Tag: media
Fox Hacks Push Trump Budget Hard (While Hiding What's Really In It)

Fox Hacks Push Trump Budget Hard (While Hiding What's Really In It)

Fox News’ propagandists aren’t terribly interested in the contents of the Republican tax and spending bill the Senate will vote on on Monday, or on the devastating impacts it might have on their viewers. But they know that President Donald Trump wants it to pass, and so they’re greasing the skids with their viewers to help it over the finish line.

An exchange between two of the co-hosts of Fox & Friends — the morning show beloved by the president — exemplifies how the network, and the broader MAGAspere, has treated the legislation, which agglomerates much of Trump’s domestic agenda in a single bill.

“It’s not perfect, but it does need to pass if we want this tax cut,” Ainsley Earhart told viewers.

She then offered up some pablum about the bill’s contents: “It’s the largest tax cut in history. And also no tax on tips or overtime, which is great for the working class, and that’s what Donald Trump ran on. … It funds border security and deportations, it funds our military, it begins to reform Medicaid.”

That sort of surface-level support for the legislation is commonplace on Fox and its counterparts — the president’s propagandists tend to back whatever version of the bill is under discussion without much consideration for its impacts.

MAGA media revolves around Trump and his desires, but its personalities tend to be more invested in waging the culture war than in the nitty-gritty of policymaking. Views on economic issues like tariffs or national security ones like the U.S. military strikes on Iran can shift rapidly to align with whatever it is the president supports at any moment. Fox hosts like Earhardt likewise tend to be supportive of the bill but haven’t dwelled on it.

Why is there so much urgency to pass this bill right now? Earhardt doesn’t say. But the reason is that Trump has imposed a deadline for the final legislation to pass both houses of Congress and come to his desk by July 4 as “a wonderful Celebration for our Country.” Congressional Republicans could be working to improve a bill that Earhardt acknowledges is imperfect, but the party and its propagandists are prioritizing Trump’s desire to get a win on schedule.

By passing the bill quickly, Republicans hope to minimize the grueling political damage caused by enacting legislation that is wildly unpopular — and likely to become more so as the public finds out what is in it.

Fox’s job is to ensure that viewers remain placid about the impact of the bill before it passes. The messaging dilemma for Trump supporters like Earhardt is that bumper-sticker claims of the bill being “great for the working class” and working to “reform Medicaid” won’t hold up to scrutiny. Here’s who benefits from the bill’s tax cuts, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

And here’s how The Associated Press sums up the latest score of the Senate bill from the Congressional Budget Office, including its impact on Medicaid:

The CBO estimates the Senate bill would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1 trillion increase over the House-passed bill, which CBO has projected would add $2.4 to the debt over a decade.

The analysis also found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law, an increase over the scoring for the House-passed version of the bill, which predicts 10.9 million more people would be without health coverage.

So the Senate bill blows an even bigger hole in the deficit than the House version does, and its cuts to Medicaid would knock more people off the health insurance rolls, all while providing tax cuts weighted toward the wealthiest Americans.

Earhardt’s co-host Brian Kilmeade offered a hand wave of a response to these deep flaws in his reply. In the program’s sole reference to the Senate bill’s CBO score, he followed the GOP strategy of attacking the agency.

“Democrats are holding on to the CBO — their report says it adds $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years,” Kilmeade said. “But they look at growth at 1.7%. … Under the bill, what they want to do, growth is going to be a lot higher than that. And you gotta think if interest rates go down, that’s why … Republicans say, through dynamic scoring, they’re going to have a more accurate account. They say, once again, the CBO will be wrong."

This amounts to an admission that all he has as a rebuttal to the CBO’s devastating score is “nuh-uh.” In reality, it is the Republican growth estimate that is out of step with the consensus.

The brand of tap-dancing seen on Fox & Friends can get the hosts through the show without criticizing Trump’s priority — and perhaps help the bill to final passage. But people will notice if they suddenly lose health insurance, or their local hospital closes. They will notice if the funds they use to feed their kids disappear, or their electricity bills soar.

And if the bill passes, the goal of MAGA media will pivot from telling viewers that the legislation needed to pass to hiding its role in those crushing impacts.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

How Disastrous Is The Supreme Court's Nationwide Injunctions Decision?

How Disastrous Is The Supreme Court's Nationwide Injunctions Decision?

The Supreme Court’s decision last Friday on nationwide injunctions has generated an unusually intense reaction. Commentators are sharply divided on just how damaging it is. Two friends of mine—both excellent, sophisticated, and reasonable lawyers—got into the equivalent of a shouting match on MSNBC over whether the ruling was “no big deal” or “a disaster.” That split extended to newspaper coverage, with more than one national paper running opposing op-eds.

In the case itself, Justice Jackson, in dissent, called the Court’s opinion “an existential threat to the rule of law.” Justice Barrett, writing for the six-justice majority, responded in strikingly dismissive terms:

“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

How to explain such diametrically opposed views of the decision? And how bad is the decision, anyway?

Commentators Are Analyzing Different Aspects of the Case at Different Levels

I think that the sharp divergence among commentators stems from the different levels on which the opinion can be assessed.

At the level of legal doctrine, the Court addressed a real problem—but did so in a way that is both inefficient and under-enforcing of constitutional rights.

At the level of abstract practical impact, the new rule clearly disadvantages some litigants. But there are a couple of potential workarounds, the shape and effectiveness of which remain to be seen.

Where the decision is most troubling is in its immediate, practical impact—here and now, in July 2025—given this president, this Congress, this Supreme Court, and the lower courts that have been by far the most effective institutional brake on Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. On that front, the ruling is a train wreck.

Legal Doctrine and the “Kacsmaryk Problem”

Under the status quo, district court judges could impose nationwide injunctions at their discretion. That gave rise to what we might call the “Kacsmaryk problem.” In April 2023, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a preliminary injunction that purported to suspend FDA approval of mifepristone nationwide.

A sweeping injunction on such shaky legal ground can tie the Justice Department in knots, forcing it to apply a contested ruling across the country. These rulings create serious headaches for DOJ—conflicting obligations, legal uncertainty, and disrupted national policy. That’s why the Biden Justice Department twice asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue. The Court declined both times.

Barrett’s opinion does take up an issue crying out for judicial supervision. The problem is that her solution is inefficient and under-protective of constitutional rights.

The ruling effectively bars nationwide injunctions by district courts, with a few narrow exceptions.

It’s inefficient because prohibiting such injunctions will lead to duplicative litigation in dozens of judicial districts. Instead of resolving a question once, it must now be relitigated repeatedly.

It’s also under-protective. Even when a district court identifies a likely constitutional violation, its ruling won’t apply beyond the named plaintiffs. It could take months—or years—before others benefit from the same legal protection.

There are, however, a few potential avenues for tempering the damage.

First, the opinion allows district courts to issue broader relief when necessary to provide “complete relief” to the plaintiffs before them. That will be a major battleground. In cases like birthright citizenship, it may be impossible to provide complete relief without halting the broader policy at issue.

Second, litigants can attempt to bring nationwide class actions. A ruling for the class would bind the government nationwide, since class members reside in every district.

But that’s easier said than done. Class certification is complex and costly. The rules require legal and factual commonality among class members, and the Supreme Court has grown increasingly skeptical of such actions. If lower courts prove permissive in granting class status, the damage from this decision could be modest. That’s the view of those who say the opinion isn’t a disaster.

Still, the Court could have adopted a more nuanced solution. It could have allowed nationwide injunctions in cases involving constitutional rights, or required expedited review of broad orders. Congress, too, could have acted—by limiting forum-shopping or authorizing broader injunctions only in exceptional circumstances.

Instead, the Court has imposed a near-total ban, with only “complete relief” and class actions as narrow escape valves.

General Impact of the Ruling for the Separation of Powers

The practical upshot of the Court’s decision is that district courts can now only protect the plaintiffs before them. An administration unhappy with a ruling can simply ignore it and try again in a more favorable district. There’s no incentive to appeal; forum-shopping becomes standard operating procedure.

The decision enables not just forum-shopping but strategic exploitation of the judiciary. It fragments legal authority, weakens individual rulings, and invites conflicting injunctions—fueling chaos in the legal system and uncertainty for the public.

Perhaps the most significant effect is the shift in power to the Supreme Court—especially via its shadow docket. Readers of this Substack know how problematic that is. The Court has used its emergency docket to issue major, often opaque rulings, with limited explanation and no public deliberation.

Justice Kavanaugh, in his concurrence, embraced this shift. He emphasized that the Court is open “24/7/365” and has tools to make fast decisions. But that’s cold comfort for those who oppose Trump’s steady assault on constitutional norms. The emergency docket has become a venue for sweeping, unexplained rulings—almost always to the executive’s benefit.

Practical Impact Today for the Trump Authoritarian Campaign

That brings us to the heart of the matter. The alarm isn’t over legal theory—it’s about what this decision enables, right now.

Over the past several months, Trump has issued a blizzard of executive orders, most of them brazen violations of constitutional limits. He’s tried to usurp Congress’s role, gut the federal bureaucracy, intimidate private institutions, trample civil rights, target opponents, and impose far-right policies by decree.

If even half of those orders had taken effect, the country would already look unrecognizable as a constitutional democracy.

Time and again, it’s been the lower federal courts who’ve stopped him.

They’ve had to. Congress, narrowly controlled by Republicans, has refused to act. Civic institutions have been cowed. And the Supreme Court has shown far more deference to Trump than the lower courts have.

Now, the Supreme Court is cutting those courts off at the knees.

There’s a palpable possessiveness—if not jealousy—on the part of the justices, as they assert their exclusive role in setting national legal policy. The danger is that they are increasingly siding with Trump, even when doing so empowers unreviewable executive authority.

Take birthright citizenship. What’s to stop the administration from shopping its legally baseless theory from district to district until it finds a sympathetic judge? It could quietly enforce that ruling, avoid appealing it, and never give the Supreme Court a chance to reject it.

At oral argument, the Solicitor General said they would seek certiorari. But given this administration’s routine dishonesty in court, taking that promise at face value is almost laughably naïve.

Which brings us to the uniquely Trumpian risk: a president who lies constantly, demands unreviewable authority, and now has a Supreme Court inclined to let him have it.

In a recent Ninth Circuit argument over Trump’s federalization of California’s National Guard, his lawyer argued that the president could invoke emergency powers for any or no reason—and that courts should not be allowed to question his good faith. The Supreme Court has not yet embraced that position, but Friday’s ruling makes clear that this battle is still very much alive.

The Supreme Court Remains a Clear and Present Danger

The conservative supermajority’s background matters. Five of the six justices came from Republican executive branch roles. All have expressed strong sympathies for executive power. Many believe Watergate gave Congress too much authority—and that it’s time to “rebalance.”

That might be a valid stance in a government of coequal branches. But we don’t have that. What we have is Trump, a Congress in retreat, and now a Supreme Court opinion that threatens to silence the only courtrooms where the rule of law was still holding the line.

Whether the workarounds—like class actions—can offer a meaningful check remains to be seen. Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, warned lower courts not to let class certification become a backdoor to broad relief. Other justices may join that chorus. And once again, many of these battles will be fought through the shadow docket—where the Court has repeatedly sided with Trump and undermined the lower courts.

And most scandalously, we cannot count on Congress to act. The Framers assumed it would step in to check runaway executive power. But not this Congress.

With this opinion, the Supreme Court has just stripped the legal system—and the American people—of one of its most important tools for resisting lawless authoritarianism. It has handed Trump a vastly more powerful weapon for imposing unconstitutional policies, especially with a complacent Congress at his back.

There are strategies for fighting back. Lawyers across the country are already deploying them, and their work deserves support at every turn. We cannot afford despair—or distraction. The lies must be called out. The vision Trump seeks to impose must be resisted no less vigorously.

However, if Trump succeeds in suffocating democracy, Friday’s decision will be remembered as a turning point—the day the Supreme Court crippled the only branch still willing to say “no.”

We deserve better from the Highest Court in the land. But the only question that matters now is: can we still get just enough to keep democracy intact?

Harry Litman is a former United States Attorney and the executive producer and host of the Talking Feds podcast. He has taught law at UCLA, Berkeley, and Georgetown and served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Clinton Administration. Please consider subscribing to Talking Feds on Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Substack.

Donald Trump

Trump Threatens Journalists Who Disclosed Iran Bombing Assessment

President Donald Trump, in an interview on Fox News aired Sunday, warned of efforts to hold reporters and Democratic figures accountable for allegedly leaking classified intelligence.

When host Maria Bartiromo pointed to Trump's recent social media posts critizing media outlets that reported on an intelligence assessment that Iran's nuclear program was not "obliterated" in recent U.S. strikes, Trump said, “They should be prosecuted.”

“Who specifically?” the anchor asked.

Trump outlined an assertive plan: “We can find out. You go up and tell the reporter, 'national security, who gave it?' You have to do that. And I suspect we'll be doing things like that.”

The president's remarks generated backlash on social media, with journalists and attorneys raising concerns over his apparent plan to target reporters for their stories.

National security attorney Mark Zaid wrote on the social platform X: "Be ready for President Trump to pursue prosecution against journalist[s] under #EspionageAct, particularly if they don't reveal source. It's coming. #1stAmendment won't protect."

Tracey Gallagher, another attorney, wrote: "The reporter is not legally obligated to turn over a leaker’s identity to the Department of Justice (DOJ), even if national security is cited, due to strong First Amendment protections for the press. The landmark 1971 Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. United States (the Pentagon Papers case) established that the government cannot censor or compel the press to reveal sources, even in matters involving national security."

She added, referencing Trump's social media post calling for mass evacuations in Tehran: "You were also the one who told everyone in Tehran to evacuate. You might want to look into your inner circle they might not be as loyal as you thought they were."

Writer Mona Burns said: "They are doing everything they can think of the kill free speech. He's heavily implying here that they're now going to start challenging what is known as 'reporter's privilege.' A right granted in the First Amendment giving press the ability to protect their sources."

A user posted: "Trump didn’t just attack Democrats — he openly called for gutting press freedom. He wants reporters bullied into naming sources like it’s a police state. And Bartiromo? She sat there grinning, practically handing him the match to burn the First Amendment. This isn’t tough talk — it’s the language of dictatorship in drag."

"Imagine his surprise when he realizes it was someone from his own administration!" wrote another user.

"He’s blaming Democrats and he doesn’t know who leaked the intel?" said another X account.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Johnson Privately Confirms Deep Medicaid Cuts He Denied On Fox News

Johnson Privately Confirms Deep Medicaid Cuts He Denied On Fox News

Twenty-four hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) used Fox News’ platform to claim Democrats are lying when they say that the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill cuts Medicaid, Politico reported that he is privately warning House Republicans will lose their majority if the Senate version’s Medicaid cuts are enacted.

Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Johnson during a Tuesday interview to explain the differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation on “Medicaid and the SALT deductions and other areas,” and to respond to Democrats “that are pushing this narrative that's not true that Republicans are cutting Medicare and Medicaid.”

Johnson responded that the Democratic claims are “nonsense” because “we are not cutting Medicaid” but instead “strengthening the program for the people that desperately need it and deserve it” by instituting work requirements. He said Democratic ads saying otherwise had been “taken down.” He did not address the part of the question about how the House and Senate Medicaid provisions differ — though he did go on to warn Senate Republicans they would be “playing with fire” if they touch the House bill’s boost to the cap of the State And Local Tax deduction.

But when Johnson talks to Republican power players instead of Fox viewers, he is saying something very different, Politicoreported on Wednesday:

Speaker Mike Johnson is warning in private that Senate Republicans could cost House Republicans their majority next year if they try to push through the deep Medicaid cuts in the current Senate version, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the matter.

That comes as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) cautions GOP senators that those same cutbacks could become a political albatross for Republicans just as the Affordable Care Act was for Democrats.

“[Barack] Obama said … ‘if you like your health care you can keep it, if you like your doctor we can keep it,’ and yet we had several million people lose their health care,” the in-cycle senator told reporters Tuesday. “Here we’re saying [with] Medicaid, we’re going to hold people harmless, but we’re estimating” millions of people could lose coverage.

While the Senate’s proposed cuts are even steeper, the House bill, contrary to what Earhardt and Johnson suggested to Fox’s audience, also includes devastating Medicaid cuts. It would drive nearly 8 million people off the Medicaid rolls over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office found. Analysts say those cuts, along with other health cuts in the bill, would result in more than 11,000 medically preventable deaths annually and could force rural hospitals to close.

These Medicaid cuts are hideously unpopular, but Fox figures are helping Johnson keep his speakership by downplaying their impact to viewers — when they talk about them at all. Indeed, Fox & Friends did not address the Medicaid cuts on Wednesday, including after Politico’s report contradicted Johnson’s claims to their viewers.

Meanwhile, though Johnson told Earnhardt that Democratic claims about the GOP’s Medicaid cuts were so obviously false that ads on them have been taken down, an ad denouncing Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) for having “voted for the biggest Medicaid cut in history” has run more than 100 times on TV stations in his district this week, according to a Media Matters review of the Kinetiq database.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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