocents won't see this aid. It will go to Hamas, and they will build out their terror network.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/18/23]
  • Ben Shapiro said “turning off water and electricity in military areas is normal” and emphasized that Israel is trying to avoid targeting civilians. Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/16/23]
  • Shapiro claimed that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a humanitarian organization, allows for “Jew hatred” and should not be supported. According to Shapiro, “The UNRWA, the U.N. refugees administration, which is an agency that is specifically dedicated only to the Palestinians, it’s amazing. It’s a garbage administration run internationally that allows for full indoctrination in Jew hatred at UNRWA schools and the hiding of weaponry beneath UNRWA schools. They admitted yesterday on Twitter, briefly, that Hamas was literally stealing aid and then they deleted it because they’re afraid that Hamas might get mad at them.” Westwood One, T*he Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/17/23]
  • On The Mark Levin Show, the president of the Zionist Organization of America declared: “The civilians are not innocent.”ZOA National President Mort Klein said that the U.S. should withhold aid because Palestinian civilians were also guilty for Hamas’ October 7 attack, saying, “In any war, do you do something against the civilians there? Do we do anything for the Vietnam civilians? For the Iraqi civilians? For the German civilians? No. It is a war. And yet strangely enough when it's Israel fighting Hamas Nazis, we want to aid the civilians. And I must add, the civilians are not innocent.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/18/23]

• ## Right-wing radio figures defended or downplayed civilian casualties in Gaza
  • Mark Levin complained that asking Israel not to bomb schools or cut off food and medication to Gazan civilians constitutes too many “conditions.”Levin said: “Urban battle: It’s going to be very hard. Of course it is, but the Israelis are being told by our government, ‘Make sure your feed the population, make sure you medicate the population, make sure you don’t hit a mosque, a hospital, a school, don’t hit any of those. Now go for it.’ Look at all these conditions. All these conditions.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/16/23]
  • Brian Kilmeade suggested civilians should not be let out of Gaza because terrorists might escape. According to the Fox News and radio host, “Word is — there’s some word that we are pressuring — the U.S. is pressuring Israel to hold off on the invasion so that more civilians get out. But you know who else gets out? The terrorists! Who are going to plot and plan another day and be treated like heroes when the red carpet comes out with a lot of these evil regimes or the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates around the world around the globe. “ Fox News Radio, *The Brian Kilmeade Show*, [10/16/23]
  • Shapiro excused civilian casualties as necessary to achieve Israeli military objectives, saying, “This notion, that it is incumbent on Israel not to achieve its military objectives in order to prevent civilian casualties caused by Hamas, is absurd on its face.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/17/23]
  • Shapiro also said that Palestinian civilians should not be prioritized over “the first rule of war: winning.” According to Shapiro, “Yes, of course, those of moral bent ought to work to minimize civilian casualties. Yes, of course, those of moral bent ought to work to find a place for civilians to escape from the line of fire. But neither of those rules can be prioritized over the first rule of war: winning. War is ugly by nature. Nearly the ugliest thing. As it turns out, there’s only one thing uglier: losing to those who don’t care about morality or decency at all.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/16/23]
  • Sean Hannity claimed Hamas and Iran, not Israel, are to blame for civilian deaths in Gaza. According to the Fox News and radio host, “The people of Palestine — those that have been killed and will be killed — you can only blame one group, and that would be the terrorist group Hamas. Well, you can blame another group too — the No. 1 state sponsor of terror that helped, apparently, organize, foment these attacks against Israel. That would be Iran.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/16/23]
  • Kilmeade said it’s “not Israel’s problem” that civilians are collateral damage in eradicating Hamas.According to Kilmeade, “They say go by the rules of war, and — the best you can — but if Hamas is going to use these people as human shields, prevent them from leaving, or going south, or leaving their building — even though it’s gonna be targeted — that’s not Israel’s problem, it’s their problem.” Fox News Radio, *The Brian Kilmeade Show*, [10/16/23]
  • Beck claimed there are “no Israeli war crimes” and said that “every innocent harmed in Gaza is on Hamas.” Beck dismissed the number of casualties caused by Israel, arguing, “Every piece of human suffering in Gaza is on Hamas. Want more peace? Have less Hamas.” Blaze Radio, *The Glenn Beck Program*, [10/17/23]

• ## Right-wing radio figures tried to justify the complete elimination of Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip
  • Blaze Radio founder Glenn Beck said Israel should make Gaza into a “parking lot,” claiming the over 2 million Palestinians who live there are simply the tools of “people who just want to kill Jews.”Beck stated, “I think Israel should park their car there. You know what I mean? Park a lot of cars there. It could be, you know, some sort of a parking lot that they make it. … The Palestinian people have been used over and over again by people who just want to kill Jews. That's it. That's — that's been the thing from the very beginning." Blaze Radio, *The Glenn Beck Program*, [10/16/23]
  • Salem radio guest: “I’m OK” with an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.During an appearance on Salem Media’s The Charlie Kirk Show, Breitbart writer Joel Pollak stated, “I don’t think it’s going to be something people consider, but it's there. It's a possibility, and frankly I'm OK with it. I say that at the risk of being accused of all kinds of stuff, but, you know, if it comes down to ethnic cleansing, if you want to cleanse my people, I'll cleanse yours first. I mean, that’s where we are.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/9/23]

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Fox News’ evening lineup ignores new House speaker Rep. Mike Johnson’s history of spreading the election lies that cost the network $787 million | Media Matters for America

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Sean Hannity cites his training in “mixed martial arts” as a defense against mass shooters | Media Matters for America

Fox News' Newt Gingrich uses ongoing mass shooting in Maine to push less restrictive gun laws | Media Matters for America

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mma 10 23

...Donalds has appeared on weekday Fox News programs 193 times since August 2017. He’s been interviewed nearly four times as frequently as Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), the speaker candidate with the second-most Fox appearances, and nearly nine times as frequently as Emmer, who has the third-most.

The disparities are all the more startling given Donalds’ recent entry to national politics — both Emmer and Johnson are members of the House Republican Caucus leadership and entered Congress in 2015 and 2017, respectively.

Donalds has the fifth-most weekday Fox appearances of all elected officials since January 2021, when he began his first term in office. Only Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Jordan, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) received more interviews on the network during this time.

Donalds is a particular favorite of Fox’s prime-time hosts, who serve as influential kingmakers within the GOP. He has appeared in Fox weekday prime time at least 67 times, including 38 interviews on The Ingraham Angle and 25 interviews on Hannity. The only other speaker candidates who have appeared in prime time are Johnson (14 times) and Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) (once).

Donalds has promoted those Fox appearances to solicit funds from donors, telling supporters that “the next time I go on Hannity, I want to show Sean a list of all the grassroots patriots who stood with me in my hour of need.”

Sean Hannity, the Fox prime-time host and GOP operative who functioned as Jordan’s biggest booster, has floated Donalds for speaker.

....

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mma 10 23

The Bowman “insurrection” farce | Media Matters for America

Right-wing propagandists have used Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s (D-NY) local criminal charge for pulling a fire alarm to reignite their bogus claims that he is an “insurrectionist” and argue that he should spend “years” imprisoned in “the DC Gulag.”

As you may or may not recall, the right spent the end of September diligently trying to construct a major scandal out of Bowman pulling the fire alarm in a House office building. Right-wing media propagandists alleged that the congressman’s (admittedly boneheaded) move was actually a calculated attempt to stall action on the House floor, which they described as an “insurrection” comparable to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The story receded amid the chaos of the past weeks in the House of Representatives following Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) removal, but came roaring back on Wednesday, as House Republicans anointed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and prosecutors in Washington, D.C., charged Bowman with a single count of setting off a false fire alarm.

Bowman will plead guilty to that single count, agreeing to publicly apologize and pay the maximum $1,000 fine for pulling the alarm on September 30. At the time, he explained that he had been rushing from his office in the Cannon House Office Building to the Capitol for a vote, came to a door that was usually open but at that time was locked, and “activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door.” Those claims were consistent with reports that members of Congress often go outside to get from their offices to the Capitol for votes, and Cannon’s doors are closed and alarmed on weekends, when members of Congress are typically not present.

The Capitol Police investigation into Bowman’s actions further supports his statements. An affidavit by the investigator included in the charging documents states that “security camera footage showed Bowman attempting to open the door before pulling the alarm” and subsequently “attempting to get out of the building through several other exits before making his way out of the building and … to the Capitol for the vote,” Axios reported.

“Based on the evidence presented by Capitol Police, we charged the only crime that we have jurisdiction to prosecute,” a spokesperson for the D.C. attorney general’s office said.

But right-wingers have ignored or rejected all this in the hours since news of the charge against Bowman broke, instead doubling down on their initial claims. They have continued to describe the New York representative as an “insurrectionist” and complained that, unlike the January 6 defendants, he is facing “gentle treatment” when he should face serious prison time.

Video

CitationFrom the October 25, 2023, edition of Fox News' The Five.

=“He should go to jail just like the massive number of January 6 protesters,” Fox News host Greg Gutfeld claimed on The Five, adding that Bowman’s stint in prison for pulling a fire alarm should last “years.”

Co-host Jeanine Pirro argued that Bowman’s actions had been a “political thing” by Democrats.

“They wanted to shut down so they could trash the Republicans. He was trying to delay it,” she jeered. (In reality, Bowman and every other member of the Democratic caucus but one voted for the bill to avert a shutdown and fund the government through mid-November.)

Right-wing influencers chimed in on social media with a similar schtick.

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This treatment of Bowman’s fire alarm snafu shows the continuation of three general trends on the Trumpist right.

First, many influential figures are either too lazy to examine the facts before commenting, or have total contempt for their audiences and assume they will not do so.

Second, they desperately want political prosecutions. If Republicans have faced legal accountability, in their worldview, Democrats must be made to face it as well, even if they haven’t committed the same crimes.

Third, Tucker Carlson’s twisted view that January 6 was no big deal has spread throughout the movement. The insurrection is treated as either a cudgel or a joke, not a horrifying disaster that should be prevented from repeating in the future.

That's how you end up with members of Congress jeering reporters for asking the newly-minted House speaker about his past role trying to overturn the 2020 election. Donald Trump’s efforts to toss the results are simply old news that they don’t want to talk about, even as they install one of the architects of the former president’s election subversion plot at the highest level of government.

The laughable right-wing effort to compare Rep. Bowman to January 6 insurrectionists

10/01/23 3:42 PM EDT

Fox host claims Rep. Bowman thought “he could get away” with pulling fire alarm because he is the “right race”

10/01/23 10:49 AM EDT

Tucker Carlson preemptively blames Rep. Jamaal Bowman for any future attempts on his life by right-wing extremists h

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an 8 23

Karine Jean-Pierre isn't humoring Peter Doocy anymore

The Biden White House has given Fox News' Peter Doocy possibly more attention than any other press pool reporter, but at times the patience of both Biden press secretaries (and President Biden) has worn thin.

For a while, Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki's almost-daily dueling matches with Doocy made regular headlines, like in February of 2022 when she was forced to say, “Well, Peter, let me just take a step back and explain to everyone how diplomacy works." Or in May of 2021, when Psaki, tired of repeating herself, told Doocy, “Well, we went through this journey together yesterday so let’s do it again.”

On Tuesday, the banter between White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Doocy was lighthearted, leading reporters in the press briefing room to laughter.

READ MORE: CPAC’s Matt and Mercedes Schlapp Attack ‘Satan’s Publication’ After Report Adds More Details on Sexual Battery Lawsuit

But on Wednesday, Doocy appeared to cross a line, forcing Jean-Pierre to deliver a stern response.

"It seems like the hurricane response so far is robust," Doocy said of the Biden administration's efforts to assist the people of Florida who are being impacted by Hurricane Idalia.

"Did you guys realize that the initial Hawaii wildfire response was not that good? Or is it just easier for people to get help from the White House when the President is not on vacation?" he asked, furthering a conservative claim, derided and denied by Democrats in Hawaii, that President Biden and his administration did not respond in a timely manner to the deadly blazes in Maui.

READ MORE: ‘Bro, You’re Already Facing Charges’: Protestor Mocks Peter Navarro as He Tries to Grab ‘Trump Lost’ Sign

"So the premise of your question and the way you posed your question, I disagree, just for the record," an apparently angered Jean-Pierre responded.

"So if you talk to, if you were to do your reporting and speak to the governor of Hawaii, the senators of Hawaii, the folks on the ground, they would say that the President reacted in record time when it came to dealing with the wildfires, when it came to dealing and making sure that they got everything that they need on the federal level to do what what was going on in the ground. Let's not forget there were more than 600 federal employees on the ground already to assist with the wildfires in Maui. So your question is, is wrong, it's flawed in many, many ways. And I would advise you to go speak to the governor and the local and state officials in Hawaii."

Watch at this link.

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no lnx mma 8 23

fox’s antivax propagandists come out swinging against a new COVID-19 shot

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

PUBLISHED 08/29/23

Tucker Carlson may be gone from Fox News, but his former colleagues are still carrying on his war against the COVID-19 vaccines that have prevented millions of American deaths since they became widely available in 2021.

Fox’s propagandists responded to President Joe Biden’s Friday call for new funding for an updated vaccine booster that will be recommended for all Americans when it becomes available this fall by warning that COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous and ineffective. Some even directly exhorted their viewers — generally seniors who are most vulnerable from COVID-19 — not to take the new booster.

“There's another shot that he's going to recommend all Americans take?” Jesse Watters, Carlson’s 8 p.m. replacement, asked Monday on Fox’s panel show, The Five. “This is another huge scamand no one is going to go along with another shot, especially if it's mandated.”

Several pharmaceutical companies are currently developing updated COVID-19 vaccines that are expected to provide increased protection from Eris, the variant currently dominant in the United States.

With COVID-19 cases on the upswing, Biden said Friday that he plans to ask Congress “for additional funding for a new vaccine” he would “tentatively” recommend “that everybody get.” The updated vaccine is expected in mid-September, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her Monday briefing.

Fox hosts responded with ridicule and fury. Notably, several suggested that because the initial vaccines provided limited protection from infection from newer variants (even as they continued to provide strong protection from death or serious illness), people should be skeptical of the effectiveness of an updated shot specifically targeted to current strains. That’s a recipe for Fox’s viewers to once again put their health in danger by declining the shots.

Sean Hannity once garnered unearned credit from mainstream reporters over a tepid snippet about the vaccines. But since coming under fire from right-wing rivals and walking back even those remarks, he’s rarely missed an opportunity to demonstrate his vaccine skepticism.

“Straight ahead, COVID madness coming back,” he said, teasing a Monday night segment. “More draconian measures and a new vaccine that I'm sure they're going to tell you is absolutely safe. Like the last one? Straight ahead.”

Video

SHARE

CitationFrom the August 28, 2023, edition of Fox News' Hannity.

After the break, he introduced Biden’s comments by saying, “Here we go again,” then asked Fox contributor Tomi Lahren, “Isn't this the same Joe Biden, same government that said that if you got the vaccine, that you'd never get COVID, you'd never transmit COVID and that were proven dead wrong? Isn't that the same government?”

Lahren replied that “if the Biden administration and leftists everywhere were that concerned about a new COVID strain, a new COVID variant, that southern border would be closed,” adding, “If the American people are ever dumb enough to fall for this again, we deserved to fail as a country. But I don't believe we are dumb enough to fall for it again. Not this time.”

Hannity went on to say that while he was not giving “medical advice,” he was “not listening to them” about the vaccines because “I don't believe a word they say. They've been proven wrong again and again and again.”

Likewise, while guest-hosting Fox’s prime-time “comedy” show Gutfeld!, Jimmy Faila argued that Biden’s call for a new shot was unnecessary because “unlike the Clintons, the virus wasn’t nearly as dangerous as we were told.”

“Now, I'll admit it's nice to see this White House making news for a drug besides cocaine,” Faila said. “But there's no need to discuss any drugs because the vaccines didn't stop transmission.”

Faila went on to express confusion about why politicians would say COVID-19 “would have been way worse” if they hadn’t been vaccinated, adding, “Like, you're saying it didn't work, OK? The government was wrong about every single thing they pushed on us during COVID, especially mask mandates, lockdowns, and vaccines.”

Fox could have responded to the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines, which were developed under then-President Donald Trump and are remarkably effective in preventing serious COVID-19 cases (with rare side effects), by urging viewers to get the shots. But the network instead ran a multiyear campaign against the vaccines while relentlessly hyping ineffective drugs popular among right-wing influencers. Any moral responsibility its hosts felt for their audience was apparently overrun by their reflexive opposition to Biden and their recognition that antivax commentary was “great for ratings.” 

These attacks on the vaccination campaign had deadly consequences. Polls routinely show the network’s viewers were less likely to say they were, or planned to get, vaccinated than people who get their news from other sources.One recent study found that “excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before."

But Fox is undeterred by the destructive impact of its vaccine coverage. The network is doing its best to inflame viewers as its extremist competitors baselessly fearmonger over the prospect of “new lockdowns” ahead of the 2024 election. And that means more of them are going to die.

THE LATEST

After being found liable for defaming Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, Rudy Giuliani goes on the radio to continue his attacks

08/30/23 4:29 PM EDT

Rumble promotes a video suggesting the Jacksonville shooting was a false flag among its selected “editor picks”

08/30/23 3:57 PM EDT

Jesse Watters hosts oil industry-funded scientist to buttress his climate denial and attack green energy

08/30/23 3:08 PM EDT

Right-wing pundits rally behind indicted former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis and fundraise for her legal fees

08/30/23 3:05 PM EDT

The right's latest attempt to prove Biden is senile is breathtakingly cynical

08/30/23

Pagination

Current page1

Related

Fox has pushed COVID propaganda for two years. The cost has been staggering.

03/01/22 8:30 AM EST

Fox’s antivax programming is a moral abomination, but at least it’s “great for ratings”

09/28/21 10:27 AM EDT

I went on parental leave. Three months later, Fox is still killing its viewers.

01/25/22 12:50 PM EST

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one day!

1. ### Fox News radio host cheers on ranger plowing into climate activist blockade, also pulled gun, threw woman to gd 9tribal cops?) propane pvt jets

08/29/23 11:16 AM EDT

2. ### Fox News’ Jesse Watters suggests government officials caused Maui wildfires as part of a conspiracy to raise property values

08/28/23 8:58 PM EDT

3. ### Fox News' Bret Baier runs COVID segment casting doubt on vaccine boosters and questioning the number of deaths reported

08/28/23 7:25 PM EDT

4. ### Fox News' Jesse Watters calls COVID-19 vaccine booster shots “a huge scam”

08/28/23

5. ### How the right ran with a Fox hoax about a Marine veteran’s burial

08/28/23

...fox News published a false accusation that the Pentagon forced a Gold Star family to pay $60,000 for the transportation of remains

• As U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, and conducted massive airlift operations to evacuate civilians fleeing the Taliban, at least one suicide bomber killed 13 American service members and as many as 170 civilians outside at crowded entry gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. One of the American Marines killed, Sgt. Nicole Gee, had previously been photographed tending to a wounded baby at the airport and had spoken positively of her role in the evacuation effort. Her remains arrived in her hometown of Roseville, California, on August 29 of that year, and were later transported to Arlington National Cemetery and laid to rest.

• • On July 25, a Fox News Digital article claimed that Gee’s family was “forced to pay to ship” the body of a slain Marine. In the article — which has since been deleted from Fox’s website — Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) told Fox that he was “enraged to learn that the Department of Defense had placed a heavy financial burden” on Gee’s family, which secured the $60,000 transportation fee from a nonprofit organization. Fox News Digital, [7/25/23 via Internet Archive]
  • Mills linked to the Fox article in a social media post and wrote, “At no time should our Gold Star families be financially responsible for burying their loved ones and American heroes.” Twitter/X, [7/25/23]
• ## Military-focused news outlets were quick to refute the claims in the Fox story
• News outlets focused on the military, veterans, and service families were the first to speak with Gee’s family directly about the false Fox story, and quickly pushed back on Mill’s false claims. Their reporting made clear that Fox neglected to fact-check or substantiate his statements.

• • Statements from the Marine’s family first reported by the military-focused publication Task & Purpose asserted that the family never contacted the Department of Defense about financing the relocation, nor received any bills. Task & Purpose contacted Gee's family and was first to report their statements refuting Fox’s story. The statements were later confirmed by The Sacramento Bee, the family's hometown newspaper. The family stated that the flight was organized and “donated” by a non-profit organization and a Pentagon representative confirmed that the military had “no record of any incurred charges or any pending requests for reimbursement associated with the transportation of Sgt. Gee’s remains to Arlington National Cemetery.” Task & Purpose, [7/26/23]
  • The Marine Corps Times repeated the family statements collected by Task & Purpose and further clarified that there was “no record of any such cost for the family” over the transportation and burial of the remains. Its coverage specifically called out both Mills and Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) for attacking the Department of Defense over the nonsense claims. Marine Corps Times, [7/27/23]
• ## Fox quietly scrubbed the false report and eventually apologized to the family
• After pressure from the Marine Corps, and nearly a month of back and forth between representatives from the network and the Department of Defense, Fox issued an apology to the fallen Marine’s family for the false story – but never published a correction.

• • Fox News, according to Military.com, edited the article’s headline and content “without noting a correction,” and later removed the entire article containing Mills’ original false claims. Military.com further reported that after Gee’s family said they were never billed by the Pentagon and refuted Mills’ false claims, he issued a statement on July 27 claiming that the family was “confused in their time of grief” and continued to attack the Department of Defense. Military.com, [7/28/23]
  • Military.com also detailed the Marine Corps’ month-long attempt to convince Fox to retract and correct its “false” story. According to Military.com, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps had requested that Fox News apologize directly to the family and insisted that Fox fully correct its false story. Maj. James Stenger wrote in an email to Fox after it changed its article, “This headline correction is still misleading and your story is still false.” He also wrote that Fox was “using the grief of a family member of a fallen Marine to score cheap clickbait points.” Military.com, [8/23/23; The Washington Post, 8/27/23]
  • On August 26, CNN reported that Fox News had finally apologized to Gee’s family, with a network spokesperson asserting that the false story had been “addressed internally.” Although Fox had scrubbed the article from its site at least a month prior, there has been no formal retraction or correction issued. Fox, in a statement, said, “We sincerely apologize to the Gee family” and said its fake story was “now unpublished.” CNN, [8/26/23]
• ## Right-wing media ran with Fox’s story before it was deleted
• Although searches of the SnapStream video database showed that Fox News never aired this false story on its cable programs, many other right-wing media outlets picked up the story and used it to attack the Biden administration. This included conservative social media figures, right-wing blogs, and Fox competitors Newsmax and One America News. Right-wing media often used the story as a vehicle to pursue their own petty criticisms of the Biden administration’s policies, including attacking health care for transgender military personnel, criticizing military aid to Ukraine to defend itself against the ongoing Russian invasion, and objecting to reimbursement for military personnel travel costs for abortion care.

• • Chronicles Magazine editor Pedro L. Gonzalez: “The family of Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan, was forced to come up with $60,000 to transport Gee’s remains to Arlington National Cemetery because the Pentagon wouldn’t pay for it.” Twitter/X, [7/25/23]
  • Talk radio host Dana Loesch: “One of the 13 Gold Star families who lost their daughter in Afghanistan was forced to pay to ship her body back — until nonprofit stepped in to pay $60,000 to move Marine Corps Sgt Nicole Gee's remains to Arlington National Cemetery.” Twitter/X, [7/25/23]
  • The Right Scoop: “HORRIBLE: Biden Pentagon FORCED Gold Star family to pay to ship fallen Marine killed in Afghan withdrawal to Arlington.” The article added: “What a freaking slap in the face!” The Right Scoop, [7/25/23]
  • The anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok posted: “The Biden admin is funding drag shows in Equador but refused to pay to bring a dead Marine’s body home.” Twitter/X, [7/26/23]
  • Former Fox producer Kyle Becker: “NEW: The military community is furious at the Biden administration upon discovering a Gold Star Family was forced to bear the cost of transporting its slain daughter's remains after she was killed serving her country in Afghanistan.” Twitter/X, [7/26/23]
  • Newsmax host Chris Salcedo: “The family of a fallen service member killed during Biden's disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal says they were forced to pay thousands of dollars to move the body of their loved one to their final resting place.” Salcedo concluded, “Another sign of how far our government has fallen.” Newsmax, *The Chris Salcedo Show*, [7/26/23]
  • Newsmax host Carl Higbie introduced a segment pushing the fake story, saying, “This one’s actually near and dear to me as a veteran.” Higbie said that the fake story that Gee’s family “was forced to pay 60 grand” to bury her in Arlington National Cemetery “will permanently tarnish the reputation of our Defense Department” and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Newsmax’s Dick Morris joined in the outrage. Newsmax, *Carl Higbie Frontline*, [7/26/23]
  • OAN host Dan Ball reported the “disturbing details” that Gee’s family “had to pay to have her remains moved,” and applauded Mills “for finding this out, for bringing this to the nation’s attention.” Ball lamented that legitimate news organizations weren’t covering the story at the time, linked the false story to a decline in American patriotism, and interviewed a Republican congressional candidate about the fake story. The candidate used the false story to rant against medical care for transgender military personnel. OAN, *Real America with Dan Ball*, [7/26/23]
  • Talk radio host Lars Larson: “Joe Biden is now giving billions for Ukraine but nothing for a vet who died protecting our nation?” On his radio show, Larson repeated the lie that Gee’s family “was denied the usual support by the Pentagon for transportation of her remains to her final resting place in Arlington.” Larson added, “This is absolutely crazy,” and claimed that the Biden administration is undercutting and dishonoring military personnel. Alpha Media, *The Lars Larson Show*, [7/26/23]
  • Townhall: “Family of Marine killed in Afghanistan forced to pay $60,000 bill thanks to Biden Pentagon policy change.” Townhall, [7/26/23]
  • The Western Journal: “Family of Marine killed in Afghanistan stuck with $60,000 bill after Pentagon policy change.” The Western Journal, [7/26/23]
  • Gateway Pundit: “As Joe Biden slept: Family of slain Marine at Kabul airport was forced to fundraise $60,000 to move daughter’s remains to Arlington Cemetery.” Gateway Pundit, [7/26/23]
  • Townhall: “Biden cut a massive check to Ukraine after forcing a family to pay $60,000 to move soldier’s remains.” Townhall, [7/27/23]
  • The Federalist: “For the Pentagon, subsidizing abortions takes priority over transporting service members to their final resting place.” The Federalist, [7/27/23]
  • Salcedo returned to the fake story to discuss a lack of veterans benefits with a guest. Introducing the author of a book about veterans benefits, Salcedo asked, “Is this how far our elected leaders and our government have fallen?” Newsmax, *The Chris Salcedo Show*, [7/28/23]
• ## Numerous Republican lawmakers and officials also promoted the fake story
• Like many of the right-wing media outlets that shared the false story, Republican lawmakers used it to air their grievances about the provision of health care to military personnel, the administration’s immigration policy, and military aid to Ukraine.

• • Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): “So we are paying to fly illegal immigrants to the destination of their choice but we can’t fly a hero’s body home? This administration is totally lost.” Twitter/X, [7/25/23]
  • Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ): “Biden’s Pentagon is eager to fund abortion travel, genital mutilations & a proxy war in Europe. But when a Marine was killed during the Admin’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal, her family was forced to pay to move her body. Despicable.” Twitter/X, [7/25/23]
  • Florida GOP Chairman Christian Ziegler: “Really great work by Florida Congressman @CoryMillsFL⁩ on this!” Twitter/X, [7/25/23]
  • Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL): “The Pentagon is providing taxpayer funding for elective abortions, but not to transport our fallen heroes to their final resting place. This just shows how extreme the Pentagon’s unprecedented new abortion policy really is.” Twitter/X, [7/26/23]
  • Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL): “This is sickening. Thank you to Honoring Our Fallen, a group that stepped up amid the Biden Administration’s absence.” Twitter/X, [7/26/23]
  • Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT): “Under Biden's new Pentagon policy, a Gold Star Family was left to pay to transport and bury their loved one at Arlington National Cemetery. Absolutely despicable.” Twitter/X, [7/26/23]
  • Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA): “Unacceptable. Congress cannot allow this to happen again.” Twitter/X, [7/26/23]
  • Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA): “Sergeant Nicole Gee is an American hero who lost her life in the Afghanistan withdrawal. It is unfathomable that the Pentagon would decline to cover the cost of transporting her to her final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.” The letter that Kiley attached to his social media post was cited by Sacramento media outlets, which mistakenly pushed the false story. Twitter/X, [7/26/23]
• ## Fox and related media outlets previously spread a hoax that veterans were kicked out of housing in New York
• Fox’s creation of this fake story near the second anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal echoes another bogus story in which the New York Post — which, like Fox News, is a Murdoch media property — falsely reported that homeless veterans were kicked out of hotels to make room for asylum-seekers. Fox widely covered that hoax before airing multiple similar retractions within days. Although multiple Fox programs aired retractions, some others continued to promote the fake story as genuine even after Mid Hudson News, a local news outlet, had completely debunked it.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-viktor-shokin-interview-misses-basics-ignores-what-fox-already-knows

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/what-foxs-jonathan-turley-gets-wrong-about-trumps-legal-issues

https://www.mediamatters.org/spanish-language-media/no-lifeline-pay-its-employees-americano-media-will-be-air-next-week-it-0

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-host-declares-he-wont-accept-results-elections-if-democrats-win  levin

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/how-right-ran-fox-hoax-about-marine-veterans-burial

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fox begged trump to go?

https://www.mediamatters.org/bret-baier/fox-news-anchors-martha-maccallum-and-bret-baier-are-major-vectors-misinformation

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bb 8 23

fox News published a story, "Family forced to pay to ship body of Marine killed after Pentagon policy change: 'Egregious injustice', claiming that the family of a dead U.S. Marine had to pay for the body's repatriation. The sole source of the story was Cory Mills, a Republican U.S. Congressman representing a district in Florida. The story was completely false and the Pentagon complained both about that and the failure to contact it for comment–a failure that a Pentagon spokesperson suggests shows the congressman and Fox News knew the story was untrue but expected it to be beneath the military to react. When the complaint came, the story was first silently edited [archive.org has only this version] and then finally taken down–with no correction, apology or explanation forthcoming.

(UPDATE: An apology finally emerged )

"This headline correction is still misleading and your story is still false," Maj. James Stenger, the lead spokesperson for the Marine Corps, wrote to Fox News in an email after the publication changed the headline and body of the story in an attempt to soften the accusation.

"Using the grief of a family member of a fallen Marine to score cheap clickbait points is disgusting," Stenger wrote. The spokesman was one of several military officials frustrated with the story, according to the documents.

The email from the Marine Corps came a day after the service requested a full retraction of the story, an apology to the family from Fox News, and a public explanation for any corrections, according to the emails provided by the service through the FOIA process.

Jay Wallace, president and executive editor of Fox News Media, at least one other executive and other Fox News staff members were included in the emails.

Fox News spokesperson Ali Coscia declined to answer Military.com's questions sent Monday to staff. The network also did not answer inquiries last month when the story was taken down.

Makes you wonder what else in reporter Michael Lee's stories might be fabricated, not that anyone at Fox News does.

A final insult for the Marine's family: in a Tweet, congressman Mills blamed them for the controversy, suggesting that they misled him.

As for the Marines: you're still going to have this blaring on every TV on the base 24/7 though, ain't ya?

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fox

News tells viewers 'they' let Tropical Storm Hilary into the US 'because it’s Biden’s America'

https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-2664195746/

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kilmeade  rfk2 on covid

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/study-trump-leads-2024-fox-primary-dominating-oan-and-newsmax

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-prime-time-ratings-continue-crater-lachlan-murdoch-downplays-collapse

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-prime-time-ratings-continue-crater-lachlan-murdoch-downplays-collapse

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-jesse-watters-calls-department-justice-democrat-stormtroopers

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-host-links-joe-bidens-interview-weather-channel-hunter-biden

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laptop i assume watters?

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-claims-house-gops-star-witness-said-exact-opposite-everything-he-said-0

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-jesse-watters-says-kamala-harris-gets-more-favorable-treatment-because-her-race

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/jesse-watters-dismisses-donald-trumps-fake-electors-scheme-politics

https://www.mediamatters.org/laura-ingraham/laura-ingraham-says-special-counsel-jack-smith-more-dangerous-any-group-capitol

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OMG, note this is 2nd (3rd jesse)  batch of heat BS see agw myths

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/15-nonsensical-comments-made-right-wing-media-during-2023s-summer-climate-fueled

15 nonsensical comments made by right-wing media during 2023’s summer of climate-fueled extreme weather events

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER

PUBLISHED 08/07/23

July 2023 was the earth’s hottest month on record, punctuated by record-shattering extreme heat events, catastrophic floods, and historic wildfires. While major media outlets sounded the alarm on the climate crisis, climate denial and downplay reached a fever pitch among right-wing media outlets and influencers.

Many in the right-wing media have downplayed the record heat — suggesting that it’s normal summer weather, despite clear evidence that the intensity of this summer’s heat waves would not have been possible without climate change — or dismissed its lethal impact by arguing that more people die of cold than heat. Others have said those linking July’s extreme weather to climate change are weaponizing these events to push a radical climate agenda or call for climate lockdowns.

Here are 15 other examples that illustrate the lengths to which right-wing media are going — often deploying nonsensical arguments or outright lies that attempt to ignore the fact that there is scientific consensus that carbon emissions are heating our planet— to maintain climate denial in the face of climate-fueled catastrophes: 

1 in

1. response to extreme weather that grounded planes in the Northeast, Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy :{said the left is “trying to control the weather” and “trying to be God.” Fox News, Fox & Friends, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/3/23:{]}:
2. Responding to calls for climate action, Newsmax host Eric Bolling denied that human activity is responsible for warming: “Real scientists, meaning those not purchased by the kings of propaganda, well, they’ll tell you there is actually no such thing as climate change.” Newsmax, Eric Bolling The Balance, [7/11/23]
3. Fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy on Newsmax:{’s Rob Schmitt Tonight: “The Earth is greener than ever before. Have we affected the planet and wildlife? Yeah, sure. But you know, in the end, it's been, I think, positive. The Earth is carrying more life now than ever before thanks to warming, thanks to CO2, thanks to fossil fuel use.” Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/11/23:{]}:
4. Newsmax host Greg Kelly said that “LGBTQ+IA whatever has been kind of pushed so relentlessly. … I think climate change and the whole phony debate about it has something to do with it,” suggesting the goal is to decrease population in order to reduce climate impacts:{. Newsmax, Greg Kelly Reports, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/11/23:{]}:
5. Fox host Jesse Watters suggested that U.S. special presidential envoy for climateJohn Kerry made it “impossible” to believe in climate change because according to Watters he lied about using a private plane:{. Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/13/23:{]}:
6. Conservative radio and Fox News host Mark Levin on his radioshow said climate change is a religion not based on science: “This is a religion. This is an ideology. This isn’t science. ...Don't you see how hot it is in Nevada? In the middle of the damn summer?It's what we have air conditioning for.”Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, [7/13/23]
7. Far-right media host Steven Crowder claims that carbon dioxide is not pollution because plants use it: “Is carbon dioxide the — basically, you know, the neurotoxin atmospheric poison that people make it out to be? Because you just pointed out plants thrive on it.” Rumble, Louder with Crowder, [7/15/23]
8. Fox host Greg Gutfeld attempted to downplay the record-breaking heat with bizarre logic: “The problem with using weather — like saying, ‘This place broke records’ — how many states,how many countries didn't break records? Nobody ever provides you the context. They’re going, ‘Three countries had record-breaking heat waves.’ It’s like, well, how many countries are there?:{” Fox News, The Five, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/17/23:{]}:
9. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh claimed that the record heat is not a result of human activity but the sun: “The sun … that’s what calls the shots on Earth. It determines the temperature. It determines everything in terms of weather. … And until you can figure out a way to literally control the sun, there is basically nothing we can do to intentionally and significantly raise, lower, or otherwise affect the temperature on Earth.” The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, [7/18/23]
10. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro: “Thank God we have this thing called air conditioning. … You know what’s a great cure for being super-duper hot outside? Being a first world country.” The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, [7/20/23]
11. Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on America Reports: “This is not an overly hot July. ... Hot weather happens in some places; cooler weather happens in other places. We do not have a climate catastrophe.”:{ Fox News, America Reports, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/21/23:{]}:
12. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on climate science and why carbon dioxide is not pollution: “The science is not solid. The science is debated. They look at science as if it is religious, irrefutable dogma.” Kirk added, “The built-in premise of the climate hoax is carbon is bad. OK, well, carbon is life, actually. … Don’t plants thrive on carbon dioxide?” :{Real America’s Voice:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}::{, The Charlie Kirk Show, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/24/23:{]}:
13. On The Ingraham Angle, American Majority founder Ned Ryun called climate change a “hoax”: “It is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate people into a state of fear to have them give more control over to a ruling elitewho would take this hoax and enforce it through a whole host of means:{.” Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/27/23:{]}:
14. On America’s Newsroom, fossil fuel shill Daniel Turner deliberately conflated weather with climate: “And if you look at the weather forecast for this great city, where I’m born and raised, next Friday is mid-70s. So we are in what's called a heat wave.” :{Fox News, America’s Newsroom:(style="background-color:#6633ffff"):}::{, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/28/23:{]}:
15. Climate denier Marc Morano on Jesse Watters :{Primetime blamed global wildfires on arsonists, dismissing the role of climate change: “This is a global problem of people starting this. Now, is it climate change? Well, this would be the equivalent of blowing up a dam or sabotaging a dam and allowing a valley to flood and then saying, oh, look, climate change is causing more floods.” Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/28/23:{]}:

…

Next page

Related

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

07/20/23

Right-wing media downplay the hottest day in modern history with the help of Twitter’s community notes feature

07/11/23

Only 5% of national TV news segments on the record-shattering heat wave that scorched Texas mentioned climate change

07/03/23

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mma 8 23

right-wing media are attacking Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over Donald Trump’s pending criminal case in Washington D.C.

Chutkan was randomly selected to preside over the case. Appointed by former President Obama, she has been described as a “tough Jan. 6 sentencer”of defendants who participated in the insurrection, though she has “avoided some of the most pointed criticisms of Trump that some of her colleagues on the federal bench in D.C. have delivered.”

Media figures on the right have leveled numerous attacks and charges against her, describing her as politically motivated, and calling for her recusal in the case against the former president.

• Fox News host Mark Levin described Chutkan as “the worst, radical, left-wing, Obama judge in America”on Fox and Friends, adding that Trump would be indicted for “drinking too much orange juice.”
• On his radio show, Levin reiterated his claim and called Chutkan “a whack job.” He then asked, “Do you think Trump will get a fair shot with her? Of course not.” He added, “And so the system is really truly rigged. Really truly rigged.”
• On WABC’s Chat with the Mayor, alleged co-conspirator Rudy Giuliani called her “the most inhumane sentencer on the court for January 6 people.” He went on to claim, “This is the Soviet Union, Red China, or Nazi Germany. That judge should recuse herself if she has any ethics.”
• Newsmax host Greg Kelly called Chutkan “a bad judge” for Trump’s case and said, “She has major conflicts.”
• The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro called Chutkan “a very left-wing judge” and said, “It is certainly fair to point out that Jack Smith is filing in a court in Washington D.C. with probably the most Trump-hating judge in Washington D.C.”
• Newsmax host Eric Bolling called Judge Chutkan “a very harsh judge on anything surrounding January 6.”
• On her SiriusXM show, Megyn Kellyp**redicted, “This judge is going to hate Trump, and she's not going to dismiss this case on the papers.”
• Newsmax host Sebastian Gorka said, “This is their attempt to steal 2024,” and called Chutkan “the worst January 6 judge possible — an Obama appointee who has given the harshest sentences to people who walked through the velvet ropes on January 6.”
• Laura Ingraham said she has “doubts about her” and said, “I want to remind you tonight that she worked for Hunter Biden's law firm at one point, Boies and Schiller.” 
• On Fox Business, Alan Dershowitz and Kash Patel called for Chutkan to recuse herself from Trump’s case, with Derschowitz calling her former law firm “one of the most corrupt firms” and accusing them of being “Democratic hacks.” 
• Dershowitz also appeared on BlazeTV’s The Glenn Beck Program and asserted that Chutkan “has a very questionable background” and “worked for years for a firm that’s highly questionable.”
• On Steve Bannon’s War Room, Patel again called for Chutkan’s recusal, saying, “She’s so entrenched through her past legal representations and family to the Democratic national party and the Hillary Clinton campaign that she could not be a fair, detached … arbiter of facts.”
• On Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime, an over-the-shoulder graphic featured an image of Chutkan with the words, “the Obama Punisher,” and host Jesse Watters described her as “an Obama donor.”
• Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson called Chutkan “a very nasty judge” and added, “This judge worked with Hunter Biden at a law firm. This judge should be recused, of course.”
• On Newsmax, co-host Bianca de la Garza pointed to the ties between Chutkan’s law firm and the president’s son, saying, “The person who runs it is ahuge donor to the Democratic party.” She predicted that Trump’s team would request a different judge to preside over the case.
• On Newsmax’s special coverage of the indictment, Newsmax contributor Joe diGenova said Chutkan will be “very, very bad for Donald Trump” and suggested there’s a risk “that she will not conduct a proper jury selection process” in Trump’s case.
• On hisradio show, Fox News host Sean Hannitysaid, “The Obama-appointed judge overseeing this case once worked for the same law firm as Hunter Biden. Is anybody going to call that a conflict of any kind? I’d say that might be a conflict.”

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-spin-trump-indictment-calls-impeach-joe-biden-0

The indictment regarding Trump’s alleged criminal actions after the 2020 election, which was handed down on August 1, has sent right-wing media into a spiral as they defend the former president. Criticisms of the indictment range from questions over the legality of Jack Smith’s role as special counsel to claims that the charges criminalize free speech to comparisons of +

https://www.mediamatters.org/five/fox-news-**jesse-watters-gives-passionate-defense-donald-trumps-fake-electors-scheme

https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/sean-hannity-says-government-trying-rig-donald-trumps-trial-january-6-charges-holding in DC

https://www.mediamatters.org/cnn/cnn-announces-they-wont-carry-trumps-comments-following-arraignment-live

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https://www.mediamatters.org/mark-levin/fox-news-mark-levin-says-jack-smith-has-started-war-against-country

https://www.mediamatters.org/greg-gutfeld/fox-news-gutfeld-says-indictments-donald-trump-are-payback-being-outsider

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-laura-ingraham-says-donald-trump-was-indicted-january-6-protect-joe-biden-and

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-jonathan-turley-claims-donald-trump-protected-first-amendment-charges-january-6th

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/monica-crowley-they-are-basically-indicting-donald-trump-joe-bidens-crimes

NOT FOX?  https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-trump-was-doing-his-duty-make-sure-2020-election-had-been-fairly-decided

https://www.mediamatters.org/michael-knowles/michael-knowles-trumps-third-indictment-they-want-kill-him

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-history-inappropriate-rhetoric-about-holocaust-and-nazis

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https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/time-rfk-jr-pushed-advertiser-boycott-sean-hannitys-show-then-suggested-he-was-fascist

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-transparent-rfk-promotion-crowding-out-its-coverage-trumps-gop-challengers

---

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not ingram watters here

mma 8 23

former President Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday on multiple federal charges connected to his criminal schemes to keep himself in power after losing the 2020 election, which culminated in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters. At this historic moment, it is also worth reexamining the public role that Fox News played in promoting one of Trump’s key efforts to stay in power — and which is now the central crime in the indictment — by creating fake Electoral College votes in states where Joe Biden had won the popular vote.

The August 1 indictment charges Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, and details the manner in which he and six unnamed co-conspirators manufactured the fake electoral votes. This scheme essentially involved a bait-and-switch, at first justifying the fake elector slates as a contingency plan in case a recount or court case were to flip a state’s election result in his favor, in line with a historical precedent from Hawaii’s presidential recount in 1960. However, even after no such results were flipped — indeed, Trump lost a state recount as well as dozens of legal challenges — he and his co-conspirators still attempted to convince then-Vice President Mike Pence to treat the fake electors as if they were real, and to reject the certification of real electoral votes for Biden.

The indictment also charges Trump with obstructing an official proceeding (the counting of the electoral votes on January 6, 2021) and engaging in a conspiracy against Americans’ civil rights to have their votes counted, based on his refusal to immediately tell his supporters to leave the Capitol, and that he and co-conspirators sought to use the violence as a means to further delay the electoral count. These further counts, in a sense, simply stem further out from the fraudulent electors scheme itself.

Two weeks ago, on July 18, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced state charges against the 16 fake Trump electors in her state, on counts of forgery punishable by up to 14 years in prison. In addition, the Trump campaign’s fake electors in Georgia could also face charges in the ongoing probe by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of Trump’s efforts to subvert his election loss in that state. Eight of Georgia’s fake electors have already accepted an immunity deal, indicating that they could potentially provide evidence against other figures in the Trump campaign.

Fox News played a major role in promoting the fake electors conspiracy at the time, including hosting the major public announcement of the scheme on the morning of December 14, 2020, the day when the Electoral College delegates voted across the country. Fox hosts and guests repeatedly invoked Trump’s false claim that Congress or the vice president could simply treat the fake electoral votes as real ones, or that they presented some legitimate rival claim despite not having the certification of any state authority.

• On Fox & Friends, former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller hyped “an alternate slate of electors in the contested states.”Miller said: “As we speak, today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote, and we're going to send those results up to Congress. This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open.” In addition to claiming that Trump could win a court case on the election results, Miller added, “And likewise, Congress has that opportunity as well to do the right thing,” suggesting that Congress might simply count the false electoral votes instead of the genuinely certified Biden slates. Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [12/14/20
• [vid 12 14]
• fox contributor and law professor Jonathan Turley on Fox & Friends coined the Trump fake elector plan as “the Death Star strategy” while talking about its history and odds of success.Turley said, “It’s very hard to do and it’s very unlikely to succeed. But they can force a question to the presiding officer, who would be Vice President Pence.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [12/14/20]

• Fox national correspondent Bryan Llenas uncritically reported that “Republican electors in Pennsylvania and Georgia met separately to cast their own votes for President Trump just to keep all legal options open.”On Fox’s Special Report, Llenas echoed Miller’s phrasing of the fake electors as a “legal” precaution, saying: “The historic Electoral College vote occurring as President Trump continues to contest the election results. In fact, Republican electors in Pennsylvania and Georgia met separately to cast their own votes for President Trump just to keep all legal options open.” Fox News, *Special Report*, [12/14/20]
• Fox anchor Martha MacCallum: Fake electors were voting “in solidarity with” Trump’s effort to “keep on fighting until the bitter end.”On her Fox “news”-side program, MacCallum said: “The Trump team says it will keep on fighting until the bitter end on January 20,” which she incorrectly said is “when Congress makes the final certification.” She continued: “In solidarity with that today, Republican electors in Pennsylvania and Georgia went ahead and cast protest votes in favor of President Trump, in hopes that a future lawsuit might succeed. This has actually worked once before in the state of Hawaii back in 1960, when Democrats challenged Richard Nixon's victory and flipped the state to John F. Kennedy.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [12/14/20]
• Then-Fox Business host Lou Dobbs legitimized the efforts of the fake electors.Dobbs uncritically reported that “Republican electors in Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia meeting separately today to cast their own votes for President Trump — a procedural move that keeps all of President Trump's legal options open.” Fox Business, *Lou Dobbs Tonight*, [12/14/20]
• On his separate radio show, Fox host Mark Levin falsely claimed the fake electors were “sent by” the states, and specifically endorsed the fake Michigan electors fraudulently swearing that they met at the state Capitol. Levin said: “Now, as this process goes on, it does become harder and harder and harder to reverse course. But the final step is on January 6. January 6. Now, Pennsylvania and Georgia, the Republicans in those states have sent alternative votes, or are, to the archivist of the United States.” He then specifically legitimized the fake Michigan electors, saying: “The Michigan Republicans were going to do exactly the same thing, but the fascistic governorthere literally had state troopers block the legislative entry so the electors couldn't meet, the Republican electors, to send their electors to the archivist. I suppose they could meet somewhere else.” (The state’s Republican legislative leaders had publicly explained that the state Capitol building was closed to the public due to credible threats of violence.) Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, [12/14/20; Detroit Free Press, “Legislative office buildings in Lansing closed Monday over security concerns,” 12/13/20]

• Dobbs continued to promote the fake elector scheme and the possibility that the Republicans in the House could name Trump as president. The next day, Dobbs said: “Seven states have chosen a slate of electors for both Joe Biden and President Trump. They are Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. Now, if the House and the Senate cannot agree on which electors to accept, an untested constitutional procedure could result in each state being given one vote, which they would allocate to either Biden or Trump. And since the Republicans hold 26 of 50 statehouses, there would exist at least the mathematical possibility that President Trump could be named the constitutionally elected president.” Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, [12/15/20]
• Dobbs declared “it’s shameful” that the fake Michigan electors were barred from the state Capitol, while his guest Phill Kline promoted the fake electors scheme.After Kline complained that the Democratic governor “effectively chained the doors of the Michigan legislature and prohibited Republicans from coming in,” Dobbs said: “Putting the state police to guard the door against Republican electors. … It’s shameful.” Kline then legitimized the scheme by pointing to historic examples of different electors being presented, while calling for continued investigations of fake election fraud claims. Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, [12/15/20]

• Fox Business guest Ken Blackwell falsely claimed that Joe Biden was not the president-elect because “seven states are sending competing slates of electors to the Congress.”Blackwell continued pushing the fake elector scheme as a way to “really push this through” and reelect Trump. Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, [12/16/20]
• On Hannity, then-Trump administration press secretary and campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany mentioned “an alternative slate of electors” that may change the outcome of the election. McEnany said: “In the four states that we saw a lot of problems and with those big metro areas, the only metro areas where Joe Biden beat Hillary Clinton, ironically. In those states, there has been an alternative slate of electors voted upon, that Congress will decide in January. So, we will see what happens.” Fox News, Hannity, [12/17/20]
• Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo approvingly played a video clip of online right-wing personality Christian Walker touting the fake electors. In the clip, Walker declared: “And for your information, seven states sent their GOP electors to vote for Trump today: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico. This preserves President Trump's right to remedy the fraud with his own electors. This isn’t over yet.” Bartiromo then told Walker: “I just love that.” Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, [12/18/20]

---

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an 7 23

mma

fox News host Jesse Watters' mother called into the premiere of his new show on Monday night and encouraged him to stop promoting right-wing talking points such as attacking President Joe Biden's family and defending stripping Americans of their individual bodily autonomy.

"We have a very special guest on the line, a Democrat, my mom. Mom, how have you?" Watters began.

"Hello Jesse," his mother replied.

READ MORE: 'Whatever you want to call them': Jesse Watters ridicules the NAACP’s Florida travel advisory

"Hello there, mom. How have you enjoyed the show so far?" Watters asked.

"I have enjoyed the show," Watters' mom said. "I wanna say congratulations, honey bun. We are so proud of you and your accomplishments and you've worked so hard. Now let's aim to have you keep your job. And to that end, I do have some suggestions."

Watters' mother continued, "Do not tumble into any conspiracy rabbit holes. We do not wanna lose you, and we want no lawsuits. Okay? In keeping — I have a list here. In keeping with the Hippocratic Oath, do no harm. We need you to be kind and respectful. You yourself mentioned that humble is a stretch, so I get that. Use your voice responsibly to promote conversation that maintains a narrative thread. There, there really has been enough Biden bashing and the laptop is old. Perhaps you could suggest that your people take less interest, for example, in other people's bodies and talk about that."

Watch below via Media Matters for America

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OMG

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/15-nonsensical-comments-made-right-wing-media-during-2023s-summer-climate-fueled

15 nonsensical comments made by right-wing media during 2023’s summer of climate-fueled extreme weather events

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER

PUBLISHED 08/07/23

July 2023 was the earth’s hottest month on record, punctuated by record-shattering extreme heat events, catastrophic floods, and historic wildfires. While major media outlets sounded the alarm on the climate crisis, climate denial and downplay reached a fever pitch among right-wing media outlets and influencers.

Many in the right-wing media have downplayed the record heat — suggesting that it’s normal summer weather, despite clear evidence that the intensity of this summer’s heat waves would not have been possible without climate change — or dismissed its lethal impact by arguing that more people die of cold than heat. Others have said those linking July’s extreme weather to climate change are weaponizing these events to push a radical climate agenda or call for climate lockdowns.

Here are 15 other examples that illustrate the lengths to which right-wing media are going — often deploying nonsensical arguments or outright lies that attempt to ignore the fact that there is scientific consensus that carbon emissions are heating our planet— to maintain climate denial in the face of climate-fueled catastrophes: 

1 in

1. response to extreme weather that grounded planes in the Northeast, Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy :{said the left is “trying to control the weather” and “trying to be God.” Fox News, Fox & Friends, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/3/23:{]}:
2. Responding to calls for climate action, Newsmax host Eric Bolling denied that human activity is responsible for warming: “Real scientists, meaning those not purchased by the kings of propaganda, well, they’ll tell you there is actually no such thing as climate change.” Newsmax, Eric Bolling The Balance, [7/11/23]
3. Fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy on Newsmax:{’s Rob Schmitt Tonight: “The Earth is greener than ever before. Have we affected the planet and wildlife? Yeah, sure. But you know, in the end, it's been, I think, positive. The Earth is carrying more life now than ever before thanks to warming, thanks to CO2, thanks to fossil fuel use.” Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/11/23:{]}:
4. Newsmax host Greg Kelly said that “LGBTQ+IA whatever has been kind of pushed so relentlessly. … I think climate change and the whole phony debate about it has something to do with it,” suggesting the goal is to decrease population in order to reduce climate impacts:{. Newsmax, Greg Kelly Reports, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/11/23:{]}:
5. Fox host Jesse Watters suggested that U.S. special presidential envoy for climateJohn Kerry made it “impossible” to believe in climate change because according to Watters he lied about using a private plane:{. Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/13/23:{]}:
6. Conservative radio and Fox News host Mark Levin on his radioshow said climate change is a religion not based on science: “This is a religion. This is an ideology. This isn’t science. ...Don't you see how hot it is in Nevada? In the middle of the damn summer?It's what we have air conditioning for.”Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, [7/13/23]
7. Far-right media host Steven Crowder claims that carbon dioxide is not pollution because plants use it: “Is carbon dioxide the — basically, you know, the neurotoxin atmospheric poison that people make it out to be? Because you just pointed out plants thrive on it.” Rumble, Louder with Crowder, [7/15/23]
8. Fox host Greg Gutfeld attempted to downplay the record-breaking heat with bizarre logic: “The problem with using weather — like saying, ‘This place broke records’ — how many states,how many countries didn't break records? Nobody ever provides you the context. They’re going, ‘Three countries had record-breaking heat waves.’ It’s like, well, how many countries are there?:{” Fox News, The Five, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/17/23:{]}:
9. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh claimed that the record heat is not a result of human activity but the sun: “The sun … that’s what calls the shots on Earth. It determines the temperature. It determines everything in terms of weather. … And until you can figure out a way to literally control the sun, there is basically nothing we can do to intentionally and significantly raise, lower, or otherwise affect the temperature on Earth.” The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, [7/18/23]
10. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro: “Thank God we have this thing called air conditioning. … You know what’s a great cure for being super-duper hot outside? Being a first world country.” The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, [7/20/23]
11. Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on America Reports: “This is not an overly hot July. ... Hot weather happens in some places; cooler weather happens in other places. We do not have a climate catastrophe.”:{ Fox News, America Reports, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/21/23:{]}:
12. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on climate science and why carbon dioxide is not pollution: “The science is not solid. The science is debated. They look at science as if it is religious, irrefutable dogma.” Kirk added, “The built-in premise of the climate hoax is carbon is bad. OK, well, carbon is life, actually. … Don’t plants thrive on carbon dioxide?” :{Real America’s Voice:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}::{, The Charlie Kirk Show, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/24/23:{]}:
13. On The Ingraham Angle, American Majority founder Ned Ryun called climate change a “hoax”: “It is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate people into a state of fear to have them give more control over to a ruling elitewho would take this hoax and enforce it through a whole host of means:{.” Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/27/23:{]}:
14. On America’s Newsroom, fossil fuel shill Daniel Turner deliberately conflated weather with climate: “And if you look at the weather forecast for this great city, where I’m born and raised, next Friday is mid-70s. So we are in what's called a heat wave.” :{Fox News, America’s Newsroom:(style="background-color:#6633ffff"):}::{, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/28/23:{]}:
15. Climate denier Marc Morano on Jesse Watters :{Primetime blamed global wildfires on arsonists, dismissing the role of climate change: “This is a global problem of people starting this. Now, is it climate change? Well, this would be the equivalent of blowing up a dam or sabotaging a dam and allowing a valley to flood and then saying, oh, look, climate change is causing more floods.” Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[7/28/23:{]}:

…

Next page

Related

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

07/20/23

Right-wing media downplay the hottest day in modern history with the help of Twitter’s community notes feature

07/11/23

Only 5% of national TV news segments on the record-shattering heat wave that scorched Texas mentioned climate change

07/03/23

---

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2x

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/15-nonsensical-comments-made-right-wing-media-during-2023s-summer-climate-fueled

15 nonsensical comments made by right-wing media during 2023’s summer of climate-fueled extreme weather events

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER

PUBLISHED 08/07/23

July 2023 was the earth’s hottest month on record, punctuated by record-shattering extreme heat events, catastrophic floods, and historic wildfires. While major media outlets sounded the alarm on the climate crisis, climate denial and downplay reached a fever pitch among right-wing media outlets and influencers.

Many in the right-wing media have downplayed the record heat — suggesting that it’s normal summer weather, despite clear evidence that the intensity of this summer’s heat waves would not have been possible without climate change — or dismissed its lethal impact by arguing that more people die of cold than heat. Others have said those linking July’s extreme weather to climate change are weaponizing these events to push a radical climate agenda or call for climate lockdowns.

Here are 15 other examples that illustrate the lengths to which right-wing media are going — often deploying nonsensical arguments or outright lies that attempt to ignore the fact that there is scientific consensus that carbon emissions are heating our planet— to maintain climate denial in the face of climate-fueled catastrophes: 

1 in

1. response to extreme weather that grounded planes in the Northeast, Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy said the left is “trying to control the weather” and “trying to be God.” Fox News, Fox & Friends, [7/3/23]
2. Responding to calls for climate action, Newsmax host Eric Bolling denied that human activity is responsible for warming: “Real scientists, meaning those not purchased by the kings of propaganda, well, they’ll tell you there is actually no such thing as climate change.” Newsmax, Eric Bolling The Balance, [7/11/23]
3. Fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight: “The Earth is greener than ever before. Have we affected the planet and wildlife? Yeah, sure. But you know, in the end, it's been, I think, positive. The Earth is carrying more life now than ever before thanks to warming, thanks to CO2, thanks to fossil fuel use.” Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, [7/11/23]
4. Newsmax host Greg Kelly said that “LGBTQ+IA whatever has been kind of pushed so relentlessly. … I think climate change and the whole phony debate about it has something to do with it,” suggesting the goal is to decrease population in order to reduce climate impacts. Newsmax, Greg Kelly Reports, [7/11/23]
5. Fox host Jesse Watters suggested that U.S. special presidential envoy for climateJohn Kerry made it “impossible” to believe in climate change because according to Watters he lied about using a private plane. Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, [7/13/23]
6. Conservative radio and Fox News host Mark Levin on his radio show said climate change is a religion not based on science: “This is a religion. This is an ideology. This isn’t science. ...Don't you see how hot it is in Nevada? In the middle of the damn summer?It's what we have air conditioning for.”Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, [7/13/23]
7. Far-right media host Steven Crowder claims that carbon dioxide is not pollution because plants use it: “Is carbon dioxide the — basically, you know, the neurotoxin atmospheric poison that people make it out to be? Because you just pointed out plants thrive on it.” Rumble, Louder with Crowder, [7/15/23]
8. Fox host Greg Gutfeld attempted to downplay the record-breaking heat with bizarre logic: “The problem with using weather — like saying, ‘This place broke records’ — how many states,how many countries didn't break records? Nobody ever provides you the context. They’re going, ‘Three countries had record-breaking heat waves.’ It’s like, well, how many countries are there?” Fox News, The Five, [7/17/23]
9. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh claimed that the record heat is not a result of human activity but the sun: “The sun … that’s what calls the shots on Earth. It determines the temperature. It determines everything in terms of weather. … And until you can figure out a way to literally control the sun, there is basically nothing we can do to intentionally and significantly raise, lower, or otherwise affect the temperature on Earth.” The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, [7/18/23]
10. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro: “Thank God we have this thing called air conditioning. … You know what’s a great cure for being super-duper hot outside? Being a first world country.” The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, [7/20/23]
11. Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on America Reports: “This is not an overly hot July. ... Hot weather happens in some places; cooler weather happens in other places. We do not have a climate catastrophe.” Fox News, America Reports, [7/21/23]
12. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on climate science and why carbon dioxide is not pollution: “The science is not solid. The science is debated. They look at science as if it is religious, irrefutable dogma.” Kirk added, “The built-in premise of the climate hoax is carbon is bad. OK, well, carbon is life, actually. … Don’t plants thrive on carbon dioxide?” Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, [7/24/23]
13. On The Ingraham Angle, American Majority founder Ned Ryun called climate change a “hoax”: “It is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate people into a state of fear to have them give more control over to a ruling elitewho would take this hoax and enforce it through a whole host of means.” Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, [7/27/23]
14. On America’s Newsroom, fossil fuel shill Daniel Turner deliberately conflated weather with climate: “And if you look at the weather forecast for this great city, where I’m born and raised, next Friday is mid-70s. So we are in what's called a heat wave.” Fox News, America’s Newsroom, [7/28/23]
15. Climate denier Marc Morano on Jesse Watters Primetime blamed global wildfires on arsonists, dismissing the role of climate change: “This is a global problem of people starting this. Now, is it climate change? Well, this would be the equivalent of blowing up a dam or sabotaging a dam and allowing a valley to flood and then saying, oh, look, climate change is causing more floods.” Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, [7/28/23]

---

In response to extreme weather that grounded planes in the Northeast, Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy said the left is “trying to control the weather” and “trying to be God.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/3/23]

Responding to calls for climate action, Newsmax host Eric Bolling denied that human activity is responsible for warming: “Real scientists, meaning those not purchased by the kings of propaganda, well, they’ll tell you there is actually no such thing as climate change.” [Newsmax, Eric Bolling The Balance, 7/11/23]

Fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight: “The Earth is greener than ever before. Have we affected the planet and wildlife? Yeah, sure. But you know, in the end, it's been, I think, positive. The Earth is carrying more life now than ever before thanks to warming, thanks to CO2, thanks to fossil fuel use.” [Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, 7/11/23]

Newsmax host Greg Kelly said that “LGBTQ+IA whatever has been kind of pushed so relentlessly. … I think climate change and the whole phony debate about it has something to do with it,” suggesting the goal is to decrease population in order to reduce climate impacts. [Newsmax, Greg Kelly Reports, 7/11/23]

Fox host Jesse Watters suggested that U.S. special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry made it “impossible” to believe in climate change because according to Watters he lied about using a private plane. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/13/23]

Conservative radio and Fox News host Mark Levin on his radio show said climate change is a religion not based on science: “This is a religion. This is an ideology. This isn’t science. ...Don't you see how hot it is in Nevada? In the middle of the damn summer? It's what we have air conditioning for.” [Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, 7/13/23]

Far-right media host Steven Crowder claims that carbon dioxide is not pollution because plants use it: “Is carbon dioxide the — basically, you know, the neurotoxin atmospheric poison that people make it out to be? Because you just pointed out plants thrive on it.” [Rumble, Louder with Crowder, 7/15/23]

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

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh claimed that the record heat is not a result of human activity but the sun: “The sun … that’s what calls the shots on Earth. It determines the temperature. It determines everything in terms of weather. … And until you can figure out a way to literally control the sun, there is basically nothing we can do to intentionally and significantly raise, lower, or otherwise affect the temperature on Earth.” [The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, 7/18/23]

The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro: “Thank God we have this thing called air conditioning. … You know what’s a great cure for being super-duper hot outside? Being a first world country.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 7/20/23]

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on America Reports: “This is not an overly hot July. ... Hot weather happens in some places; cooler weather happens in other places. We do not have a climate catastrophe.” [Fox News, America Reports, 7/21/23]

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on climate science and why carbon dioxide is not pollution: “The science is not solid. The science is debated. They look at science as if it is religious, irrefutable dogma.” Kirk added, “The built-in premise of the climate hoax is carbon is bad. OK, well, carbon is life, actually. … Don’t plants thrive on carbon dioxide?” [Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 7/24/23]

On The Ingraham Angle, American Majority founder Ned Ryun called climate change a “hoax”: “It is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate people into a state of fear to have them give more control over to a ruling elite who would take this hoax and enforce it through a whole host of means.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 7/27/23]

On America’s Newsroom, fossil fuel shill Daniel Turner deliberately conflated weather with climate: “And if you look at the weather forecast for this great city, where I’m born and raised, next Friday is mid-70s. So we are in what's called a heat wave.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/28/23]

Climate denier Marc Morano on Jesse Watters Primetime blamed global wildfires on arsonists, dismissing the role of climate change: “This is a global problem of people starting this. Now, is it climate change? Well, this would be the equivalent of blowing up a dam or sabotaging a dam and allowing a valley to flood and then saying, oh, look, climate change is causing more floods.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/28/23]

Pagination

Current page1

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Next page

Related

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

07/20/23

Right-wing media downplay the hottest day in modern history with the help of Twitter’s community notes feature

07/11/23

Only 5% of national TV news segments on the record-shattering heat wave that scorched Texas mentioned climate change

07/03/23

---

whadda tool

https://www.mediamatters.org/jesse-watters/fox-news-jesse-watters-left-rushing-blame-global-warming-dangerous-heatwave

https://www.mediamatters.org/jesse-watters/jesse-watters-bringing-his-egregious-brand-climate-denial-8pm-hour

fox News host Jesse Watters, whose primetime show is slated to take over the 8 p.m. slot, has successfully spun misinformation about renewable energy, decarbonization, and even public health initiatives into ubiquitous talking points that are now routinely used by climate change deniers.

Watters’ unrelenting posture of condescension falsely brands climate change mitigation as a corruption-laced grift to leech money from unsuspecting Americans, inviting fossil fuel shills and climate deniers to fill in the gaps of his outlandish theories. For Watters, the depths of the supposed lies from the environmental movement are only made more ironic by the triviality of the climate crisis and its consequences for his audience.

In the past year, Watters doubled down on feeding this delusion:

• Watters said that global warming is “more about corporate propaganda. They’re just saying, ‘You have to buy, or you’re going to die.’” He continued, “You got to get a new car; you got to get solar panels; you got to get a new stove. Who do you think has the money? They get the money and our prices go up.” Fox News, *The Five*, [2/1/23]
• In a segment on gas stoves Watters said, “They’re trying to force their green industrial revolution on us, whether we want it or not. Seems like this is just a ploy to get them to buy more stuff the Democrats are selling.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/10/23]
• Before an interview with renewable energy opponent Michael Schellenberger, Watters said that “climate change hysteria” is “all cash”:“It’s all a ruse. So what’s the climate hysteria really about? It’s all cash…The climate stuff sounds to me like corporate America’s making us buy new stuff, and then making us feel guilty for not buying it.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/3/23]
• Watters claimed that CNN modeling sea level rise of New York City is “just to scare us into paying more taxes to the government to fight global warming.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/16/22]
• In a segment where he claimed voters don’t care about climate change, he said, “Certain parts of the world will get a tiny bit warmer, but the United States will do just fine.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/20/22]
• Using a popular climate change denier talking point, Watters insisted that, “Nowhere though have experts been more wrong than on climate change.”Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [4/12/22]

Consequently, his show, Jesse Watters Primetime, has been a boon to various bad actors and industry executives in their efforts to hinder an economy-wide transition away from fossil fuels by vilifying wind farms without evidence.

Watters unleashed a deluge of misinformation about offshore wind and whales

Watters was seemingly the first major TV news network host to parrot misinformation peddled by a partially fossil fuel-funded campaign against offshore wind projects on the east coast. Watters’ segments on offshore wind farms along the east coast claimed they were responsible for dozens of whale deaths in New York and New Jersey. This became a recurring talking point used by right-wing media and conservative politicians to slow renewable energy development and shape public opinion about offshore wind.

On January 11, Watters platformed a fossil fuel industry-funded envoy flimsily disguised as an “ocean advocate” for Protect Our Coast NJ. His guest blamed recent whale deaths in New Jersey on offshore wind development. Notably, Protect Our Coast NJ and another group, Save Our Beach View, were created with the help of the libertarian think tank the Caesar Rodney Institute, which has a history of hostility toward climate and environmental policies. The institute has also received funding from the fossil fuel industry.

In the following weeks, Fox News followed Watters’ lead and aired numerous segmentsinsinuating that the recent deaths of whales across New York and New Jersey beaches were caused by the development of offshore wind turbines.

The influence of Watters’ segments extended to Facebook. Media Matters looked at the most popular Facebook posts mentioning offshore wind energy from Jan 1 to March 1, and found that a clip from the segment mentioned above was included in the most popular post on Facebook during that time period, garnering 19,500 interactions at the time of the study’s publication.

• Watters complained that New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is giving wind company Orsted a tax  break to build “the same windmills that kill our whales.” “Murphy’s using federal funds to give a billion-dollar tax break to a Danish wind company to build windmills off the Jersey coast. The same windmills that kill our whales. And destroy the fishing industry. And the view. All because he wants to go green.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/11/23]
• In an interview with climate change denier Patrick Moore, who falsely claims to be the co-founder of Greenpeace, Watters said that wind turbines are “not good for the Jersey shore, for the Atlantic Ocean, and, as you said, it's not great for consumers either”: “As whales are being massacred by green tech, Greenpeace has nothing to say? ... Why aren't they chaining themselves to windmills demanding they come down? They’re just sitting in their air-conditioned offices, feet up, as the whale population drops?” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/1/23]
• In the same episode, Watters said, “A lot of people think construction for these big windmill projects is just slaughtering these whales.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime,* [2/1/23]
• Watters falsely claimed that “experts” think offshore wind farms are killing whales:“Last month, six whales have all washed up dead on the Jersey Shore. … Something unusual is happening to these whales. Maybe this has something to do with it. New Jersey is preparing to build massive wind farms right off the coast. And the whales are paying the price probably, these experts are saying these projects are killing these whales.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/11/23]

Watters excels at stoking right-wing culture war outrage

Watters has escalated efforts to fearmonger over various initiatives meant to update household appliances like gas stoves, washing machines, and even ovens at New York City pizza shops. Watters encapsulates the type of coverage that has proven to be immensely successful at mobilizing right-wing outrage and placing the blame for imaginary problems squarely on policies meant to combat climate change.

In June, alongside a plethora of other right-wing influencers, Watters insisted that New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the New York Department of Environmental Protection were planning to eliminate authentic New York pizza.

The story was false. Watters and other Fox News hosts fabricated it based on a New York Post article about a new rule asking pizza shops to install smoke scrubbers when using older coal and wood-fired ovens.

One far-right activist, Scott LoBaido, stood in front of City Hall throwing pizzas as a publicity stunt. Watters had LoBaido, who has organized with the Proud Boys, on his show and called him “a hero.” Watters has attacked and distorted other policies related to climate change adaptation that could have any minor impact on the general public in order to convince Fox viewers they are victims of climate change policy rather than climate change impacts.

• Watters met up with Florida Gov. and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis at a pizza shop in New York City to complain about the non-existent effort to “ban coal-fired pizza ovens” because the city thinks “they’re causing global warming.”DeSantis said, “When they went after gas stoves, we just made gas stoves tax free in Florida, no sales tax. We will do something similar for these coal-fired ovens.” He added, “You have an itch on the left, they want to control behavior.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [6/29/23]
• Watters claimed that New York City Mayor Eric Adams wants to “split up the beautiful marriage between pizza and coal-fired ovens. He is floating the idea of banning restaurants from using wood and coal ovens because that is what is going to save the environment," Watters continued. “So the vegan mayor thinks that cooking a pizza for two minutes in a coal oven is going to destroy the planet. Wrong. … What are we supposed to do? Microwave the pizza? It is going to crush small business and it’s going to crush everybody who loves good pizza.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [6/27/23]
• In response to a study looking at how thinner, warmer air could lead to more home runs, Watters accused liberals of ruining baseball: “Now liberals want to ruin the best part of baseball. A bunch of scientists are blaming climate change for the rise in dingers. … So home runs in recent years didn't have to do with the juiced balls, better strength and conditioning, better scouting or analytics, it's about the weather, guys. So sorry Aaron Judge, you broke the home run record because it gets hotter in July now.“ Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [4/14/23]
• Discussing the Biden administration’s investment in electrification, Watters claimed that electric cars and appliances will “not change the Earth’s temperature.”“They are forcing us to get a vaccine, to wear masks, enough already with the forcing. Let us choose what we want to do. But light bulbs, don't get me started. The gas stoves, don't get me started. … It is not going to lower the Earth's temperature at all. All it does is make the donors happy because this is a religion to them, and it makes my guys in Detroit happy because they sell these things, and we pay for half of it. It is the taxpayers subsidizing this green revolution.” Fox News, *The Five*, [4/12/23]
• Watters suggested that climate advocates’ effort to ban gas stoves is an attack on progress while relying on a familiar Fox narrative that equates climate action with infringement on personal liberties: “Something Primetime is noticing is a relentless attack on progress. The internal combustion engine, natural gas, nuclear power, bottled water and even medicine. … Why would people want your life to be more difficult and more expensive?” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/1/22]

Watters weaves racism into his environmental monologues

Staying true to his roots as an alumnus of *The O’Reilly Factor*, and taking cues from Tucker Carlson, Watters wove casual racism into his monologues on environmental issues.

On that show, Watters was known for conducting racist ambush interviews. In an infamous 2016 segment, he went to New York City’s Chinatown and asked people if they knew karate, as well as asked them, “Am I supposed to bow to say hello?" The segment was roundly condemned as being disgraceful and offensive. Watters brings this same energy to discussions mocking environmental justice in an apparent attempt to justify the West’s role in climate degradation. He also launched personal attacks against Biden administration officials who play significant roles in climate and energy policy — particularly women of color — in an overtly racist way.

• Attacking a trip that Vice President Kamala Harris took to Ghana, he accused her of being “the black face of American colonialism.”:“Everything to power the Green New Deal with. Is Kamala Harris the black face of American colonialism? Well, she is there for the lithium and cobalt. The mother load is in the Congo, and it's being mined by children as young as four.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [3/27/23]
• Claimed that Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is only in that position because “she’s Indian American”:“The salsa maker, Deb Haaland, she's in charge of the Interior, she’s also a basket weaver and probably the dumbest woman in the cabinet and that's saying a lot, has no idea of the type of rare Earth minerals we're sitting on in this country. She doesn't even care. She's an Indian American; that's why she was put at Interior.” Fox News, *The Five*, [3/30/23]
• Dismissed the idea of environmental racism:“The Chinese are the ones polluting everybody. They are the most racist, statistically.” Fox News, *The Five*, [3/10/23]
• Suggested that the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, was an intentional attempt to fight racism by “spilling toxic chemicals on poor people.”Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/14/23]
• During coverage of COP27, Watters said the U.S. should not have to help poor nations pay for climate change adaptation because “we industrialized first.”He complained that the European Union should not have put pressure on the U.S. to agree to a deal, saying, “How many world wars have we bailed the Europeans out of? And then they go shiv us in the kidneys?” Finally, he said that the U.S. should not help Pakistan recover from catastrophic flooding because “they kept Bin Laden there for a decade.” Fox News, *The Five*, [11/21/22]

Watters dismisses established climate science

Watters goes out of his way to push climate change denial during extreme weather events, at the moments when the reality of climate change is most evident. As other TV news outlets are increasingly making the connection between heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and climate change, Watters often seeks to do the opposite and frames accurate coverage and crucial climate solutions as destructive and alarmist. He has even railed against public health advisories during wildfires, encouraging viewers to put themselves and their families in danger.

• While several major American cities were experiencing hazardous air quality as a result of wildfires in Canada, Watters said that “it’s normal” for the Northeastern United States to be engulfed in smoke: “So this is normal and what they're doing is they're preying on ignorance. Not everybody knows that burning forests from Canada has blacked out North America dozens and dozens of times over the last 300 years. They're banking on people not knowing that.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [6/8/23]
• Watters insisted that there are fewer wildfires now than 100 years ago to dismiss the role of climate change and prop up the forest management argument:“You might be surprised to find out over the last 100 years, there have been less wildfires, not more. The Wall Street Journal says in the early 1900s about 4% of land worldwide burned every year by 2021 that was down to 2.5%. So instead of obsessing over climate change, they should take a look at forest management.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [6/7/23]
• Attacked government officials for suggesting masking to protect against wildfire smoke and said he “didn’t listen” and doesn’t care about these advisories: “Everybody is saying stay inside, but I didn't listen,” Watters said at the top of his show over the chyron “Jesse Braves ‘Hazardous’ Air Quality.” “Why? Because I love you,” he continued. “I came into the city for you tonight. I braved the smoke so you could watch your favorite show. The air quality is hazardous. ‘Worse than 9/11.’ But, I said, I don't care. The show must go on.” Later in the segment, Watter said, “Other politicians went on TV and told us to quarantine like the good old days. … COVID, stay home and wear a mask. Smoke bomb, stay home, wear a mask. Elections, stay home, wear a mask. Nuke strike, stay home, wear a mask. The government's prepared for anything.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*,[6/7/23]
• Claimed that rain bombs aren’t real because Al Gore said they were: “Never trust an angry rich guy … And what's a rain bomb? Meteorologists are supposed to coin terms like that to scare viewers for ratings. What's next, snow nukes? Every ocean I have ever swam in has been freezing.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/18/23]
• During a heatwave in California, Watters attacked California Gov. Gavin Newsom for his response to the heatwave: “The facts here are pretty clear and the science tells us that the biggest threat to the environment isn't climate change; it's ridiculous climate change policies.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/9/22]
• Watters also completely ignored the real impact of climate change on extreme heat,proclaiming that “the environment’s better than ever" because the polar bear population doubled and coral reefs are growing again. Fox News,*Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/7/22]

Watters takes every opportunity to vilify climate activists no matter how ridiculous the accusation

Right-wing media have sought to frame climate protesters engaging in non-violent direct action as aggressive, violent, and mentally ill, in order to make excuses for state efforts to criminalize civil disobedience. Watters is no exception, insisting that these activists are dangerously influential — even though most of their demands have not been met — and that their goal is to “bring society back to the stone age.” He has likened climate activism to a religion that is being forced on the general public, while working for a company that broadcasts weekly Christian nationalist sermons on one of its channels.

• Watters mocked Greta Thunberg for an apocalyptic statement she never made:“Got some bad news. We're all about to die. You heard that right. The world is ending. It was a hell of a run. Apparently, humanity only has like four and a half hours left until we are all extinct. Nothing we can do about it. Greta Thunberg said so. Five years ago Greta shared this bold prediction, quote, A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.’”  Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [6/22/23]
• Watters claimed without evidence that protesters trying to save Atlanta’s Weelaunee Forest, which is slated to be the site of a new police training facility, were “plotting to kill cops”and that they were “all card-carrying members of Antifa.” Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, [12/16/22]
• After Alaska’s snow crab population collapsed due in part to climate change causing a decrease in seasonal ice cover, Watters blamed “climate crazies” saying they were “holding the crabs hostage.” Fox News, Jesse Watters Tonight, [10/18/22]
• While discussing climate change protests with big oil shill Alex Epstein, Watters said “the logical conclusion” to climate activism is “human sacrifice.” Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, [4/11/22]

The shake-up at Fox News will change little about the channel’s constant stream of lies. Ultimately, Watters uses similar climate denial talking points as numerous other hosts, but he has been able to wield them in a particularly damaging way that resonates with Fox’s audience and builds out the channel’s dangerous brand of misinformation.

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fox News’ evening lineup reshuffle, which rolls out next week withJesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld joining Sean Hannity in prime time, shows that the network’s executives are determined to stave off its recent ratings collapse by doubling down on its fealty to Donald Trump. Together, the trio secures Fox’s most-watched hours as a safe space for the former president that will help keep him on a glide path to the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Fox’s programming typically reflects the leading elements and ideas of the Republican Party, and the new lineup reflects its reinvention as a Trumpist personality cult.

Tucker Carlson, the longtime prime-time star Fox cut ties with in April, was another Trump partisan, to a point. But he also had an independent, preexisting reputation and drew notoriety for his particular set of noxious ideas. Carlson championed foreign autocrats and the blood-and-soil nationalism undergirding their regimes, became perhaps the nation’s most prominent and pernicious opponent of COVID-19 vaccines, led the right’s vicious smears of LGBTQ people, and trumpeted white nationalist views on race and immigration, including the blood-soaked “great replacement” conspiracy theory. Carlson used his prime-time show to manipulate Trump into adopting his positions and even offered veiled criticism when he thought Trump undermined his aims. (Privately, Carlson claimed of Trump, “I hate him passionately.”)

While Watters, Hannity, and Gutfeld all have long records of toxic commentary, no one would describe them as men of ideas. Hannity is a down-the-line Republican Party propagandist, devoted to the success of his party above all else. And Gutfeld and Watters are associated more with a mean-spirited, sarcastic affect and an own-the-libs mentality than any distinct viewpoint.

What Fox’s new prime-time triumvirate demonstrates is that hardcore support for Trump remains the ingredient that unites the right. All three are Trump loyalists, albeit in somewhat different flavors, who have proved willing to defend the authoritarian former president across two impeachments, two indictments, an attempted coup, a series of attacks on the rule of law and constitutional order, and innumerable bigoted eruptions. And unlike Carlson, the three hosts are much more likely to fall in line with whatever Trump decides to do, no matter how abhorrent, rather than try to push him in any particular direction.

Sean Hannity, Trump’s “shadow” White House chief of staff

vid ]

hannity, who retains his 9 p.m. ET time slot in the shakeup, needs no introduction as anotorious Trump sycophan**t who has had Trump’s back in virtually every major controversy since Trump announced his run for president in 2015. A right-wing media mainstay billed by his network as “the longest-running current primetime host in cable news in television history,” Hannity came around to Trump early in the 2016 primary, helped him to win the nomination and then the White House, and reached new heights of power and influence as a Trump presidential adviser.

The Fox host regularly offers Trump a platform for fawning interviews and generates (occasionally contradictory) talking points in his defense at a furious rate. The sprawling conspiracy theories Hannity concocts to explain away Trump’s flaws have dominated right-wing media discourse, spurred fruitless Justice Department inquiries, and even attracted enough of a response from Trump himself to trigger his impeachment.

All the while, Hannity has served Trump as a political operative of unprecedented scope for a member of the press, to the point where he was once deemed the “shadow” chief of staff by White House staffers. If you can imagine an unethical conflict of interest a TV host might have, Hannity has done it for Trump: policy adviser and communications guru, advertisement participant and script doctor, rally speaker and secret back channel, private confidant sharing nightly phone calls with the then-president and public shill taking coverage orders from his White House.

The depth of Hannity’s bootlicking loyalty to the former president can perhaps best be seen in his reaction to a January 2018 report from The New York Times that Trump had previously tried to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Hannity spent much of his show that night claiming that the Times’ reporting was likely wrong, stressing that his own sources were “not confirming that tonight.”

But by the end of the broadcast, after Fox News published a report lining up with the Times story, Hannity backpedaled furiously. He adopted a new talking point wholly inconsistent with his old one to maintain the position that Trump had done nothing wrong.

“So we have sources tonight just confirming to Ed Henry that, yeah, maybe Donald Trump wanted to fire the special counsel for conflict,” Hannity said. “Does he not have the right to raise those questions?”

“You know, we’ll deal with this tomorrow night,” Hannity added, before changing the topic to discuss a high-speed police chase.

Hannity will now be bracketed in the Fox lineup by Watters and Gutfeld. The new prime-time hosts and longtime Fox employees share not only his penchant for incendiary conspiracy theories and toxic commentary but also his Trumpist zeal.

Jesse Watters, an O’Reilly crony turned Trump loyalist [vid]

watters joined Fox as a production assistant in 2002 and spent years stalking and harassing the subjects of ambush interview segments for Fox star Bill O’Reilly’s show. But he catapulted to prominence during the Trump years, garnering a weekend show and a slot on The Five in 2017, before landing a weeknight program in Fox’s 7 p.m. hour in January 2022.

The timing of Watters’ ascension is no coincidence: He has provided the pro-Trump commentary Fox’s viewers demand. Trump drew rebukes for launching his 2016 presidential campaign with unhinged xenophobic vitriol — even from Fox founder Rupert Murdoch. But Watters, attuned to the sentiment among the network’s audience, praised Trump for having “tapped into the collective backbone of this country” and said that as president, he wouldn't “let illegal aliens come to the country and murder our women.”

He never looked back, declaring that Trump couldn’t be racist because he has socialized with Black people, defending his most bigoted comments, praising his immigrant child separation policy, and standing up for his family, his cronies, and his responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and police brutality protests.

As the Trump presidency wound down, Watters falsely told his viewers that fraud had permeated the 2020 presidential election, adding that “we used to storm the castle over abuses of power like this.” Days later, a violent mob of angry Trumpists stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to subvert the election.

Watters continued standing by Trump following his 2020 election defeat, the subsequent insurrection he summoned, and the waves of evidence of his criminality. He called for Americans to take to the streets in protest after the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, offered thinly veiled suggestions of a violent recourse to his indictment, and urged Republicans to impeach President Joe Biden and for a reelected Trump to indict him in response.

Watters’ sycophantic commentary helped him climb the ranks at Fox, but it also gave him entry into the Fox-obsessed Trump’s social circle. He dined at the White House with the then-president, a fan of his on-air commentary. Trump congratulated him on his 2019 engagement to Emma DiGiovine, and Trump’s adult sons attended their wedding later that year. (Watters had cheated on his first wife and the mother of his twin daughters with the bride, a former low-level employee on his show who is 14 years his junior; he later said on-air that he had “let the air out of her tires” when he “was trying to get Emma to date me,” though he subsequently claimed to have been joking.)

Greg Gutfeld, a Trump critic who became his champion [vid]

unlike Hannity and Watters, who were early, stalwart Trump supporters, Gutfeld was a convert. A Trump critic during the 2016 Republican primary, Gutfeld had decried the racist former game show host as a “RINO” and a “conspiracy freak,” calling out his “crass” behavior and his mockery of Sen. John McCain’s military service.

But after Trump sewed up the primary and the general election loomed, Gutfeld’s commentary shifted. “Gutfeld was in the position he had previously warned against: the position of defending and excusing Trump,” Brian Stelter wrote in his 2021 book on Fox.

Gutfeld himself admitted in an interview earlier this year that Fox CEO Suzanne Scott had counseled him to leave himself room to evolve his view of Trump. “She was like, ‘Greg, you should maybe prepare for what happens if he wins,’” he told The New York Times.

Gutfeld flipped to become a diehard Trumpist. Like Watters, he defended Trump’s vicious immigration policies, election subversion efforts, misogyny, deadly pandemic response, and racist comments. He is particularly devoted to mainstreaming Trump’s refusals to denounce his most extreme supporters, from the Proud Boys to white supremacists, including those whomarched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. And he distinguished himself with particularly absurd remarks about the then-president, like claiming that “he’s the president, he can do whatever he wants,” and, “I can't recall a single instance of Trump actually aggressively going after an individual.”

Gutfeld is particularly clear-eyed about Fox’s relationship with Trump. He repeatedly noted on-air the influence his network had on the man he dubbed “the Fox News president.” And Trump, in turn, warmed up to the Fox host as he became increasingly pliant, touting Gutfeld on the campaign stump and in a.

“Even Greg Gutfeld; he wasn’t good to me two years ago,” Trump said in 2019. “Now he sees all I’ve done, and he said 'Would you rather have a great President or a nice guy?’ I don’t know, I think I’m a nice guy.”

Without Gutfeld’s flip to Trump, and Trump’s subsequent support for him, it is difficult to imagine that the host would have continued climbing the ladder at Fox. As Stelter wrote:

The alternative could have hit Gutfeld in the wallet. Fox made him a millionaire several times over — between his TV shows, the books he promoted on TV, his ticketed speaking gigs across the country — so “Greg has made a cynical calculation,” an insider said. “There’s no point in being anti-Trump.”

For a taste of what the prime-time newcomers bring to the table, consider a July 2019 exchange between Gutfeld and Watters on their panel show, The Five, regarding Democrats’ criticism of then-President Trump’s friendly visit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

“Let’s be honest,” Gutfeld admitted. If a Democratic president had met with Kim, “we would do the same thing.”

“How dare Obama meet with a dictator with no preconditions!” Watters replied, and the pair broke into giggles. Even they can barely believe the absurdity of their pro-Trump hypocrisy.

Fox’s Trumpist retrenchment will help him secure the GOP nomination

fox’s prime-time shakeup comes as the network faces the most sustained challenge to its dominance over the right-wing press in years. The new lineup suggests the network’s strategy for shoring up its right-wing hegemony relies on restoring its Trumpist credentials.

Fox ratings took a dive after the network cast off Carlson. Would-be rivals have responded to its weakness with relentless criticism in hopes of stealing away its viewers. Twitter’s Elon Musk seems to fancy himself as a potential successor to Rupert Murdoch as the right’s media empire builder and is amassing allies, albeit with what are at best significant growing pains.

The network's vulnerability is heightened by criticisms from Trump himself, who has used it as a foil. As I noted last month at MSNBC.com, the network’s posture toward the 2024 presidential primary has been an open question:

Fox’s alliance with Trump is currently in flux. After some initial ill will, the network’s endless promotion helped Trump to the presidency in 2016, and it effectively became state TV for his administration. Fox hosts gained unprecedented influence as the president regularly watched their shows, tweeted about their commentary in real time and took their advice. In turn, their assistance gave Trump a powerful propaganda tool. And since he left office in 2021, the network has continued rushing to the former president’s defense in his times of legal peril. But its support for his presidential bid has waxed and waned amid reports that the Murdochs prefer a fresher face for the Republican Party.

The decision by Fox executives to feature three Trumpists in what are traditionally its most-watched hours may help the network repair its relationship with the former president — but it will certainly shape the contours of the 2024 presidential race. Trump had already all but sewn up the GOP nomination, in no small part thanks to the work Fox hosts had done over the years in shoring up his vulnerabilities. A revamped Fox prime-time slate dedicated to supporting Trump at all costs now brings him ever closer to a return to the White House.

Fox prime-time hosts serve as tastemakers for the right-wing media and key validators for their large and loyal followings. Their support can make or break the Republican politicians who strive to win them over. Trump himself used hours of Fox appearances to win over viewers and seize the nomination in 2016.

Any of his GOP challengers who hope to replicate his achievement must somehow win over the network’s top talents, who owe their own prominence to the former president. That is a tall order, particularly with Trump already holding a large and steady lead in the polls. With Fox rallying behind him, Trump garnering the GOP’s nomination for the third consecutive election and running as a full-fledged authoritarian remains the most likely outcome.

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man who participated in the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol and subsequently became the face of a Fox News conspiracy theory is suing the network for defamation, correspondents Alan Feuer and Jeremy W. Peters reported in The New York Times on Wednesday.

Ray Epps is "seeking an unspecified amount in damages" for the character assassination that he allegedly endured from fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson's "'fantastical story' that Mr. Epps was an undercover government agent who instigated the violence at the Capitol as a way to disparage then-President Trump and his supporters," Feuer and Peters wrote.

"Just as Fox had focused on voting machine companies when falsely claiming a rigged election, Fox knew it needed a scapegoat for January 6th," Epps' complaint states, according to Delaware Superior Court documents reviewed by the Times. Fox "settled on Ray Epps and began promoting the lie that Epps was a federal agent who incited the attack on the Capitol."

READ MORE: Tucker Carlson's effort to divert blame for Jan. 6 away from Trump supporters backfires spectacularly

"After the unfounded accusations about Mr. Epps were aired on Mr. Carlson's show," Feuer and Peters explained, "they quickly spread to online communities of Trump supporters and to the political world as Republican members of Congress tried to link Mr. Epps to a fictitious conspiracy theory that he was involved in planning the Jan. 6 attack. They includedSenator Ted Cruz of Texas and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, both of whom made Mr. Epps — a two-time Trump voter — a focus of concern at public hearings."

Fox's false narrative "had damaging consequences for Mr. Epps and his wife, Robyn,who received numerous death threats and were forced to sell their five-acre ranch and wedding business in Arizona and move into a 350-square-foot mobile home parked at a remote trailer park in the mountains of Utah," per the**Times. "Online retailers began selling T-shirts that said 'Arrest Ray Epps.' Some people even recorded songs about him and posted them on YouTube, the complaint states, adding how he had been reduced 'into a character in a cartoonish conspiracy theory.'"

Epps' attorney, Michael Teter, noted that although his client "demanded in March that Fox and Mr. Carlson retract its stories about him and his purported role in the Capitol riot and issue an on-air apology, neither the network nor Mr. Carlson, whose prime-time show has since been canceled, responded."

Despite never being criminally charged for his role in the Capitol attack, the Times added, "Mr. Carlson and Fox settled on Mr. Epps as a 'villain' who could serve as a distraction from the network's own 'culpability for stoking the fire that led to the events of January 6th.' Mr. Carlson, it said, became 'fixated on Epps' and began the promoting the idea that Mr. Epps and the federal government were responsible for the Capitol riots.

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an ah 7 23

https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-dominion-2662262854/

ever since radio host Charlie Kirk, now 29, and the late Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery founded Turning Point USA in 2012, the group has been encouraging young Americans — first Millennials, now Generation Z — to not only vote Republican, but also, to vote for the GOP's most extreme members. TPUSA had strong Tea Party leanings in the beginning and later embraced Donald Trump's presidency and the far-right MAGA movement wholeheartedly.

Fox News and its sister channel Fox Business gave TPUSA plenty of favorable coverage in the past. But according to Daily Beast reporter Justin Baragona, Fox News "appears to have distanced itself" from the group — although not out of the goodness of its heart.

:{:{}:

}:

A Fox News insider, presumably interviewed on condition of anonymity, told the Beast, "Fox's relationship with Turning Point is basically over. They don't want their talent associated with them anymore."

READ MORE: 'Panicked' Fox News ousts producer behind 'wannabe dictator' Biden chyron

Baragona describes Turning Point's past events as "Fox-heavy affairs" that featured speeches from Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro, Jesse Watters and other Fox hosts. But Fox News is distancing itself from TPUSA, according to Baragona, because it is "wary about letting its stars appear at conservative events with known election deniers and conspiracy theorists in the wake of Fox's massive $787.5-million settlement" with Dominion Voting Systems. That includes the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference, abbreviated ActCon.

After the 2020 presidential election, Fox News promoted the false, thoroughly debunked claim that Dominion's equipment had been used to help now-President Joe Biden steal the election from then-President Donald Trump. Dominion responded with a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit, and Fox News avoided a trial by agreeing to pay the company $787.5 million. Fox News is still facing a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion competitor Smartmatic.

"Further suggesting a link between Dominion and Fox's break-up with TPUSA is the fact that ActCon 2023's keynote speaker is Donald Trump, whose election lies directly led to Fox's Dominion mess," Baragona reports. "Trump will appear this weekend on Fox's air, however, in a more controlled environment, via a sit-down interview with Maria Bartiromo."

The Beast reporter adds, "Other 2020 deniers and January 6 organizers scheduled for ActCon speeches include Mike Lindell, Patrick Byrne, and Steve Bannon. Furthermore, Kirk himself has been outspoken in his belief that the 2020 vote was 'stolen' from Trump."

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roger ailes, bill O,  now tucker

https://www.alternet.org/fox-pay-ex-carlson-producer/

Bill O'Reilly was a Fox News host from its 1996 launch until he was fired in 2017 following reports that he and the network's parent company 21st Century Fox paid millions of dollars in secret settlements for his sexual harassment of women who worked on his show. Before he left Fox, he was also exposed for lying about his previous reporting experience in his books,

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pretty sure i called it, he was clearly auditioning  no lnx an 6 23

Fox News has just announced it is revamping its primetime lineup in the wake of firing far-right host Tucker Carlson and as the 2024 presidential election approaches – and it’s handing the 8:00 PM hour to Jesse Watters, current co-host of its show “The Five.”

Variety reports the Watters move, and adds, “Fox News will also move Greg Gutfeld into the primetime block, giving him the 10 p.m. hour, while the current occupant, the conservative firebrand Laura Ingraham. takes up the reins of the early-evening 7 p.m. hour. Sean Hannity will keep his perch at 9 p.m., a slot he has held since 2017.”

Watters is the largely expected choice. A profile from Insider earlier this month revealed, “Jesse Watters likes picking fights. And he is fiercely loyal to Fox News, his professional home of two decades, starting when he was 24.Though best known as [Bill] O’Reilly’s attack dog until O’Reilly was pushed out of the network in 2017,Watters was also key to the launch of the right-wing Fox Nation blog. As cohost of ‘The Five’ and on his own 7 p.m. show, Watters delivers the network’s talking points with a grin and a touch of levity.”

READ MORE: ‘No Dead Bodies’: Fox News Hosts Suggest Trump Indicted for ‘Carelessness’ and ‘Where a Piece of Paper Goes’

Insider added, “Watters has found a far larger pool of libs to trigger” than just his parents, “but he continues to delight in the consternation his politics provoke in his mom. He’s known to occasionally read aloud the texts sent by his mom on ‘The Five.'”

“‘You end up presenting a lack of a moral compass honey,’ Watters quoted her saying in response to a 2018 segment on the Mueller investigation. ‘We all know you are a Trumpet — you need not scream it.'”

The same day as Insider’s profile of Watters ran, Variety reported on Watters’ week.

“Here’s a quick list. (1) He pissed on helping the homeless: ‘You can’t subsidize antisocial behavior you have to stigmatize it. These are people that have failed in life and they’re on their deathbed.’ 2. He casually explained that Donald Trump was just ‘sifting through [documents] and determining which were personal and which were presidential.’ 3. He compared not letting RFK Jr. come on his show to making a girl beg for a date. 4. He misidentified ‘The Five’ panel member Jessica Tarlov as ‘Katie.’ 5. In another episode, Watters cut off Tarlov, aka Katie, and threatened to ‘smack’ her with his copies of the Presidential Records Act.”

READ MORE: ‘Wrong and Dangerous’: Another Republican Former US Attorney General Lays Out the Case Against Trump

Responding to the news of Watters being promoted to the important 8 PM hour, MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan wrote, “Watters gets the Carlson slot. No reduction in racist fearmongering or Trump adulation at 8pm then.”

NPR’s David Gura posted video from 2016 that made Watters famous. It was widely criticized at the time as racist.

Watch the Watters video below or at this link.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Fox guest: 'Somebody is going to have to pull a trigger' to stop Trump prosecutions ›

'Coulda shoved this down their throats': Jesse Watters scolds Lindsey Graham over timing of abortion ban ›

Fox News’ Jesse Watters boasts about his own reporting after claiming child rape report was actually a hoax ›

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https://www.mediamatters.org/greg-gutfeld/greg-gutfelds-toxic-and-extreme-commentary-now-moving-fox-news-prime-time

Gutfeld's show has moved up to the 10 p.m. slot from 11 p.m. amid the latest shakeup in Fox News’ prime-time scheduling. He’s spent years at the network spouting bigotry, making sexist comments, and spreading misinformation – literally. This comes as Fox News is under immense pressure following a record defamation lawsuit, and with ratings down following the departure of Tucker Carlson.

Joining Fox in 2007, Gutfeld first hosted the late-night/early-morning talk show Red Eye, which crudely satirized current events and pop culture. He then joined Fox’s program The Five in 2011 as a co-host and panelist, headed The Greg Gutfeld Show from 2015-2021, and eventually began hosting his own weekly late-night program, Gutfeld! Over the years he’s developed an on-air reputation as a far-right bomb-thrower and full-time bigot.

Gutfeld defended former President Donald Trump after he refused to disavow the neo-fascist street gang the Proud Boys in 2020 and has dismissed violence from far-right militias as “a lie” and “easily disprovable.” Additionally, Gutfeld has minimized attempts by Trump to overturn the election results in Georgia, calledfor a “peaceful revolution” against mask mandates, and likened climate activists to mass shooters. In 2022, Gutfeld said he wouldn’t go to college now because he doesn’t find the students attractive enough and blamed young girls who “want to look sexy and hot” for their own body image issues.

More recently, Gutfeld and other hosts of The Five reportedly bombed with audience members while making jokes about the Writers Guild of America strike in New York during Fox Corp.’s upfront presentation to media buyers.

Gutfeld’s incendiary and oftentimes downright false statements have covered a variety of topics throughout the years, including guns, abortion, and crime, and he’s trafficked in racism, xenophobia, sexism, and other bigotry.

• ## acism
  • On May 15, Gutfeld claimed Democrats are lying about the threat of white supremacy to “keep Blacks angry.”
  • On May 4, Gutfeld blamed George Floyd for the killing of Jordan Neely.
  • On May 1, Gutfeld stated that “wokeism is every bit as racist as white nationalism.”
  • On April 12, Gutfeld claimed that “the first rung onto the ladder of capitalism often is drug dealing for Blacks.”
  • On March 13, Gutfeld said that “white leftists do worse things to Blacks than the Aryan Nations ever could.”
  • On January 10, Gutfeld suggested that President Joe Biden is hiding “Barack Obama’s real birth certificate” and using it for blackmail.
  • In February 2022, Gutfeld argued that podcaster Joe Rogan’s repeated use of a racial slur is acceptable because “Blacks see that the word is being used as a tool.”
  • In January 2022, Gutfeld accusedDemocrats of “race warfare” which he said would lead “towards revolution.”
  • In November 2021, Gutfeld said that Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears “dared to leave the plantation of ideology.”
  • Also in November 2021, Gutfeld claimed Democrats are teaching children that “being white at birth is bad.”
  • In June 2021, Gutfeld said the U.S. military has adopted a “racist theology” against white people.
  • Also in June 2021, Gutfeld argued that “police go to where the crime is. That's high crime areas where decent people of color live, but also riffraff.”
  • Reacting to Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict in April 2021, Gutfeld said, “I’m glad that he was found guilty on all charges, even if he might not be guilty of all charges."
  • Also in April 2021, Gutfeld attacked the media for supposedly not covering “positive interactions” with police and creating a perception it’s “hunting season for Blacks.”
  • In March 2021, Gutfeld said that Meghan Markle cynically exploited “the racial obsession embraced by Western media.”
  • In September 2020, Gutfeld defended Trump's refusal to denounce white supremacy and right-wing extremist groups. One month earlier, he declared that mentioning Trump's remarks about “very fine people” at Charlottesville isn't “healthy for America.”
  • ​​In June 2020, Gutfeld dismissed police brutality against Black people and instead blamed videos of such brutality for sending America toward “a race war.”
  • In May 2020, Gutfeld blamed “the unbending mind” for the killing of George Floyd and questioned what happened before the video started.
  • Also in May 2020, Gutfeld compared disgraced Gen. Mike Flynn to the Central Park Five, who were wrongly convicted of rape.
  • In April 2020, Gutfeld attacked Michigan’s governor for criticizing swastikas at a social distancing protest, claiming they were being displayed ironically.
  • In September 2017, Gutfeld suggested Black NFL players should devote more time to talking about violence between Black men instead of police brutality.
  • In August 2017, Gutfeld asked, “Do we really need to push for an increase in diversity anymore?”
  • In June 2016, Gutfeld suggested shortening the Muslim holiday of Ramadan to decrease terrorism.
  • In March 2016, Gutfeld claimed Obama received political “immunity” because he was “the first Black candidate.”
  • In January 2016, Gutfeld said liberals don't want to enforce gun laws because “that means there will be more Blacks in jail.”
  • In September 2012, Gutfeld used the racist birther smear against Obama to criticize Daniel Day-Lewis’ casting in Lincoln because “we’re outsourcing our presidents”: “First, we have a Kenyan in the White House, and now we have a Brit playing Lincoln.”
  • In August 2012, Gutfeld said Democratic policies have “infantilized” Black Americans and “made them addicted to crappy programs.”
  • In July 2011, Gutfeld claimed some Black Americans voted for Obama “because it would sound traitorous if they didn’t.”
• ## Sexism and misogyny
  • On May 23, Gutfeld applauded a high school teacher charged with engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old student, adding, “Come on! 16 years old — I would have died for that!”
  • On March 16, Gutfeld said that Vice President Kamala Harris sounds like “a woman at the bar on her fourth skinny margarita.”
  • On February 1, Gutfeld called climate activist Greta Thunberg “that bug-eyed brat.”
  • In October 2022, Gutfeld said he wouldn’t go to college now because he doesn’t find the students attractive enough.
  • In September 2022, Gutfeld called Thunberg one of the “shrieking psycho brats” who have “poisoned the dialogue with hysteria.”
  • Also in September 2022, Gutfeld called support for reproductive rights a “psychosis” led by “young, angry single women.”
  • Responding to the Supreme Court vacancy in January 2022, Gutfeld and other co-hosts mocked reports of sexual assault.
  • In September 2021, Gutfeld blamed young girls who “want to look sexy and hot” for their own body image issues: “This is a girls problem created by girls.”
  • In April 2021, Gutfeld compared CNN to a date rapist.
  • In October 2020, Gutfeld called Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and then-Sen. Kamala Harris “petty” and “jealous” “mean girls.”
  • In April 2017, Gutfeld told a colleague on air that she was giving America an erection.
  • In March 2016, Gutfeld accused Hillary Clinton of “bigotry against men” and said she “sounds like the product of two car alarms mating.”
  • Also in March 2016, Gutfeld said Clinton's greatest “sin” was that she “doesn't care about men's concerns.”
  • In July 2011, Gutfeld said Congress raising the debt ceiling is “like a wife and her credit cards. Americans have to be the husband that takes the credit card and breaks it up.”
• ## Xenophobia
  • In January 2022, Gutfeld called immigration a “slow rolling insurrection.”
  • In September 2021, Gutfeld said the Geneva Conventions are “overrated” and called for the execution of enemy prisoners of war.
  • In June 2021, Gutfeld fearmongered that a 5-year-old immigrant who was abandoned at the border could be connected to drug dealers.
  • In April 2021, Gutfeld said refugees seeking asylum at the southern border are in a “win-win” situation.
  • In March 2021, Gutfeld compared living in America with increased immigration to living in a “rough neighborhood” without an alarm system.
  • Also in March 2021, Gutfeld said it's “a load of hooey” that any families were separated at the border under Trump.
  • In September 2017, Gutfeld claimed that Trump got a lot of his ideas about immigration from watching The Five.
• ## Anti-LGBTQ hate
  • In December 2022, Gutfeld said he uses the label “groomer” in retaliation for being called a racist.
  • In August 2022, Gutfeld used a study about self-driving cars to make transphobic comments.
  • In June 2019, Gutfeld claimed LGBTQ advocates are transitioning kids to be trans in order to eliminate gay and lesbian people, comparing the practice to dangerous and discredited anti-LGBTQ conversion therapy.
  • In May 2016, Gutfeld complained Obama “is declaring war on bathrooms” as ISIS “works 24/7 on our demise, while we're sitting here wondering about gender pronouns.”
  • In February 2012, Gutfeld said the media would love NBA player Jeremy Lin more “if he was a transgendered female.”
• ## Election denial
  • In May 2021, Gutfeld made a pathetic, bumbling dodge when asked if Biden was the legitimate winner of the presidential election.
  • In April 2021, Gutfeld claimed that opponents of Georgia’s voter suppression think “photo IDs are worse than slave labor and genocide.”
  • In January 2021, Gutfeld dismissed Trump’s attempt to change Georgia election results as “the latest media hoax.”
• ## Climate denial
  • On April 28, Gutfeld likened climate activists to mass shooters.
  • On April 21, Gutfeld said the concept of “environmental justice” was designed to bully people into believing in climate change.
  • On April 12, Gutfel claimed climate change “improves people's lives.”
  • In February 2022, Gutfeld put blame on Greta Thunberg for the Ukrainian invasion: “Maybe she'll drop solar panels down into Kyiv to save people.”
  • In September 2021, Gutfeld claimed that the data to prove climate change is “never there.”
  • In August 2021, Gutfeld dismissed climate change: “Warming temperatures saves more lives in other parts of the world.”
  • In May 2021, Gutfeld said the climate crisis “does not exist.”
  • Opening The Five, Gutfeld in June 2013 said climate skeptics “were right all along” and said Obama was “denying science” in his climate change speech.
  • In October 2016, Gutfeld said climate change consensus is the “radical Islam of science,” adding, “You have to wonder about a belief system that doesn't want any challenges, that doesn't want any of their theories to be questioned.”
  • In April 2016, Gutfeld said that climate scientists “have a lot in common with ISIS cause they both wanna go back to the 7th century.”
  • In August 2011, Gutfeld promoted drilling for oil in the Everglades, saying, “It’s just a big swamp. … I would drill everywhere.”
• ## Guns
  • In July 2022, Gutfeld claimed the media “can decrease these shootings by 30%” by ignoring them.
  • In June 2022, Gutfeld falsely claimed that no person with a concealed carry permit has ever committed a mass shooting.
  • In April 2021, Gutfeld blamed gun violence on “the defund movement and the Ferguson effect.”
  • In January 2022, Gutfeld said, “We are a country of fighters, and we will do it again by February 1. Because, you know what? We can. We've got the Second Amendment. We run this country.”
  • In September 2020, Gutfeld said that if protests continued, “that Second Amendment starts looking miraculous.”
  • Also in September 2020, Gutfeld dismissed violence from right-wing militias as “a lie” and “easily disprovable.”
  • In August 2019, Gutfeld said that nothing can be done to stop mass shootings and blamed the media for amplifying the massacres.
  • In June 2016, Gutfeld declared “It's homophobic” not to allow guns in gay bars following the Pulse nightclub mass shooting.
  • In January 2016, Gutfeld suggested “we return to the days of the Wild West” and promoted more guns to stop terrorism.
• ## January 6
  • In July 2022, Gutfeld made the ridiculous claim that the January 6 hearings were “exonerating Trump.”
  • In June 2022, Gutfeld whined that “no mercy” was “being shown for the January 6 protesters.”
  • In July 2021, Gutfeld described the January 6 insurrection as merely politicians having their jobs “disrupted for two hours.”
• ## Abortion
  • In November 2022, Gutfeld dismissed the importance of abortion rights to voters.
  • In September 2022, Gutfeld called support for reproductive rights a “psychosis” led by “young, angry single women.”
  • In May 2022, Gutfeld said it “seems pretty gross” to state that abortion access impacts the poor.
  • In May 2012, Gutfeld questioned why the public knew how Obama felt about same-sex marriage but not abortion, saying: “I wonder if its because gays have deeper pockets than fetuses?”
• ## Covid misinformation
  • While isolated from his colleagues as a COVID-19 precaution In January 2022, Gutfeld declared that “the pandemic is over.”
  • In September 2021, Gutfeld called for a “peaceful revolution” over mask mandates.
  • In August 2021, Gutfeld blamed Obama's birthday party for low vaccination rates among Black Americans.
  • In February 2021, Gutfeld predicted that “history is going to be kind to Trump” for his coronavirus response.
  • In January 2021, Gutfeld called Biden “the angel of death” of coronavirus messaging.
  • In March 2020, Gutfeld dismissed Trump's coronavirus press briefing lies: No one “takes Trump word for word.”
  • On The Five in May 2020, Gutfeld responded to a report that 66% of roughly 600 new COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York State by saying the statistic shows that “the disease came and got them” in their homes, and “staying home doesn’t help anymore after we flattened this curve.” He also warned the media to now “be super, super careful” about criticizing people who violate stay-at-home orders.
  • In August 2020, Gutfeld suggested it's “tyrannical” for Biden to urge governments to enact mask mandates.
  • In November 2020, as the country hit a crisis moment with COVID-19, Gutfeld declared: “We're not in a crisis moment."

https://www.mediamatters.org/jesse-watters/jesse-watters-foxs-new-8-pm-host-advertisers-should-beware

https://www.mediamatters.org/angelo-carusone/angelo-carusone-foxs-new-prime-time-lineup-network-going-back-out-sea-leaning-their

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-host-jesse-watters-claims-fbi-and-cia-are-using-hunters-laptop-blackmail

https://www.mediamatters.org/jesse-watters/fox-news**-jesse-watters-claims-fbi-rigging-elections

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ingrm pro alito trip

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/amid-disastrous-ratings-and-trump-scandals-fox-personalities-return-election-lies

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https://www.alternet.org/send/biden-fox-news/

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an 6 23

'Panicked' Fox News ousts producer behind 'wannabe dictator' Biden chyron

Maya BoddieJune 16, 2023

Longtime Fox News producer Alexander McCaskill has been ousted from the right-wing network, The Daily Beast reports.

On Tuesday, June 13, the former Tucker Carlson Tonight editor oversaw coverage of former President Donald Trump's first speech following his arraignment after "pleading 'not guilty' to 37 criminal courts in a federal courtroom in Miami," according to the report.

During the former president's speech, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade referred to Trump as "President of the United States."

READ MORE: Biden 'wannabee dictator' chyron was 'startling even for raucous Fox News': media reporter

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden gave a speech the same night as his immediate predecessor, which the conservative network also aired, along with a chyron, saying: "Wannabe Dictator Speaks At The White House After Having His Political Rival Arrested."

The producer's exit comes after the Fox released a statement saying, "The chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed."

Per The Daily Beast, McCaskill "parted ways with" the network Thursday, which led another recently ousted Fox News employee — Tucker Carlson — to respond via his Twitter video series.

"First they scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen," Carlson said. "Less than 24 hours after that, he resigned. He had been at Fox for more than a decade. He was considered one of the most capable people in the building. He offered to stay for the customary two weeks, but Fox told him to clear out his desk and leave immediately."

READ MORE: Fox News labels Donald Trump the 'President of the United States' and Joe Biden a 'wannabe dictator'

Furthermore, the former star host mocked Biden in defense of McCaskill, saying, "Of course Joe Biden's not a wannabe dictator. Just because he's trying to put the other candidate in prison for the rest of his life for a crime he himself committed doesn't mean he has a totalitarian impulse. That's absurd! It takes a lot more than jailing your political rivals to earn the title of 'wannabe dictator.'"

The Daily Beast reports:

Though his years of service earned McCaskill some kind words from Carlson, a lawsuit filed by his former colleague, Abby Grossberg, paints a different picture.

Grossberg, a former producer for Tucker Carlson Tonight who was fired by Fox in March, has alleged that there was a misogynistic culture at Carlson's show — naming McCaskill repeatedly as a ringleader among staff.

The Beast also notes that after the chyron ran, Carlson claimed "the women who run the network panicked."

Washington Post's Jeremy Barr responded the day following the incident, suggesting the "wannabe dictator" chyron was "startling even for the conservative network during its raucously opinionated prime-time hours."

Additionally, Democratic strategist and commentator Ameshia Cross tweeted, "The chyron is wrong. Offensive. A flat out lie. Trump literally led an attempted coup to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, he's taken a page from the dictator playbook in calling the press an 'enemy of the people.'"

READ MORE: Smartmatic vows to 'expose the rest' of Fox News' 'misconduct'

The Daily Beast's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'False news has consequences': Former Fox exec proposes FCC 'review' Rupert Murdoch’s licenses ›

'Lying through their teeth': White House slams Fox News’ 'grooming and pedophilia' Pride flag article ›

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mma 6 23

after former President Donald Trump was indicted for his alleged mishandling of highly classified documents, right-wing media has gone into a tailspin to defend Trump from the charges while accusing Democrats of committing similar offenses.

With this indictment, Trump has become “the most high-profile person to ever face criminal charges under the Espionage Act.” The post-World War 1 legislation makes the mishandling of sensitive government documents that concern national defense illegal, and has been used to prosecute whistleblowers such as Reality Winner and Daniel Ellsberg since its passing.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump under the section of the law that prohibits unauthorized possession of top-secret national defense information and makes it a crime to “wilfully [retain]” that information or fail to “deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it.”

The former president’s allies have attempted to divert attention from the severity of his charges by comparing alleged violations of the Espionage Act by Democrats, including former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Joe Biden.

The FBI, however, determined that by using her private email, Clinton did not intend to break the law and therefore did not act with “wilful retention or obstruction.”

After another investigation into classified documents at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence, the FBI found that “no evidence has emerged to suggest that anyone intentionally moved classified documents or tried to impede the FBI from recovering them.” Although there are many fair criticisms of the Espionage Act and its constitutionality, Trump was not acting as a reporter or whistleblower by allegedly showing top-secret documents to civilians like Kid Rock.

In the days since his indictment was released, right-wing media have attempted to cast doubt on what charges Trump should face, citing the Presidential Records Act as a more applicable framework and claiming that the suit against the former president should therefore be a civil one.

Following his presidential defeat, Trump took 15 boxes of documents that fell under the Presidential Records Act and belonged to the national archivist with him to Mar-a-Lago. The 1978 act states that “any records created or received by the President as part of his constitutional, statutory, or ceremonial duties are the property of the United States government and will be managed by NARA at the end of the administration.” However, Trump also had 11 tranches of documents with varying classification markings, and did not return all these records, thus raising concerns related to the Espionage Act and prompting the search of Mar-a-Lago.

In a Reuters article about the indictment, lawyer Bradley Moss was cited arguing that the Presidential Records Act argument does not hold water because “the question of whether the documents were personal or presidential records is beside the point." Moss was also quoted pointing out that “the records at issue in this indictment still have classification markings and contain information relating to the national defense” and are therefore being rightfully examined under the framework of the Espionage Act.

Right-wing figures argue that the Espionage Act is the wrong framework under which to charge Trump, suggest the Presidential Records Act instead:

• As a guest on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, Trump attorney Jesse Binnall argued that “Congress has decided to make presidents and former presidents specifically subject to [the Presidential Records Act] rather than Espionage Act” and that “Jack Smith's team has it completely legally wrong by charging crimes that quite frankly don't apply.”
• On Fox News’ The Five, Jeanine Pirro called Jack Smith a “loser prosecutor,Jack Smith, who has been slapped down by the United States Supreme Court” and accused him of having a “political agenda” and said the case is “all over the Presidential Records Act, which is a civil suit.” She later whined that “what they do is they put out this narrative indictment, ‘This is a story of wrongdoing, national defense, and let's put an espionage, we’ve got to tie it into the Russia collusion.’”
• Fox News legal analyst Greg Jarrett joined Fox News’ Hannity to insist that there are  “two systems of justice. … One for Donald Trump and one for everybody else,” claiming that “Garland chose to bastardize the law [ by raiding Trump's home and then seeking an indictment.”
• As a guest on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime, Article III Project founder Mike Davisalso suggested that “the Presidential Records Act, not the Espionage Act, applies.” Davis later said, “You know, I doubt a uniparty judge is going to go along with that, and so this will probably have to get resolved by the Supreme Court,” calling the potential charge a “bogus conviction.”

Right-wing figures allege that Democrats have committed comparable offenses without being criminally prosecuted:

• Fox News host Mark Levin said Biden, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Hillary Clinton “clearly violated the Espionage Act,” bemoaning the fact that “None of them were criminally charged.”
• Freshly-resigned Trump lawyer Jim Trusty argued on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle that the Espionage Act was “not in play when Hillary bleached 30,000 emails that were under subpoena,” also claiming that the prosecution has a “whole bunch of rotating theories because they can’t find the facts they want.”
• An op-ed for The Federalist claimed that if “taking documents home from the White House is a crime,” there would have been a DOJ investigation of “Biden and his classified documents.” The piece went on, claiming that the case is an example of the “deep state” targeting “dissenters” like Trump and a universal, presumably conservative, “you.”

Several right-wing personalities claimed ill intent or misguided thinking motivated Trump’s indictment:

• Turning Point USA’s Danny De Urbina tweeted, “The DOJ indicting Trump under the Espionage Act after they literally spied on him as a private citizen is the ultimate gaslight.”
• The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board published an op-ed questioning the indictment, saying that the “charges are a destructive intervention into the 2024 election” and that “the Justice Department has taken a perilous path” by indicting Trump. The board also wrote that while Trump may have been “cavalier with classified documents, Mr. Trump did not accept a bribe or betray secrets to Russia.”
• Rogan O'Handley (who operates the right-wing social media account DC Draino) argued that the initial DOJ and FBI aid of Mar-a-Lago was “so they could steal back evidence of their spying on President Trump in the Crossfire Hurricane documents,” also alleging that the indictment is “all a coverup.”
• A Washington Post op-ed by right-wing columnist Gary Abernathy pushed back on the indictment, saying that while there was not a “good excuse” for Trump to keep sensitive documents, “bringing charges related to the possession of classified documents against a current or former president for anything short of colluding with our enemies or selling them on the black market is unnecessary, unwise and destructive to democracy.”

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an badash 6 23

no lnx twt

Fox News labels Donald Trump the 'President of the United States' and Joe Biden a 'wannabe dictator'

David BadashandThe New Civil Rights MovementJune 14, 2023

Americans tuning in to Fox News Tuesday night, hours after Donald Trump was arraigned on 37 federal criminal felony charges, had a big surprise: Donald Trump is the “President of the United States,” and Joe Biden, the man actually in the White House, is a “wannabe dictator.”

That’s what Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing “news” network decided to tell its shrinking band of viewers, rather than the truth.

Also not telling the truth was Trump himself, aided by Fox News which, unlike CNN and MSNBC (but exactly like Newsmax and C-SPAN) decided to run his post-arraignment speech live, with no anchor doing any fact checks or providing any context.

“These things are not true, but Fox News is doing their damnedest to help,” noted MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on-air, one of many who noticed and were disgusted enough to speak out.

EARLIER: ‘No Dead Bodies’: Fox News Hosts Suggest Trump Indicted for ‘Carelessness’ and ‘Where a Piece of Paper Goes’

Axios national political correspondent Alex Thompson posted the video of Fox News host Brian Kilmeade announcing, “this is the president of the United States, about to address a crowd of supporters.”

The Recount posted the clip of Fox News’ Chyron that reads: “Wannabe Dictator Speaks at the White House After Having His Political Rival Arrested” (in all-caps.)

And no, Donald Trump is not the President of the United States, Joe Biden is. And Joe Biden is not a “wannabe dictator,” nor did he have “his political rival arrested.”

READ MORE: Fox News Freaks Out After Inflation Drops to Lowest Level in Two Years

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Trump attorney rambles incoherently about Hunter Biden when asked why her client predicted a Tuesday arrest ›

Fox’s Peter Doocy asks Biden about future presidents pardoning Trump — here’s his response ›

'He’s cleaned Trump’s clock': Newsom defends Biden’s economic record during Hannity interview ›

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No, Donald Trump's classified documents case is not like Joe Biden ... ›

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BAK SOME

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an 6 23

fx News host Jesse Watters on Tuesday encouraged his network's predominantly right-wing audience to "stigmatize" unhoused Americans. During his rant, Watters asserted that demonizing human beings is a necessary tactic to end what he suggested was a choice.

[Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom] "is now maybe midfield, but he has to understand homelessness isn't about lack of affordable housing. It's about drug addicts that wanna wander around and live in tents on the sidewalk. And so you can't coddle antisocial behavior. You can't subsidize antisocial behavior. You have to stigmatize it," Watters declared.

"You can't celebrate people with purple hair, with nose rings, four kids with four different men who are dressed like trash, and make them out to be some sort of cutting-edge heroes," Watters continued. "You have to call them what they are. These are people that have failed in life and they're on their deathbed, and if we're not honest about it, we're never gonna fix this problem."

READ MORE: 'Whatever you want to call them': Jesse Watters ridicules the NAACP’s Florida travel advisory

According to the nonprofit Breaktime, "Homelessness often manifests in a cycle. Without consistent access to well-paid jobs, our associates struggle to save money and build financial stability. Left unable to put money toward savings after first satiating immediate needs, like food or transportation, they in turn struggle to find stable housing. Our associates cannot access the job or financial security necessary to sustain housing, nor can they ensure the housing security necessary to access employment or financial security. This is the cycle of young adult homelessness."

Similarly, The National Alliance to End Homelessness notes that "the solution to homelessness is straightforward: housing. By connecting people experiencing homelessness to housing and services, they have a platform from which they can address other areas that may have contributed to their homelessness — such as employment, health, and substance abuse."

Watch below via Media Matters for America researcher Kat Abughazaleh

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truck burned?

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-host-blames-pete-buttigiegs-obsession-equity-i-95-collapse

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https://www.mediamatters.org/jesse-watters/fox-news-welcomes-swastika-wielding-teacher-latest-anti-trans-culture-warrior

no lnx vid

Fox News welcomes swastika-wielding teacher as the latest anti-trans culture warrior

Special PROGRAMS

LGBTQ

WRITTEN BY JANE LEE

PUBLISHED 06/13/23

On June 12, Fox News' Jesse Watters hosted Glendale, California, teacher Ray Shelton, who was placed on leave following a school board meeting where he held up a swastika sign and then went on an anti-trans, hate-filled tirade, saying, “Transgender ideology … is antihuman.”

In the segment, Watters painted Shelton as the anti-trans culture war hero du jour, claiming he had been fired for “saying what 70% of the country believes and what 100% of science believes” about trans people.

The interview continued with Watters, Shelton, and his attorney, David Pivtorak depicting Shelton as a victim of censorship and the support of trans students as part of an “authoritarian ideology.” (Pivtorak had previously appeared on Fox News touting his client’s lawsuit against American Express for supposed racism against white employees.)

Video

CitationFrom the June 12, 2023, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Watters and his guests conveniently forgot to mention that Shelton had brought a swastika sign to a school board meeting.

The omission conveys Watters’ priorities clearly: prop up the latest anti-trans culture warrior, nevermind that he displayed a hate symbol at a public school district event to compare students to Nazis. Watters may not have had the nerve to explicitly defend displays of swastikas (though we know his fellow Fox News co-host doesn’t draw this line), but providing Shelton with a national platform tells us he endorses it all the same.

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mma 6 23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just as the story broke Thursday night, Fox host Jesse Watters asked, “What does this tell you on the same day we’re learning that the Bidens took $10 million in bribes, supposedly, from Ukraine?” Fox contributor Charlie Hurt responded that Biden had “been asked about it for the first time. So you see this drop on the exact same day. I think that the two are very related.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/8/23]

During her guest-hosting spot in the 8 p.m. hour, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner alleged: “It’s remarkable that just hours after Republicans made this finding, Biden’s own Justice Department would indict Biden’s leading opponent in 2024. It’s unprecedented.” [Fox News, Fox News Tonight, 6/8/23]

The theory then got tons of airtime on The Ingraham Angle. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine claimed: “Well, look, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, controls the timing of this and the timing is really outrageous, because it comes right as the FBI has finally been forced by James Comer in the House Oversight Committee to hand over this evidence of Joe Biden receiving a $5 million bribe from Ukraine when he was vice president. This is devastating to the president. It should be devastating. But, of course, they've just brought out this shiny object to make all of the media look over there.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/8/23]

Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz chimed in: “I agree with Miranda. I think the timing is such that here James Comer and all the House Republicans and Democrats can go see what’s going on with the allegation from a credible source about Joe Biden. They just happened, hours later, to drop this indictment on President Trump. Do you think that’s a coincidence?” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/8/23]

Host Laura Ingraham kicked off an interview with far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) by offering this sardonic remark: “Congresswoman, so, the reporting would be then, if this were true, that the Burisma scheme is confirmed, then Trump is indicted. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. This all just happened. It’s sheer coincidence.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/8/23]

The conspiracy theories continued into the morning, with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi claiming that the government was “going after Donald Trump, and I don't think it's a coincidence now because of the 1023 that’s out.” (In the same interview, Bondi claimed that the government’s prosecution of Trump was taking resources away from investigating child sex-trafficking.) [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/9/23]

Later in the program, Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhart also asked then-Trump attorney Jim Trusty: “It happened to be on the exact same day that House Oversight Committee got to look at that 1023 form that basically alleges — it’s being told that that’s proof that there was an exchange of $5 million from this oil company in Ukraine in exchange for policy when Joe Biden was vice president. Is that coincidence that this happened on the same day?” (It was announced later Friday that Trusty resigned as Trump’s attorney.) [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/9/23]

During the network’s purported “straight news” programming, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) claimed, “With the indictment last night that came down on Donald Trump on the day that we looked at evidence of corruption, you know, you’re watching the executive branch trying to take out political enemies because of the accusations against the Biden family.” America’s Newsroom co-anchor Bill Hemmer did not challenge Mace or ask her any further questions on this point. [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 6/9/23]

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

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an 6 23

no lnx vid

Fox News anchor disregards Fox’s own debunks of a GOP claim that an FBI document shows Biden was paid a bribe

Two Fox reporters said a source told the network that “the document does not say Joe Biden received any payments”

WRITTEN BY ZACHARY PLEAT

PUBLISHED 06/09/23 2:02 PM EDT

Fox News anchor Julie Banderas disregarded a Fox reporter who told her moments before that an FBI document trumpeted by Republican lawmakers “does not say Joe Biden received any payments” and instead pushed GOP claims that the president was paid $5 million by Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company his son Hunter worked for.

Another Fox correspondent had reported the same thing the day before, debunking the GOP’s latest smear of the president.

Fox has long pushed false allegations tying President Joe Biden to his son’s work for Burisma, an effort by former President Donald Trump to bring down Biden’s presidential campaign but which succeeded only in leading to Trump’s first impeachment. The GOP’s latest effort in this smear campaign revolves around an FBI document that Republicans claim shows the president was paid a bribe.

On June 9, Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich said during a report on this GOP allegation that “a source familiar with this document tells Fox, ‘To be clear, the document does not say Joe Biden received any payments.’”

Video

CitationFrom the June 9, 2023, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

But just moments later, Banderas ignored Heinrich’s reporting, saying: “Let’s just talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert describing these $5 million payments, which basically were paid to multiple Biden family members, including the current president.”

Video

CitationFrom the June 9, 2023, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

On June 8, Fox senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram similarly reported that “a source familiar with the document tells Fox, quote, ‘The document does not say Joe Biden received any payments.’”

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/response-wildfire-smoke-choking-new-york-city-fox-news-trots-out-tired-climate-denial

June 7, as smoke from hundreds of wildfires raging across Canada turned New York City into a dystopian climate change movie, MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted: “I always thought there would be *some* kind of climate reckoning when it got bad enough but Covid has taught me that, no, people will just step on the gas and happily mow people down so they never have to admit taking a wrong turn."

Too little TV news coverage connected the code red air quality in New York and other impacted U.S. cities to climate change, but Fox News and other right-wing media figures retreated even further from a reckoning, stepping on the climate denial pedal by dismissing the link between global warming and wildfires, attacking those that did, and insisting on alternative explanations for why Canada is having its worst-ever wildfire season.

In fact, at 2 hours and 41 minutes of coverage, Fox News covered the wildfire story more than either CNN (2 hours and 19 minutes) or MSNBC (41 minutes) on June 7 and mentioned climate change (to deny it) more times in its coverage than its counterparts.

Fox News dismisses the link between wildfires and climate change, mocks those that do make the connection

Scientists say wildfires are becoming more severe as “forests around the world increasingly dry out amid the warming climate”, a fact even observed by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. Experts further note that Canada’s wildfire season is a “harbinger of our climate future” with the United Nations warning that by 2090, “global wildfires are expected to increase in intensity by up to 57% thanks to climate change.”  But no amount of evidence, either experiential or academic, changes the tone of the reporting at Fox News when it comes to extreme weather and climate-fueled events.

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade mocks AOC, climate change czar John Kerry, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for connecting the dangerous air quality to climate change: “Every time it’s real hot, climate change. Every time it’s real cold, climate change. When it rains a lot it’s because of climate change. And you guessed it, Canada, with burning forests, 400 separate fires, it’s because of climate change. AOC said it. Of course climate change czar John Kerry said it, and [Karine Jean-Pierre] KJP has one note, listen.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/8/23]

Fox News host Laura Ingraham suggests that coverage of the event is overblown and mocks those reporting the air quality from a climate angle: “Is this really a novel occurrence for our country or is it getting the coverage of the type it’s getting because it's happening along the East Coast where all the elites live?” Ingraham continued: “The apocalyptic coverage in the New York Times today was just absolutely knee-slappingly hilarious. … CNN's Bill Weir, no stranger to hyperbole himself, used the event to call for action to electrify every car in the United States for humanity’s sake." [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/7/23]

Fox News host Sean Hannity accuses Democrats, including AOC, of politicizing the crisis to push their climate agenda: “Tonight, smoke from the Canadian wildfires, they blanketed the entire East Coast of the U.S. creating a scary martian-like scene in New York City especially. And as usual, Democrats, they wasted no time. They went right to politicizing the crisis, AOC using the wildfire and heat wave in Puerto Rico to once again push her radical Green New Deal or the climate alarmist religious cult agenda.” [Fox News, Hannity, 6/7/23]

On Jesse Watters Primetime, climate denier and frequent Fox guest Mark Morano dismissed climate change and accused those making the connection of weaponizing the weather while smoking a cigar: “This is exactly what you would expect to happen. This is Canadian natural disaster mismanagement and now they are trying to blame global warming which makes it, what? Our fault. It's our SUVs. It's our gas stoves which, by the way, didn't New York ban them? Shouldn't we have -- shouldn't wildfires be a thing of the past? I thought they were banning them.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/7/23]

On The Five, Jeanine Pirro accuses AOC and Democrats of “pumping up climate hysteria”: “While Americans choke on the smoke, the far left smells an opportunity. AOC thinks this is a great time to push her Green New Deal. She says that we must, ”Adapt our food systems, energy grids, infrastructure and healthcare to prepare for what's to come". Other Democrats are pumping up climate hysteria and bringing back, you guessed it, mask insanity.” [Fox News, The Five, 6/7/23]

On Outnumbered, the panel mocks AOC for connecting the crisis to climate change while Fox contributor Kennedy suggests that because wildfires existed before “we started talking about the climate crisis” then the science is not settled: “There are a lot of reasons for wildfires. Wildfires have been happening for a long time. Before we started talking about the climate crisis. So, I want to make sure that the science is settled before we completely turf our economy and flush any innovation we have down the toilet because of a tweet from AOC.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/7/23]

Fox turns to its go-to explanation for catastrophic wildfires: It’s poor forest management. And it’s environmentalists’ fault.

Forest management has played some role in the unprecedented wildfire season in Canada — while the role of climate change is also evident and clear. But from watching Fox’s coverage of the fires, you would probably come away with the idea that it’s been Canada’s forest management policies alone driving the worsening fires.

Fox’s jump to shift blame to poor forest management as a tactic to downplay climate change goes back to at least 2018 when Trump first blamed California’s forestry policies while touring the aftermath of the deadly Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise. Fox revived the tactic in full force during California’s apocalyptic 2020 wildfires.

Helping drive the swift move to blame forest management and environmentalists this time around is News Corps darling, Fox News contributor, and New York Post columnist Miranda Devine who wrote a June 7 column, “Smoky New York isn’t climate change — it’s bad forest management,” which has been cited by Fox News personalities and amplified by right-wing media figures online.

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy on Outnumbered: “The real blame is on the climate cult. … They are an anti-human group and they want to shut our forests and close them off to humans and to industry who know how to manage it. And that's what's happening right now.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/8/23]

On the Faulkner Focus, Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz insists that poor forest management is liberals' fault: I hate to tell it you folks but there have been big forest fires for eons probably since the beginning of time. It's ironic to me because the same people who claim they want the Green New Deal, they fight us every single time on the mitigation efforts to manage the forests, clear out the underbrush, clear out the dead trees and clear out the fuel that makes these things so ignite in such big fashion. They will not do that as Democrats and these left-leaning liberals. [Fox News, Faulkner Focus, 6/8/23]

Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy dismissed climate change and redirected the blame to “bad forest management”: “Climate change does not start a fire. It can create dry conditions, and they have really bad dry conditions up in Canada right now. In Canada they are blaming bad forest management because of a very dry winter and they did not get a lot of snow. … Apparently behind the scenes they have not been doing the controlled burns that they should have been doing. And back in 2024 environmentalists wrote a paper and said not enough is being done to fund this kind of forest management and there is going to be hell to pay.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/8/23]

Sean Hannity also suggested that forest management is the main culprit: “Here's what nobody talks about. There is a science. You can get an advanced college degree in forestry. There's something called the controlled burns that climate alarmist cult members are all dead set against. And you see, if you have a controlled burn that prevents the bigger fires like the one they're experiencing in little Justin's neighborhood in Canada that's now making it smoke all the way down here.” [Fox News, Hannity, 6/7/23]

Host Jesse Watters claims that there are fewer wildfires now than 100 years ago to dismiss the role of climate change and prop up the forest management argument:  “You might be surprised to find out over the last 100 years, there have been less wildfires, not more. The Wall Street Journal says in the early 1900s about 4% of land worldwide burned every year by 2021 that was down to 2.5%. So instead of obsessing over climate change they should take a look at forest management.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/7/23]

On The Five co-host Dana Perino blames wildfires on forest management and liberal policies: “Canada is experiencing really bad wildfires on their public lands. We have a similar problem, and it has to do with forest management. The Biden administration has policies that are in direct conflict with one another. … Wildfires can occur naturally of course, but if you are actively managing your forest, then you can prevent some of these things. The left has never wanted to do that.”  [Fox News, The Five, 6/7/23]

Pirro suggests that since only half of Americans believe in climate change that Democrats shouldn’t be linking it to wildfires: Agreeing that poor forest management is the main cause of severe wildfires, Pirro questions why climate change is even part of the discussion: “We’re at a point when I think 49% of Americans believe climate change is caused mostly by human actions, the lowest reported apparently in many years. So why are Democrats, why do they keep pushing climate change over something that could’ve been prevented?" [Fox News, The Five, 6/7/23] HUH?!

Related

National TV news chokes out the climate angle in coverage of Canadian wildfires

06/08/23 2:57 PM EDT

With Canadian wildfires, Fox News follows its COVID playbook

06/08/23

Fox News host Jesse Watters says it’s “normal” for the Northeastern United States to be engulfed in smoke from Canadian wildfires

06/08/23

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cell phones seized

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-anchor-disregards-foxs-own-debunks-gop-claim-fbi-document-shows-biden-was-paid

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/fox-news-runs-ads-mike-huckabees-climate-denial-book-targeted-children

https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/fox-news-responds-federal-trump-indictment-unhinged-demagoguery

former President Donald Trump has been indicted — again — and Fox News personalities are once more rallying behind him. In the hours after news broke that Trump is facing seven federal criminal charges over his mishandling of federal documents, his loyal propagandists denounced the indictment as a “dark day in America” and an attack on American democracy and the rule of law.

Trump wrote on social media Thursday evening that he had been indicted over his mishandling of classified documents. The New York Times later reported that Trump “was charged with a total of seven counts, including willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and an obstruction of justice conspiracy, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Trump had taken government documents with him when he left office and refused to return them, leading to an August search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in which the FBI uncovered a trove of documents bearing classification markings, some at the “top secret” level. Special counsel Jack Smith has been investigating the former president’s conduct for months.

Trump is the first former president ever to face federal criminal charges and is expected to surrender in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday. The charges were not a surprise — even Trump’s own former attorney general Bill Barr had repeatedly acknowledged that the former president’s own conduct put him in serious legal jeopardy.

But on Fox, host Jesse Watters announced the news by saying that “the president, former, calls it the boxes hoax” and suggesting that the indictment was an attempt to distract attention from the House GOP’s investigations of President Joe Biden.

The situation rapidly devolved from there. Over the following hours, Fox’s hosts and the menagerie of Trump cronies and sycophants the network put on the air unleashed unhinged demagoguery.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba called it evidence that we live in a “sick world” with “a two-tier system of justice,” citing the lack of legal punishment for Biden, his son Hunter, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.

Former Trump aide Stephen Miller claimed that “history will record today as the day that we ceased to be a democratic republic and we became a people ruled by an unelected government bureaucracy.”

Former Trump acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker called it “a really sad day for our country” and “the stuff of banana republics.”

For right-wing activist Ned Ryun, it was “late-stage republic behavior. When you use the legal system as a weapon against political opponents, you’ve abandoned the rule of law.”

“What’s going on here is a disgusting disgrace. It is war on Trump, it is war on the Republican Party, and it is a war on the republic,” Fox host Mark Levin screamed. “You have crossed the Rubicon twice, which has never been done, and we will never forgive you — never, ever, and that’s the bottom line,” he added.

“It is a dark day in America,” concluded longtime Trump adviser and Fox host Sean Hannity. “There is no equal justice. There is no equal application of our laws.” He added, “Our system of justice has now been weaponized beyond belief and this country is in serious trouble."

Fox’s furious denunciations may have taken the issue off the table for Trump’s would-be presidential rivals. When Fox’s Harris Faulkner brought on Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who is theoretically running for president against Trump, to discuss the indictment, she asked him, “The bottom line is, you’re a Republican, this was a Republican president, and look at what has happened. Your reaction?” Scott took the hint and issued a rambling response that avoided directly criticizing Trump.

Fox’s over-the-top response is familiar. While some have suggested that the network and its Murdoch owners have turned on the former president, Fox always rises to Trump’s defense at his moments of legal peril.

The network’s stars were similarly furious in March, when Trump was indicted on 34 charges of falsifying business records in a New York state court in connection with the $130,000 hush money payment made to an adult film actress in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign. They urged viewers to treat the charges as an attack on the U.S. Constitution, American democracy, the rule of law, and themselves, while denouncing the prosecutor and his purported “witch hunt.”

Likewise, when news first broke of the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, the Trumpists at Fox denounced it as “the worst attack on this republic in modern history” and part of a “preemptive coup” to prevent Trump’s reelection, among other incendiary claims, with hosts urging viewers to believe that “the real target of this investigation is you.”

The throughline is that any legal attack on Trump is inherently corrupt and a signal that America has been lost — and that, if Trump is brought down, Fox’s viewers may be next.

Trump needs the powerful propaganda apparatus of Fox to keep his supporters in line and his primary opponents at bay, and the network’s hosts and executives are happy to oblige. But we’ve seen the disastrous consequences that can come from Fox’s overheated rhetoric in the former president’s service.

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newsmax fox now run by libs

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-prime-time-ratings-continue-fall-network-weathers-first-full-month-without-tucker

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As NYC is inundated with wildfire smoke, Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ calmly shows link to climate crisis, while Murdoch's Fox News mocks it

WRITTEN BY JOHN WHITEHOUSE

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM SAGE HODIL

PUBLISHED 06/07/23

New York City is currently inundated with a hazardous level of wildfire smoke, making the skies appear yellowish-orange.

The smoke is from wildfires in Canada, which scientists say are “becoming bigger and more frequent” due to climate change, as reliably explained by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal:

Wildfires like those ravaging Canada are becoming bigger and more frequent as forests around the world increasingly dry out amid the warming climate, many scientists say.

Some of the biggest fires are breaking out in the boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere such as most of the ones in Canada. That is because the Arctic region has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the world, said Carly Phillips, a Boston-based research scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In the boreal areas—mostly conifer forests with long winters and short summers—of Canada and Alaska, she said the annual area burned has nearly doubled in the past 60 years, along with an increase in the frequency of large fires. Russia’s vast Siberian forests have been consumed by giant fires too. Phillips said this year’s outbreak, while unprecedented in size, is just following the trend.

“I don’t know if it’s a tipping point, but what this underscores is that the climate crisis is here and now,” Phillips said.

The link is so obvious and uncontroversial that Journal staff members have no problems tweeting it.

And yet, over at Murdoch’s Fox News Channel, this is just another reason for hosts to punch left, this time at frequent target Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who dared to point out that the country has work to do to adapt to the climate crisis.

Video file

Video CitationFrom the June 7, 2023, edition of of Fox News' Outnumbered

None of this is novel. Fox News (and the Journal’s right-wing editorial board) have for years pushed climate denial on the body politic. Now that the effects of the climate crisis are impossible to miss, the network is still refusing to recalibrate.

Like the Dominion case shows, it’s not clear if Fox’s audience — or whatever is left of it — will allow the network to speak the truth.

Either way, I’d recommend that people working at Fox News headquarters in Manhattan buy some high-quality masks. They might even still have some sitting around.

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Wall Street Journal

Climate deniers

climate deniersMORE

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/canadian-wildfires-fox-news-follows-its-covid-playbook

no lnx twit vid

With Canadian wildfires, Fox News follows its COVID playbook

Fox guest on hazardous smoke: “There's no health risk. … Particulate matter is very fine soot. It's just carbon particles — they're innocuous.”

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

PUBLISHED 06/08/23

Fox News hosts and guests and other right-wing media figures are minimizing the public health risk of the cloud of particulate matter from Canadian forest fires that descended on much of the United States this week and mocking people for taking steps to protect themselves.

The coverage is reminiscent of Fox’s disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly its early days, when the network downplayed the potential danger posed by the virus.

Smoke from wildfires in Ontario and Quebec inundated the Midwest and East Coast on Wednesday. Major metropolises were under hazardous air quality warnings, and a reddish-orange haze choked New York City, which at one point had the lowest air quality of any major city in the world. On Thursday, the smoke-filled air is expected to spread further into the Midwest and South even as conditions improve in the Northeast.

Scientists say such wildfires are becoming larger and more frequent as “forests around the world increasingly dry out amid the warming climate,” a fact calmly observed by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal but furiously derided by his Fox employees.

Many major news outlets published reports noting that experts recommend people in affected areas wear high-quality masks to prevent health problems caused by the smoke. Those can include “trouble breathing, burning eyes, dizziness, headache or nausea,” particularly among high-risk populations including children, seniors, and people with respiratory problems including asthma. As Fox medical correspondent Dr. Janette Nesheiwat put it during a Wednesday appearance on Fox News Tonight, “If you do have to go outside, an N-95 can help protect you from that large particulate matter.”

Nesheiwat has a lot of work to do within Fox’s own building if she hopes that message will sink in for its audience. Hosts elsewhere on the network treated the idea of wearing masks in response to the wildfire smoke as a punch line.

On Wednesday afternoon, Jeanine Pirro presented the notion as a left-wing conspiracy, saying, “Democrats are pumping up climate hysteria and bringing back, you guessed it, mask insanity.” That night, Sean Hannity mocked “young, healthy people” for putting on masks, Jesse Watters lashed out at government officials for recommending their use, and Laura Ingraham claimed they “seem a little giddy to be back in the masks” and are promoting “panic porn.”

In fact, Fox’s influential hosts repeatedly downplayed the idea that the wildfire smoke poses any health risk at all.

“I keep reading and hearing reports and people being interviewed — 'I had a hard time breathing' — and I'm like, I'm walking in the same place you're walking in and I don't feel a thing, and I'm trying to understand, and my -- I work out regularly, so I think I'm relatively in tune with my body,” Hannity said. “I think if it was difficult -- if I was having difficulty breathing, I would notice. But these are young people saying this. Are they all snowflakes?”

“Yes,” OutKick host Charly Arnolt replied. “I think people just like to make a big deal out of nothing.”

“Everybody is saying stay inside, but I didn't listen,” Watters said at the top of his show over the chyron “Jesse Braves ‘Hazardous’ Air Quality.”

“Why? Because I love you,” he continued. “I came into the city for you tonight. I braved the smoke so you could watch your favorite show. The air quality is hazardous. ‘Worse than 9/11.’ But, I said, I don't care. The show must go on.”

Ingraham decided that the perspective her viewers needed to hear about the potential health impacts of smoke on the respiratory system was that of Steve Milloy, a notorious climate denier and former cigarette and coal lobbyist who told them they had nothing to fear.

“Steve, no one's denying it is unpleasant. My eyes are pretty itchy and watery, yesterday and a little bit today, and it might go on for a couple more days,” Ingraham said after introducing her guest. “But is this wholly out of the ordinary?”

“No. This happens anytime there's a wildfire in the West. I mean, it's unusual in the East. Look, the air is ugly, it's unpleasant to breathe, and for a lot of people, they get anxiety over it. But the reality is there's no health risk,” Milloy replied. “We have this kind of air in India and China all the time — no public health emergency.” (Both countries reportedly see more than 1 million premature deaths a year from air pollution.)

“This doesn't kill anybody, this doesn't make anybody cough, this is not a health event,” he further explained.

“Particulate matter is very fine soot. It's just carbon particles — they’re innocuous,” Milloy later added. “There's nothing in them. They have no effect.”

Video

CitationFrom the June 7, 2023, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Meanwhile, at Fox’s cable news competitor Newsmax, host Greg Kelly highlighted the upside of the hazardous levels of smoke blanketing New York City. “I'll tell you, it actually smells like wood smoke. It's not an unpleasant odor, to be honest,” he said. “It is pretty, it actually is pretty. It's a beautiful, interesting aura the city has right now.”

The modern right-wing media ecosystem is defined less by its ideology than its grievances. Popular figures within that milieu, for reasons financial and partisan, despise Democrats, liberals, experts, and the mainstream press, which they consider one and the same, and reflexively oppose whatever those hated entities support.

That reflexive opposition became lethal when COVID-19 spread across the United States. Fox News hosts initially told their viewers, incorrectly, that the virus was no more deadly than the flu and urged them to treat it as a Democratic hoax to damage President Donald Trump. Later, they endorsed untested and ineffective COVID-19 “cures” while downplaying the effectiveness of masks, social distancing, and vaccines.

This irresponsible coverage assuredly led to the deaths of Fox viewers. But virtually no one at the network was held accountable for their actions during a public health crisis, so now they are following the same playbook.

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06/07

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an 6 23

no lnx

fox News' willingness to promote the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump has cost the right-wing cable news outlet a lot of time and money.

In April, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787,500 to settle a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. And Fox News is still facing a separate $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion competitor Smartmatic.

On Monday, June 5, Democratic Oregon Ellen Rosenblum announced that she was conducting an investigation of Fox Corp.'s board of directors — which, she alleges, may have failed to live up to its obligations when it promoted the Big Lie. The Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund, according to the Associated Press, owns over 250,000 shares of Fox stock.

READ MORE: 'Extremely poor judgement': GOP Oregon House minority leader apologizes after her son gives a Nazi salute

Rosenblum is conducting the investigation with Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read, a fellow Democrat.

Rosenblum announced, "Treasurer Read and I believe that Fox's board of directors breached its fiduciary duties by allowing Fox News to broadcast false claims that Dominion and Smartmatic rigged the 2020 presidential election. We hope to hold the board accountable and protect the long-term value of Oregon's investment in Fox Corp."

Oregon's state attorney general has a track record when it comes to pushing back against MAGA election lies.

In December 2020, 12 Republicans serving in the Oregon State Legislature sent Rosenblum a letter asking her to join far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit — which urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the election results in four states that President Joe Biden won: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.

READ MORE: Smartmatic vows to 'expose the rest' of Fox News' 'misconduct'

But Rosenblum did the exact opposite. Instead of joining Paxton in Texas v. Pennsylvania, she expressed her total contempt for his lawsuit — which the High Court rejected.

On December 11, 2021, Rosenblum tweeted, "Today I joined 22 AGs in filing a brief opposing Texas' last-minute attempt to have the U.S. Supreme Court take the election from the American people. Texas has no business interfering in other states' elections! The sooner the Court rejects this latest outrage, the better."

READ MORE :'I'm stuck with Fox': Unredacted Tucker Carlson texts highlight post-election turmoil at Fox News

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George Will: Fox News’ $787.5 million Dominion settlement was 'good for the law' ›

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note covid fail

odd for HOST to ref satan? vs guest?

https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-anchor-fabricating-story/

no lnx twt

'Complete lie': Fox News anchor allegedly fabricated story during primetime guest hosting gig

David Badash andThe New Civil Rights Movement June 07, 2023

After firing its star host, Tucker Carlson, Fox News has been scheduling its other anchors to fill in as guest hosts on a week-by-week basis, with some viewers, if not network brass, seeing these as auditions.

This week Harris Faulkner, host of the far-right network’s “The Faulkner Focus” and co-host of “Outnumbered,” filled in during what was once Carlson’s slot.

Reaction online has not been positive.

On Monday, Faulkner claimed she had been kicked out of a restaurant for praying, in what The Wrap called a “blistering, biblical monologue about the ongoing ‘attack’ on the Christian faith in America.”

“We know who we are. And we know who’s we are,” Faulkner told the dwindling Fox News audience. “For those of us who believe, we must be bold in our faith right now. When you gather in public spaces pray thankfully over your food, even when the server gives you the stink-eye, or tells the manager that your peaceful grace is triggering them. Had it happen to me. I’ve been asked to leave a restaurant for openly bowing my head in prayer hands. In America. It’s all good. They don’t deserve my money anyway.”

Many demanded Faulkner name the restaurant, or provide proof. Among them, The Daily Beast’s senior media reporter Justin Baragona, who tweeted, Monday night, “I’m going to ask Fox News PR if Harris Faulkner can provide the name of the restaurant and date when this happened. Will update if I receive a response.”

READ MORE: Pence Presidential Launch Mocked for Suggesting Drag Queens Are Assaulting ‘American Values’ – With No Mention of Trump

Baragona has yet to state he’s received a response.

Another doubter is Republican former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who wrote: “We need the name of this restaurant and when it happened. If true that’s awful. IF it’s not true… which seems most likely the case… then there needs to be accountability. Lies are not the tool of the Lord. And the USA isn’t his god.”

During that same monologue, as The Daily Beast noted, Faulkner told Fox News viewers: “Women and children are being redesigned by some sort of mad leftist science experiment.”

“It’s as though people on the left have more free time than anybody else. They want to acronym and pronoun us to death,” she said, apparently taking a swing at the LGBTQ community. “Well know this: the Lord has determined I am a woman, and my pronouns are U.S.A.”

“We are in a spiritual fight for the soul of America,” she also claimed, “and if you think that’s not true, take a look around at what’s going on. The devil has gotten into some people. The worst part of experiencing our country ripping at the seams is that our enemies are massing, feasting on the tastiness of our weaknesses.”

Baragona pointed out, “In her first night on primetime filling in for Tucker’s old timeslot, Harris Faulkner drew 1.59 million total viewers and just 105,000 in the 25-54 advertising demographic, finishing behind CNN and MSNBC in the demo. Tucker averaged 3.26 million total viewers last quarter.”

READ MORE: ‘Isn’t There a Beach in Mexico Waiting for You?’: Cruz Mocked for Claiming Garland Will Indict Trump Over SCOTUS Seat Loss

Former CNN media reporter Brian Stelter added, “And Jen Psaki was filling in at 8 on MSNBC,” suggesting MSNBC might have had fewer regular viewers during that time slot.

But the real outrage came on Tuesday, when Faulkner delivered what many deemed an outright “lie,” and served up proof of their accusations.

Faulker told Fox News viewers, “You know, we didn’t actually close schools in 1918, during the Spanish flu pandemic.”

That’s false. Provably false.

“And sometimes we make dangerously bad decisions, like pandemic lockdowns and keeping our own children home from schools when a virus was hurting them far less often than adults,” she said, ignoring the fact that family transmission often started with children (see below.) “You know, we didn’t actually close schools in 1918 during the Spanish flu pandemic. We didn’t even have penicillin back then. We did sacrifice. We suffered but then we pressed on. Our enemies hate us for surviving, but they would love to be like us.”

“This is blatantly untrue and takes about 3 seconds to fact check,” observed Media Matters for America’s Kat Abu.

And fact check many did.

Some noted that penicillin is an antibiotic, not an antiviral, and would have had no effect on the “Spanish flu,” an erroneous term (the first case identified was in the U.S.) for what is broadly known as the 1918 flu pandemic. The CDC says, “The 1918 H1N1 flu pandemic, sometimes referred to as the “Spanish flu,” killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including an estimated 675,000 people in the United States.”

READ MORE: Buttigieg: Republicans Are Targeting LGBTQ People Because They ‘Don’t Want to Talk About’ Their Own ‘Radical Positions’

Attorney Brad Moss, calling Faulkner’s claim a “complete lie,” also tweeted: “Utter and total falsity. You would think these fools would have some shame after paying Dominion hundreds of millions of dollars.”

And he came with receipts, including a screenshot of a New York Times article from October, 1918, noting the entire state of Pennsylvania had “indefinitely” shut down all schools, churches, theaters, and “all places of public assemblage.”

Others pointed to a PBS article from 2020 that reads: “During the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, when an estimated 675,000 people died in the United States alone, the majority of public schools were closed for weeks to months on end. But three major cities — New York City, Chicago, and New Haven — kept their schools open amid valid questions and concerns about safety.”

So false was Faulkner’s claim, a readers’ note was added to video of it. It points to a study that states: “During the 1918–19 influenza pandemic, many local authorities made the controversial decision to close schools.”

Others on social media pointed to an article published last week by the University of Minnesota: “More than 70% of US household COVID spread started with a child, study suggests.”

As for Faulkner’s claim that, “Our enemies hate us for surviving, but they would love to be like us,” the U.S. ranks 15th worst among all countries around the world in COVID deaths per capita.

Meanwhile, Baragona also weighed in, noting: “Throughout the height of the pandemic, Harris Faulkner would only broadcast her show from the safety of her house.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-jesse-watters-claims-fbi-installed-joe-biden-president-intelligence-op-after

omg mm a 6 23

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): Powerful people installed Biden so that he can take orders, not give them. Joe Biden's been groomed his whole career to take orders. And now that he's literally slept his way to the top, they won't let him go anywhere. The FBI put their guy in the White House. "You think we're just going to, like, let voters decide if he should serve four more years? We can't afford to take that risk."

Joe Biden has been an intelligence op since he was vice president. One of the FBI's top informants, a guy with impeccable credentials, a great track record, reported an allegation that Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe -- right under Barack Obama's nose -- from a foreign national in exchange for a policy decision. They've been blackmailing Joe Biden with this for a decade. Well, until a whistleblower came forward. And now, James Comer wants the document released to Congress and the FBI's caught in a cover-up.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/jeanine-pirro/foxs-jeanine-pirro-appears-christian-nationalist-program-flashpoint-warn-takedown

On May 30, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro joined the Christian nationalist show FlashPoint for an interview where she pushed Christian nationalist rhetoric about a supposed “takedown of religion,” framed American Christians as increasingly under attack from “transgender nonsense,” and announced that she will be at the show's in-person “tent revival” event in June.

FlashPoint, a show that Rolling Stone recently described as “a rising media platform for Christian nationalists,” airs twice weekly on The Victory Channel’s TV and streaming channels, including on Rumble. The show is helmed by a panel of regular contributors who are longtime Christian nationalist figures and self-proclaimed “prophets,” including pro-Trump “prophets” Lance Wallnau and Hank Kunneman. Wallnau and Kunneman often push hard-right politics and make apocalyptic predictions about political opponents. In the last few months, Wallnau has called Biden the “antichrist,” referred to opponents of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill as the “trans taliban,” and warned that God may soon start killing those who are “persecuting” Trump, while Kunneman said last year that Biden should be in prison for “treason” and a “demonic agenda.”

Christian nationalism, which contends that the U.S. is a fundamentally Christian nation and should be governed by right-wing Christian beliefs, has been on the rise in Republican politics and among right-wing media figures. FlashPoint has seemingly leveraged this wave of Christian nationalism to attract more mainstream conservative media figures as guests, including Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, former President Donald Trump, and now, Fox’s Jeanine Pirro.

Pirro, who currently co-hosts Fox’s top-rated program The Five, appeared on the May 30 edition of FlashPoint, where the host, megapastor Gene Bailey, noted that his audience is “mainly conservative Christians” and that the show is not “fair and balanced,” adding, “We're the — way to the right of center. We’re unabashedly bold about who we are.” (Unlike Fox’s former motto “fair and balanced.”) The host asked Pirro: “When you see the left and what they’re doing, what is it you think … our audience needs to know that you feel like most of America doesn't understand about this current situation?”

Pirro warned the audience of a “takedown of religion” and erosion of “Judeo-Christian ethics” in America, claiming, “America is moving so far from that foundation that we are in a dangerous point that every person who is a person of religion or a person of God understands the inherent dangers of what is happening in America today.” Pirro elaborated that due to moving away from religion, “we are flirting with the kind of destiny that only destroyed nations and fallen empires find themselves in.” During the interview, Pirro also framed Christians as persecuted and warned that “people of faith need to worry about not just what's being taught in schools in terms of transgender nonsense, but what is happening in our society today against religion." [vid]

gENE BAILEY (HOST): When you see the left and what they're doing, what is it that you think — now our audience, Judge, is mainly conservative Christians — we don't say we're fair and balanced. We say we're the — way to the right of center. We're unabashedly bold about who we are. What is it that our audience needs to know that you feel like most of America doesn't understand about this current situation?

JEANINE PIRRO (GUEST): Well, you know, I think that — look, this country was found on the Judeo-Christian ethics. We, you know, when I was the judge in my courtroom above my bench, it said “In God we trust.” I think that America is moving so far from that foundation that we are in a dangerous point that every person who is a person of religion or a person of God understands the inherent dangers of what is happening in America today.

We are flirting with the kind of destiny that only destroyed nations and fallen empires find themselves in. And so that's why I wrote the book Crimes Against America. What the left is doing to our children in schools and to Americans across the board, and especially to those believers, people who believed in God and are faith-driven, is it is destroying them.

And, you know, we saw it with the Dobbs decision. When our own Department of Justice would not follow its own rules of making an arrest of anyone who is parading or protesting in front of a Supreme Court justice’s home in the hope of getting them to change their opinion. Not one of those people was arrested, but you could rest assured that everyone, everyone who was involved in any way — and some of them who were clearly innocent and found to be not guilty by juries later — who got involved in any kind of pro-choice objection ended up being arrested and ended up being prosecuted.

But any of the pro-life centers or the pregnancy centers, any of the attacks on them were not even — they were not even investigated. And so, when you look at what is happening, the takedown of religion in America, it forebodes a very difficult future.

…

And I think that people of faith need to worry about not just what's being taught in schools in terms of transgender nonsense, but what is happening in our society today against religion.

Pirro was also recently announced as a guest for an in-person FlashPoint Live “tent revival” event next week. Past FlashPoint Live events have made headlines for their overt Christian nationalism and for appearances by high-profile Republican politicians such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). One of FlashPoint’s regular guests, right-wing apostle Dutch Sheets, prayed over Greene at one such event and insisted she was “covered in the blood of Jesus.”

In addition to the Christian nationalist figures such as Wallnau and Kunneman appearing at FlashPoint Live’s June 8-9 event in Ohio along with Pirro, the lineup includes actor Jim Caviezel, who recently openly embraced the QAnon conspiracy.

[vid]

pirro’s interview on FlashPoint and upcoming “tent revival” appearance are just two examples of Fox’s apparent connections to the Christian nationalist movement. Fox has regularly hosted Russ Vought, the Christian nationalist figure who is reportedly advising Republicans on how to gut the federal aid programs, and the network has also propped up a harassment campaign against libraries that pushed the movement’s talking points. Additionally, since November, Fox Business has been profiting from weekly sermons from a Christian nationalist pastor airing on the network as paid programming.

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i thot fox corp backed desantis?

https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/sean-hannity-promises-he-wont-challenge-or-fact-check-donald-trump-during-iowa-town

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