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bartiromo 2 maria

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NOW CURRENT 12 23 FMRLY BAK

bad trinity pending

DENIAL CLEAN COAL ZELDIN JRNL FAIL

SEE JRNL FAIL

MERRI OK

#1 anti-commie Harris

huge smartmatic liability?

crm echo escalator?

alt fact ignore #

SEE DENIAL ZELDIN WRIGHT HEAT DEATH

sunday talk? jordan

see trump projection hype conspiracy

xeno racism pending immigrant illegal alien voters

see moore ben stein winner fox biz

see paxton LULAC raid illegals vote BS

221 2ndary on miller

FAIL BIDEN IMPEACH SCHMIRNOV

bak 11 22

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see dominion discovery

https://www.alternet.org/maria-bartiromo-admitted-president-elect/}:

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MMA

Newsmax is attacking Fox for ousting Maria Bartiromo

Written by Jason Campbell

Published 09/11/26

Welcome back to Media Matters’ weekly newsletter. This week:

This week's infighting

Newsmax attacks Fox for ousting Maria Bartiromo

Excuse me?

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

Fox News has claimed that high gas prices would be temporary at least 188 times since the beginning of Trump’s conflict with Iran

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ARI MELBER , WANTS CNN CEO FIRED BY FEDS?

President Donald Trump's top trade adviser appeared on MS NOW on Wednesday and said it is a "dirty little secret" that Fox News settled for $700 million after telling defamatory lies about the 2020 presidential election for one reason: They didn't want network founder Rupert Murdoch on the stand.

Peter Navarro appeared on Ari Melber's show and called for Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to be fired after one of their on-air talents, Maria Bartiromo, was fired after sharing an internal corporate memo with Navarro in which Scott told people not to amplify the same discredited election theft claims that previously got them sued.

"There was no expectation of confidentiality," Navarro said. "There was an expectation that the White House would be informed,' adding that "basically, what Suzanne Scott should have done when the White House contacted her was apologize and acknowledge that it was disrespectful to the president and to people in this country — not to have that network even talk about the address."

Navarro was referring to Trump's July speech in which he heavily implied that China had meddled in the 2020 elections in a way that ultimately caused the contest to go to his opponent, Joe Biden, instead of himself. Critics overwhelmingly agree that the speech did nothing to verify Trump's discredited claim that the election was stolen from him.

From there Navarro argued that Fox News had "censored" Trump's July speech, which Melber pointed out was not true. They covered it, but declined to do so either live or without fact-checking Trump's various claims.

"It was aired, not censored," Melber said, adding that it seemed like Navarro was arguing that the government should be able to tell networks what to cover and not to cover, including disproved claims about election theft. Navarro reiterated his call for Scott to be fired for not covering Trump's election fraud claims, although he added that he was speaking only for himself and not for the White House.

Overall, Navarro complained that Fox News only agreed with Trump on some issues but not on others.

"There's this misconception among viewers on the right and left that somehow that Fox is a conservative messenger and supports Donald Trump and. Fox in a heartbeat will tell you about transgender stuff and illegal aliens rape and killing as well they should," Navarro told Melber, before complaining that "there's certain guardrails they put up. Election integrity is one that you mentioned."

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an 9 26

MAGA launches 'revolt' after shock ouster at Fox News

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rww 9 26

Bartiromo took her loyalty to Donald Trump too far for even Fox.

The longtime host’s high-profile lawyer claims Bartiromo is “still employed” by the network and suggests legal action.

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Maria Bartiromo is out at Fox. What took so long?

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 09/04/26

My latest for MS NOW is about Fox’s decision to cut ties with network veteran and Trump loyalist Maria Bartiromo:

Fox News Media announced on Thursday that it had parted ways with longtime host Maria Bartiromo with a brusque 22-word statement: “We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 1/2 years and wish her all the best on her next chapter.” As soon as the announcement was made, media observers wondered: What development led to her long tenure’s abrupt end?

The answer says a lot about Fox’s unprecedented role in the political landscape, its unhealthy relationship with the president, and the ongoing fallout of Trump’s obsession with unhinged conspiracy theories.

Even among her network’s assembly of Trump friends, former employees and family members, Bartiromo stood out for her zealotry and close ties to the president. Once an award-winning financial reporter and anchor at CNBC, she joined Fox in 2013. As Trump rose to political power, she aggressively rebranded as an unrestrained MAGA warrior. She was so loyal that, according to a book by Axios’ Alex Isenstadt, Trump considered her for his 2024 running mate.

Read the whole thing.

mma

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926 an DING DONG, WHY NOW?

Bartiromo lawyer 'threatening legal showdown' as war with Fox explodes

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MMA

Steve Bannon: Maria Bartiromo “got fired because she wanted to come forward the last couple of weeks and talk about John Solomon, ... the task force, Pulte, all of it”

  1. 09/04/26

Newsmax's Greg Kelly speculates that Maria Bartiromo may have been let go from Fox over a “rivalry” between Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump

  1. 09/04/26

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AN 9 26

Status reports that it has uncovered the reason behind Fox News’ firing of veteran entertainer Maria Bartiromo, the business journalist who became a source of right-wing conspiracies.

The Rupert Murdoch-controlled network offered no explanation for her removal, but hours after her dismissal, Status believes it has the answer: Bartiromo, 58, had informed the White House about Fox’s secret instructions to not promote President Donald Trump’s election conspiracies on the air.

Status report that Fox News had instructed senior management to divert coverage of Trump’s primetime address to the nation, wherein he claimed that China had interfered in the 2020 presidential election to benefit Joe Biden. Trump also ravaged the U.S. election system without proof, but neglected to mention Russian interference favoring his own election.

The White House was apparently surprised that its chief propaganda network opted to avoid Trump’s lie-filled address, and mined Bartiromo for an explanation. And it soon dragged the reason out of her. According to Status, Bartiromo even shared the text message that relayed the network’s orders for the White House blackout.

After the network betrayal, Fox managers scrubbed Bartiromo’s presence from the network, with Fox Business Network already taking down her contributor page.

According to the statement, "Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media. In making the announcement, FOX News Media said, 'We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 and a half years and wish her all the best in her next chapter."

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MMA TRUMP MANTRA ECON NEVER BETTER EVER; FOX BRIEFLY HONEST ON JOB #?

Fox argues the Trump economy is “booming” as many indicators show otherwise

Trump has overseen multiple months of job losses, slower economic growth, and higher inflation while also kicking millions of Americans off their health insurance and food assistance

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 08/11/26

Many on Fox News and Fox Business are arguing that the economy under President Donald Trump is “booming” and “going gangbusters,” even though many months of the Trump administration have included job losses, inflation remains elevated, wages are stagnant, and economic growth remains below the second half of the Biden administration. Fox is also pushing for Republicans to run on the economy during the upcoming midterm elections, even though many policies supported by Trump and other Republicans are making food, healthcare, prescription drugs, and other necessities more expensive or harder to access.

Fox argues that the Trump economy is strong, urges Republicans to message on “how good this economy is”

Yet multiple economic indicators during the second Trump administration have been poor

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mma omg

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

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

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Published 07/09/26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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MMA

June 26, 2026, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria Bartiromo

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Meanwhile there's this, Kevin O'Leary appeared as a guest on this program back on May 11 and discussed the ongoing controversy surrounding his planned data center project in Utah. Now, he made certain claims relating to the opponents of that project. Mr. O'Leary has now corrected the record and explained that he has no evidence that the Alliance for a Better Utah, Elevate Strategies, Josh Kanter, Taylor Knuth, or Gabrielle Finlayson are funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party. Fox News Media is likely — likewise aware of no evidence that they are funded by or acting at the direction of or in coordination with Chinese interests in opposing Kevin O'Leary's project. Fox News Media apologizes for the error.

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GONE A WHILE ON FAIL?

MMA

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

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

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 01/13/26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MMA //

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

09/24/25 5:17 PM EDT

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

09/26/25 2:39 PM EDT

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

09/03/25

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Fox's Maria Bartiromo celebrates the president’s son’s company winning a Pentagon contract | Media Matters for America

MMA 4 26

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MMA

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

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Ilana Berger

Published 12/10/25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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an 12 25

bartir?

Fox host admits layoffs under Trump at highest point in decades

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MMA

November 20, 2025, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

Later in the program, a guest touched on the downward revisions, mentioning the changes to attack the BLS, much like Fox has done in the past — but didn’t mention that the August jobs numbers had turned negative.

Bartiromo continued promoting the jobs report as “a good report” on America’s Newsroom, saying that it shows “an economy that is growing, an economy that is producing jobs.”

Later on America’s Newsroom, Fox Business correspondent Edward Lawrence said: “This could be considered a blowout report.”

On Fox & Friends, Fox Business host Jackie DeAngelis said, “This is a good report … by all accounts,” and added that the four-year high unemployment rate “is not a great headline for the president,” and that “people will look at that and maybe think the economy isn’t doing well, but it actually is.”

While Fox personalities were praising this jobs report, they didn’t mention that it showed that the economy lost 4,000 jobs in August. From the September jobs report:

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised down by 7,000, from +79,000 to +72,000, and the change for August was revised down by 26,000, from +22,000 to -4,000. With these revisions, employment in July and August combined is 33,000 lower than previously reported.

As a reminder, Fox was so pessimistic about the employment situation in August that, before that month’s report came out, network personalities began excusing an expected weak month of job growth by echoing President Donald Trump’s attack on the Bureau of Labor Statistics and its data production.

Crucially, and contrary to Fox's spin, these September data and prior month revisions are not giving a snapshot of the economy right now.

The data for September predates the historic government shutdown, which shaved billions of dollars from the economy and is likely to have coincided with significant job losses — the payroll firm ADP estimated the private sector was losing 11,250 per week in October.

And due to complications from the government shutdown, the Labor Department has canceled the official BLS employment situation for October.

Some economic experts have also pointed out that the September jobs report was, in fact, not particularly strong.

New York Times chief economics correspondent Ben Casselman noted that “this is the highest the unemployment rate has been since October 2021, when the economy was still emerging from the COVID pandemic.”

Harvard University economics professor Jason Furman called it “a weakish jobs report,” noting that the “3-month average is only 62K” jobs created.

Economics writer Joey Politano wrote: “The unemployment rate for Black Americans remained at 7.5% in September, the highest level since 2021 and a nearly 1.9% increase from the start of this year.”

Fox itself had attacked President Joe Biden over one September jobs report during his term of office that featured significantly more job gains than the most recent data. In 2023, Fox Business host Charles Payne declared that the 336,000 job gains initially estimated for that September — nearly three times more than in this jobs report — “was not a strong jobs report.”

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  1. ### As the August jobs report showed a weakening economy, Fox cast doubt on the data before it was even released

09/05/25 11:48 AM EDT

  1. ### On Fox Business, Stephen Moore reacts to weak jobs report: “I think this is all a result of — this disappointing number — is a result of all the turmoil over tariffs and and the trade wars”

08/01/25 11:13 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox celebrates “amazing” April jobs report despite downward revisions

05/02/25

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

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 11/19/25 MMA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10/12/18 12:13 PM EDT

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

10/20/18 2:20 PM EDT

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

10/24/25

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MMA

  1. ### Fox’s Maria Bartiromo embraces raising the retirement age for Social Security

10/07/25

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MMA 10 25

Frequent Fox appearances are central to the Trump administration's climate and energy misinformation strategy

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Research contributions from Harrison Ray

Published 09/29/25

Fox News and Fox Business have not simply covered President Donald Trump’s destructive climate and environmental agenda — they have served as the administration’s preferred vehicles for selling it to the public.

Since late July, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have made dozens of appearances across Fox News and Fox Business programs to defend the proposed repeal of the EPA’s endangerment finding, shift blame for soaring electricity bills away from fossil fuel volatility, and portray offshore wind projects as both unreliable and dangerous.

By turning to Fox networks, senior Trump officials gain a platform where destructive environmental deregulation is framed as common sense and basic policy questions are never asked. What emerges from these appearances is not legitimate debate or accountability journalism, but a symbiotic relationship that allows the Trump administration to launder harmful misinformation through Fox’s news and opinion programming — leaving viewers with a distorted picture of climate science, energy policy, and the real stakes of the administration’s environmental rollbacks.

Topline findings

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin

Zeldin has leaned on Fox’s coverage to launder claims that climate regulations are illegitimate and that reliance on renewable energy is driving economic pain.

During the August 13 episode of Fox Business’ Kudlow, Zeldin argued that the endangerment finding — a 2009 scientific determination that provided the legal framework for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions — rested on “a lot of mental leaps” and claimed that “the Clean Air Act doesn’t make any reference to the greenhouse gases.” (In reality, the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA ruling explicitly found that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Act.) He paired that dismissal with charges that Obama-era scientific findings were exaggerated and “pessimistic,” and closed the segment by promoting natural gas pipelines as the only path to affordable energy and job growth.

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From the August 13, 2025, episode of Fox Business' Kudlow

Energy Secretary Chris Wright

Wright has similarly leaned on Fox to attack renewable energy as too costly, unreliable, and an obstacle to America’s economic and technological ambitions. He also used his appearances to make sweeping claims that fossil fuel expansion is the only realistic path forward and to blame renewable energy for electricity price increases.

During a segment about the “importance of unleashing U.S. energy” to meet growing demand from artificial intelligence on the September 4 episode of Fox & Friends, Wright told viewers that artificial intelligence represents “perhaps the highest use of electricity.” Later that day on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, Wright described offshore wind projects as a “guaranteed” driver of higher electricity costs, telling host Laura Ingraham that wind and solar are “variable, parasitic sources” that make the power grid less reliable and more expensive. He also claimed that by adopting offshore wind, the United States would be “competing for the most expensive electricity in the world.” Ingraham did raise the issue of higher electricity costs during the Trump administration but allowed Wright to spin, evade, and double down on falsely blaming renewable energy.

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From the September 4, 2025, edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum

Burgum has also used Fox appearances to promote the administration’s fossil fuel expansion agenda while attacking renewables as unreliable and costly.

During the August 2 episode of Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street, Burgum defended the administration’s proposed rollback of the endangerment finding, agreeing with Zeldin and Wright that the EPA had overstepped its authority. He also blamed increased energy costs on Obama- and Biden-era climate regulations, pushed deregulation as a way to unleash economic growth, and attacked offshore wind.

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From the August 2, 2025, episode of Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street

For example, on Kudlow, after Zeldin dismissed the endangerment finding as “a lot of mental leaps,” Fox host and former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow never pointed out that it was grounded in the Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision and decades of scientific consensus. Nor did viewers hear that it has prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and delivered billions in net economic benefits.

And when Wright insisted that renewables drive up electricity prices on The Ingraham Angle, the Fox host did not mention that analysts instead point to fossil fuel volatility, surging demand from AI data centers, and Trump’s own decision to roll back and cancel renewable energy projects as the primary drivers of increased electricity costs.

On Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, as Burgum railed against offshore wind energy and celebrated coal and gas as the foundation of energy dominance, Bartiromo never noted that solar energy combined with battery storage is now the cheapest and fastest-to-build source of new power, or that clinging to coal plants saddles consumers with higher bills while increasing pollution. Instead, the segment cast fossil fuels as the only reliable option, ignoring the economic and health benefits of renewables.

The Trump administration’s reliance on Fox News and Fox Business is not incidental; it is a core communications strategy. By prioritizing their appearances on Fox networks, officials like Zeldin, Wright, and Burgum gain access to a powerful megaphone while shielding themselves from scrutiny or accountability. Fox’s “straight news” programs give their talking points the appearance of neutrality, and its opinion hosts repeat and amplify those same claims until they harden into conventional wisdom.

The result is the laundering of misleading talking points: Administration officials feed misinformation into Fox, the network recycles and legitimizes it, and audiences are left with a propagandistic narrative that obscures the public health costs of climate change and environmental deregulation and dismisses the economic benefits of clean energy.

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Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo pushes raising retirement age for Social Security

09/18/25

MMA

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

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/21/25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bartiromo still has both of her “news” shows.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He retains his Fox prime-time show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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an 7 25

Former Vox journalist Aaron Rupar noticed even Fox News reporting unexpected rising inflation on Thursday.

“The PCE price index: This is the number that the fed pegs its 2 percent inflation target to. It came in hotter than expected, rising for the second month 2.6 percent,” said an analyst on Fox News ‘Mornings with Maria’ with host Maria Bartiromo. “The expectation was 2.5 percent.”

Reuters similarly reported the PCE price index advancing 2.6 percent after increasing 2.4 percent in May. Economists suspected businesses were still “selling inventory accumulated before President Donald Trump's sweeping import duties came into effect.” However, they expected goods prices to rise in the second half, with businesses passing on higher costs from Trump’s tariffs to consumers.

READ MORE: 'You guys made this happen': Dems find a way to stick it to a furious GOP

Social media took the news bitterly, with one critic posting on X that “You didn’t have to show me these numbers for me to know that inflation is rising. Everything is getting more expensive.”

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“We can feel it in our wallets, everything is more expensive and Trump is to blame for it,” said another commenter on X.

Virginia Democratic organization Arlington Democrats labeled the inflation hike “Trumpflation” and added that Trump’s tariff “are crushing Americans.”

“It’s almost as if electing a s————— businessman and letting him run roughshod over our economy was a really bad idea,” said another critic.

READ MORE: Behind the real reason Americans voted for Trump

A recent CBS News/YouGov poll revealed 50 percent of U.S. adults beleive Trump’s policies were affecting them financially, with only 18 percent of respondents saying they felt better off. Additionally, as inflation rises, MSNBC reports there are signs that people are holding Trump responsible for the increasing prices. The same CBS poll found a whopping 62% believe Trump’s policies are making food and groceries more expensive.

A recent Fox News poll found 62 percent of voters disapproving of Trump’s handling of inflation.

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Fox scrambles as Trump tariffs start to show up in prices and inflation accelerates

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 07/15/25

Fox News is continuing its previous celebrations and defenses of President Donald Trump's destructive tariff impulses as evidence shows that prices are accelerating and a key inflation indicator jumped to its highest level in four months. Trump’s sycophants on Fox deny the tariffs have anything to do with the acceleration as his massive country-by-country tariffs are set to resume in just two weeks.

The June Consumer Price Index report, released July 15, showed that inflation increased at a monthly rate of 0.3% — well above the previous monthly rate of 0.1% in May — and increased at a 2.7% annual rate. According to CNBC, “the annual rate is the highest since February and still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.”

The report also noted that furniture and clothing prices increased last month, data points that economists have pointed out were likely impacted by Trump’s tariffs.

Ernie Tedeschi, the director of economics for Yale’s Budget Lab, explained: “The impact of tariffs is becoming more salient. Apparel, which had seen cool inflation the last 2 months, grew 0.4% in June. Household furnishings grew 1%. Video & audio electronics grew 1.1%.”

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Center for Economic and Policy Research senior economist Dean Baker wrote, “Trump's Big Beautiful tariffs are showing up in the data. The index for household furnishing and supplies (appliances and other household goods) rose 1.0 percent in June.”

Bloomberg’s chief U.S. economist Anna Wong stated, “Clear signs that tariffs pass through to CPI has picked up in June.”

Harvard University professor and former Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jason Furman wrote: “You can see signs of tariffs in these numbers and that is only likely to grow.”

Meanwhile, Fox Business is denying that Trump’s tariffs are having any impact on price increases in its coverage of the inflation report. On Mornings with Maria, anchor Maria Bartiromo said, “You’ve got to look at this report as another victory for President Trump, who has focused on reigning in inflation, and that’s what we’re seeing from this report.” Former Trump CEA acting Chair Tomas Philipson responded, “What’s happening in this CPI has very little to do with tariffed markets, tariffed goods.”

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From the July 15, 2025, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

On Varney & Co., right-wing economist Art Laffer said tariffs are having “almost zero” impact on prices, and insisted that tariffs cause prices to decline rather than increase, citing the impact of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs enacted during the Great Depression. Laffer also argued that news reports explaining that Trump’s tariffs are contributing to accelerating inflation are wrong.

Fox’s praise for Trump amid an acceleration in the inflation rate stands in stark contrast to how the MAGA network covered inflation under former President Joe Biden, having specifically attacked the president over inflation even as it declined or remained flat.

Experts have long predicted that Trump’s agenda of universal tariffs and mass deportation would be inflationary, with 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists previously signing a letter warning that Trump would “reignite” inflation if he won the 2024 election. Indeed, the inflationary effect of Trump's tariffs may worsen as he continues threatening massive tariff increases on products from dozens of countries beginning August 1.

// Fox’s Lara Trump credits the president for “miraculous” drop in prices — but prices are actually higher

06/04/25 4:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox claims Trump's tariffs will restore American manufacturing. Experts say they are hurting business.

04/17/25 3:54 PM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media knives are out for Trump’s tariff advisers

04/14/25

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fox biz bs bartir sacks pro stablecoin big win for prez agenda

40 yr old now blockchain?! jpm

GENIUS Act passing is a 'big win' for the crypto community, Trump's agenda: David Sacks | Fox Business Video

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MMA

Fox’s Maria Bartiromo whips Republican support for devastating Medicaid cuts

Republicans plan to slash Medicaid to fund Trump’s next tax giveaway to the rich

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 05/20/25

House Republicans are working on legislation dubbed “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” to finance a permanent extension of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax giveaway to the rich by slashing Medicaid, which will result in millions of Americans losing their health insurance. Supporters of the legislation have also singled out Medicare and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program for additional cuts. Analyses show that the vast majority of the tax cuts will go to the rich, while lower-income Americans stand to lose money due to the massive cuts to health care coverage and other benefits.

Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, an obsequious booster and right-wing media ally of Trump, has used her Mornings with Maria program to whip Republican lawmakers for support of the bill and especially to shore up its Medicaid cuts. During these frequent Fox Business appearances, Bartiromo, her guests, and even her guest host have advocated for useless work requirements and spread false claims that federal Medicaid funds are paying for coverage of undocumented immigrants or that the cuts are targeting supposedly massive “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the program. After more than a week of Bartiromo's effort to manufacture consent for these Medicaid cuts, Trump reportedly told Republicans “don't fuck around with Medicaid.”

Republican lawmakers frequented Mornings with Maria to promote Medicaid cuts for their tax legislation

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Fox News chyron: Medicaid “reforms” or cuts? Answer: both

05/12/25 8:28 PM EDT

  1. ### Murdoch media push Medicaid cuts by targeting the program's expansion population

05/07/25 1:00 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox host Brian Kilmeade: Current Medicaid levels are “unaffordable, unsustainable”

05/05/2

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  1. ### Ben Shapiro says “China is perfectly happy” with Trump's trade war

04/30/25 12:49 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro: “Head Start is one of the great fails in federal history”

04/30/25 12:37 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox spins economic contraction under Trump: “Some might say that wasn't as big a drop as anticipated”

04/30/25 12:28 PM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host: “If he talks about 2028, suddenly he's not a lame duck”

04/30/25 9:05 AM EDT

  1. ### Jesse Watters to his co-host after she notes Oklahoma family mistakenly raided by ICE: “No one even believes your stories anymore”

04/29/25 7:04 PM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity: “The tariff war started with Canada”

04/29/25 7:01 PM EDT

  1. ### On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone describes how Project 2025 laid the groundwork for Trump to install right-wing media loyalists into “senior level positions”

04/29/25 6:17 PM EDT

  1. ### Stephen Miller: “Fox News needs to fire its pollster”

04/29/25 2:30 PM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media followed Trump administration in attacking Amazon for report it would display tariff costs

04/29/25 1:28 PM EDT

  1. ### Five ways MAGA media are spinning Trump’s poll collapse

04/29/25 1:23 PM EDT

Five ways MAGA media are spinning Trump’s poll collapse

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 04/29/25

President Donald Trump’s zealous propagandists have been unable to come to terms with his increasing unpopularity, instead offering a range of pathetic excuses for his cratering poll numbers.

Surveys conducted for The New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and other news organizations in preparation for the 100th day of Trump’s administration show his support in freefall. The president’s overall job approval numbers are dropping into the low 40s and even high 30s, levels several pollsters found to be historic lows for presidents at this point in their administration.

Trump is underwater with the public on nearly every issue, with particular warning signs on the economy — ABC’s poll found a majority said Trump had made the economy worse and nearly three-quarters of Americans say his policies are likely to cause a recession.

But the audience of MAGA media outlets largely consists of Trump’s most loyal supporters — the ones who would be the last to abandon him, if at all.

That gives the right-wing stars at Fox News and similar outlets every incentive to deny the reality that the American public has quickly become disenchanted with Trump’s actions and behavior and come up with alternate explanations for his slide.

The polls are fake

Trump himself responded to the collapse in support by denouncing what he termed “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS.”

“The New York Times has only 37% Trump 2024 voters, and the ABC/Washington Post Poll has only 34% Trump Voters, unheard of numbers unless looking for a negative result, which they are,” he wrote, citing his pollster John McLaughlin in a Monday morning Truth Social post. “These people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you’re at it.”

Partner Jim McLaughlin reiterated the point in a Monday night appearance on Newsmax.

“These are propaganda polls,” he said. “That's what they are. They're trying to lie to the American people. They're trying to sway public opinion.”

Host Rob Finnerty responded by suggesting it was a “coordinated takedown” of the president with “all five of these ridiculous polls coming out in the same day as the media continue to cheerlead against Trump.”

Pollster Matt Towery offered a similar analysis that night on Fox’s The Ingraham Angle.

“Now, last time I checked, Donald Trump got almost 50% of the vote,” Towery said. “So how in the world can that poll be correct? There’s no possible way.”

“He’s not in free fall,” Towery added. “He’s had a little bit of slippage because he’s doing a lot. He’s breaking a lot of eggs to make an omelet, but he is not dropping in any significant way. I can guarantee you, and I’m just not paying any attention to this nonsense.”

The polls are a “psyop”

Steve Bannon turned to Rasmussen Reports pollster Mark Mitchell to explain Trump’s polls on Monday.

“All day, Mitchell, they’re going to be bombarding us on the hundredth day that Trump is the most unpopular president in 100 years,” Bannon prompted him.

Mitchell responded by claiming that “there is a psychological operation going on.” According to him, numerous recent polls showing Trump’s polling swoon “all look the same” and large numbers of Google searches for “Trump approval” are “how I know it's a psyop. People are getting these stories shoved down their throats.”

The polls are only bad for now because Trump’s “agenda is not built for 100 days”

On Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade rejected the premise of looking at Trump’s poll numbers at this point in his administration.

“When you look at the hundred days of Trump, the problem with the hundred days and looking at the polls, this format and his agenda is not built for 100 days,” he said on Monday’s show. “He's redoing the base. He is framing out the house. A lot of it was rotted, and now he is replacing it. There’s not a lot of glory in framing out a house.”

Kilmeade added that Trump “is rebuilding and he has got a plan,” urging viewers to look ahead to potential trade deals and passage of Trump’s tax agenda.

Actually, the polls are “not bad”

Fox contributor Ari Fleischer highlighted Trump’s continued support from his political base and downplayed his low job approval numbers from the overall public.

“The base will not crack,” he told Ingraham on Monday. “The base is solid for Donald Trump, and they understand that he's got a lot of high hurdles because he's put high hurdles in front of himself because he's taking on consequential big issues that have been neglected for so long.”

Fleischer went on to claim that “the average of all the polls … shows that Trump has a 45% job approval. That is not bad. In our modern polarized era, a 45% job approval is middling, but it is not the stuff of doom, gloom, negativity, or decline. It's just the way modern politics is.”

It’s impossible to not see this administration is a “huge success”

Asked Tuesday about Trump’s “soft numbers” on Fox’s America’s Newsroom, Fox Business host and Trumpist shill Maria Bartiromo responded, “There's no other way to look at this first 100 days other than a huge success.”

The majority of Americans who disagree in Fox’s own poll are apparently just delusional.

  1. ### Fox anchor Dana Perino: Small-business owners have real concerns about losing their businesses due to tariff impacts

04/29/25 10:13 AM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax's Greg Kelly: “That 22nd Amendment about not being able to run for a third term just might be unconstitutional”

04/29/25 9:27 AM EDT

  1. ### Fox News’ many justifications for extending Trump’s tax cut for the wealthy

04/29/25 9:19 AM EDT

  1. ### Hannity: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker “all but threatened half the country with violence”

04/28/25 10:33 PM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity defends cutting federal funding of cancer research: “That's where the private sector comes in”

04/28/25 7:10 PM EDT

  1. ### Alex Jones: “I think it's way more dangerous Trump saying we're looking to deporting citizens to El Salvador. Now, that's unconstitutional, and that is really bad.”

04/28/25 2:26 PM EDT

  1. ### Ben Shapiro defends the Trump administration after a judge noted a two-year-old US citizen may have been removed from the country with “no meaningful process”

04/28/25 1:25 PM EDT

  1. ### The Trump administration's war on the press is heating up

04/28/25 1:22 PM EDT

  1. ### Daily Wire host: “Civil rights are just leftism in blackface”

04/28/25 8:46 AM EDT

  1. ### Sean Hannity on Kilmar Abrego Garcia: “It is so obvious to me that this guy deserves what he got”

04/25/25

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msnbc showed rep clips if her saying tariffs wd cause inflation, but she was not repudiating the policy, just a bit acknowledging their neg effect?!

an 4 25

President Donald Trump is known for being a voracious consumer of Fox News and its sister channel Fox Business, keeping the right-wing cable news outlets on constantly whether he's inside the White House or at Mar-a-Lago. And according to according to Mediaite's David Gilmour, that habit may have inspired a major decision on a key economic policy.

As the stock market continued to plummet, Trump made a major announcement on Wednesday afternoon, April 9: He is pausing most non-China tariffs for 90 days. Stocks increased in value following the announcement, although a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety remains on Wall Street.

Earlier in the day, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon appeared on Fox Business and told host Maria Bartiromo that the United States would "probably" or "likely" go into a recession thanks to Trump's steep new tariffs. And according to Mediaite's David Gilmour, that interview "may have been the nudge" that Trump "needed to take the leap on his stunning tariffs pause."

READ MORE: GOP’s defense of 'Dear Leader' Trump’s 'idiocy' resembles famous suicide cult: analysis

Gilmour explains, "One source noted to the Wall Street Journal that while Dimon's appearance on 'Mornings With Maria' had been scheduled some time ago, the banker 'knew that Trump and his inner circle often watched Fox' and that his message would likely get through to them…. The point certainly registered with one viewer, the president, who apparently took note and directly cited Dimon’s interview with Bartiromo during a press gaggle at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, after announcing the tariffs pause."

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Gilmour adds, "When a reporter asked whether it was changes in the bond markets that had persuaded him to 'reverse course,' Trump replied that he had noted on Tuesday that 'people were getting a little queasy.'"

The Mediaite journalist notes that another reporter asked Trump, "Mr. President, did anyone influence your decision? Did you speak with anyone you know? Jamie Dimon? Did you speak with anyone?'"

Trump responded, "I watched Jamie Dimon and Maria Bartiromo’s show this morning, and he was very good." And the "Dimon message," according to Gilmour, "may have nudged Trump to take the leap on a pause he claims he'd been considering for some days."

READ MORE:Donald Trump has an addiction: WSJ

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mma

CBS News reporting on immigrants deported to foreign megaprison blows up Fox’s “worst of the worst” spin

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 04/07/25

Fox News’ stable of pro-Trump propagandists have assured their viewers that the president was justified in deporting hundreds of immigrants to an El Salvadoran prison notorious for abuse because the deportees were “the most dangerous illegals” and “the worst of the worst.”

They credulously adopted the administration’s talking points, even as family members of deportees came forward to say that they were not criminals. But when CBS News actually did the legwork, its reporters found that the overwhelming majority of deportees had no record of committing violent crimes.

CBS obtained the names of 238 Venezuelan immigrants the Trump administration had claimed were members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang and deported last month under a rarely used wartime authority for imprisonment in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center. The network “cross referenced that [list] with domestic and international court filings, news reports and arrest records whenever we could find them” and “found that an overwhelming majority have no apparent criminal convictions or even criminal charges.”

From Sunday’s report:

At least 22% of the men on the list have criminal records here in the United States or abroad. The vast majority are for non-violent offenses like theft, shoplifting and trespassing. About a dozen are accused of murder, rape, assault and kidnapping.

For 3% of those deported, it is unclear whether a criminal record exists.

But we could not find criminal records for 75% of the Venezuelans - 179 men- now sitting in prison.

Those facts stand in sharp contrast to the claims of the administration — and those of the Fox personalities who regurgitated its talking points to their viewers -- used to push back on critics who pointed out that some had been sent in error to a brutal foreign megaprison.

Citation

Fox News screenshots

Fox host Laura Ingraham said that the deportees were “the most dangerous illegals.”

On The Five, Jesse Watters called them “illegal alien gangbangers,” while Greg Gutfeld described them as “the criminal element” and “thugs.”

Contributor Lisa Kennedy Montgomery alleged that they were “people who want to hurt, maim, and kill innocent Americans.”

Anchor Sandra Smith and contributor Liz Peek both called them “the worst of the worst.”

Fox & Friends’ Ainsley Earhardt said they were “alleged gang members” who “did something wrong,” while for Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, they were “terrorist-like people.”

For some, like Fox & Friends co-hosts Lawrence Jones and Brian Kilmeade, the purportedly obvious criminality of the deportees justified removing them from the country without due process.

All of them, apparently eager to believe whatever they were told, were willing to accept the administration’s claims without scrutiny. Their response likely emboldened Trump, who on Sunday endorsed the idea that American citizens could also be sent to the El Salvadoran prison.

And don’t expect Fox figures to change their tune following the CBS report — as of Monday morning, they were still uncritically adopting the administration’s spin.

//

  1. ### Fox keeps calling migrants sent to El Salvador prison “criminals” and “terrorists” despite reporting that several deportees were likely falsely accused

04/01/25 1:11 PM EDT

  1. ### How Fox is handling reports that the Trump administration may have erroneously sent people to a foreign torture prison

04/01/25 1:24 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media have decided undocumented migrants don't have the right to due process under the law

03/28/25

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MMA

February 19, 2025, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Trump says he could meet with Vladimir Putin before the February. Joining me now is the head of the global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, Sir Bill Browder. Bill, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks so much for being here. You've had plenty of run-ins with Vladimir Putin. Give us your reaction to all of this.

BILL BROWDER (GUEST): Well, Vladimir Putin — so my run-ins with Vladimir Putin was he murdered my lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, and a bunch of other people. And, he's been chasing me around the world ever since with death threats and so on. And so I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he's a very bad guy, a man who shouldn't be trusted. And so when I'm watching this whole thing playing itself out, I'm thinking to myself that we need to be more supportive of Ukraine who are the victims and and a little bit less chummy with Putin who is the aggressor in this whole situation. I find — that, you know, at the end of the day, Putin could end this war in right this minute by just stopping. That that's the thing. If Ukraine is defending, Putin's attacking, and he could stop. And so that's what we should be pushing for.

BARTIROMO: Yeah. It's a great point that you make. And and, you know, it certainly felt in those comments from President Trump that he was more critical of Zelensky, certainly name noting, his, lack of popularity with that 4% number in terms of the potential for elections.

BROWDER: That number comes out of thin air. There's no 4% number. Zelensky's got a 52% approval rating, not a 4% approval rating. And they're under attack. The reason they have martial law is because this country has been invaded. They have air strikes every day from from Russia. I think it's highly unfair for for him to be critical of the victim. He should be critical of the person who's launching the air strikes.

BARTIROMO: And and certainly, when you think about, you know, approval for Vladimir Putin, I mean, what are you gonna say when you get the phone call? What do you think of Vladimir Putin? You better say you love him. So I don't believe anything on the Russia side either in terms of approval of Vladimir Putin. But what's your take on Ukraine not even being part, of that peace talk yesterday? I mean, President Trump has made the point. Look. He's been part of the talks for three years, but Zelensky makes the point that he wasn't at the table, in Saudi Arabia, and he says he's not gonna accept any outcome without being part of the talks.

...

BARTIROMO: What do you think, Bill? Zelensky later canceled his own scheduled visit to Saudi Arabia following the talks.

BROWDER: Well, it's the whole thing, again, is Putin invaded Ukraine. Putin thought he was gonna win in three days, and he didn't. And why didn't he win in three days? Because the Ukrainians bravely fought back and they said we don't want you to invade our country. We don't want you to kill our men, rape our women, and kidnap our children.

There wasn't — this was not a time for negotiation. This was a time for them to defend themselves. And so it's there there was no chance for for any negotiation to happen. It's — this was a brutal dictatorship of invading a peaceful neighbor who didn't wanna be invaded. And so I think, President Trump is being very unfair to, Volodymyr Zelensky.

It pains me to see him saying these things. I think that he should be supporting the the victim in this thing, the the democratically elected victim. Vladimir Putin has been a dictator for twenty five years. He's taken over Georgia. He's carpet bombed Syria. He's done all sorts of terrible things. I think we need to understand who the good guys are and who the bad guys here. Ukraine is the good guys and Putin is the bad guy.

---

mma 1 25

Trump reportedly pushed for Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo to be his running mate

01/08/25 mma

  1. ### Trump reportedly got advance town hall questions from a Fox insider

01/08/25

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mma 10 24

October 28, 2024, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria Bartiromo

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Liz Peek, your reaction?

LIZ PEEK (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Well, I thought it was an extraordinary event, Maria, not just in terms of the crowd size because, by the way, there were also hundreds, if not thousands of people outside the arena who couldn't get in; so it really was an extraordinary thing.

And having the Democrats deride this event as a Hitler-like event really was so incredibly stupid after so many Democratic presidents have actually announced and accepted their nomination in Madison Square Garden and by the way, banners, flags of Israel were flying in this event; there were a lot of Hasidic Jews who showed up. So I mean — the reporting — I did flip back and forth to see what the liberal TV stations were showing about this, of course, it was all negative, it was all about racism and so forth but you know what? It was a great moment and I think people watching it on Fox News last night, which they could do throughout, came away thinking this is the party of inclusion.

Media Matters has reported:

During former President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe attacked Puerto Rico, claiming it’s “literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean."

Although the remarks sparked outrage, numerous right-wing media figures have defended him. Some attacked critics for allegedly not having a sense of humor; others agreed that Puerto Rico is trash or dismissed Puerto Rico’s electoral relevance.

Here are numerous examples from the hours after Hinchcliffe made those racist remarks.

===

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tdb

John Oliver said that Republican claims of election fraud by non-citizens are creating the impression that there’s cause for concern, despite the fact that none of their claims have ever been backed up by actual evidence. And on this week’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver singled out Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo for aiding and abetting Donald Trump’s lies.

He reported on how Bartiromo delivered “this doozy” on air in August, citing an unnamed man in Texas who’d claimed he couldn’t get into the DMV in Weatherford because of a massive line of immigrants outside, who were being recruited to vote with signs in Spanish.

In reality, none of that happened. There is no Texas DMV in Weatherford. Local police found no nearby DMV offices setting up tents or tables with signs and a local GOP official in Texas confirmed that there had only been two attempts by non-citizens to vote in that county in the past 15 years.

#### Sean L. McCarthy

“I’m genuinely curious about the man who saw a massive line at the DMV and their instinct was this must be illegals registering to vote, and not the DMV functioning like it has since the dawn of time. Do they blame all common inconveniences on immigration?” Oliver wondered, adding: “And while you might instinctively know that claim is bullshit, it’s even dumber than you think,” he said, “As Baritromo explained, her source was a friend of a friend’s wife. Something that didn’t stop her happily regurgitating it on the news.”

“And if you like that, you can find well-sourced stories like it on Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: with your Drunkest Aunt, Sundays at 10 on Fox Business.”

Yet two days after Bartiromo’s broadcast, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into her rumor. “And that is actually a bit of a pattern for Paxton. He’ll loudly start voter fraud investigations, and even when they amount to nothing, he’ll have created the impression something is there,” Oliver said.

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an 10 24

Fox News host Maria Bartiromo confronted former President Donald Trump on his plan to put a 200% tariff on foreign auto companies.

"The Wall Street Journal said that your plans will increase the debt and deficits more than Kamala Harris'," Bartiromo explained to Trump on Sunday.

"If I do this, you're gonna have car companies coming back to the country because of the taxes and the tariffs," the Republican candidate replied. "I'm gonna put a 200% tariff on every car, and you're not gonna ever sell them into the United States."

"But what about the criticism, and the Journal has done this as well, that if you do put something like a 200% tariff on a product, that it's only gonna mean higher prices for consumers?" Bartiromo asked. "It's gotta be passed on somehow."

"All I'm doing is saying, I'll put 200 or 500, I don't care," Trump replied. "I'll put a number where they can't sell one car into the United [States], I don't want them to sell their car, because I don't want them hurting our car companies."

===

mma 10 24

Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram has yet to appear on the network to discuss his big Tuesday night scoop: A fact sheet authored by House Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee which he obtained reveals that Fox and Republicans have been pushing false claims about the federal response to Hurricane Helene.

Pergram posted to X at 9:36 p.m. ET on October 8:

Fox has obtained a fact sheet assembled by the majority side of House Appropriations Committee about disaster aid.

It says that FEMA “has enough funding in the short-term to address immediate needs for both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.”

It also declares there is “no funding connection between” the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund. It adds there is “no intermingling of funding between these two programs.” It adds that “the only connection is that both programs are administered by FEMA.”

The fact sheet as Pergram reported it amounts to a damning repudiation of former President Donald Trump’s lies about the federal response. On the campaign trail, Trump has falsely claimed that the Biden administration “stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” and that Vice President Kamala Harris spent “all her FEMA money” housing immigrants.

Trump's strategy of grievance-mongering for political gain relies on the impermeable echo chamber created by his propagandists at Pergram’s network and elsewhere. They have spent the last week eagerly peddling the same lies about Democrats looting disaster aid to help immigrants.

“FEMA is running low on funds because they’re blowing it all on illegals,” star host Jesse Watters claimed. According to Laura Ingraham, “Democrats are prioritizing the needs of noncitizens, and now we learn many of them are violent, depraved criminals.”

Pergram’s scoop has not changed the trajectory of Fox’s coverage. On Wednesday morning, Fox contributor Miranda Devine told the hosts of Fox & Friends that “FEMA was handing out money to illegal migrants instead of keeping it for hurricane victims.” Meanwhile, at around the same time on Fox Business, anchor Maria Bartiromo did appear to reference the House Republican memo Pergram obtained — but only to attack it, questioning whether they were “lying.”

But Pergram has not appeared on Fox to discuss his story — which shows House Republicans trying to swat down such claims — as of publication time.

Fox “news side” figures like Pergram give Fox the appearance of a real news operation rather than a corrupt propaganda machine, but in practice the network downplays major stories they break if those stories are bad for Trump or the GOP.

Media Matters will update this post if the network allows Pergram on the air to tell its viewers the truth.

---

mma random

  1. ### Maria Bartiromo on separate funds being used for migrants and FEMA disaster spending: “So what if it's two different funds?”

10/09/24 2:00 PM EDT

  1. ### After citing a House GOP report noting that the FEMA/migrant lie is false, Fox's Maria Bartiromo dishonestly suggests it still could be true

10/09/24 1:46 PM EDT

  1. ### As Hurricane Milton grows, so do conspiracy theories falsely attributing hurricanes to weather manipulation

10/09/24 12:35 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox is totally ignoring Woodward’s report that Trump is in contact with Putin

10/09/24 12:05 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox contributor pushes Hurricane Helene misinformation about migrants after Fox reporter obtained House GOP memo noting it is false

10/09/24 11:54 AM EDT

  1. ### A Fox News reporter said he obtained a GOP memo debunking MAGA hurricane lies. He still hasn't been on Fox to talk about it.

:{:{10/09/24}:

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  1. ### Maria Bartiromo on separate funds being used for migrants and FEMA disaster spending: “So what if it's two different funds?”

10/09/24 2:00 PM EDT

  1. ### After citing a House GOP report noting that the FEMA/migrant lie is false, Fox's Maria Bartiromo dishonestly suggests it still could be true

10/09/24 mma

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an 10 24

as Donald Trump continues to spew false claims about the federal response to Hurricane Helene victims across North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, there's a bipartisan effort to shut down misinformation and disinformation, which experts say does nothing but harm to those affected by the disaster.

Speaking with Rep. French Hill (R-AR) on Tuesday, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo parroted the claim that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is "out of money" to millions of viewers.

"You are an elected official. You know where and how money is spent," Bartiromo said to Hill, asking, "How is it possible FEMA is out of money? You're watching pictures of them hanging from trees. They've lost everything. How is it that FEMA is out of money?"

READ MORE:Biden calls Trump a 'liar' as administration hits back over false Helene response attacks

Hill replied, "FEMA is not out of money, and this was made clear by the inspector general report, saying that [Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas has access to nearly $8 billion of funding from the FEMA disaster relief funds accumulated since 2012."

The Arkansas lawmaker continued, "Plus, as I've said, and as [House Speaker] Mike Johnson has said, Congress is ready to replenish that funding as soon as we get back to Washington. They have the money to take care of Florida, take care of North Carolina, take care of Georgia. And they need to get about delivering it, and listen to what their governors are asking, and delivering those governors' requests."

During Harris' visit to Georgia last week, the 2024 Democratic nominee said "the federal relief and assistance that we have been providing has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like. And you can apply now."

She added, "FEMA is also providing tens of thousands more dollars for folks to help them be able to deal with home repair, to be able to cover a deductible when and if they have insurance, and also hotel costs."

READ MORE:'A distraction': CNN’s Tapper methodically debunks Trump’s lies about federal hurricane response

Watch the video below or at this link.

===

October 1, 2024, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): You've said many times that one of your main priorities is ensuring that we have a fair election this November. You mentioned Arizona. What's going on there in Arizona? Early voting begins on October 9th. The ballots in Maricopa County, we want to get your take on whether or not you've got confidence there in Arizona because apparently The Gateway Pundit reported that the GOP chairwoman provided an update to allegations that there's not going to be a fair election there.

MICHAEL WHATLEY (REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN): Well, there is going to be a fair election and we're working very, very hard with the Arizona GOP. I actually had dinner with the chairwoman last night and we're focusing very hard on making sure that we have the right rules of the road in place before the voting starts. We filed numerous lawsuits and we've been engaged in a lot of discussions with Maricopa and with the state of Arizona. We are going to have observers and lawyers who are going to be in the room whenever a vote is counted, whenever a vote is cast, to make sure that we're going to be on top of this. We want it to be easy to vote and hard to cheat. mma

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mma many twt

Maria Bartiromo's Fox show makes false claim about Kamala Harris, echoing MAGA extremists

Kamala Harris said she owns a gun. Her staffer repeated her claim — but MAGA media pretended the staffer said the exact opposite, and Fox contributor Liz Peek and Bartiromo ran with it on air, before partially walking it back.

Written by John Whitehouse

Research contributions from Sage Hodil

Published 09/23/24

At a September 19 campaign event with Oprah Winfrey, Vice President Kamala Harris discussed owning a firearm, saying that if someone broke into her house, “they’re getting shot”:

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This became a bit of a flashpoint on the campaign, with the Trump campaign also elevating the remark.

On September 20, Harris campaign staffer Adrienne Elrod appeared on CNN and reiterated that Harris does own a firearm, saying, “She supports strong responsible gun ownership, and she does own a firearm.” You can see the transcript here.

However, MAGA accounts on social media began circulating a mistranscription of Elrod’s remarks to make it appear that she was saying the exact opposite of what she said.

Video

The Harris campaign called this out on September 21:

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Nevertheless, on the morning of September 23, Fox News contributor Liz Peek and Fox “straight news” anchor Maria Bartiromo pushed the demonstrably false claim on air:

Video

CitationFrom the September 23, 2024, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Imagine if Trump said that, right? She said to Oprah: Anybody comes in my house they're getting shot. And then she starts cracking up about it, oh I shouldn't have said that, my staff is going to have to deal with it. Imagine if Trump said that, Liz.

LIZ PEEK (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Actually, it turns out now she's actually confessed that she doesn't have a gun so that's —

BARTIROMO: Are you serious?

PEEK: -- that entire conversation is off the table.

BARTIROMO: I missed that completely. Are you telling me she admitted it?

PEEK: Yeah, no, her campaign has said no, no she doesn't actually have a gun.

BARTIROMO: So she lied. Was she lying now or is she lying then? So she lied.

PEEK: Yeah. I mean again, Maria, she lies all the time so this is not a big surprise.

...

BARTIROMO: I'm really having a hard time getting my head around this, that she's admitting she doesn't have a gun.

PEEK: I know, I know. I tweeted about it last week, where is it? Has she had training? You know, does she have a gun in every house? I mean, it was such a preposterous claim. It was definitely interesting.

MARK TEPPER (GUEST): And she'll get away with it unscathed. She's never going to be held accountable for any of these lies.

BARTIROMO: I mean just in the last three weeks she said it several times. She said it at the debate, she has a gun, that she's gun carrying, her and Tim Walz are gun-carrying people. And then she said it in the Oprah interview again. Listen to this, we've got to hear this, because it's amazing to me that she's saying now she doesn't have a gun, watch this.

...

BARTIROMO: So that's how they're dealing with it. They're admitting, oh no, that was made up. Is that what they said, Liz, that that was made up?

PEEK: I read that, Maria, and I'm looking at it now. Pretty, pretty sure that that's true.

BARTIROMO: Wow.

Later in the show, Peek and Bartiromo sort of cast doubt on the claim, with Peek saying she “might be wrong” but continued calling the totally made-up claim “mind-bogglingly dishonest” and promised to get to the bottom of it. Neither she nor Baritomo fully retracted their remarks:

Video

CitationFrom the September 23, 2024, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Liz, I have the team calling Kamala Harris' campaign to get to the bottom of this. Okay? Because earlier you said that the campaign says she doesn't own a gun, and she was so — I am just finding

that so hard to believe — because she was so adamant about it.

LIZ PEEK (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): So, I can't find it. Maria, I can't find the reference. I know I read it and I might be wrong, so apologies if that's the case, but it was sort of, it struck me too as mind-bogglingly dishonest —

BARTIROMO: Right.

PEEK: — If it is true. So I am glad they're calling, thank you.

Bartiromo was deeply involved in promoting the Dominion Voting Systems election conspiracy theories that Fox News paid for (including following Trump 2020 campaign directives to promote January 6), and recently has been promoting more wild MAGA conspiracy theories.

September 19, 2024, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): It's just incredible to me that in order to see the numbers get lower at the border the Biden-Harris administration decided to fly all these people into swing states. I mean -- does that resonate with people? What are they saying about that and the potential for those people to become voters of the Democrat party?

LEE CARTER (POLLSTER): So I think --

MARIA BARTIROMO: Which is what Andy Ogles just told us.

LEE CARTER: People's primary concern about immigration, and a lot of people talk about it related to crime, one of the things that I'm hearing from voters the most is that they're taking our services, they're taking over our schools, they're taking over our jobs, they're getting a lot of free things. We had people in the focus groups the night of debate, a couple of them were immigrants who came here legally and they are furious. What they said was we came here the right way --

MARIA BARTIROMO: That's right.

LEE CARTER: -- we came here for the American dream, we came here for opportunities, we didn't come here for handouts. We came here to work hard and what these people are doing are just coming in and taking handouts and we're changing the dynamics in the country so that instead of seeking opportunities of the American dream, we're putting our hands out.

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Maslansky + Partners - Wikipedia

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Lee Hartley Carter

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Lee Hartley Carter is president of Maslansky + Partners, a language strategist, researcher and author of "Persuasion: Convincing Others When Facts Don't Seem to Matter" (TarcherPerigee, September 3, 2019). Follow her on X on[@lh_carter

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JUL 2X?

Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo is spinning a baseless conspiracy theory, saying that to her, “it just feels like” there is a network attached to U.S. government law enforcement agencies, along with the media, “trying to stop” Donald Trump, before she asked a sitting U.S. Senator to “stop the free press.”

Bartiromo in her Wednesday interview with U.S. Senator Rand Paul went as far as to suggest top tech firms including Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, had intentionally censored a photo of Donald Trump taken just after the assassination attempt earlier this month. Her remarks led the Kentucky Republican lawmaker to explain the First Amendment to the veteran journalist after she asked that Congress “do something” to prevent tech platforms from censoring certain posts or information.

“It just feels like there is a network in place in all these corners, whether it be government, FBI, Secret Service or media, that is trying to stop Trump,” declared Bartiromo, a staunch supporter of the ex-president.

Bartiromo, who has been called a “conspiracy theorist,” was named in Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox Corp. A Washington Post 2020 profile noted she had employed “the parlance of election conspiracy theorists,” and noted that Bartiromo “was one of the few to offer her solid approval of Trump’s disastrous August 2017 news conference in which he insisted there were ‘some very fine people on both sides’ of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.”

READ MORE: ‘Love, Support, Golf Memberships’: Eric Trump Outraged Over Cousin’s Kamala Harris Endorsement

“I mean,” Baritromo continued Tuesday, “look at, look at what Trump said about Meta and Google and, you know, go try to Google ‘Trump assassination attempt.’ President Trump said that Meta and Google are censoring information about the assassination attempt on his life, saying that they made it virtually impossible to find pictures or anything about the heinous act. Google responded to the allegations and claimed that its auto complete search tool was not showing results for the Trump assassination attempt.”

“It says there was no manual action taken and that its systems have protections against auto complete predictions associated with political violence. It also says that its chatbot Gemini refusing to answer questions about the assassination attempt because of a previous policy which restricted questions on election related issues.”

Bartiromo then sounded stunned that Google could deem the attempted assassination of an ex-president running for re-election, speaking to supporters at a campaign rally, “election-related.”

“Are you serious?” she asked. “This is election related? Now, an assassination attempt on a former president is election-related? Meanwhile, Meta says it’s working to update its AI assistant after it was telling users that the assassination attempt was fictional. Facebook also says that it was an error to censor the iconic photo of Trump pumping his fist in the air after getting shot. We have that photo. There it is. Why were they censoring this photo? Senator?”

Senator Paul responded, declaring, “well, well, all I can say is, thank God for Elon Musk, who exposed how terribly biased these people were. And by taking over Twitter. Twitter now is an objective platform where you can post things now.” AN

===
MAGA runs wild with random poster’s “ABC whistleblower” claims

How the right works to “create stories”

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 09/16/24 MMA

A wildly flimsy internet rumor launched by a random pro-Trump X poster about an “ABC whistleblower” who purportedly claims that the network rigged the September 10 presidential debate went viral in MAGA spaces over the last several days, with Donald Trump and his allies floating congressional investigations and potential regulatory retribution against ABC News in response.

The right-wing pundits and Republican politicians pushing the story don’t actually know who the “ABC whistleblower” is, if their claims are credible, or even if the person actually exists — but the purported document supposedly supports their preferred narrative that ABC News’ moderators were biased, so they’re running with it.

The saga, while laughable, shows the right's ongoing tendency to embrace and elevate anything that confirms their worldview. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) laid out that strategy in a Sunday interview on CNN, admitting that he pushed a debunked, racist, and demagogic claim about Haitian immigrants eating pets because he wants to “create stories” that drive news coverage of immigration.

In the instance of the absurd “whistleblower” claim, Trump's allies trotted it out as they tried to cover for his flailing September 10 debate performance. Right-wing media figures lashed out at ABC News and its moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis with deranged invective and absurd conspiracy theories. And Trump himself said in an interview the following morning that “they ought to take away their license,” reiterating his support for government retribution against news outlets that displease him.

Then on September 12, a “verified” but obscure X poster with the handle “Black Insurrectionist--I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS” claimed they would release “an affidavit from an ABC whistleblower” by the end of the weekend. “The affidavit states how the Harris campaign was given sample question which were essentially the same questions that were given during the debate and separate assurances of fact checking Donald Trump and that she would NOT be fact checked,” the poster wrote.

Right-wing pundits had no reason to take claims from “Black Insurrectionist” at face value — other than the fact that the story confirmed their preexisting biases.

A casual review of recent activity from the “Black Insurrectionist” account — which has posted to X more than 32,700 times over the 10 months since its November 2023 launch — reveals a strong tendency for unhinged, conspiracy-minded, and violent pro-Trump rants.

One August post describes Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as “disgusting creatures” and their supporters as “the delightful cesspool of humanity we are fighting here today” who may be “just plain flat out disgusting pedophiles.”

Other posts detail the need for “70 million people to do mass civil disobedience that will halt this country” to prevent Harris from winning, perhaps via a mass withdrawal of cash from banks aimed at damaging the economy unless “the government just does what we want.”

It beggars belief that this is the person a credible “whistleblower” would entrust with an exclusive story of this magnitude, rather than a mainstream news outlet that would verify it or even an established right-wing one willing to promote the claims without due diligence.

The previewed “whistleblower” claim nonetheless went viral in MAGA spaces — and got all the way to Trump himself in less than seven hours. The former president claimed on Truth Social that evening that “people are saying that Comrade Kamala Harris had the questions from Fake News ABC” and that “ABC’s license should be TERMINATED” if that is the case, before reposting an account claiming that an “ABC whistleblower allegedly will release an affidavit” showing that “the Harris campaign was given sample questions.”

ABC News denied the allegations, with a spokesperson telling The Daily Beast, “Absolutely not. Harris was not given any questions before the debate.”

On Sunday morning, hours before the affidavit was to be released, a new wrinkle emerged as MAGA figures began suggesting the “whistleblower” had (conveniently for ABC) died.

“The ABC whistleblower who claimed Kamala Harris was given debate questions ahead of the debate has died in a car crash according to news reports,” wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on X, echoing random accounts.

Please note that this makes absolutely no sense: How could reports detail the death of a person who had never been identified?

NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny ultimately tracked down the source of the story, an article headlined “ABC News Whistleblower in Kamala Harris Debate Question Scandal Dies in Maryland Crash” posted on a “junk AI-written website.” A few hours later, Greene acknowledged that “this story appears to be false and I’m glad to hear it” but added, “We need a serious investigation into the whistleblower’s report that Kamala Harris was given debate questions ahead of time from ABC!”

The totally implausible idea that news reports had revealed the mysterious death of a “whistleblower” who had never been publicly named served to drive more attention to the “affidavit,” as Greene demonstrated.

“Black Insurrectionist” then released what they claimed was the “affidavit” that afternoon. It appears to be a Microsoft Word document whose text features internal inconsistencies and grammatical errors. All identifying information about its author and any evidence it had been notarized or submitted to a court is redacted.

The purported affiant claims to have worked in “technical and administrative positions” but nonetheless offers detailed claims about communications between ABC News and the Harris campaign. And remember, the document was published by a random pseudonymous X poster with a history of unhinged statements.

“Black Insurrectionist” explained that the report could be trusted due to the poster’s record, which included apparently having prior knowledge of the July attempt on Trump’s life: “A couple days before Trump attempted assassination, I made a post (which I had never done before) was something big was about to go off.”

And indeed, that was enough for the likes of MAGA figures like Benny Johnson (2.7 million X followers) and Eric Trump (4.6 million) and Bill Ackman (1.4 million).

By Monday morning, Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA) was telling Fox host Maria Bartiromo that Congress would investigate claims from the ABC “whistleblower.”

Video

CitationFrom the September 16, 2024, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

“Fortunately we now have a whistleblower, and I'm going to tell you something, Maria, we're going to do what we can to bring ABC in and have them answer some questions and as well as have this whistleblower and see what's going on as they're trying to tear down the First Amendment,” Meuser told Bartiromo on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria.

“I'm glad you mentioned this because Fox News is reaching out to ABC for response to that affidavit,” she replied. “We've reached out to ABC to verify the affidavit and for a statement on these accusations, congressman, but this affidavit and this whistleblower story is gaining traction.”

“Yes, absolutely, and as it should,” Meuser replied. “We actually don't need a hearing to know what we saw. But we're going to look to do it so as we can provide some evidence as to how manipulative they are.”

In the past, Bartiromo’s willingness to run with extraordinary but evidence-free claims that happened to bolster her preexisting views helped secure a massive defamation settlement from her employer.

Apparently that wasn’t enough to change her approach. But her behavior, while deplorable, is not anomalous — this total rejection of evidentiary standards in order to “create stories” is a hallmark of the conspiratorial right, from lies about election fraud to Haitians eating pets.

mma

Fox falsely linked Harris and Walz to socialism or communism over 460 times in just 50 days

Fox News and Fox Business figures have repeatedly and falsely linked VP Harris and Minnesota Gov. Walz to socialism and outright communism

Written by Harrison Ray

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe

Published 09/12/24 mma

The obvious smears have been repeatedly debunked.

The attacks extended to Walz when Harris selected him as her running mate, with Fox connecting him to China to claim he’s a communist candidate. And the attacks ramped up significantly following an economic policy speech from Harris, with Fox repeatedly mischaracterizing her proposals.

Fox networks' hosts and anchors most often pushed the claims of socialism, led by Maria Bartiromo (32 claims), Sean Hannity (31), Elizabeth MacDonald (20), Larry Kudlow (19), Jesse Watters (17), and Stuart Varney (15).

Mornings with Maria Bartiromo (63) had the most claims of any individual program over the period, with Hannity (49), Kudlow (44), and The Evening Edit (40) close behind. Many of Fox News' so-called “news” programs also repeated the ginned up attack, with at least 52 claims over the period.

Fox News and Fox Business parroted the narrative on 49 of the 50 days reviewed by Media Matters.

Former President Donald Trump repeated Fox's fabricated narrative during the September 10 presidential debate, falsely insisting, “She's a Marxist. Everybody knows she's a Marxist.”

===

---

---

aha if # good there must be a problem with them

fox business guest and Project 2025 contributor Stephen Moore dabbles with conspiracy theory that monthly jobs reports are artificially inflated 09/06/24 mma

https://www.mediamatters.org/stephen-moore/fox-business-guest-and-project-2025-contributor-stephen-moore-dabbles-conspiracy)

September 6, 2024, edition of Fox Business' *Mornings with Maria Bartiromo

STEPHEN MOORE (PROJECT 2025 CONTRIBUTOR): If you look at the revisions, remember, they had to revise by 800,000 jobs that they have previously reported existed that didn't exist. Remember, that came out about a week or two ago. But then I looked at the revisions that have happened every month for the last 14 months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has now overestimated job creation from the initial reports by over 400,000 jobs. These errors are not random when you have like 11 of the last 13 months that have been overestimates. So again, what was the number we just saw, something like, what was it, for this month and the previous month, another 80,000 reduction in the number of jobs we thought we had. Something is wrong with the way they’re creating – they’re counting employment. And if you add these two things together, you know, they’ve overestimated job growth by about 1.2-1.3 million jobs.

===

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crime spike under trump, biden record low unemploy, stock mkt record high, max oil output number one in world, he made money on oil reserve

Fox’s Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo push false narratives about oil production despite record-breaking U.S. output

08/14/24 mma

---

trib aug 26

Officials in a North Texas county debunked claims made by a Fox News host that migrants were registering to vote outside a state drivers license facility west of Fort Worth — an unsubstantiated claim that appeared to spark an investigation by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.

Both the Parker County Republican chair and election administrator said there was no evidence to support the Aug. 18 social media post made by television personality Maria Bartiromo, who previously promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Paxton’s office announced it was opening an investigation into “reports that organizations operating in Texas may be unlawfully registering noncitizens to vote” Wednesday.

In announcing the investigation, the attorney general’s office said investigators confirmed that nonprofits had booths set up outside of license offices to offer voter registration assistance, though it did not state specifically where these offices were located.

The attorney general’s office statement did not say any laws were broken.

The Department of Public Safety, which managed the state’s drivers license offices, said in an email obtained by The Texas Tribune that voter registration groups would not be allowed to recruit new voters outside those locations — a response to allegations that so far have not been proven true.

Neither the attorney general’s office nor the public safety department responded to questions about the investigation.

There are several ways to register to vote in Texas, including when obtaining or updating a driver’s license or identification card. U.S. citizens and Texas residents may also register with a volunteer deputy voter registrar. Those are individuals who must register with their local county and attend training.

Among the first questions on the state’s voter registration application is whether or not the applicant is a U.S. citizen.

There is no evidence that large numbers of noncitizens vote or are registered to vote. A 2019 attempt by the state to scour voting rolls for noncitizens was abandoned after it jeopardized legitimate voter registrations and prompted three federal lawsuits.

Gabriel Rosales, Texas state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he viewed Paxton’s investigation as an act of intimidation to keep Hispanic voters from voting, adding there was nothing wrong with people providing voter registration assistance outside of drivers license offices.

"I don't think it violates anything by having them out there," Rosales said. Republicans " see the writing on the wall,” he said. “They know that if the Hispanic vote comes out, they lose.”

Bartiromo’s claim first made on social media cited “a friend,” who cited a friend’s wife who said there was a massive line of immigrants obtaining driver’s licenses at a DPS office in Weatherford and said there was a tent outside the office where those immigrants were registering to vote. She later repeated similar claims on her Fox Business television program.

Bartiromo did not respond to questions or a request for an interview.

Bartiromo is no stranger to spreading controversial allegations with little or no proof. She was among the first on Fox News to repeat a baseless conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems had rigged its voting machines to take votes away from Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election.

Those allegations were the basis of a $787 million defamation lawsuit settlement between Dominion and Fox News. As part of the suit, it was revealed that the source of Bartiromo’s Dominion claims was an email from a Minnesota woman who, in addition to what she described as a “ wackadoodle” theory about Dominion, wrote that she was a time-traveler who talks to the wind, and that former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was actually killed as part of a weeklong human hunting expedition.

The woman’s claims were forwarded to Bartiromo by Sidney Powell, a Dallas lawyer and longtime election fraud conspiracy theorist who pleaded guilty last year for her role in an attempt to overturn 2020 election results in Georgia. A day after receiving the email, Bartiromo aired an interview with Powell that echoed many of its claims about Dominion. Text messages made public as part of the Dominion suit show that some of Bartiromo’s producers believed she was susceptible to conspiracy theories, and that GOP activists were using her to advance their agenda.

Parker County Republican Chair Brady Gray refuted Bartiromo’s claims that immigrants were lined up outside the DPS office in Weatherford. He said on social media that his party investigated the claim.

“While we are everyday registering more voters in Parker county, there has been no large submission of registrants consistent with the claim,” he wrote on X. “The DPS office has confirmed that there have been no tents or tables and no one registering voters on their premises, and that if it were the case they would be told to leave, as it is not allowed.”

Parker County Elections Administrator Cricket Miller also denied the incident and said communication between DPS and her office confirmed there weren't even any tables or booths set up outside the DPS office.

Gray, in an interview with The Texas Tribune, reiterated there was no evidence of voter registration fraud in Parker County. However, he said he supports Paxton and others investigating voter fraud.

"I think that if you have a functioning brain and an IQ over about 40, it would be absurd for you to believe that there's no election fraud happening anywhere," Gray said.

He said the online reaction to his post on X debunking the claims was strange with people using this one instance to debunk claims of fraud elsewhere in the state.

*Robert Downen contributed.

===

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trib

The League of United Latin American Citizens plans to request a federal investigation into raids Attorney General Ken Paxton conducted this week as part of what he called an “ongoing election integrity investigation.”

Gabriel Rosales, Texas LULAC’s state director, said in a statement that Paxton carried out the raids 11 weeks before the 2024 elections “to suppress the Latino vote through intimidation and any means necessary to tilt the electoral process in favor of his political allies.”

Agents raided the home of Cecilia Castellano — the Democrat running to succeed state Rep. Tracy King, D-Uvalde — and confiscated her phone as part of the search, according to Rosales. Republicans see that seat, which Gov. Greg Abbott carried by nearly 6 percentage points, as their best potential state House flip in November.

Law enforcement also searched the homes of at least five other Latino individuals, all of whom were working on Castellano’s campaign and three of whom are members of Texas LULAC, Rosales added. LULAC is a non-partisan, volunteer-based Hispanic civil rights organization headquartered in Washington.

The group is in the dark about the details of any accusations, Rosales said, “but there's none that we’ve been privy to that merits an investigation like this that wastes taxpayers’ money.”

“It is disgraceful and outrageous that the state of Texas, and its highest-ranking law enforcement officer is once again using the power of his office to instill fear in the hearts of community members who volunteer their time to promote civic engagement,” Rosales said in a statement.

Paxton announced on Wednesday that his office executed “multiple” search warrants in Frio, Atascosa and Bexar counties the day prior as part of an investigation into allegations of “election fraud and vote harvesting that occurred during the 2022 elections.” A two-year investigation, Paxton said, provided “sufficient evidence” to obtain the search warrants.

“Secure elections are the cornerstone of our republic,” Paxton said in a statement. “We are completely committed to protecting the security of the ballot box and the integrity of every legal vote. This means ensuring accountability for anyone committing election crimes.”

Paxton’s office did not reply to a request for additional information. His announcement did not detail the targets of the raids, the number of raids, or the reason specific homes were searched.

“It’s still very vague,” Rosales said in an interview. “That’s what’s really unnerving about the whole situation.”

According to one person whose home was raided, Rosales said, law enforcement suggested that he was accused of possessing “illegal voter information” — a claim that he denied and called politically motivated, saying voter information is publicly available.

“There’s no there, there,” Rosales said. “They’re using every tool in the toolbox to intimidate our people from coming out to the polls.”

The Texas Tribune

Rosales said he was working with the group’s national leaders and attorneys to draft a formal complaint with the U.S. Justice Department requesting a federal investigation into Paxton’s raids.

The attorney general’s office was asked to investigate the allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting during the 2022 elections by 81st Judicial District Attorney Audrey Louis, a Republican whose district includes Frio and Atascosa counties.

---

===

guard

one of the United States’ oldest Latino civil rights organizations is raising alarm after several of its members had their homes raided as part of a voter fraud investigation by the Texas attorney general’s office.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac) wants the Department of Justice to investigate raids on at least three of its members in Texas. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement last week his office had executed multiple search warrants in Bexar county, which includes San Antonio, as well as neighboring Frio and Atascosa counties as part of an ongoing, two-year investigation. The office did not provide details of the investigation or respond to a request for comment.

No one has been arrested and the exact nature of the investigation remains unclear. But the searches themselves were designed to intimidate, Lulac officials said.

‘A different level than 2020’: Trump’s plan to steal election is taking shape

Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/12/trump-overturn-result-presidential-election-vote)

“They’re trying to intimidate our folks that are out registering people,” said Lulac’s president, Roman Palomares. “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to intimidate, and then that has repercussions down the line here, where folks read about that and they go, ‘God, I mean, if they’re doing that to her and I’m a registrar, God, how are they going to go after me?’”

A justice department spokesperson said the agency was aware of the matter and declined to comment further.

Lidia Martinez, 87, said nine officers from the attorney general’s office showed up at her front door at 6am last Tuesday and spent hours searching her home as she watched in her nightgown. She said they told her they were there because she had filed a complaint that senior citizens were not receiving their ballots.

Martinez was taken outside in front of her neighbors while officers searched the house, she said. Eventually, the officers left with her laptop, planner and cellphone.

View image in fullscreen

Lidia Martinez, center, a volunteer and great-grandmother whose home was searched, center, speaks at a news conference for Lulac on Monday. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

“I asked them why are you all doing this? And he said because there was fraud,” she said. “I said I’m not doing anything illegal. All I do is help the seniors.”

Texas has extremely strict rules around mail-in balloting. Only those who are sick, out of the county on election day, confined in jail, giving birth within three weeks of election day, or aged 65 and older are authorized to request a mail-in ballot. Anyone who assists someone in requesting a ballot must fill out a form indicating they assisted. Anyone who assists the voter in returning the actual ballot, other than a family or household member, must sign the envelope with the ballot noting their assistance.

Texas leans on new voting law to reject thousands of ballot applications

Read more](

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/03/texas-new-restrictive-voting-law-reject-thousands-mail-in-ballots)

Paxton’s office has operated an entire unit dedicated to prosecuting cases of voter fraud for years. The unit has a budget of millions of dollars, but closes very few cases. In the last fiscal year, for example, it had a budget of $2.3m and handled just four cases, according to the Houston Chronicle.

In 2021, Texas’s highest criminal court ruled that Paxton could not unilaterally pursue cases and instead had to be invited to investigate by a local district attorney (in the Lulac matter his office has said he was invited by local prosecutor Audrey Louis to investigate). Even before that ruling, Paxton would inflate cases to create the impression that he was uncovering massive fraud in Texas.

Paxton, who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit at the supreme court to overturn the 2020 election results, also said last week his office was investigating reports of people registering non-citizens outside DMVs. That investigation appeared to be prompted by a quickly debunked claim from Fox’s Maria Bartiromo.

[

US House approves bill to ban non-citizens from voting in federal elections

Read more](

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/11/save-act-voting-bill-passes-house)

Paxton’s investigations come as Republicans have sought to fan fears about non-citizen voting, which is extremely rare, ahead of this fall’s election.

A copy of the search warrant for Martinez provided by Lulac showed officers were instructed to collect evidence of violations of the Texas law that prohibits collecting mail-in ballots for compensation or “to deliver votes for a specific candidate or measure”. Officers were also instructed to gather evidence of a Texas law prohibiting the fraudulent use or possession of personal identifying information.

Martinez said the officers asked her about other Lulac members and Manuel Medina, a Democratic political operative and former chair of the Democratic party in Bexar county. Medina’s home was also searched last week, the Texas Tribune reported. An affidavit from Texas attorney general’s office investigator obtained by the outlet says officials have a recording of Medina discussing a scheme to collect votes for Cecilia Castellano, a Democrat running for a competitive state House seat.

Castellano said on Monday that her home had also been searched. Officers showed up at 6am with flashlights while her son was sleeping, she said.

“This is how the Republican party works. They cause confusion, false allegations and wasteful spending of our tax dollars,” she said.

CBS News

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raids Latino Democrats' homes, including those of LULAC members

21 hours ago

4:15

YouTube · CBS News

LULAC member describes Paxton voter fraud raid

Video21 hours ago

KHOU

87-year-old LULAC volunteer said AG Ken Paxton sent officers to raid her home

21 hours ago

More news

LULAC wants federal investigation of Texas AG over home ...

ABC Chicago

https://abc7chicago.com › post › lulac-wants-federal-in...

22 hours ago — A prominent Latino group is calling on the DOJ to investigate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for what it calls "voter intimidation."

Texas AG raids homes of Latino civil rights group members ...

NBC News

https://www.nbcnews.com › news › latino › house-raids...

2 days ago — The raids have triggered outrage and cries of voter suppression in Texas, a state with a long history of discrimination against citizens of ...

Texas Republicans accused of intimidation after raiding ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › article › aug

1 day ago — League of United Latin American Citizens calls on US justice department to look into raids on at least three members.

LULAC member describes Paxton voter fraud raid

CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com › video › lulac-member-desc...

23 hours ago — Lidia Martinez, a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens, describes a raid at her home in Texas where officers searched her ...

LULAC condemns Paxton's election fraud raids as “ ...

The Texas Tribune

https://www.texastribune.org › 2024/08/23 › texas-ken-...

5 days ago — The group said that searches the attorney general's office carried out this week targeted at least six Latinos, including a Democrat running ...

---

mma

fox shrugs at Maria Bartiromo’s peddling of “kind of racist” election fraud lies

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/21/24

Fox’s response to Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo peddling thirdhand election fraud falsehoods she didn’t bother to check demonstrates how the network has abandoned anything resembling journalistic standards in its quest to return Donald Trump to the White House.

Bartiromo repeatedly told her Fox Business viewers this week about a “Democrat operation” to register “massive lines of illegals” to vote at Texas government offices, a story she originally attributed to the wife of a friend of a friend and made no apparent effort to verify. Her thirdhand gossip was swiftly debunked by the local Republican Party and the Texas Department of Public Safety, with a spokesperson for the latter noting that her conspiracy theory was “kind of racist.”

It should go without saying that at any credible news outlet, an anchor promoting wild claims they hadn’t verified that promptly dissolved like this would be facing disciplinary action for breaching standards. But Fox apparently doesn’t have standards barring its purported journalists from citing gossip they haven’t bothered to try to confirm on the air.

Zeteo News media columnist Justin Baragona reached out to a Fox spokesperson on Tuesday about whether Bartiromo planned to address or correct her false claims about undocumented immigrants registering to vote en masse in Texas.

“According to a Fox News spokesperson, Maria Bartiromo was clearly citing a source of hers and never said she confirmed the story,” Baragona subsequently posted to X. “The spox also said it is worth noting that Republicans have been speaking a lot about this issue of noncitizens voting in recent months.”

Meanwhile, Bartiromo did not mention her debunked claims on her Wednesday show, though she did ask the Republican member of Congress she hosted questions like, “Do you have any evidence that you can share with us that tells us that illegals are registered to vote?” and “Do you think you’ll be able to stop it? I mean you’ve got 76 days before the election. How many people will be voting illegally?”

Fox’s response simply emphasizes the problems with Bartiromo’s coverage:

But all of that is bad!

If you work at a national cable news network, you’re not supposed to feed your viewers thirdhand, unverified gossip simply because it supports the claims of a political party, and if you do that and the story is subsequently debunked by everyone who bothers to actually try and look into it, that’s a black mark on your credibility.

I don’t want to suggest there was some halcyon day when Fox acted responsibly — the network prioritized Republican political success from its founding — but there was a time when the network’s executives at least tried to curtail its most obvious and indefensible journalistic failings.

When the hosts of Fox & Friends in 2007 cited a right-wing outlet’s quickly debunked report that then-Sen. Barack Obama had attended an extremist Islamic madrassa as a child, the network made clear both publicly and privately that its standards had been violated.

Host Steve Doocy issued a clarification on the show’s next edition. John Moody, at the time Fox’s vice president for news, also acknowledged to The New York Times that the network had erred. “The hosts violated one of our general rules, which is know what you are talking about,” he said. “They reported information from a publication whose accuracy we didn’t know.”

Moody also sent a daily editorial note to staff stating what should have been the obvious: “For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC.”

Seventeen years later, seeing a text from a friend detailing a story the friend’s friend heard from their spouse apparently means it is ready for air on Fox. The spokesperson’s comments about Bartiromo effectively confirm as much. And meanwhile Jesse Watters, the network’s biggest star, is now apparently preparing to send a staffer to Hawaii to “dig deep” and “get the truth” about Obama’s birth certificate.

It all makes perfect sense when you recognize that Watters, Bartiromo, and the spokesperson work not at a news outlet, but a propaganda network that is in the tank for Trump’s presidential campaign. The peril for Fox, however, is the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit shows how letting people like Bartiromo spin up poorly sourced conspiracy theories to benefit Trump can get very, very expensive.

---

  1. ### Maria Bartiromo's wild and “kind of racist” election conspiracy theory collapses immediately

:{:{08/20/24}:

  1. ### Fox News and the MAGA media are lining up their shot at American democracy

:{:{05/14/24}:

  1. ### Maria Bartiromo's source for election conspiracy theories: “The Wind tells me I’m a ghost, but I don’t believe it."

02/16/23

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mma

Bartiromo's wild and “kind of racist” election conspiracy theory collapses immediately

Bartiromo, who was deeply involved in promoting the Dominion election conspiracy theories that Fox News paid for, is at it again

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Lis Power

Published 08/20/24

Maria Bartiromo repeatedly used her Fox Business show to peddle an election fraud conspiracy theory that she claimed originated with the wife of a friend of a friend in Texas and that she made no apparent effort to confirm. But when the Texas Department of Public Safety and the local Republican Party investigated her reckless allegation, they discovered that none of it was true.

On Sunday morning, Bartiromo posted an item to X alleging that “a massive line of immigrants” had been obtaining driver’s licenses and registering to vote at three Department of Motor Vehicles offices in Texas:

From a friend ...

Friend of mine’s wife had to take her 16 yr old son to the DMV this week for a new license. Couldn’t get an online appointment(all full) so went in person and had to go to 3 DMV’s to get something done. First DMV was in Weatherford. Had a massive line of immigrants getting licenses and had a tent and table outside the front door of the DMV registering them to vote! Second one was in Fort Worth with same lines and same Dems out front. Third one was in North Fort Worth had no lines but had same voter registration drive.

Bartiromo brought the wildly flimsy allegation to Fox’s airwaves the following day, having apparently done no independent reporting to confirm claims that she said originated with the wife of a friend of her friend.

She brought up the story in at least three segments on the Monday and Tuesday editions of her Fox program — including in interviews with two Republican U.S. senators.

Indeed, the story became even more sinister for the Fox audience, with Bartiromo alleging that the people registering to vote were not just “immigrants,” as stated in her X post, but “illegals.” A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety noted that assuming that nonwhite Texans are undocumented is “kind of racist” and called her story “simply false.”

Bartiromo first flagged the story during a Monday morning interview with Sheriff Thad Cleveland of Terrell County, Texas, and Republican strategist Michael Balboni.

“I'm serious about this issue of illegals voting, and I want to get your take on this,” Bartiromo told Balboni. “Apparently, the DMV offices right now are packed with illegals right now trying to get driver's licenses, and they're getting Social Security cards, driver's licenses, apparently, in very short order after coming into the country. They want to get them naturalized as soon as possible before the election.”

She returned to the subject later in the segment, saying that a “person … spoke to me about this this weekend” detailing how DMV offices had been “jam-packed with illegals” and claiming that “he” had told her there had been a voter registration “tent and a table” in Weatherford, Texas, that had been “an obvious Democrat operation.”

Bartiromo further discussed the DMV conspiracy theory during an interview with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI). This time, she said the allegation came not from the wife of a friend of a friend, as she originally wrote on X, but from “a friend” who had personally seen the “massive lines of illegals getting licenses” and registering to vote, and texted her directly.

“I reported, earlier, and over the weekend, that a friend had sent me a text this weekend telling me that they went to DMV for a new license, and there were lines and lines of illegals all over the DMV office, the Department of Motor Vehicles,” Bartiromo said. “There was one in Weatherford, Texas, massive line of immigrants getting licenses. They had a tent outside and a table to register them to vote.”

“So, what is going on in terms of illegals voting in this election? And do you think that is the reason that the border has been wide open for three and a half years?” she asked.

Video

CitationFrom the August 19, 2024, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria

“Yeah, I’ve been saying that for about three and a half years,” Johnson replied, quickly pivoting from Bartiromo’s anecdote to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. “I saw no other explanation of why Joe Biden-Kamala Harris would open up the border, presenting a clear and present danger to America, other than to change the electorate to bring in more people — it would be, you know, very beneficial to them from a standpoint of getting elected.”

“Democrats want to make it easy to cheat,” he added. “They want to change the electorate, that is what this has all been about, and it’s destroying this country.”

Bartiromo discussed the story with a second senator on Tuesday.

“I got a tip over the weekend that these DMV offices are jam-packed with illegals and they’re getting them Social Security cards and drivers' licenses,” she told Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS). “Do you have any evidence that illegals are registered to vote?”

Others who saw Bartiromo’s initial X post did what she apparently failed to do and tried to confirm her story.

Sgt. William Lockridge, spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the account Bartiromo promoted was “simply false” and “kind of racist.”

From the Monday report:

Contrary to Bartiromo’s friend’s wife’s account, there is no office for the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles in Weatherford. Folks there get their licenses at a DPS Driver License office.

Still, no such tent and table were set up outside the office last week.

“None of it is true,” Lockridge said, adding that the assumption that non-white Texans lined up to get their driver licenses are immigrants or illegal is “kind of racist.”

“Just because these people aren’t white, that doesn’t mean they’re illegal,” he said.

There was a table set outside the DPS Driver License office in Lake Worth on Friday, Lockridge said, but not at the other two sites mentioned in Bartiromo’s post.

Similarly, Brady Gray, the chairman of the Parker County GOP, said on X that his group had spent “24 hours investigating the claims” Bartiromo made about Weatherford and found them to be “erroneous.” From the post:

  1. While we are everyday registering more voters in Parker county, there has been no large submission of registrants consistent with the claim.
  1. All voter registration applications in the county are processed by the county EA office (County Voter Registrar) and are uploaded to SOS to verify the applicants eligibility to vote (i.e. citizenship, etc.). Not only have there been no recent instances of ineligible individuals attempting to register in Parker county, there have only been two in the last 15 years.
  1. The DPS office has confirmed that there have been no tents or tables and no one registering voters on their premises, and that if it were the case they would be told to leave, as it is not allowed.

Bartiromo’s ludicrously thin claims of Democrats trying to register undocumented immigrants to vote in the 2024 presidential election fit neatly within her recent career.

Bartiromo promoted a series of wild claims about election fraud following the 2020 election. Her deeds included hosting Trumpist lawyer Sidney Powell to baselessly allege that Dominion Voting Systems had rigged the vote against Donald Trump. She brought Powell on after Powell forwarded her an email from a woman who claimed that Dominion’s software flipped votes from Trump to Joe Biden — and also that “the Wind tells me I’m a ghost, but I don’t believe it.”

Her Dominion segments were featured in the company’s defamation lawsuit against Fox, which resulted in her network paying a record settlement. But they had no apparent impact on her standing at Fox: She retains a weekly Fox News show and a three-hour weekday show on Fox Business, giving her platforms where she can ask U.S. senators about unverified thirdhand claims.

That leaves her well-positioned to help Trump if he once again tries to subvert a presidential election.

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mma 7 24

BARTIROMO (HOST): The GDP at 2.8%​, you have to believe​ we're going to see a revision there​, right​?

REBECCA WALSER (GUEST): Yes. [LAUGHTER]

BARTIROMO: Is that what you were going to say? Are we going to see a revision on second quarter GDP, Rebecca?

​WALSER:​I've seen the most optimistic​, fairy-tale numbers I​'ve​ ever seen in my life​ in this. I​ just don't understand​. Come on, we are not going at 2.8% ​annualized, that's not happening. And this is going to be revised downward. I mean, wh​at is bringing it up so much, Cheryl? Why is it 2.8​? ​What is bringing this number so high ​unexpectedly, when durable goods are down 6.6? No, I'm sorry, I have to look at that.

===

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"Real Time" host Bill Maher recently noted that when Republicans and right-wing media outlets find a new talking point, they work it to death regardless of its merits. And he cited the claim that President Joe Biden is using some type of drug or stimulant ahead of his first 2024 debate with presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump as a prime example.

Right-wing media outlets have been claiming that if Biden performs well against Trump in the June 27 debate that CNN is hosting in Atlanta, it will be because he is getting an unfair advantage via a stimulant. But there is no proof or evidence to support that baseless claim.

In an op-ed published on June 26, the Washington Post's Aaron Blake details how that claim took off in right-wing media.

READ MORE: Political vets who've debated Biden or Trump dish on how to do it

"When Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo asked Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) about the just-announced presidential debate last month," Blake explains, "she prefaced the question oddly. 'So, let me get you to put your doctor's hat on for a second, given the (GOP) Doctors Caucus that you are leading'…. What did being a doctor have to do with handicapping the debate?.... Murphy quickly took the cue, though, launching into a baseless suggestion that Biden might take something to enhance his performance."

Blake continues, "He said Biden 'must have been jacked up' during his State of the Union address in March — that 'they gave him something.' Murphy gave no evidence but said he could provide proof for his claim to Bartiromo 'offline.'"

The Washington Post columnist notes that "a little more than 40 days" after that Bartiromo/Murphy conversation, "such evidence still hasn't seen the light of day." But Trump and allies like Fox News hosts Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity, Blake adds, continue to promote their claim anyway.

"Responsible journalists don't just accuse people of drug use based upon suspicion," Blake argues, "and there's still no actual evidence."

READ MORE:Trump fears strong Biden debate performance — and is already prepping response

*Aaron Blake's full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required).

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note // new evidence on keeping docs illegally?

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donald Trump and his allies are falsely claiming President Joe Biden, the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had a plot to assassinate his top political rival, the ex-president, during the execution of a search warrant in 2022 at Mar-a-Lago. Critics, including law enforcement experts, are blasting Trump and his MAGA associates for the “dangerous” lie.

On Tuesday a U.S. District Judge unsealed court documents in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Espionage Act case against Trump where he faces 40 felony counts, most over his alleged unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return classified documents including some of the nation’s top nuclear secrets.

One of those filings, as The Washington Post reported, was a law enforcement documents that included a standard statement reminding FBI agents on the Bureau’s policy on the use of deadly force, “which says officers may resort to lethal force only when the subject of such force poses an ‘imminent danger of death or serious physical injury’ to an officer or another person.”

But on Tuesday, Trump explosively posted on Truth Social, “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!”

READ MORE: Trump Adviser Scanned and Saved Contents of Box That Had Classified Docs: Report

Later, in a fundraising email Trump went much further.

“They were authorized to shoot me!” the subject line reads, according to an archive of political emails.

“TRUMP ALERT,” it begins. “BREAKING FROM TRUMP: BIDEN’S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME!”

“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.”

Attorney and former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa observed, “Including the deadly force policy [in] an ops plan is SOP [standard operating procedure]. But just so I make sure I’m following the plot, according to Trump’s position in court, what he is accusing Biden of would be perfectly legal and within the scope of his ‘official’ powers, right?”

Trump repeatedly has insisted presidents must have complete and total “absolute immunity.” His attorneys have argued in federal court and before the U.S. Supreme Court a president could order Seal Team Six to assassinate his political rival and it would be lawful, as was noted here:

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was among the top allies who falsely characterized the court filing.

“The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light,” she posted to her official federal government account on X. “Does everyone get it yet???!!!! What are Republicans going to do about it?” hold my beer

She also wrote: “This is grounds for impeachment of Wray and Garland. Trump and team was cooperating the entire time with the FBI,” Greene claimed, both of which are false.

READ MORE: ‘Incomprehensible’: More Classified Docs Were Found at Mar-a-Lago, Unsealed Court Filing Reveals

“Was deadly force authorized against Biden for his docs? Were they going to shoot SS then Pres Trump, Melania, and Barron too??? Speaker Mike Johnson fully funded the DOJ and FBI plus new building and tied our hands behind our backs to hold them accountable. We have the power of the purse and Johnson has handed the purse to Chuck Schumer. All of this is unforgivable.”

Fox News Business host Maria Bartiromo also promoted the false claims Wednesday morning:

IFrame Content

NBC News’ Ryan Reilly mockingly explained the situation: “GOP members of Congress think the feds wanted to assassinate Trump and so they did a raid on his place in Florida when they knew him to be in New Jersey because Mar-A-Lago was closed for the season.”

Meanwhile, critics are sounding the alarm on Trump’s and the GOP’s lies.

“This is wildly irresponsible, even for professional troll like Marjorie Taylor Greene,” wrote conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg. “FBI knew Trump wasn’t there. It was all coordinated with Secret Service in advance. This is deeply dangerous bullshit.”

“Trump wasn’t there,” said talk radio host Joe Walsh, a former GOP U.S. Congressman, responding to U.S. Rep. Greene’s remarks. “Everything was coordinated with Secret Service & local law enforcement. Even for you, this is a deeply irresponsible and dangerous thing to say.”

David Axelrod, the former top Obama strategist and White House advisor, remarked, “This is patently nuts…and dangerously provocative!”

Watch the videos above or [at this link]

:{:{//}:

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Tuesday claimed that President Joe Biden and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) planned to "assassinate" former President Donald Trump.

The MAGA lawmaker also claimed that she attempted to warn the ex-president of such matters.

"The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light," Greene wrote via X/Twitter. "Does everyone get it yet???!!!! What are Republicans going to do about it? I tried to oust our Speaker who funded Biden’s DOJ AND FBI, but Democrats stopped it."

READ MORE:Mike Johnson’s 'triumphant moment' doesn't mean GOP extremists are 'going away': analysis

She also claimed, "I made sure that he knew."

The Georgia Republican leader was responding to Truth Social post from Trump, in which he wrote: "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 THREATTO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE -25TH AMENDMENT!"

Retired FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi responded to Greene's claim, noting that "every FBI operations order contains a reminder of FBI deadly force policy."

The Dispatch Editor-In-Chief Jonah Goldberg commented: "This is wildly irresponsible, even for professional troll like Marjorie Taylor Greene. FBI knew Trump wasn’t there. It was all coordinated with Secret Service in advance. This is deeply dangerous bulls—t."

READ MORE:'Spectacular' defeat in Johnson battle leaves Marjorie Taylor Greene 'weak and feeble': analysis

Columnist Goldie Taylor's replied to Greene, saying, "Something is really wrong with you."

IFrame Content

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SOME RUBBER GLUE DEFLECTION FROMTRUMP COUP J6?

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

AN 4 24

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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// rep collins bigot not 1st

'Disgusting': Maria Bartiromo ripped for linking Baltimore bridge collapse to Biden border policy - Alternet.org

:

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

===

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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the day after the House GOP voted unanimously to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, with some congressional Republicans admitting there is no evidence of impeachable offenses, the lead investigator declared their most damning evidence is a long-ago widely-debunked conspiracy theory.

Republican Oversight Chairman Jim Comer, head of one of the three most-powerful House committees and the top promoter of the push to impeach President Biden, Thursday morning was asked by Fox News Business host Maria Bartiromo to name his “most damning” evidence.

“We’ve talked about the potential of money laundering and bribery,” said Bartiromo, who has been called an “election fraud promoter,” and a “once-respected journalist” who became a “full-blown Donald Trump sympathizer.”

“What can you tell us about the evidence?” she asked.

Comer claimed “over $24 million” has been run through a “series” of shell companies. “And then they laundered the money down to the Biden family members, 10 Biden family members.”

READ MORE: Clarence Thomas vehemently objects to LGBTQ conversion therapy case denial by SCOTUS

He defends his money-laundering claim because banks, he says, filed suspicious activity reports (SARs). According to the Thomson Reuters Institute, in 2022 alone there were 3.6 million SARs filed, and that number “this year is likely to set additional records.”

He adds, “six different banks accused the Bidens of money laundering – that’s a serious crime.” Money laundering is a serious crime but filing an SAR does not mean a bank is accusing someone of money laundering, nor does it mean money laundering is taking place.

The Chairman claims “we know they got tens of billions of dollars from bad people in bad countries. He admits, “We don’t know what exactly they did, but alleges, “We fear Joe Biden’s compromised.”

Comer then continues to make broad, unspecific allegations, using non-definitive words and terms, like, “we fear,” and, “we figure.”

“We figure this is one reason that he’s soft on China,” a claim he’s made before, in part based on the President removing Trump’s ban on TikTok, a ban that has been challenged in court.

He also claims, “we have specific policy decisions that Joe Biden made while he was vice president and president that we fear were made because he was compromised,” without providing any evidence to support the claim.

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

Comer again defaults to the long-debunked Burisma conspiracy theory.

“We fear this is one reason that he obviously fired the prosecutor who was investigating Hunter’s corrupt energy company in Ukraine when he was vice president.”

Not one word of that is true, although the owner of Burisma, the energy company, was under investigation and is reportedly now wanted by Ukrainian authorities.

Then-Vice President Biden did not nor could he “fire” Viktor Shokin, the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General, who was removed from his post for not investigating corruption, by the Ukrainian Parliament, after both domestic and international calls for him to be replaced for not doing his job. Those calls came from the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the United States, where it was Obama administration policy that Shokin had to go.

Comer’s claim is further debunked by numerous reports going back to 2019.

“Burisma Holdings was not under scrutiny at the time Joe Biden called for Shokin’s ouster, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, an independent agency set up in 2014 that has worked closely with the FBI,” USA Today reported that year. “Shokin’s office had investigated Burisma, but the probe focused on a period before Hunter Biden joined the company, according to the anti-corruption bureau.”

Also in 2019, Bloomberg published a report with this headline: “Ukraine Prosecutor Says No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Bidens.”

“I do not want Ukraine to again be the subject of U.S. presidential elections,” Shokin’s successor Yuriy Lutsenko, told Bloomberg. “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws — at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing. A company can pay however much it wants to its board.”

Watch Comer’s remarks below or at this link. aaron r twt]

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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.

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}:

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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rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, threatened to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton.

During a Sunday interview on Fox News, hostMaria Bartiromo asked an animated Jordan if he would consider opening an investigation into the Clintons.

"Do you want to see another investigation of Hillary and Bill Clinton?" Bartiromo wondered. "Because in the Durham report, John Durham wrote that while they were pursuing Trump, they made no effort to investigate the claim that Hillary Clinton was taking money from foreigners for her Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation."

"They not only didn't investigate her like they did President Trump, they gave her campaign a defensive briefing!" Jordan exclaimed. "They should have done the same for President Trump because they literally had no evidence."

Jordan said he would talk with his attorneys and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) before proceeding.

"We're going to give that a good hard look," he insisted. "But nothing is off the table because it is critical the American people understand how their government, their agencies have been turned on, them the taxpayer,and we get all the facts out there."

Watch the video below from Fox News or at this link

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an 5 23

Representative James Comer (R-Kentucky, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, once again fell flat during an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo over supposed evidence of criminal activities that the GOP claims to have accumulated against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Following a series of unendearing interviews this week, Comer on Thursday insisted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice are stymieing their probe into the clandestine connections that Republicans believe the Bidens have with international interests.

Politico noted on May 3rd that while Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) "asserted that the FBI has material outlining 'an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions,'" Comer and Grassley have "provided no further detail on the nature of those allegations."

READ MORE: House GOP Oversight warns DOJ: 'Do not indict Hunter Biden before Wednesday'

Politico also explained that although "Comer and Grassley say they became aware of the potential existence of material underpinning the anti-Biden allegations from a'highly credible whistleblower' who contacted lawmakers to assert knowledge of a conversation the FBI had with a confidential source... the two Republicans provided no information on the purported whistleblower’s background, or how that person would have knowledge of an alleged conversation with an FBI source."

Over the past week, Comer and his confederates have stumbled when questioned about what proof they have against the Bidens, prompting skepticism among normally friendly conservative media anchors.

Such was the case on Thursday when Comer spoke with Bartiromo.

"And we're going to move forward with Plan B and I, and it's unfortunate that we have to do this. It's unfortunate that, uh, neither Senator Grassley nor I have one ounce of confidence in the leadership of the FBI right now, or the DOJ. Uh, but we're gonna move forward. They're not going to obstruct our investigation or corruption in this White House. And we're gonna continue to, to press and, and get answers and provide the American people with the facts," Comer said.

no lnx

Congressman, what's Plan B?" Bartiromo asked.

Comer had no substantive response.

"Well, stay tuned. Maria. You'll be the first person that'll know. I, I can assure you," he replied. "But it's, uh, you know, we assumed the FBI would continue this pattern of behavior of, uh, you know, acting independently. I mean, this is an example of thedeep state, uh, and the fourth branch of government."

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Show the goods': Fox News host calls out House Republican over lack of Hunter Biden evidence

Politico's report continues here.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/foxdominion-lawsuit/new-audio-shows-fox-news-anchor-maria-bartiromo-followed-trump-campaign

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New audio shows Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo followed Trump campaign directives to promote January 6

The Trump campaign told Bartiromo to push January 6, 2021, as the date to overturn the 2020 election. Then she did it.

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD

PUBLISHED 04/14/23

New audio revealed as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News — which Fox allegedly failed to provide to Dominion in the discovery process — shows how Fox News and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo took directives from the Trump campaign to promote the campaign’s plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election results on January 6, 2021.

The new evidence was revealed by former Fox producer Abby Grossberg as part of her separate lawsuit against the network for allegedly setting her and Bartiromo up as scapegoats for Fox’s clear pattern of spreading lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. While the paper trail released so far in the case shows that Grossberg herself promoted conspiracy theories in the pursuit of ratings, she has also brought forward additional evidence that has already produced big legal results in the Dominion case. The judge in the case reportedly sanctioned Fox on Wednesday for failing to turn over Grossberg’s audio recordings in a move that will give Dominion an opportunity to conduct further legal discovery at Fox’s expense.

On Wednesday night, MSNBC host Alex Wagner played exclusive audio excerpts from the key pieces of evidence that Grossberg had preserved and Fox had allegedly withheld from Dominion, including aphone call on November 8, 2020, in which then-Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani admitted that he did not have evidence for his outlandish claims about Dominion. (Bartiromo and other Fox hosts continued to host Giuliani, anyway.)

In another phone call, from December 5, 2020, an unnamed Trump campaign official admitted that Georgia’s statewide recount of ballots was “pretty darn close to what the machine count was,” and that the secretary of state’s office found that “that there weren’t any physical issues” with the voting machines. In a key piece of audio that Wagner played Wednesday night, theTrump campaign official also gave one of the earliest signals that the campaign intended to use the January 6, 2021, joint session of Congress in an attempt to overturn the election results,and that then-Vice President Mike Pence would supposedly “have to decide” which votes to count.

In another key section from the December 5, 2020, phone call that Grossberg’s lawyer provided to Wagner, the unnamed Trump campaign official suggested that media outlets should cover this date as a supposed milestone for determining the election — indeed, this had been his entire purpose for getting on this phone call.

Video From the April 12, 2023, edition of MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight

Bartiromo immediately picked up on the Trump campaign’s instruction. On both her weekday morning Fox Business show, as well as her Sunday show on Fox News that Grossberg regularly produced, Bartiromo pushed the January 6 date many, many times, furthering the Trump campaign’s efforts to move the goal posts from its many legal and electoral defeats. These examples included instances in which Bartiromo either mentioned the date first, or she was clearly teeing up the guest to talk about the date, which Bartiromo depicted as an alleged point in time when Congress or Pence could realistically overturn the election.

On December 8, 2020, which was known as the “safe harbor” date against any legal challenges for the election results, Bartiromo hosted then-Trump campaign attorneyJenna Ellis, asking her, “So what do you see as, you know, today's date in terms of the safe harbor date? How does that complicate your challenges?” Ellis responded that “the ultimate date of significance is January 6,” which she said justified the campaign’s continued litigation. This was three days after Bartiromo’s call with the Trump campaign official. [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 12/8/20]

On the December 13 edition of her Sunday show, Bartiromo hosted Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), asking him, “I want you to walk us through what happens on January 6,” which she described as “another date, as we approach a potential transition” of the presidency. Jordan then described the efforts that congressional Republicans would make to object to the election results, in order to prevent the “potential transition” that Bartiromo had described. [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 12/13/20]

Video

Citation From the December 13, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo

On December 14, the date when the Electoral College delegates voted across the country, Bartiromo hosted then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “What's your take on where we are?” she asked. “Is it the end of the line now for the president's campaign to stop and overturn this election as the Electoral College will meet, or are you looking at January 6 as a pivotal date or what?” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 12/14/20]

The next day, December 15, Bartiromo read a news headline about the Electoral College results. Following a video clip of President-elect Joe Biden calling for the country “to unite, to heal,” Bartiromo said in a seeming rebuttal: “The next major step in the election process is on January 6. This is the date we are looking forward to, when Vice President Mike Pence is going to preside over the joint session of Congress while they officially tabulate the electoral votes.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 12/15/20]

Video

Citation From the December 15, 2020, edition of Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria Bartiromo

On December 18, Bartiromo hosted former pro football player and future Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker and his son, right-wing social media personality Christian Walker. Bartiromo played a video clip that Christian Walker had posted in which he declared, “The electors might have cast their votes today. They're not counted until January 6, when Congress meets. … This isn’t over yet.” Bartiromo responded: “I just love that.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 12/18/20]

On December 20, Bartiromo hosted Herschel and Christian Walker again on her Sunday show, once again praising Christian Walker’s online video and telling him, “You were basically underlining Section 1, Article 2 in the Constitution.” After Christian declared on “January 6, the vice president will count the votes,” Bartiromo did not challenge the apparent contention that Pence could determine the election results, but instead just praised Christian further: “Yes, and that's pretty much what you said on Instagram, which was great. It went viral.” [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 12/20/20]

On the January 3, 2021, edition of her Sunday show — the weekend prior to the joint session of Congress — Bartiromo hosted multiple Republican members of Congress who were planning to challenge the election results. At the conclusion of one segment, she remarked to Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL): “If you're going to object to six states, and then you’ve got a two-hour debate, we’re not going to learn the results here until — well, we're not going to learn on January 6, that’s for sure. This goes into January 7.” (The electoral votes were indeed certified after midnight, under what had become truly unprecedented circumstances.) [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 1/3/21]

Video

Citation From the January 3, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo

The manner in which Grossberg has sought to substantiate the main claim in her lawsuit against Fox — that the network was allegedly setting up her and Bartiromo to take a fall in the Dominion lawsuit — is turning out to be a very strange thing indeed. Fox executives must bear ultimate responsibility for the lies the network helped to spread, but at the same time the new evidence that Grossberg has brought to bear in this case makes Bartiromo look worse and worse by revealing more of her reckless on-air behavior and coordination with the Trump campaign’s effort to subvert a national election result.

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Fox/Dominion Lawsuit

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abby sex harass tapes not turned over judged PO

not damming revel? said evid coming?

https://www.mediamatters.org/foxdominion-lawsuit/msnbc-reveals-new-audio-rudy-giuliani-admitting-fox-news-maria-bartiromo-he-has

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mma 4 23

JOHN RATCLIFFE (FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE): Well, Maria, I mean, the point is this is election interference. We don't know how – no one really knows how this is going to play out. We just know that it is going to be a factor. We have crossed the Rubicon from people saying, you know, on the left, President Trump should be indicted to the discussion is going to be President Trump was indicted. And however long this case takes, and very clearly, it's not going to play out throughout the court system in less than the year that it's going to take to, you know, to, you know, reach a Republican nominee.

And so this action, this political persecution is going to influence our politics every single day for the next year until a Republican nominee is chosen, and that is, by definition, election interference. This is wholly inappropriate, you know, a complete perversion of our political system, and I think people need to, hopefully, understand and see what's going on here through these imposter D.A.s like Alvin Bragg. But this is coast to coast, you know? This is Kim Foxx in Chicago, this is George Gascon in California, this is George Soros funding all of these people where we've put socialists in charge of the American judicial system. We've put people who don't understand or appreciate orstand up for American values in charge of our legal system to distort it intentionally and deliberately and, unfortunately, Donald Trump is the first but won't be the last person to be persecuted under that system.

MARIA BARTIROMO (FOX NEWS HOST): Well, this is a really good point that you're making because George Soros makes no apology for it. In fact, he wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal just a couple of weeks ago. You're talking about the $40 million that he has donated to get these D.A.s in place. He says I've done it transparently. I've no intention of stopping. The funds I provide enable sensible, reform-minded candidates to receive a hearing from the public. Judging by the results, the public likes what it's hearing. I'm not sure which public he's talking to becausethese D.A.s are using bail reform to put criminals back on the streetexcept if it's Donald Trump.

RATCLIFFE: Maria, they're not D.A.s, they're imposter D.A.s. These are political plants. These are people who are only being supported with, you know, $40 million – in the case of Alvin Bragg a million dollars from George Soros – only because of a promise that you're in this position, you will pursue political prosecution of our opponents, those on the right. And that is, again, happening coast to coast, and that's really what's at stake. This should be a clarion call to Americans who otherwise don't tune in to politics ordon't think that it affects them. It absolutely has, and the bedrock principles of our justice system are clearly under assault where, again, we have socialists who are anathema to, you know, American values in charge largely of our judicial system, you know, through these state D.A.s and prosecutors.

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Fox News freaks out over energy efficiency standards for washing machines

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ILANA BERGER

PUBLISHED 03/16/23

Washing machines have become the latest target of Fox News’ campaign to stoke outrage over efforts to reduce carbon emissions from household appliances by casting newer, more energy-efficient products as dysfunctional, expensive, and intrusive “scams.”

In February, the Department of Energy proposed stricter standards for household washing machines, refrigerators, and freezers to reduce carbon emissions and make these appliances more energy efficient. On March 13, the Washington Free Beacon and later Fox News started a parade of misleading claims about the effectiveness and cost of what several sources say will actually make doing laundry cheaper for many Americans.

Consumer experts and the U.S. Energy Department suggest energy-efficient washing machines would actually make doing laundry easier and cheaper

Firstly, it’s important to note that consumers will still be able to choose between top-loaders and front-loading machines. According to the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, the new standards will actually phase out machines that use older technology called agitators and replace them with ones that use impellers, or wash plates. Consumer Reports says that impellers use less water and more motion to get clothes clean and cut down on time in the dryer, which could save consumers money in the long run. Consumer Reports also found that top-loaders that use impellers have a higher average “washing performance” score than those that use agitators. Even Whirlpool, which spoke out against the new standards, claims on its website that impellers and agitators are “roughly equal” in “cleaning performance, energy efficiency, capacity, innovation and convenience.”

The Department of Energy estimates that the proposed standards could cost manufacturers about $690 million to make the necessary updates. However, the changes would also save U.S. consumers up to $14.5 billion over 30 years, helping reduce utility costs for renters who are typically lower-income, and the new standards are estimated to cut more than 53 million metric tons of carbon emissions over that same time.

Fox personalities misleadingly attack energy-efficient washing machines

Despite the evidence, anchors, hosts, and guests on Fox News and Fox Business have taken the word of an industry trade association, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, and repeatedly claimed that the Department of Energy’s new efficiency standards will somehow make Americans “dirtier and stinkier.” They also parroted the industry claim that the standards would make doing laundry more expensive by increasing the cost of detergent or preventing consumers from buying cheaper, older, less efficient models. Some Fox figures even denied the reality of climate change to argue that energy efficiency should not be a priority in the first place:

Fox News Radio host Jimmy Failla said the Biden administration is banning “super-sized water” in washing machines, calling it a “scam” that will leave clothes “dirtier.” “This is the scam here, OK, because your clothes are going to be dirtier. And they’ve said this already. It's going to require possibly a second wash. … Think about this, remember when they banned super-sized fries so all the fat people like me just bought two larges? That’s what this is. They're banning super-sized water. So now you get to wash them twice.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 3/15/23]

Fox & Friends hosts doubled down on the idea that the new standards would leave clothes dirtier. Co-host Steve Doocy reported, “Critics say President Biden's new energy plan would make each washing cycle take longer, make detergent more expensive, and leave clothes dirtier because they use less water.” Co-host Ainsley Earhardt told viewers to “get those dirty clothes clean while you can, cause soon they're all gonna be dirty.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/15/23]

Video

CitationFrom the March 15, 2023, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

Fox Business correspondent Jeff Flock questioned why his washing machine isn’t energy efficient enough, even though the government is not forcing anyone to get rid of their washing machines. “I already have what they call a high-efficiency washing machine. But the Biden administration thinks maybe it's not efficient enough. They want you to use less water and less detergent.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 3/15/23]

James Coleman, a senior fellow at Koch-funded climate denial front group the American Enterprise Institute,fearmongered that “the standards would, on-net, harm consumers.” “Like many efficiency standards, the government claims that although these standards will raise the cost of appliances, they are justified because they will reduce consumer spending on energy and water even more. Of course, if that were true, consumers would likely buy more efficient appliances anyway, given that studies show consumers consider energy and water costs.” [FoxNews.com, 3/14/23]

Hannity host Sean Hannity called reducing carbon emissions from washers and dryers “idiotic.” “Leave my washing machine alone. But more importantly, leave my gas stove alone. … I mean, this is madness. China is the world's biggest polluter. They're not being held accountable. All these other countries are not being held accountable. And they're looking for U.S. taxpayers to pay for their cleaner air. Why would we bear that responsibility? This is so idiotic, but yet they present this as legitimate policy.” [Fox News, Hannity, 3/14/23]

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on The Bottom Line said the Biden administration wants to have people “carrying our clothes back out back and doing an old wringer washing machine.” “My goodness, you know it is not enough to control you from daylight to dark. Now they want to control your oven. I'm not giving up my gas stove. … And to take your washing machine and try to make it to the point that it is going to be less efficient.” Co-host Sean Duffy added, “They’ve ruined our toilets, they’ve ruined our dishwashers. Listen, nothing works in the home. Enough with these liberals, get them out of here.” [Fox Business, The Bottom Line, 3/14/23]

Video From the March 14, 2023, edition of Fox Business' The Bottom Line

Fox Business’ The Big Money Show co-hosts Brian Brenberg and Taylor Riggs said energy-efficient washing machines are ineffective. “I can tell you what is exactly going to happen here, OK?” Brenberg said. “You going to just wash your clothes twice, which means you’re going to use more water than you do right now and more soap than you do right now.” Riggs further claimed that saving water and energy will not have an impact on the climate crisis: “China and India are the world's largest polluters, go after them. The U.N. climate report says anything we do is worth nothing if we don't get them on board. Stop coming after small things like washing machines.” [Fox Business, The Big Money Show, 3/14/23]

Comedian Tom Shillue on America’s Newsroomsaid “no one ends up noticing the benefit” from more energy-efficient washing machines. “They always claim this is going to save the consumer, you should be happy. Well if that’s true, manufacturers would do it on their own and we would be happy to pay more for a machine to see that happen. But we don’t believe that’s what happens.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 3/14/23]

Varney & Co. host Stuart Varney included washing machines in a list of things that people supposedly “can’t have” anymore. “It is nonstop. Lightbulbs, can't have them. You can’t have toilets which flush a lot of water, so now you flush twice of course. What else have we got? Gas stoves, let’s not forget, washing machines, they’ve got to tell you what to do all of the time.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 3/14/23]

Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo discussed the new regulation with investor Michael Lee, who called the climate crisis a “lie” because “over the last 100 years, deaths due to climate-related accidents and disasters is down 98%, yet somehow it's an existential threat.” “It is beyond insane, the things that they've done and hearing that you've got to change your washing machine because it might use a little less water for this cycle or for that cycle, it's more of the same insanity that's ruining our country right in front of our eyes.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 3/14/23]

Failla called the regulations a “scam” the Biden administration is “forcing it on us.” “Nobody is on board with this. Everything this government does is some type of heavy-handed coercion or in this case what they would be calling a mandate. … These clothes aren't going to be cleaner, so you’re going to wind up washing them twice is my guess and probably using more water in the process.” Fox host Steve Doocy suggested the administration only put the regulations in place to placate environmentalists after greenlighting the Willow Project: “You’ve got to figure that his environmentalist base loves this kind of stuff, but at the same time he’s apparently greenlighted the Willow project which is going to open billions of gallons — billions of barrels of oil up north. So they’re furious.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/14/23]

Video

CitationFrom the March 14, 2023, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

Outnumbered co-host Harris Faulkner insisted that more efficient appliances would actually use more energy.“If in fact you're doing it longer, right, and you’re not getting the clothes as clean, if in fact you're cooking on that electric appliance now and also not cooking as quickly because the flame is on and the other element takes time to heat up, you’re already — aren't you breaking regulations for usage? … This is so counter to all the regulations that they’ve put in place, it makes no sense. It is like they are punching each other in the face, only they're hitting us.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 3/14/23]

Outnumbered guest and former NFL player Jake Bequette said the “green agenda” is making everything worse. “Before long, you’ll have to say your preferred pronouns to get your dishwasher to work. I mean this is ridiculous, like nothing works anymore. I just want the high-pressure shower heads to come back. They don't make them like they used to. I mean, this is all part of the green agenda.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 3/14/23]

Hannity tweeted, “WON’T WASH: Biden Proposes Washing Machine Regulations, Makes Doing Laundry More Expensive.” [Twitter, 3/14/23]

The attacks on washing machines are just part of right-wing media’s drumbeat against any consumer policy framed as climate-friendly

These attacks are just the latest instance of conservative media fearmongering over various household appliances, goods, and cherished companions — including gas stoves, coffee, gaming consoles, cars, and even pets — being supposedly regulated to fight climate change.

In January, right-wing media essentially tried to convince consumers that the Biden administration was going to come into their homes and rip their gas stoves out of the walls in the name of public health and climate change (in addition to trying to discredit a plethora of studies highlighting the health risks of indoor air pollution). It is only a matter of time before right-wing media finds some new manufactured narrative to whine about. These stories are not about improving the quality of life for Americans — they are purely politically motivated attacks to lambast Biden’s “green agenda.”

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sadly narrowly re-elected

https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/ron-johnson-has-a-feeling/ biden compro by chinabartir

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/here-are-conspiracy-theories-about-dominion-and-2020-election-fox-news-maria-bartiromo

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A recently published brief from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News shows Fox executives repeatedly called out anchor Maria Bartiromo, implausibly still considered a straight news anchor by the network, for amplifying election fraud lies on right-wing social media platform Parler.Media Matters has identified at least 12 of these posts from the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, at least three of which appear to specifically defame Dominion.

In March 2021, Dominion filed a defamation suit against Fox News and its parent company for the false claims the network pushed after the election. Those false claims were extensive: In the two-week period after Fox News declared Joe Biden the president-elect, the network questioned the results of the election or pushed conspiracy theories about it almost 800 times, including by using Dominion as a scapegoat.

Dominion’s brief calling for a summary judgment in its favor, released to the public last week, reveals that the network knew it was pushing false claims about Dominion’s voting machines. As Dominion detailed in the filing, “Literally dozens of people with editorial responsibility—from the top of the organization to the producers of specific shows to the hosts themselves—acted with actual malice.” This includes Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo, whom the filing calls out for amplifying baseless attacks against Dominion both on her show and across social media.

The filing also reveals that Fox executive Gary Schreier and Fox Business News President Lauren Petterson lamented that Bartiromo “sometimes” amplified baseless conspiracy theories.

“On November 7, [Petterson] received an alert that there was a coordinated effort on 4chan to spread claims that Dominion voting systems were used to commit fraud… The next day, Gary Schreier warned Petterson that Bartiromo ‘has gop conspiracy theorists in her ear and they use her for their message sometimes.’”

The filing also mentions that after Bartiromo announced that she would be leaving Twitter for the far-right social media platform Parler, “Petterson commented to Schreier, ‘How about get off social all together.’ Schreier responded, ‘I mean if you say crazy wrong shit on Parler is that better just because Parler won’t flag you?’”

Here are some of the posts that Bartiromo shared on Parler amplifying baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election:

Dominion’s brief references several instances in which Bartiromo spread election lies on Parler

The filing mentions that on November 5, Bartiromo “posted unfounded allegations of vote ‘dump[s]’ on social media,” prompting Fox host Brett Baier to alert Bill Sammon, the network’s then Washington bureau chief, “We have to prevent this stuff…We need to fact check.”

Maria Bartiromo Parler Post

Maria Bortiromo Parler Post claiming late night vote drop

The filing details that when Bartiromo hosted Trump lawyerSidney Powell on her show on November 8, 2020, she planned to ask about “voting irregularities” and “Bartiromo knew Powell would respond with conspiracy theories about Dominion.”The day before, Powell had sent Bartiromo an email titled “Election Fraud Info” that Powell had “received from a 'source' which the author herself describes as ‘pretty wackadoodle.’”Bartiromo reportedly described the email as “kooky” and “nonsense.” From the filing:

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“Bartiromo … never reported on the existence of this email. Nor did Bartiromo tell her viewers about the source of Powell’s claims or that Trump’s own Senior Advisor and son-in-law rejected the allegations as conspiracy theories. While the claims were laughable on their face, Bartiromo gave them credibility. As Tucker Carlson texted that night, “[t]he software shit is absurd.…Half our viewers have seen the Maria clip.”

Bartiromo also promoted lies from Powell on Parler,including by sharing a November 15 clip from Sunday Morning Futures featuring Powell claiming that “the evidence is coming in so fast” she 'can't even process it all.'”

Maria Bartiromo promoting her interview with Sydney Powell on Parler

The filing also mentions that on November 12, “Schreier notified Petterson and others that Dobbs and Giuliani had ‘[s]poke about servers for the voting machines in foreign country’ on air, but that this claim had not been verified.” (Former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs' program was cancelled in February 2021, days after he was named in a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Smartmatic, another election software company targeted by Fox.) That same day, Schreier had been warned that, per the filing, Bartiromo was “sharing conspiracy theories about Dominion on Parler, to which he responded ‘I don’t know why she invites this.’”

Maria Bortiromo Parler Post saying she'll talk about supposed dominion rigging on her show

Maria Bortiromo Parler Post claiming Venezuela interfered in the election

Bartiromo continued to attack Dominion on November 17, sharing a Gateway Pundit article alleging “Mass Dumps” of votes “for Biden” on Parler, in addition to promoting her segment featuring election fraud claims from disgraced Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Maria Bortiromo Parler Post claiming dominion voting machines were seized in Europe

Maria Bartiromo claiming experts found massive fraud in michigans election

Maria Bartiromo posts on Parler about her interview with Rudy Giuliani

Beyond the posts referenced in Dominion’s filing, Bartiromo spread other election-related lies on Parler in the weeks surrounding the 2020 election.

For example, Bartimoro pushed the debunked claim that dead people had votedby the thousands in Michigan. She also shared content from the Gateway Pundit alleging that a “voter fraud training” was held in the state:

Maria Bartiromo posts on Parler about dead people supposedly voting in 2020

Maria Bartiromo sharing an article alleging voter fraud trainings in detroit

Bartimoro additionally implied that there was cheating during the election and might be during Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff election, and she shared content casting doubts about election integrity:...

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Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo will provide live commentary during Fox News’ election night coverage, giving one of the network’s biggest conspiracy theorists an opportunity to once again spread misinformation about voter fraud and other debunked ideas.

In the 2020 election cycle and its aftermath, Bartiromo repeatedly and baselessly questioned the reliability of Dominion voting machines and software, part of a pattern of coverage at Fox that led to the company bringing a defamation lawsuit against the network. . That litigation is ongoing, and Bartiromo has reportedly been called to be deposed in the case.

As Media Matters previously documented, Bartiromo amplified numerous conspiracy theories following the 2020 election, including providing a platform for Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Syndey Powell to spread bad information about Dominion Voting Systems. On November 8, 2020, Powell told Bartiromo that “there had been a massive and coordinated effort to steal this election from we the people of the United States of America,” including “an algorithm to calculate the votes they would need to flip, and they used the computers to flip those votes.” Bartiromo didn’t challenge the assertion. “If this is true, this appears systemic,” she responded.

Dominion’s lawyers noted in their lawsuit that Bartiromo knew Powell’s comments were “false, or recklessly disregarded the truth,” as she had previously discussed with former President Donald Trump that any perceived lead he had in voting could lessen as mail-in and absentee ballots were cast.

On November 12, 2020, Bartiromo interviewed Giuliani about Dominion, suggesting that the company had financial ties to foreign countries perceived to be hostile to the United States. “Are you seeing money coming from places like Venezuela and Cuba?” Bartiromo asked. In his halting, rambling response, Giuliani claimed Dominion is “a foreign company — that raises questions immediately, why are we having a foreign company do our elections? It is Canada — maybe.” He later characterized it as “a Venezuelan company that has Chinese parts in it.”

Three days later, on November 15, 2020, Bartiromo interviewed Powell again. During that interview, Powell claimed that there had been massive voter fraud, and that public officials in states that used Dominion systems were getting “kickbacks” for stealing the election for Biden. “President Trump won by not just hundreds of thousands of votes, but by millions of votes, that were shifted by this software that was designed expressly for that purpose,” Powell said. The officials who supposedly stole the election got “substantial sums of money” laundered to them through family members, she said. Bartiromo didn’t challenge these preposterous allegations either.

In addition to amplifying Trump’s lawyers’ claims, Bartiromo also gave oxygen to a host of additional absurd conspiracy theories. On November 4, 2020, she claimed that “there were tons of ballots found under a rock in Arizona.” In fact, there were 18. On November 6, 2020, she promoted the so-called Sharpiegate conspiracy theory, which had already been repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers. On November 9, 2020, Bartiromo’s guests suggested that dead people were voting in large numbers. They were not. Later that month, Bartiromo allowed Trump to push his election denialist claims on her show, a programming decision Trump referred to as “brave.”

This pattern continued into December, when former Speaker of the House NewtGingrich appeared on her show to lay out a number of already discredited conspiracy theories, including false claims of a trucker delivering ballots from New York to Pennsylvania and a rehash of the claim that voting machines were somehow controlled by foreign governments. The same month, she and Herschel Walker, now a Senate candidate in Georgia, spread lies about the 2020 election.

Bartiromo also played a direct role in questioning the results of the election. On November 9, 2020, she appeared as a guest on fellow Fox star Sean Hannity’s radio show. “I have not given up on [Attorney General] Bill Barr,” she said. “I am expecting a full-on investigation of these irregularities that we're seeing in terms of voting and the ballots.” On November 30, 2020, she said that Trump’s lawyers “say they have a stack of affidavits of people, sworn testimony that say that they saw the Dominion machines change votes."

On the day the Electoral College was scheduled to vote to confirm Joe Biden as the next president, Bartiromo claimed to have spoken “with one source high up in the intel community."

“He said, ‘Trump did win,” Bartiromo continued. “‘There was election fraud, but to prove it requires the FBI and the DOJ to drill down on all of the election fraud issues related to voter and ballot issues. They're not doing it because the wrong people run the place, and they didn't want Trump to win. Now they've run out the clock with the Electoral College here.’”

Bartiromo’s false claims continued after the fascist insurrection on January 6, 2021. She alleged, without evidence, that “Democrats” in “MAGA clothing” were partiallybehind the attack. In interviews with Republican lawmakers after the attempted coup, she repeatedly claimed that “70% of Trump voters” believed the election was stolen, thereby offering a circular self-justification for continuing to push that incorrect information and excuse the riot. On Biden’s Inauguration Day, she failed to push back on numerous false claims put forward by Goya CEO Bob Unanue, including inflating the number of people who voted for Trump.

She continued pushing election denialist conspiracy theories throughout 2021. On March 16, 2021, she gave Trump another friendly interview filled with falsehoods about the election and Trump’s attempts to overturn it, including his pressure campaign against election officials in Georgia. Trump was back on her show in April of that year, repeating the lie that he won the election. In May 2021, she implied that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) was wrong to keep “talking and pushing back on President Trump, who says the election was stolen” and that she “has not acknowledged the issue around mail-in ballots.” In July 2021, she encouraged Trump to lie about the number of votes he’d received and the states he claimed to have won.

Bartiromo's recent coverage of the midterms has been no different. In October, she pushed a conspiracy theory that Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke and requires auditory assistance, was being fed answers through a closed caption system he used during an NBC interview. Fox viewers can likely expect more of the same this election night.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/right-wing-media-used-opec-oil-cuts-blame-biden-domestic-gas-price-volatility

mma 10 22

On October 5, OPEC [saudi?] and non-OPEC allies decided to impose cuts on oil production despite the fact that they were cautioned against doing so by the United States. The cartel will cut 2 million barrels, a move that could further elevate gas prices in the lead-up to midterm elections. To help ease the impact of the cuts, President Joe Biden, during remarks on gas prices and energy security delivered on October 19, announced a 3 point plan to address rising costs and global oil supplies, including the release of 15 million barrels of oilfrom the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Biden also called for oil companies to increase production instead of buying back stocks and paying dividends to their shareholders, and warned these companies not to gouge gas prices as the cost of oil comes down. 

Fox has painted Biden as chiefly responsible for rising gas prices in a ploy to hurt Democratic candidates in the final weeks of midterm campaigning. Other right-wing media outlets and personalities have followed suit, and criticism has been magnified by a claim made on October 12 by Saudi Arabia’s ministry of foreign affairs saying that Biden asked OPEC to postpone the oil cuts for a month.

In response, right-wing media is using the same playbook and the same series of debunked arguments and disinformationfrom earlier in the year when Russia first invaded Ukraine and global energy security became a concern.

Right-wing media is once again misleading voters about how the global energy market works to push a pro-fossil fuel agenda.

Conservative media outlets are pushing the idea that drastically increasing oil production in the U.S. is a quick and common-sense solution to the problem of high gas prices because it would allow the U.S. to be “energy independent," a term experts have pointed out is widely misunderstood. The U.S. has imported oil for decades and will continue to do so for economic reasons. Importing and exporting some energy is necessary to meet the needs of the market. In that sense, we will probably never be truly energy independent in a fossil fuel economy. If we understand energy independence to mean the U.S. exports more energy than we import, that is still the case. In fact, by this standard, U.S. energy independence reached its peak in 2021 when Biden was president. 

Right-wing media push pro-industry talking points claiming that U.S. oil producers are hindered from drilling, blame elevated gas prices solely on decisions made by Biden

Gas prices have been elevated by increased demand following the easing of pandemic restriction and by oil supply disruptions created by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Prices dipped slightly toward the end of the summer, only to rise in late September, but are currently on the downtrend once again. Aside from OPEC’s recent decision to cut supply, a refinery fire in the Midwest and facility maintenance on the West Coast have reduced inventories to record lows, and a looming European ban on Russian oil, which will take effect in December, is also contributing to price increases. 

The U.S. oil industry is not being hampered by the Biden administration, as it has claimed to evade blame.In March, CEOs of major oil producers stated that they were not planning on investing in any new drilling due to pressure from investors for bigger shareholder returns. To be sure, the current climate of increased demand and global supply disruptions caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine has increased the price of oil, lavishing these companies with record profits while U.S. and global consumers have been hurt by high energy costs.In fact, U.S. oil producers are sitting on 9,000 unused drilling leases for public lands, and while right-wing media push the industry claim that Biden is suppressing domestic production, U.S. oil production on public lands is near all-time highs and is on track for record output in 2023.

Right-wing media attack Biden for Strategic Petroleum Reserve use, foreign oil imports, and efforts to stabilize global oil supply

To help manage global oil prices, Biden began releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves in March. The latest release of 15 million barrels, announced on October 19, is the last of those planned releases. Right-wing media have suggested that drawing down the reserve makes the U.S. vulnerable to other disasters where the reserve would be needed to shore up supplies while doing nothing to address gas prices. As it stands, the reserves are still more than half full. The move has modestly lowered gas prices, however, experts agree it is not a long-term solution. Biden is also considering easing sanctions on Venezuela for Chevron to resume pumping oil there, allowing the country to export to U.S. and European markets.

Right-wing media has disingenuously argued that getting oil from Venezuela would be more environmentally damaging than producing more oil in the U.S., thus, increasing production domestically would be the more ethical choice. This is a common fossil fuel industry talking point that bad actors use to encourage long-term investments in expanding domestic production, meant to delay an economy-wide transition to renewable energy and ensure that we are reliant on fossil fuels for decades to come. This would be the worst possible outcome for the environment. The same individuals who praise the U.S. for having such “clean” energy production compared to other countries are also fighting against regulations implemented by the Biden administration that are meant toprotect vulnerable communities and hold the industry accountable for the extensive damage it will inevitably cause to ecosystems, the climate, and public health.

Right-wing media claims Biden’s negotiations to keep OPEC+ from cutting oil supply are politically motivated and even impeachable

Despite negotiations with Biden to keep oil supplies stable, OPEC+ announced on October 5 that it would cut its oil supply by 2 million barrels a day in an attempt to push the price to $100 a barrel. The White House has called the move shortsighted, while analysts have noted that it benefits Russia and could push the global economy closer to recession. Some early right-wing reactions suggested that Biden — who in response to OPEC’s decision signaled thepossibility of more releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — only cared about gas prices rising because of the looming midterms elections.

On October 12, in a rare statement to U.S. media, the Saudi government echoed these sentiments by claiming that Biden asked them to delay the cuts by one month – creating a feedback loop between right-wing media and the Saudi royal family. The White House has disputed these claims.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/so-unfortunate-maria-bartiromo-and-gop-congressman-trumps-special-master-pick-in-documents-probe/

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8 22 an raw

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) suggested over the weekend that Democrats are engaging in voter suppression because many people in Wisconsin believe he is a "tool" of Russia.

During a Sunday interview on Fox News, host Maria Bartiromo argued that there was reason to "distrust and question" the honesty of elections.

"That was part of what went on in 2020," she told Johnson. "People were questioning. Well, can we trust them? We know what they just did in the Russia collusion hoax."

"You say they are interfering with your election!" the host exclaimed, "because of these smears on you."

Bartiromo added: "Tell me about your opponent and why you believe you are being smeared and this is the result: 50% for [Mandela] Barnes, 46% for Johnson in the Wisconsin senate race [polls]."

Johnson claimed Democrats "interfered in the 2020 election far greater than anything Russia or China could ever do."

The senator said that Democrats leaked a briefing about his connections to Russia.

"Basically saying that I'm a tool of Russia, which I am not," Johnson remarked. "It's a completely false accusation. The Wisconsin press picks that up and [some] people in Wisconsin think I'm a tool of Vladimir Putin."

"Nothing could be further from the truth," he insisted. "But they have smeared me publicly and they just might impact the 2022 election here in Wisconsin as well. Because, let's face it, Maria, they do not want me reelected because I would be chairman on the permanent subcommittee on investigations. They know I will investigate their corruption."

Watch the video clip below from Fox News.

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an 7 22

no lnx twt pix

Fox Business host Maria Bartiromodedicated a segment of her Tuesday morning show to making a huge deal over a typo that appeared in a tweet posted by President Joe Biden on Monday.

Bartiromo, a media loyalist to former President Donald Trump, referred to the mistake as "tone-deaf."

Image via @atrupar/Twitter.

The error appears in the left-hand bubble pictured above, where "person" is misspelled as "peson." Its definition also does not fit into the "tone-deaf" narrative, although it is ironic when set against Fox's "fair and balanced" motto:

An instrument in the form of a staff, with balls or crockets, used for weighing before scales were employed.

READ MORE: 'We’re just waiting for him to die': Ex-GOP spox says party has no plan to purge itself of Donald Trump

The mockery was swift.

"Mario Bartiromo devoted a segment of her show this morning to this. Can you even spot the typo?" Vox's Aaron Rupar quipped.

"Trump’s Twitter feed was an all-you-can-eat buffet of typos but ok. I mean - he misspelled his own wife’s name. He misspelled everything from Marine Core & Air Force Once to covfefe and lasting peach. There were too many typos to even tally, but sure - let’s impeach Biden," wrote user Jo.

"Yes but 1) it's in the graphic, not Biden's tweet 2) the graphic and probably even the tweet were produced by someone other than the President 3) the typo'd word refers to a spring scale, so 4) how is any of that "tone deaf"? Tone deaf is tossing paper towels after a hurricane," joked another.

READ MORE: Watch: Jared Kushner reveals what Donald Trump tried to omit from his post-insurrection address

Some people never even saw the misprint:

They can't complain about the high gas prices so now we're on to typos that are suppose to be tone deaf. No wonder they were down graded. Btw, I read it as person, didn't even notice the typo.

It literally took me until I read this to find the typo.

Ditto. I read it like 10 times and didn't notice. Wow they're reaching. Trump tweeted out straight stupid for 4 years but now they're suddenly spelling/grammar nazis too instead of just regular nazis. Of course.

Same. I had to check comments, and I’m usually pretty good at spotting typos. How is this typo “tone-deaf,” though?

It's not. They're desperate for something to whine about

Additional reactions are here.

READ MORE: Eighth January 6th hearing made Donald Trump 'look horrific': Fox News host

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an 7 22

Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo had United States Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-Florida) as a guest on her show on Sunday and their discussion quickly unraveled into a rapid-fire validation of conspiracy theories that Bartiromo made up on the spot about President Joe Biden.

Bartiromo suggested to Jackson that Biden – whom she criticized for isolating himself while running for president during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – is being secretly drugged by, possibly, former President Barack Obama or First Lady Jill Biden so that he can function.

"There were signs that Joe Biden was declining during the 2020 campaign. I mean, let's face it, he stayed in the basement the whole time during the campaign, uh, so who knew what when? Are they hiding this and feeding him drugs to allow him to function? I know he goes home to Delaware a lot, more than any other president. So I guess my question is, what did Obama know? What did Jill Biden know? And who is running the White House right now, and are they covering up for these mental issues?" Bartiromo asked Jackson, who revealed this week that Obama had scolded him for a tweet that he had posted disparaging Biden's cognitive health.

READ MORE: Trump-loving 'candy man' congressman demands president Biden take cognitive test

"Well, that's the big question everybody's asking. Who's really pulling the strings and running the country right now?" Jackson replied.

"We don't really know the answer to that. We don't know if it's [former National Security Advisor] Susan Rice or Ron Klain or if it's Jill Biden or who it is. But somebody else is doing this. They're doing exactly what you said," Jackson continued.

"They're rolling him out at specific times during the day," Jackson added of the president. "He's got good days and bad days and whether or not they have him on drugs I dunno but there are drugs out there that can increase your alertness and your memory and things of that nature, you know, to cover stuff like this up temporarily. So I'm sure some of that's going on as well but we don't know because his physician hasn't stood up and took the questions that I took when I was Trump's physician and answered those questions."

Watch belowor at this link.

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new 5 22

https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/john-eastmans-latest-legal-filing-reveals-dual-role-fox-news-hosts-service

Politico reported Friday that John Eastman, the disgraced ex-law professor who formulated many of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, was also apparently in communication with Fox News host Mark Levin.The story gets even more interesting from there, revealing the shell game that right-wing media personalities engage in while doubling as political operatives.

A legal filing by Eastman’s attorneys reveals that, among the messages Eastman is still attempting to conceal from the House January 6 committee are 12 pieces of correspondence with an individual matching Levin’s description as “a radio talk show host, is also an attorney, former long-time President (and current board Chairman) of a public interest law firm, and also a former fellow at The Claremont Institute.” Other details, including a sloppy attempt to redact an email address, also connect to Levin, who did not respond to Politico’s requests for comment.

Eastman’s contention, however, is that he was not communicating with Mark Levin the media personality, which would forfeit attorney-client privilege on those communications. Instead, he was speaking with Mark Levin the attorney, and formulating legal strategies regarding the election.

A quick law lesson: The “dual role”

In their legal filing, Eastman’s attorneys argue that he should not have to turn over certain communications with right-wing media figures, even as other communications with those same people have been submitted. This question turns on a body of case law involving lawyers who serve in a “dual role.”

This area of law normally involves people who both are attorneys and have personal business interests, in which case a court must determine in which capacity they were acting and whether those communications or actions in question retain the legal privileges of secrecy.

The brief acknowledges that Eastman could find no previous instance in law having to do with media figures who were also attorneys, but it argues to extend this doctrine accordingly.

“Many members of the modern ‘media’ have multiple roles,” the filing argues, contending that some of Eastman’s communications with Levin in fact “involved work product communications with attorneys who also wear media ‘hats.’”

Eastman’s legal and media “hats” collide

In the case of Eastman, however, his work as an attorney in conservative causes and his public media presence have been so closely intertwined as to demonstrate that any such ethical separations quite simply do not exist in the right-wing media and political ecosystem.

Most notably, Eastman first came to Trump’s attention via an appearance on Levin’s Fox show back in May 2019, in which Eastman argued that Trump had the power as president to fire people who were investigating him. “The notion that the president can’t determine the course of an investigation is the most basic violation of separation of powers,” Eastman argued — even including an investigation involving the president himself.

The New York Times reported last year that Trump had never met Eastman before watching this episode. “Within two months, Mr. Eastman was sitting in the Oval Office for an hourlong meeting,” the Times reported.

In addition, Eastman’s new filing notes that he has had different sets of communications with an “opinion editor at Newsweek,” who is also affiliated with different conservative legal organizations. That description matches Newsweek editor Josh Hammer, who published Eastman’s disastrous op-ed in 2020 asserting that then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris was not a U.S. citizen and thus ineligible to run for office, even though she was in fact born in California. In this instance, clearly, the Venn diagram of the conservative legal and media worlds was simply a perfect circle.

And while Eastman was advising Trump on his theories of reversing the election results, he also advanced those ideas on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s show.

Levin uses his media platform to push far-right legal theories

While apparently acting under the privileges of an attorney corresponding with Eastman on their efforts to overturn the election, Levin also used his media platform with Fox News to publicly advocate for the same pseudo-legalistic theories. For example, he and Fox News contributor Ken Starr advocated the weekend after the election for state legislatures to overturn their election results and instead appoint pro-Trump slates to the Electoral College.

During an appearance on the December 10, 2020, edition of Hannity, Levin also advocated for the bizarre lawsuit in which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the election results in four swing states. [vid]

then on January 3, 2021, Levin said on his Fox show that it was Congress’ job to choose who won the presidential election — and he claimed members of Congress would be “shredding the Constitution” if they didn’t reject Biden’s victory.

In the nearly year and a half since the January 6 insurrection, Levin has used his radio show to chastise Congress for investigating the insurrection, spread conspiracy theories about the FBI having “instigated” the riot, defend Eastman’s idea that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to reject the election results, and compare riot defendants to "people in the civil rights movement."

Just this past Wednesday, Levin said on his radio show that people should not cooperate with the January 6 committee, “certainly not under these circumstances,” and he further called the entire inquiry a violation of the Constitution. So, are these pronouncements purely an aspect of his role as a media commentator, or do they also connect to the “hat” he wears as an attorney? [[aud]

the dirty secret of right-wing media: They’re all in the “dual role”

In an odd way, however, Eastman’s legal team has delivered a sort of public service through this “dual role” argument, in that it puts all the rest of Fox News and other right-wing media figures, such as Josh Hammer, into their proper perspective. Essentially, all of these conservative media personalities wear different “hats” in both their media jobs and as political operatives — and they will swap labels for whichever one serves them most conveniently in any particular moment.

The examples abound. Most notoriously, there is Sean Hannity’s true role as a Republican operative and Trump’s “shadow” chief of staff, while leveraging his media presence to assist his favored political candidates. Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo scripted her TV interview with Trump to aid his effort to overturn the election results, and recently used her show to spread a COVID-19 conspiracy theoryshe apparently picked up from a Republican Senate candidate. And of course, numerous Fox News personalities have a long-running track record of appearing at Republican campaign rallies and fundraisers.

The proper response to this shell game is to simply stop humoring it. Instead of allowing Fox and other right-wing media figures to decide on a moment-to-moment basis whether they are journalists or political operatives, they should be recognized as political operatives at all times, and called out for the manner in which they use media trappings for a partisan front operation.

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ref

https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/maria-bartiromo-spreading-midterm-variant-conspiracy-theory-she-got

despite purportedly working on the “straight news” side of Fox Business’ programming, anchor Maria Bartiromo has been steadily pushing a conspiracy theory in which public health guidance about COVID-19 is just a smoke screen for Democrats to commit voter fraud in the upcoming midterm elections. Bartiromo picked up the term “midterm variant” from Republican politicians — and she’s not alone at the network in spreading the idea, either.

This claim is also tied to the network’s long-running attempts to lie about mail-in voting, after Fox News spread the Trump administration’s discredited claims. Fox painted lurid fantasies about mail-in voting in the run-up to the 2020 election, claiming it leads to fraud, then attempted to invalidate hundreds of thousands of votes in order to support Trump’s effort to subvert the election.

Now, it seems, the network is dusting off its playbook to undermine the upcoming midterm elections. Bartiromo communicated directly with the Trump White House in its efforts to subvert the 2020 election, and she also had discussions with Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich (and now-U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker) about sending supposed election thieves to prison. (Voting technology firm Smartmatic is now suing Fox News for $2.7 billion — and has named Bartiromo as a defendant for her role in promoting the conspiracy theory which said that the company altered the 2020 election result.)

In this latest instance, it appears that Bartiromo picked up the talking point about a “midterm variant” from a different Republican politician — and she has since made it her own. [vid]

missouri Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Eric Schmitt appeared to introduce the idea of the “midterm variant” to Maria Baritomo when he accused President Joe Biden of attempting to seize control of election procedures: “If he can't get federal — and he can't federalize the elections, there will be a midterm variant, watch, that's coming, where he empowers administrative agencies.” In a later segment, he said, “And by the way, get ready — no, and get ready for the midterm variant. That's what's coming, right.” On both occasions, Bartiromo applauded the point, initially calling it a “great point” and later commenting, “You know, I'm laughing but it's not funny.” Fox News, *Sunday Morning Futures*, [1/16/22; Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 1/28/22]

Other Fox hosts are apparently not to be outdone. On the Monday night edition of Fox’s The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham hearkened back to her early role in pushing conspiracy theories against the “scam” expansion of mail-in voting, all the way back in April 2020.

Previously, U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) called the omicron variant the “Midterm Election Variant” in a tweet back in December 2021, reiterating his claims during an appearance on Fox News Primetime with host Pete Hegseth. “I mean, they’re looking at the poll numbers that have been plummeting like crazy over the last few months and they’re getting desperate right now,” Jackson claimed. “This unsolicited mail-in balloting worked so well for them in the last election, they need to come up with a reason to be able to do this again. They need to keep the fear level at a certain point so that they can justify this.”

The truth, however, is that it’s Fox that has to keep the “fear level” up surrounding elections. Both on the air and in the courtroom, Fox appears determined to keep lying about the 2020 election — and to keep casting doubt on all the elections to come.

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fox host at cpac?!

https://www.salon.com/**2021/07**/12/trump-cranks-it-up-at-cpac-why-raising-the-spectacle-of-right-wing-madness-right-now-is-so-scary/

no lnx

Every revolutionary movement needs a martyr and it appears that the MAGA revolution has finally found one for itself.

Ashli Babbit, the Jan. 6th insurrectionist who was shot by a security guard as she climbed through a broken window just a few feet away from members of Congress, is Donald Trump's Horst Wessel, the German brownshirt who was murdered in 1930 and turned into a martyr by the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Trump himself is making the case for Babbit, having mentioned her in every appearance he's made in the last week.

At his recent Florida rally, Trump wondered: "Who shot Ashli Babbit? We all saw the hand... Now they don't want to give the name." At his press conference on Wednesday in which he announced his laughable "class action" lawsuit against the Big Tech companies, he went a little bit farther saying, "there were no guns in the Capitol except for the gun that shot Ashli Babbitt. And nobody knows who that man were...the person that shot Ashli Babbitt right through the head, just boom. There was no reason for that." Then this past weekend he went all the way, describing the insurrection as a love fest and Babbit as an innocent victim in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo:

Bartiromo took the ball and ran with it, saying that Babbitt climbed out of a broken window (as if she was trying to escape the vicious gunman) after which both she and Trump speculated that the officer who shot Babbitt was part of a Democratic official's security detail, casually mentioning Chuck Schumer in the process. The implication was obvious: the Democrats shot Ashli Babbitt for no good reason. The fact that we have all seen the footage of the shooting is irrelevant: We can believe them or we can believe our lying eyes.

Over the weekend, Trump appeared at his second CPAC conference in five months — this time in Texas. (Salon's Zachary Petrizzo delivered these dispatches from the event.) Trump gave his usual speech, to a notably more excited crowd than the last one in February in Florida. He's barely able to keep from announcing to his adoring fans that he's running again and they are all clamoring for him to do it. And it's clear that he will be running to avenge his bogus claims that he actually won the election. The Big Lie will never die.

It all sounds bizarre but when you talk about this stuff in the context of CPAC, it is really not all that crazy. Sure the violent insurrection gives their standard reckless rhetoric a feeling of urgency that wasn't there before, but if you look back you can see that's been there for decades.

Back in 1973 when the American Conservative Union (founded in 1964) first started holding these get-togethers, the GOP was in terrible disarray in the wake of Watergate and far-right organizers saw an opportunity to reshape the party in their conservative image. They invited Ronald Reagan to give the first keynote and the "New Right" never looked back.

CPAC has always been used as a way to take the temperature of the party activists and in that way, it's very instructive. The straw poll that's taken every year (or now, every few months, apparently) has not always been predictive of the party's nominee, but it shows what ideas and issues most excite the base. It's almost certain that the feedback loop between this group and the right-wing media guides the party as much as party officials and pollsters do. For the first quarter-century, the conference was an ideological gathering designed to promote the conservative movement agenda of anti-communism, small government, strong military, Christian Right values, low taxes, etc. But with the rise of the right-wing media — first talk radio, then Fox News — by the turn of the century, it became much more of a right-wing celebrity spectacle that sought to shock the political media, which loved to cover it since it was always held in DC. (This is the first year they've ever held the event outside of DC.) In fact, for the past 20 years, CPAC was basically the same circus that Trump took on the road for his beloved rallies. During the Bush years, politicians showed up and there were panel discussions of issues but the stars of the show were people like Ann Coulter, who pretty much made her name at these events. And they said things which, looking back, make January 6th seem inevitable.

At the 2002 meeting, Coulter said, "we need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too, otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." A few years later she made news again with another notorious speech:

On Democrats: "Someday they will find a way to abort all future Boy Scouts."

College professors: "sissified, pussified." Harvard: "the Soviet Union." John Kerry: the other "dominant woman in Democratic politics."

Her post-9/11 motto: "Rag head talks tough, rag head faces consequences." For good measure, she threw in a joke about having Muslims burn down the Supreme Court — with the liberal justices inside.

Then came questions. A young woman asked Coulter to describe the most difficult ethical decision she ever made. "There was one time I had a shot at Bill Clinton," Coulter said.

She meant that literally. Meanwhile, down in the bowels of the hotel hosting CPAC, they sold merchandise with adorable sayings such as "Happiness is Hillary Clinton's face on a milk carton" and "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required." At the next year's event, Coulter said, "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'fa**ot,'" and when she was rebuked for saying it, she called it "speech totalitarianism."

There is nothing new under the right-wing sun.

In recent years, some of the acts were scrapped. Coulter was not invited in 2015, and in 2017 the right-wing provocateur Milo Yianopoulos was canceled when it was revealed that he had made positive statements about pedophilia. They were no longer needed anyway. The show was by then dominated by Donald Trump who had made his first big political splash there in 2013 spreading the "birther" lie, which the attendees ate up with a spoon. And while Coulter climbed her way back to CPAC this weekend, participating on an obscure panel going on about immigration and making grotesque racist statements, as usual, her act doesn't shock anymore and nobody cares. Who needs Coulter anyway when you have Trump?

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

Heather Digby Parton, also known as "Digby," is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.

MORE FROM HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

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https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/newly-released-text-messages-reveal-just-how-many-people-trump-white-house

on Friday, CNN reported on a newly unearthed set of text messages between former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and multiple Fox News hosts, exchanged during the two-and-a-half months between Election Day 2020 and President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. The texts further reveal the extent to which Fox was integral to Trump’s plot to illegally hold onto power after losing the election. The texts also prove yet again that Fox operates day-to-day as a propaganda arm for the Republican Party, not as a news organization.

Supposed “news” side anchor Maria Bartiromo gave Trump her questions and messaging guidance in advance of an interview

CNN reported that Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo gave Meadows the questions in advance of her interview with President Donald Trump on the November 29, 2020, edition of her weekend show on Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures.The texts reveal that Bartiromo also provided Trump with explicit messaging guidance and instructions on how to respond to her softball questions, which she intended to help him better make his case that the election outcome was illegitimate. The segment was Trump’s first TV interview since the election, and it aired roughly three weeks after all the major media outlets, including Fox News, had projected Biden as the winner.

Bartiromo texted Meadows that morning, hours before the interview with Trump, to claim that “the public wants to know he will fight this,” and that people “want to hear a path to victory” and that “he's in control.” (The entire premise of Bartiromo’s line of questioning was false, because a majority of “the public” had just voted for Biden.)

She then laid out the first question she would ask: “1Q You've said MANY TIMES THIS ELECTION IS RIGGED... And the facts are on your side. Let's start there. What are the facts? Characterize what took place here. Then I will drill down on the fraud including the statistical impossibilities of Biden magic (federalist).” (Based on Bartiromo’s word choice, it is possible that she was referring to a piece from a week earlier in the right-wing site The Federalist, titled “5 More Ways Joe Biden Magically Outperformed Election Norms.”)

Surely enough, the interview began exactly with that question: “Mr. President, you have said many times that this election was rigged, that there was much fraud, and the facts are on your side. Let's start there. Please go through the facts, characterize what took place."

throughout the rest of the interview, Bartiromo provided Trump with a platform to air a litany of lies about the election results, going on for 45 minutes, including his outlandish claims about voting machines being used to change the results. Dominion Voting Systems is currently suing Fox News for $1.6 billion for the network’s role in Trump’s defamation campaign against the voting machine company. Another voting technology firm, Smartmatic, is suing Fox News for $2.7 billion and has also named Bartiromo as a defendant for her role in promoting conspiracy theories that the company played a role in altering the election result.

Separately, ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent, Jonathan Karl, reported last year that Bartiromo had called then-Attorney General Bill Barr in mid-November 2020, complaining to him that the Justice Department had not taken action against supposed voter fraud. “She called me up and she was screaming,” Barr told Karl. “I yelled back at her. She’s lost it.” Fox News denied the reports of Bartiromo’s unprofessional conduct — though this wasn’t exactly convincing, because Bartiromo had publicly stated her hopes for Barr to intervene and help reverse the election results.

Sean Hannity was “at war with” Chris Wallace and Fox’s supposed news side

Another Fox News host who is heavily implicated in the latest texts is Sean Hannity, who was already known to have functioned as Trump’s “shadow” chief of staff and as a constant sounding board for the disgraced former president. Previously released texts had shown that Hannity tried to work on damage control after the failed coup attempt on January 6, and that he had urged the White House to have Trump call off his supporters from attacking the Capitol. (In public, Hannity claimed the attackers were left-wing infiltrators.) Other texts show that Hannity took instructions from Meadows on coordinating get-out-the-vote messaging on Election Day in 2020. The latest revelations demonstrate the extent of Hannity’s efforts to keep Fox News from straying away from the administration’s illegal efforts to cling to power.

On December 6, 2020, Meadows sent Hannity a link to an article in The Hill, highlighting a segment from that morning’s edition of Fox News Sunday in which the show’s then-host Chris Wallace pointedly interrupted Trump’s former secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, after Azar had referred to Joe Biden as “Vice President Biden.”

“He's the president-elect, sir,” Wallace replied, repeating that point again in their conversation.

In texts to Hannity, Meadows castigated Wallace and Fox, writing, “Doing this to try and get ratings will not work in the long run and I am doubtful it is even a short term winning strategy.”

“I've been at war with them all week,” Hannity replied.

Meadows later asked on December 11, 2020, for Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott’s direct phone number — noting that he wished to avoid making a call to the network’s main switchboard. Hannity asked the next day whether Meadows had gotten through to Fox executives, again declaring, “I’ve been at war with them.” (As it turned out, Meadows had not yet called Scott, as he had been too busy working on the Trump administration’s lame-duck pardons.)

Keep in mind that the major news networks had all projected Biden as the winner a month before, on November 7 — and yes, that included Fox. The network, however, undermined its own decision desk’s projections by attempting to subvert the election results nearly 600 times in just the two weeks after the election call.

To the degree that tension existed between the opinion and alleged “straight news” sides at Fox, that conflict has since been resolved by Chris Wallace’s decision a year later to quit the network. Wallace said recently that he had been fine with opinion content on the channel, but he had reached his limit. “When people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.”

Hannity, of course, is still at Fox, where he is launching smear campaigns, parroting Kremlin spokespeople, and helping Trump to continue pushing the Big Lie.

Sean Hannity wrote one cheesy Trump campaign ad — and he may have written yet another one that never aired

This latest batch of text messages also reveals that Hannity lied last year about the extent of his connections to the Trump campaign — seemingly confirming a story that Hannity had previously described as being “full of shit.”

Last year, Wall Street Journal senior White House reporter Mike Bender published a book about the 2020 election and its aftermath, titled Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost. The book revealed that Hannity had actually written a Trump campaign ad, which insiders even referred to as “the Hannity ad” and “the one Hannity wrote.” The specific ad in question was an attack spot that seemed to deploy every anti-Biden talking point at once, referring to him as a “47-year swamp creature” who had “accomplished nothing,” and tying him to the so-called “radical, socialist Green New Deal.” Trump’s campaign staff reportedly ridiculed it.

“Inside the campaign, the spot was mocked mercilessly, mostly because of the dramatic, over-the-top language and a message that seemed to value quantity over quality,” Bender wrote. The campaign came up with a solution to the problem, by running the ad only during Hannity’s own show on Fox News: “If Trump and Hannity watched the spot on television – and were satisfied enough to stop asking about the commercial – that seemed to be the best result of the ad. The cost of that investment: $1.5m.”

Hannity, however, denied the story in very strong terms. “The world knows that Sean Hannity supports Donald Trump,” he told Bender. “But my involvement specifically in the campaign — no. I was not involved that much. Anybody who said that is full of shit.”

On December 8, 2020, however, as Hannity and Meadows commiserated via text, Hannity bemoaned that the campaign had not done more on the topic of election fraud during the campaign — including regarding an ad he had written for them.

“I was screaming about no ads from Labor Day on,” he wrote. “I made my own they never ran it. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm frustrated.” It is possible here that Hannity may have been referring to yet another campaign ad that he wrote, but which still went unaired.

Hannity’s vulgar denial to Bender of the earlier campaign ad not only reveals that he is a liar, but there’s more. In this instance, he also lied to a news reporter at The Wall Street Journal, the most prominent of the Murdoch media empire’s journalistic front operations and a perpetual doormat for the opinion side. The fact that he would lie to one of his colleagues from another Murdoch publication clearly demonstrates the sense of leverage Hannity has over anyone who thinks they really can report news while working at a Murdoch outlet.

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an 3 22

cNN's Erin Burnett is weighing in on the far-right downward spiral of Fox News' Maria Bartiromo. On Thursday, March 16, Burnett appeared on The Axe Files where she discussed her former co-worker with host David Axelrod.

While Burnett did commend Bartiromo for her professional strength she admitted she believes she's "lost her way."

“I always thought her greatest strength was that she was a hard worker and I feel that she lost her way. Clearly, she’s lost her way,” she said. “I’m obviously not personally close to her, but I think it’s sad what has happened to be honest because she was a very hard worker.”

At another point during the interview, Axelrod asked Burnett about the presumed "rivalry" between the two anchors asking, "Did you feel as if you guys were competing, pitted in any way?”

To that question, Burnett replied, “We definitely were, and I don’t know, maybe as life goes on I’ll get more perspective on it, I think there is a desire out there for there to be a women versus women thing. I hope that that’s lessened over time, but when I was there that was certainly part of it.”

Burnett also referenced the Vanity Fairarticle, titled Who is Wall Street Queen B.?, as she addressed the so-called rival between the two of them. “Vanity Fair did an article that was about me versus Maria and I was like ‘why would that be the article?’" Burnett said. "There was a desire for that sort of narrative.”

Burnett's latest interview comes days after Bartiromo was criticized for her remarks slamming the White House's response to the Ukraine invasion. During her segment on Sunday, she said, “Some people have told me … this administration does not see Putin as the enemy, they see him as a partner on many issues."

10 21 an

"Put some facts out there': Dem clashes with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo over 'bank surveillance' conspiracy theory

David Edwards Raw Story

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) disagreed with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday after she accused Democrats of "bank surveillance" because of a new proposal from the Biden...

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senator’s unhinged rant on Build Back Better plan shows how desperate GOP is to stop it

Aldous Pennyfarthing DailyKos

October 04, 2021

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) appeared "exclusively" on Fox Business' Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo this week to weigh in on Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion Build Back Better [human infra...]

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421

smartmatic ~ dobbs, pirro and bartir

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an 321

Irony is dead': Maria Bartiromo is very concerned about all the time Joe Biden spends in Delaware

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costs seem common sensical?

former White House adviser Stephen Miller on Sunday accused Democrats of "madness" over a push to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

Miller made the remarks on Fox News after network host Maria Bartiromo announced that a "new border crisis is afoot" due to a reform bill that has been introduced by Democrats.

For his part, Miller argued that granting citizenship to immigrants would "erase the essence" of the United States.

"The legislation put forward by Biden and congressional Democrats would fundamentally erase the very essence of America's nationhood," Miller claimed, explaining that he was upset by the idea that immigrants could legally regain entry after being deported by a former administration.

"This is madness!" he exclaimed. "This administration has already dismantled border security, canceling President Trump's historic agreements with Mexico and with the northern triangle countries, restoring catch and release and additionally gutting interior enforcement, issuing a memo, preventing ICE from removing the vast majority of criminal illegal immigrants that it encounters!"

"This is a policy choice disguised falsely to the court and to the country as a resource issue!" Miller shouted. "That is a lie and it's a lie that threatens public safety."

"Wow," Bartiromo replied.

Miller contended that the U.S. has enough resources for enforcement but not enough to treat immigrants humanely.

"So ask yourself, who is going to pay for the education?" he said. "What does it mean when classrooms, God willing, reopen? What does it mean for classroom size? What does it mean for health care? Then you add on top of that the families that are being released. Who is paying for the medical bills? Who's paying for the health care costs?"

"That's coming out of your pocket book!" Miller said. "And it's a public safety issue!"

"If you give low-skilled, illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, that will mean a net fiscal transfer of trillions of dollars longterm to pay for social security, to pay for medical care, to pay for Medicaid," he added. "It's an extraordinary expense to give that to 20 million illegal immigrants."

Watch the video below from Fox News.

He was radicalized at a very young age': New book reveals the ... ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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an 221

after spending months pushing conspiracy theories about voter fraud, Lou Dobbs is reportedly out of a job.

"Fox News has canceled 'Lou Dobbs Tonight,' the program hosted by television's staunchest supporter of Donald Trump and of his assertions of voter fraud in the 2020 election, The Times has learned. Dobbs' program, which airs twice nightly at 5 and 7 p.m. Eastern on the Fox Business Network, will have its final airing Friday, according to a Fox News representative who confirmed the cancellation," the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

"Dobbs, 75, remains under contract at Fox News but he will in all likelihood not appear on the company's networks again. In addition to his Fox Business Network program, he occasionally turned up on the Fox News Channel as a commentator," the LA Times reported. "The cancellation comes a day after voting software company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox News and three of its hosts — Dobbs, Maria Bartiromoand Jeanine Pirro. The company claims the hosts perpetuated lies and disinformation about Smartmatic's role in the election, damaging its business and reputation."

Read the full report.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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insurection antifa

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/maria-bartiromo/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/fox-news/

raw story

fox News viewers lashed out at the network over the weekend after several shows aired a segment undermining President Donald Trump's claims of election fraud.

According to reports, at least one Fox Business host and as many as three Fox News hosts aired a pre-taped segment with voting systems expert Edward Perez on Smartmatic, a voting systems software company.

The interview was aired again on Sunday by Maria Bartiromo, one of President Donald Trump's top defenders on the network.

The segment was met with contempt from viewers, who refused to believe that the election fraud claims had been debunked.

"So I guess @MariaBartiromo just sold out-shameful," one viewer wrote on Twitter.

"@FoxNews needs to be ashamed for making her air this tripe," another viewer tweeted.

"Who got to @MariaBartiromo?" another commenter complained. "Why has she put this fraud Eddie Perez, clearly an apologistfor Smartmatic, on her show TWICE to read scripted denials to scripted questions-- right down to reading back the questions, a deposition trick taught by good trial attorneys?"

In a legal notice sent to Fox News last week, Smartmatic accused the network of a "disinformation campaign"

"Over the course of the campaign, Fox News published and republished dozens of false and misleading statements regarding Smartmatic," the statement said.

Watch the video and read some of the responses below. [who got to her"]

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why biggest trumpistas run this? lower ratings?

but smart tech is not big?   maybe // to jnz on sandy hook

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/election-fraud-2649563720

no lnx vud twet

Fox News airs point-by-point fact check of wild election fraud claims during 3 of network's most pro-Trump shows

President Donald Trump being interviewed by Fox News personality Maria Bartiromo, composite image.]

Elizabeth Preza December 20, 2020

Fox News this weekend is airing a stunning point-by-point fact check to claims made on programs hosted by the network's most pro-Trump voices after voting technology company Smartmatic send a 20-page legal letter demanding "a full and complete retraction of all false and defamatory statements and reports."

The segment, which features an interview with Palo Open Source Election Technology Institute voting technology expert Eddie Perez, aired on Lou Dobb's Friday show and Jeanine Pirro's Saturday show. Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo will also show the segment.

In its Dec. 10 letter to Fox News Media, Smartmatic charged the company and its hosts with waging "a concerted disinformation campaign against Smartmatic. Fox News told its millions of viewers and readers that Smartmatic was founded by [the late Venezuelan President] Hugo Chávez, that its software was designed to fix elections, and that Smartmatic conspired with others to defraud the American people and fix the 2020 U.S. election by changing, inflating, and deleting votes." The company also demanded the company "match the attention and audience targeted with the original defamatory publications."

As the Washington Post reports:

"During Friday night's fact-checking segment, the questioner asked Perez: 'Have you seen any evidence of Smartmatic sending U.S. votes to be tabulated in foreign countries?'

This appeared to be a reference to Giuliani's Nov. 12 claim on the show that with Smartmatic software, 'the votes actually go to Barcelona, Spain.' Perez responded, 'No, I'm not aware of any evidence that Smartmatic is sending U.S. votes to be tabulated in foreign countries.'"

Speaking with CNN, Perez said that while he was unaware of the nature of the interview when he spoke to Fox News about Smartmatic, it's important to clear up any confusion the network's viewers have about voting integrity in the United States.

"I felt it was important to talk to Fox News," Perez said. "Of anything potentially more important to be speaking the facts to their audience because there are a lot of consumers of Fox News that have doubts about the election."

Watch the video below:

in stunning segment, Lou Dobbs has come to Jesus moment and fact checks all the wild election conspiracy theories he’s been peddling on air. One-by-one he debunks them. Don’t expect Trump to retweet this clip. Note: Dobbs was threatened with legal action by the voting companies. twt]

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Watch: Florida attorney busted for voter fraud in Georgia — and ... ›

Trump's legal team takes to Fox News to cry election fraud — it didn't ... ›

Trump's baseless election 'fraud' allegations continue to be laughed ... ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Trump Discussed Naming Sidney Powell as Special Counsel on ... ›

Mitch McConnell has an 'election fraud' problem - CNNPolitics ›

Ex-Texas cop arrested for trying to prove ballot fraud conspiracy theory ›

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an 1120

Trump was interviewed by Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, November 29, he not only doubled down on his claim that he was the victim of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — he also pointed the finger at the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice. And Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois is calling him out for it.

Appearing on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," Trump told Bartiromo, "This is total fraud. And how the FBI and Department of Justice — I don't know —maybe they're involved, but how people are getting away with this stuff, it's unbelievable."

In response, Kinzinger tweeted:

The @FBI did not rig the election. If you find yourself believing they did, please stop, and say it out loud, and… https://t.co/jYDEqS2T5e

— Adam Kinzinger (@Adam Kinzinger)1606685695.0

The 42-year-old Kinzinger, who represents Illinois' 16th Congressional District, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 and was reelected on November 3, defeating Democratic challenger Dani Brzozowski....

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mma

n his first interview since the election, President Donald Trump called into Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures and spoke with anchor Maria Bartiromo. While Bartiromo is part of the supposed "straight news" division at Fox, she has spent time since the election spreading wild tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.

This interview was no different, with Trump repeatedly pushing wild conspiracy theories, and Bartiromo either being silent or at times egging him on.

Actual journalists were quick to call out Bartiromo and point out how Fox was culpable in enabling the charade.

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11/22/20

Alan Dershowitz gives bad news to Fox News' Bartiromo: ‘The outcome of the election will not be reversed’

David Edwards Raw Story

One of President Donald Trump's most high profile legal defenders on Sunday said that he did not expect the results of the election to be reversed.

Alan Dershowitz, who defended Trump at his impeachment trial earlier this year, told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that the president's legal team has failed to prove claims that the election was stolen by Democrats.

"They have to show that it affected numbers greater th...

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/watch-fox-news-host-expertly-debunks-trumps-baseless-and-false-claims-of-widespread-voter-fraud/

alexh

according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, "the November 3 election was the most secure in American history." Regardless, many of President Donald Trump's boosters in right-wing media continue to promote his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. A great deal of debunking has come from MSNBC and CNN, but on November 15, it also came from a more unlikely source: a Fox News anchor.

The far-right opinion hosts at Fox News and Fox Business — from Sean Hannity to Lou Dobbs to Laura Ingraham — haven't hesitated to promote Trump's bogus voter fraud claims. But the hard news divisions at Fox News and Fox Business, despite having a conservative slant, are less likely to traffic in nonsense conspiracy theories than the opinion hosts. AndFox News' Eric Shawn, who is part of Fox News' hard news division, offered a no-nonsense debunking after Maria Bartiromo devoted an entire show to promoting Trump's conspiracy theory.

Bartiromo featured two of Trump's attorneys: Sidney Powell and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, both of whom claimed that the election had been stolen from Trump.

Shawn, in contrast, aired video of Ben Hovland, a Trump appointee who chairs the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, saying, "The reality is, this the most secure election we ever had, and it was one of the most well-run elections we've ever had…. The American people made their voice heard, and when we spread conspiracy theories and we don't back that up with facts, it has an impact."[twt vid]

shawn addressed Trump's claim that his campaign was not allowed to observe the vote-counting process in Philadelphia, airing part of his November 12 interview with Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt — a Republican in a predominantly Democratic city. Schmidt told Shawn it was "totally untrue" that Trump's campaign was shut out of the vote-counting rooms at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Center City Philadelphia, and when Shawn asked Schmidt if he's seen any evidence of voter fraud in Philly, the Republican responded, "I have not."

Shawn also addressed claims that the Denver-based company Dominion switched votes for Trump to votes for President-elect Biden, noting that Dominion has no affiliation with the Democratic Party.And the Fox anchor went on to say, "election officials across the country insist, as of today: there is no evidence of any widespread fraud affecting the outcome of the presidential election — that our precious democracy was not tampered with, and that such baseless and false claims are an insult to the thousands of elections officials and workers across the country who we have seen dedicating themselves, 24/7, to insure a fair and free election for all of us."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/despicable-dangerous-right-wing-assault-2020-election

Right-wing media’s pro-Trump echo chamber is not letting President Donald Trump go down without a fight. And its members are more than willing to make faith in the democratic system a casualty of their disinformation campaign.

Election experts long predicted that Election Day would end with a “red mirage” showing Trump in the lead, only for there to be a “blue shift” afterward as key states counted mail-in ballots that heavily favored Democratic nominee Joe Biden. That is exactly what is happening now. Biden’s popular vote margin has soared since Tuesday, and tightening margins in key states are bringing into focus his potential electoral path to victory.

Trump’s response has been to carry out the strategy he has foreshadowed for months. He falsely claimed victory, baselessly declared himself the victim of massive voter fraud, and said that he would be vindicated in the courts. Notably, these fraud claims are absent from his campaign’s actual lawsuits, which “appear mostly designed to generate headlines that Trump is contesting the outcome, rather than cases that could determine the outcome of the race,” as Popular Information’s Judd Legum pointed out after reviewing the filings.

But Trumpist media figures are recklessly touting false and nonsensical fraud accusations to bolster the president’s position. From MAGA social media influencers to right-wing YouTube stars, prime-time Fox hosts to conservative radio giants, their mutually reinforcing web is bombarding audiences with a full-spectrum effort to undermine confidence in the election results, raising tensions and fomenting unrest.

Here’s Tucker Carlson,the most popular cable news host in the country, along with the president’s lawyer Jenna Ellis, touting the since-retracted viral falsehood that Biden mysteriously received 138,000 votes in Michigan.

Here’s Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio host who has been a Republican kingmaker for decades and received the Medal of Freedom from the president this year, pushing the easily debunked viral lie that “Wisconsin now has more votes than people who are registered to vote."[11/4 show]

here’s Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House and longtime Fox contributor, telling the viewers of the president’s favorite morning news show that there need to be Senate investigations and lawsuits due to purported fraud.

The fever-swamp mentality has engulfed right-wing social media and conspiracy-minded Trumpist websites.

It’s also spreading among the president’s more “intellectual” supporters. Here’s Ted Cruz, a prominent Republican senator who has argued cases before the Supreme Court, promoting Fox host Maria Bartiromo touting The Federalist’s baseless claim that “Democrats Are Trying To Steal The Election In Michigan, Wisconsin, And Pennsylvania,” which relies in part on the 138,000-vote lie.

These baseless fraud claims are fueling extraordinarily overheated rhetoric, as leading members of the Trumpist media urge their audiences to be “angry,” “outraged,” “worried,” and “concerned,” and to prepare “to fight” the Democrats who are “stealing your nation from you,” perhaps by trying to “surround” ballot counting locations to exert a “demanding presence.”

As the frenzy builds, Trump supporters have already begun swarming those locations in Michigan and Arizona. In the latter state, election officials briefly stopped the count after being intimidated by the armed protesters, before sheriff’s deputies in tactical gear arrived on the scene. Some pro-Trump influencers appear to be getting ready to add to the scene in Michigan and generate a similar one in Philadelphia.

It’s unclear what impact, if any, all of this will have on the election’s result. But it seems overwhelmingly likely that a large portion of Trump supporters will come to believe that the election is illegitimate and has been stolen from him. His propagandists could try to forestall that, working to dampen tensions -- but instead they'd rather inflame them.

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deflect from russia

https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/right-wing-media-embrace-john-ratcliffes-spin-alleged-iran-election-interference

no lnx vid

Right-wing media embrace John Ratcliffe's spin on alleged Iran election interference

Sen. Chuck Schumer strongly suggests he was actually told something different in a classified briefing

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD

PUBLISHED 10/22/20

John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence under President Donald Trump, announced yesterday that not only was the Iranian government behind threatening emails recently sent to voters in the United States but also, counterintuitively, this was being done in order to “damage President Trump” in the election.

Ratcliffe had recently selectively declassified allegations against Hillary Clinton, which had previously been dismissed as Russian disinformation, in what was apparently part of the continued effect to rewrite the narrative of Russia’s interference on behalf of Trump in the 2016 election.

The threatening emails to voters were made to look like they came from the far-right street gang the Proud Boys, whom Trump endorsed at the first presidential debate. According to Ratcliffe’s logic, however, this is really a sort of reverse psychology to make Trump supporters look bad, with a singular purpose of hurting Trump in the election.

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) appeared Wednesday night on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, and strongly suggested that Ratcliffe and intelligence professionals had told something different to members of Congress about the Iranian interference: that the country’s goal was to sow chaos and lack of confidence for its own sake, rather than to help or hurt specific candidates.

While it might be expected for Schumer, as a leading Democrat, to offer up such an interpretation, one argument in his favor is that The Washington Post noted Ratcliffe had “confirmed that Iran was also distributing a video ‘that implies that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots, even from overseas.’” The video in question used clips of Trump himself, making the kind of false statements that he has been using to try to discredit mail-in voting and the credibility of any potential Biden victory among his own supporters. When adding in this sort of disinformation spreading — similar to what we’ve seen from right-wing media — the overall pattern seems more like an all-of-the-above approach to fomenting uncertainty and doubt, rather than a targeted campaign against just one side.

While there are restrictions on what can be shared in such closed-door briefings, Schumer seemed to come as close as possible to declaring that what senators were told in the briefing was quite different from what Ratcliffe had told the public.

Video file

CitationFrom the October 21, 2020, edition of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show

RACHEL MADDOW (HOST): Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe tonight did say to the public that this attack — which he attributed to Iran, although he didn’t describe the attack — was designed to damage President Trump. That sounds like —

SCHUMER: I did not —

MADDOW: — what you just said.

SCHUMER: Rachel, that is different —

MADDOW: Is that — that is not what he told you in the briefing?

SCHUMER: Well, I’m not saying what he told me in the briefing. I can tell you that from the briefing, I had the strong impression it was much rather to undermine confidence in elections, and not aimed at any particular figure but rather to undermine the very wellspring of our democracy — elections. That was my strong impression at the meeting.

I did not get the impression it was aimed at any political figure, and I’m surprised that DNI Ratcliffe said that at the — at this press conference, if he did.

But in the introductory monologue of Fox News’ Hannity, the host began with a “Fox News alert” that Iran was “attempting to intimidate voters here in the U.S. with violent threats, likely in an effort to help Joe Biden.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 21, 2020, edition of Fox News Hannity

And on Thursday morning, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo discussed the story with Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), who alleged that “Iran desperately wants President Trump out, due to its maximum pressure campaign, and they know that Biden will go back to appeasement. But, you know, we have to stay strong, continue to communicate to the public.”

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“You make a good point,” Bartiromo agreed. “Because I think Joe Biden, over the last few weeks, said that one of the first things he's going to do is return the U.S. to the Iran deal — and also the Paris climate deal. So those two things, two things that Biden has talked about. So you're right, Iran probably wants that.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 22, 2020, edition of Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria Bartiromo

Just two weeks ago, during an interview with Trump, Bartiromo had parroted Ratcliffe’s spin from his prior declassifications — while she also helped to back up Trump’s conspiracy theories against mail-in voting.

Newsweek dutifully carried the headline “Iran Is Interfering in the U.S. Election Intimidating Voters to Hurt Trump, Intelligence Chief Says.” Similar headlines can also be found from the likes of Breitbart and The Daily Wire.

Among more mainstream outlets, The Washington Post covered the Democratic response to Ratcliffe’s allegation as a controversy in and of itself, while The New York Times included both Ratcliffe’s argument and the fact that he has “drawn criticism for embracing Mr. Trump’s political agenda from what is typically an apolitical post,” as well as an inclusion of Schumer’s response.

The Wall Street Journal, a corporate cousin of Fox News, also carried a news item that contained opinions from both Ratcliffe along with two other sources, ascribing a variety of motives to Iran: Ratcliffe’s own take that the country is seeking to harm Trump, another official saying it was motivated by seeking to undermine election confidence in general, and a third who offered up a combination of both suspected motivations.

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an 1020 trump  kids have to do train on how not fraud charities

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vs break up tech? banks?

Trump Jr. says dad’s ‘next move’ is to ‘break up’ the FBI: ‘He has to get rid of these things’

David Edwards Raw Story

Donald Trump Jr. on Sunday called on his father to "break up" the FBI if he wins a second term.

During an interview on Fox News, host Maria Bartiromoasked the president's son what his father would do if the FBI does not

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an 720

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/valerie-jarrett-battles-fox-news-host-on-obama-spying-claims-youre-making-statements-that-havent-been-proven/

Valerie Jarrett, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, clashed with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo over alleged “spying” on the Trump 2016 campaign.

During an interview on her Fox Business program Mornings with Maria, Bartiromoberated Jarrett about whether Obama had directed the FBI to target then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

Bartiromo preemptively dismissed Russia’s “meddling” in U.S. elections on behalf of Trump.

“That’s been going on for decades as you know,” the Fox News host said. “I’ve gone to Russia many times and have been watching this happen for decades. So we all know that Russia has been trying to meddle."

"But now we’re talking about a very serious situation,” Bartiromo opined, steering the interview away from Russia. “We have a criminal investigation underway. People could go to jail. Do you believe if [former FBI Director] Jim Comey knew that the dossier was fake and garbage and he kept going, re-upping warrants to spy on the Trump campaign that he should go to jail?”[vid?]

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https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/maria-bartiromo-agrees-devin-nunes-now-great-time-people-go-out

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Lindsey Graham faces revolt from Republican colleagues over plan to investigate whistleblower: WaPo reporter

Some Republican lawmakers are balking at a plan by Sen.…

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https://www.mediamatters.org/maria-bartiromo/pressed-fox-anchor-lindsey-graham-asks-chair-foreign-relations-committee

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Schumer this morning signaling that the Democrats will not accept an acquittal as legitimate. Nancy Pelosi hinting that she is going to call Bolton in the House. John Bolton. What's the Dems next move? And how are you going to get anything done, senator, if you actually got the other side constantly pushing to find out dirt on Donald Trump?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Well, the president has been successful in spite of all of this. I hope we can turn the page as a nation and focus on issues important. But as Nancy Pelosi calls Bolton, here is what I would say. They're impeaching the president for suspension of aid that was eventually received, trying to leverage an investigation that never happened. This is ridiculous. Mueller broke their heart. They won't let it go. They hate this man. Pelosi is no longer speaker of the House. Just in name only. I don't know if they will ever let it go. But here is what I'm going to do. If they talk to Bolton, I will bring in State Department officials and ask them why didn't you do something about the obvious conflict of interest Joe Biden had? Joe Biden's effort to combat corruption in the Ukraine became a joke, when Joe Biden got before the Ukrainian parliament talking about sweetheart deals and reforming the energy sector, I can only imagine how they were laughing under their breath. What about your son, Vice President Biden, sitting on the most corrupt board in Ukraine, Burisma, receiving $3 million dollars. I can only imagine if a Republican done what Biden had done. But we're going to get to the bottom of this. And I can prove beyond any doubt that Joe Biden's effort in the Ukraine to root out corruption was undercut because he let his son sit on the board of the most corrupt company in the Ukraine, and we're not give him a pass on that.

BARTIROMO: So you’re not going to give him a pass. How are you going to get to the bottom of it? Should we expect your committee to call to testify Hunter Biden, the whistleblower, Adam Schiff, all of those names you've been talking about. Is this going to happen this upcoming week, then?

GRAHAM: It’s going to happen in the coming weeks. Jim Risch is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Jim, if you're watching the show, I hope you are, we need to call the chief of staff to John Kerry who was told about the conflict of interest with Hunter Biden being on Burisma's board early on. Heinz, the stepson of John Kerry, was a business partner of Hunter Biden and Devon Archer. And he told the State Department, I'm not part of this deal. I don't think it is right. George Kent told the State Department it would be a conflict for Hunter Biden to be on Burisma's board. Let's start there. Let's call these people in. Eventually, we'll get to Hunter Biden. And I want to know why the Obama administration did nothing about this obvious conflict of interest. Joe Biden should have given up the Ukrainian portfolio or Hunter Biden should have been taken off the board. Because they ruined America's ability to effectively deal with corruption in the Ukraine by having Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma. That is just a fact, and we're going to get to the bottom of it.

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