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Far-Right Media Scorch Fox News Over Support For McCarthy

As the House of Representatives continues to struggle to elect a speaker, Fox News has received backlash from its further right-wing media counterparts over what those critics describe as the network’s general support for Rep.-elect Kevin McCarthy, (R-CA) who has so far lost the speaker vote eight times. Media figures from Real America’s Voice, One America News Network, and Newsmax, among others, claim that Fox News is engaging in a blind, embarrassing defense of the Republican establishment with its coverage of McCarthy.

The attacks against Fox intensified when Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert (R-CO) appeared on the January 4 edition of Fox host Sean Hannity’s show, where he pressed against her refusal to vote for McCarthy. (Boebert is one of the 20 House representatives-elect who are refusing to support McCarthy’s bid for speakership.) The network drew more criticism after Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade called House Republicans who oppose McCarthy “insurrectionists.”

BlazeTV host Chad Prather complained that the “Fox News talking heads continue to shill for the GOP do-nothing establishment.” [Twitter, 1/5/23]
Michael Quinn Sullivan, publisher of right-wing blog Texas Scorecard, replied to Prather’s tweet, writing, “Fox News is now WORSE than CNN and MSNBC, because the Fox crew knows better.” [Twitter, 1/5/23]
Turning Point USA ambassador Alex Lorusso tweeted “Hannity is insufferable” following Boebert’s appearance on his show. [Twitter, 1/4/23]
Right-wing host Todd Starns described Fox as “the propaganda wing of the McCarthy team.” [Twitter, 1/4/23]
Anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel tweeted: “It’s pathetic to hear all the Fox News talking heads blaming and attacking the 20 Members of Congress opposing McCarthy.” [Twitter, 1/4/23]
Former Newsmax host Emerald Robinson called Fox & Friends hosts “uniparty swamp rats” over their support for McCarthy. [Twitter, 1/5/23]
Right-wing personalities the Hodgetwins also attacked Fox and Friends for “calling people INSURRECTIONISTS if they don’t support Kevin McCarthy for speaker.” [Twitter, 1/5/23]
Women for Trump co-founder Amy Kremer tweeted that it was “sad to see” how Hannity treated Boebert on Fox News and that “she should be shown some respect.” [Twitter, 1/4/23]
Hate preacher Greg Locke, who spoke at the January 5 “Rally for Revival” in Washington the night before the January 6 attack, tweeted, “The only difference between the corruption of CNN and Fox News is their logo.” [Twitter, 1/5/23]
Conspiracy hub National File called Hannity “a LYING BULLY. Just like Kevin McCarthy.” [Twitter, 1/5/23]
Right-wing podcaster Mike Crispi called Hannity “a hack” and a “sellout.” [Twitter, 1/4/23]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

One America Network’s Shameful Last Days On National TV

On July 21, Verizon followed in DirecTV’s footsteps and announced it would not be renewing its contract with the far-right conspiracy theory network One America News. Having learned nothing from its catastrophic response to DirecTV, OAN denounced Verizon and encouraged viewers to harass and boycott the “radical Marxist corporation.” And since then, OAN has only further proved its worthlessness.

Without a major carrier, OAN remains focused on national issues like a fear of roving transgender gangs harassing conservatives, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s support for gay men who flash “their genitals to little boys and girls” (she appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race -- a show with no children -- two years ago), and Verizon’s “censorship” of OAN.

Before OAN was officially kicked off national television, however, the network spent its last week much like the years before, warning viewers of “Fauci-funded bioweapons” unleashed against the people, hand-wringing over billionaires “pushing the transgender issue,” speculating about gay men with monkeypox sexually assaulting children, lamenting the need for a literal war against drug cartels, and discussing the left’s grand plot to steal the 2022 midterms, beginning with the “Marxist censorship” of OAN and other right-wing voices.

Prior to the drop, Pearson Sharp, Infowars’ favorite OAN correspondent, delivered one more report about the “predator class” using COVID-19 vaccines to “depopulate the world” by 15 percent.

“They want to kill off the useless people, as they call us,” Sharp ominously said. “And you can already see it happening. … We know these vaccines are hardest on the elderly, so it makes perfect sense that the Bolsheviks in our government would want to wipe out as many retired Americans as possible. Can’t pay Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security if people are dead, don’t you know?”

“These Fauci-funded bioweapons,” Sharp warned, “are products of a rogue globalist government that hates America and hates its citizens, and is doing everything in its power to wipe us out. This is corporate domestic bioterrorism, plain and simple,” and “the predator class in Washington” which is “responsible for this genocide” must pay the price.

OAN’s final days of national carriage also targeted LGBTQ people with bigoted nonsense. For making investments in transgender issues and “quote-unquote, ‘gender care,’” Tipping Point host Kara McKinney labeled Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his cousin, Jennifer -- whom McKinney also deadnamed and misgendered -- “two prime examples of transhumanists trying to play God by reshaping the world through technology.” McKinney said the Pritzkers are an example of billionaires who are “ really pushing the transgender issue” alongside Big Pharma, which she said sees it as “another potential moneymaker” as “COVID starts to wind down at least somewhat.”

Before inisting that he did not want to sound homophobic, Real America’s Ball took news of multiple children testing positive for monkeypox as a potential sign that they had been sexually assaulted by gay men. “How does a kid in Washington, D.C., and a kid in California -- we’re talking toddlers -- get monkeypox if it’s barely ever transmitted through just touching the skin,” Ball asked, exactly describing monkeypox transmission, “because otherwise, you know where I’m going with this.”

Ball’s guest, the anti-COVID-19 vaccine Dr. Brian Tyson, replied that he believed that both children “came from a gay relationship family, or had contact with somebody in the gay community, and I think that that’s really where we’re going with this.” Speculating that one child may be undocumented, Tyson said, “Who knows what’s happened to that kid. And we see bad things happen to kids all the time in those situations.”

“That’s what I’m saying. That’s where I’m going with it,” Ball replied, talking over Tyson’s hedge that “it’s a little too early to draw conclusions on that.”

Speaking of Ball and children, the Real America host also spent part of his last week on national television encouraging parents to hit their children for misbehaving. After a guest blamed “psychotropic drugs” and other “externalities” for mass shootings, Ball suggested parents should ignore medical treatments for behavior problems and just hit them instead.

“We can’t say enough about what we’re doing to our children, folks. The next time you take your kid who you think’s a little bit hyper, or a little bit despondent, or a little bit sidetracked in the classroom, don’t feed him drugs.” Ball continued, “I’m of a different age … and when they said, 'Dan's hyperactive. Dan won't sit still in class. Dan won’t shut his mouth,' nobody said, 'Pump Dan full of drugs' 40 years ago when I was seven or eight. You know what they did? They cracked me one and then I got in line."

In its final days of national carriage, OAN also called for military action against drug cartels. With no concern for the possibility of starting a war with Mexico, or U.S. airstrikes on U.S. soil, host Addison Smith called for “using the unfathomable power and strength of our military to deal with Mexican drug cartels” and compared the would-be war to ongoing U.S. special operations and drone campaigns.

“The Mexican drug operation is one of, if not the, biggest threat to this nation right now,” Smith warned. “If our United States military has a job to deal with any group, that should be target number one, and we could do it very easily.” His guest, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), agreed that the U.S. should “use every means necessary to secure our southern border, to protect the American people against the Mexican drug cartels.”

OAN’s final days on national television were a shameful mess of the vitriol and dangerous conspiracy theories it is known for, down to the network’s explanation of why it was leaving Verizon. According to Sharp, “there’s no chance in hell” Democrats will allow Republicans to win control of Congress in November, so they will cheat as they did in 2020, “and the process starts, of course with a massive, widespread, coordinated campaign of censorship,” which naturally included DirecTV and Verizon dumping OAN.

“It's essentially institutionalized discrimination,” Sharp complained as his network’s time ran out. “It’s appalling to think that the criminals in Washington are colluding with the criminals in the media to prevent you, the American people, from figuring out just how much of the Constitution they're willing to shred to stay in power.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Verizon Drops Far-Right One America News From Cable Network

On Thursday, The Daily Beastreported that Verizon was “unable to reach an agreement” with Herring Networks, the parent company of One America News, and that OAN will be “removed from the Fios TV lineup” on July 31.

In recent weeks, One America News Network has lobbed attacks at Verizon, one of its last remaining carriers, for “silencing conservative voices” and “engaging in censorship” against OAN. This wave of attacks came into clearer focus when Verizon publicly revealed that its contract with Herring Networks, OAN’s parent company, expires on July 30.

The “content update” for customers on Verizon’s website states that “sometimes broadcasters and cable networks demand unacceptable price increases,” implying that the issue is Herring Networks charging Verizon more money than its channels are worth -- which is not much.

And in a message dated July 15, Verizon alerted Fios customers that starting soon, the provider would be offering OAN and Herring's A Wealth of Entertainment, (AWE) “to those Fios TV customers who want to watch them and are willing to pay for them” -- suggesting the channels might soon be available only as premium subscriptions.

Whether the issue is financial or otherwise, Verizon is right to balk at renewing the contract to carry an extremist, increasingly hateful, and anti-democracy network. OAN has shown a zeal unlike any other self-styled news organization for fighting the results of the 2020 election, including involving itself in the Trump campaign’s fake electors scheme and state election “audits,” as well as issuing calls for treason trials and mass executions of media and Democratic Party leadership.

OAN also manages to stand out among right-wing cable networks for its viciously anti-LGBTQ commentary, labeling LGBTQ people and their allies -- especially transgender people -- as pedophiles “satisfying their own warped perversions” and also “canceling reproduction” for “population control.” Said one guest, “We need to start really going after these people and really punishing them.”

As Verizon’s contract with OAN is coming to a close, the network is still staking out the only negotiating position it seems to know and one that worked so well in its fractious DirecTV relationship -- hostile attacks.

In an interview with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), OAN correspondent Caitlin Sinclair labeled Verizon “one of the largest and wokest companies to date” and accused it of “looking to drop this network, One America News, from their lineup.” Sinclair asked Stefanik, “What pressure are you and Republican colleagues possibly putting on Verizon, or can you put on a company like Verizon?” Stefanik replied, “It’s not up to Verizon to determine what American citizens, what information they can access. That’s up to the consumer themselves.”

In a different portion of the same Stefanik interview, which OAN aired in two separate segments, Sinclair claimed that OAN’s viewership “is just proof that the American people do not want orthodoxy.” She also asked, “What can the American people do in the meantime as far as immediate steps to ensure consumer choice when it comes to news programming?” Stefanik advised the consumers to “hold these companies accountable” by choosing to “take your dollars elsewhere.”

Sinclair concluded the segment by declaring, “We the American people cannot continue to allow this level of censorship. House Republicans and their legislative efforts are commendable and critical, but we still need to hear from you. This assault on our sovereignty ends with us, the American citizens, taking back the power.”

In another interview, this time with Heritage Foundation tech policy director Kara Frederick, OAN D.C. bureau chief John Hines asked if a 2021 letter from Democratic members of Congress asking TV providers, including Verizon, to comment on right-wing misinformation was “a form of subtle intimidation, sort of a wink-and-a-nod form of intimidation, or a tacit threat” from the government. Frederick replied that Congress was essentially saying that “if we don’t like what these networks are basically saying and disseminating, then we aim to cut you off at the knees.” Hines concluded that “maybe even your cable -- DirecTV, Verizon, Comcast -- maybe they won’t be on your side after they get some of these letters,” which were sent 17 months ago.

OAN’s consistent whining about “censorship” is a red herring from the unavoidable truth: This incredibly hateful and anti-democratic network is a liability for any TV provider that does business with it.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

One America News Promotes Election Deniers In Key State Races

In the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, far-right conspiracy theory outlet One America News has relentlessly promoted Big Lie supporters running for key statewide elected positions. It’s the latest iteration of the pro-Trump network’s ongoing effort to undermine U.S. elections: platform and potentially elect allies who've promised to turn OAN's favorite election conspiracy theories into state policy.

OAN has played a major role in promoting election-denying GOP candidates Doug Mastriano, Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, Matt Deperno, Kristina Karamo, and Burt Jones. According to a Media Matters review of OAN appearances since the 2020 election, these candidates have racked up more than 100 combined appearances on OAN, often through sycophantic interviews and campaign plugs disguised as news reports. A majority of these interviews aired before DirectTV booted the network off its largest distribution platform on April 4.

Fox News has seemingly aired just five interviews with these election denialist front-runners, who are instead turning toward more fringe conservative outlets for coverage. As a network dedicated to election lies and still able to hold Donald Trump’s attention, OAN is uniquely poised to promote right-wing election deniers running for office across the country. Two OAN hosts, The Real Story’s Natalie Harp and Weekly Briefing’s Christina Bobb, even recently left the network to help the former president’s Save America PAC elect election-denialist candidates.

Mastriano, Deperno, Karamo, and Jones have now won their primaries and will join other OAN-backed candidates like Ohio Republican congressional nominee J.R. Majewski in the general election. Polls predict that Lake and Finchem will join their cohorts after Arizona’s August 2 primary. All six of these candidates have ties to anti-government and extremist movements, including Stop the Steal, QAnon, the Oath Keepers, and the ongoing campaign to overturn the 2020 election.

Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Nominee)

On May 17, state Sen. Doug Mastriano -- a QAnon-promoting “Stop the Steal” adherent being advised by former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis -- won the crowded Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial primary. The following night, “the next Pennsylvania governor” fittingly celebrated with his “good friends” on OAN; the network had spent the past 20 months promoting his proposed state election audit and calling Mastriano an “election integrity warrior.”

According to Media Matters’ internal database, Mastriano hasn’t appeared on a weekday Fox show since May 2020. In contrast, Mastriano has appeared on OAN at least 34 separate times – mostly for interview segments and live coverage about his attempts to recreate the bogus Maricopa County, Arizona, election audit in Pennsylvania. Mastriano traveled to the Arizona audit site last June, where he was promptly interviewed by then-OAN hosts Christina Bobb and Natalie Harp. (At the time, Bobb was using her OAN-promoted nonprofit to fund far-right lawmakers' trips to the audit, which OAN did not disclose to viewers.)

Like Bobb, Mastriano has been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee for his involvement in the Capitol insurrection, including attempts to pressure GOP leadership into adopting a fake slate of electors. Six days before the insurrection, Real America host Dan Ball praised Mastriano for his attempt to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results, since “the numbers don’t add up.”

OAN also aired live coverage of the sham hearing on supposed election fraud that Mastriano spearheaded at a hotel in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in late November 2020. Less than two weeks before the January 6 insurrection, host Chanel Rion even praised the “domino effect” Mastriano’s “forum” had on efforts to overturn election results in Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia.

In a recent appearance discussing efforts to restore “election integrity” on Real America, Mastriano similarly boasted that “anything you see in Wisconsin, in Arizona, in Georgia had its roots actually in the hearing in Gettysburg.”

Appropriately, Mastriano seemingly announced his campaign for governor on the January 8 edition of Weekly Briefing, breaking the news to Bobb after lying about Pennsylvania’s 2020 election. He then asked OAN viewers to “help get us across the line” and become “the next governor of Pennsylvania” – then compared insurrectionists jailed for participating in the January 6 Capitol attack to Japanese Americans held in internment camps during World War II.

The former OAN host was particularly close with the GOP candidate. While at OAN, Bobb appeared on Mastriano’s radio show. Months later, Mastriano treated Bobb’s family to a “private tour” of Gettysburg.

Kari Lake (Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate)

OAN has hosted Kari Lake over 25 times since she announced her gubernatorial campaign last June, with the network consistently promoting the serial election liar. Though the presumed GOP nominee, tied to Nazi sympathizers and QAnon conspiracy theorists, has been a frequent presence on OAN and other fringe media, she hadn’t appeared on weekday Fox News until a June 27 interview on Special Report.

While appearing on OAN, Lake has pushed a variety of OAN-endorsed election conspiracy theories and lies. She repeatedly pushed the debunked “Sharpiegate” conspiracy theory, was a vocal proponent of the pointless Arizona election audit, and has told OAN that, as governor, she “would not have certified” or would “decertify” the 2020 election. (There is currently no legal pathway to decertify an election.)

In a June 1 Real America interview, the former local news anchor told host Dan Ball, “I believe these journalists, some of them have blood on their hands. Think about what happens when you have a stolen election." She continued, “Their day will come when they will have to face their maker, and it's not gonna be pretty." Minutes later, Ball doubled down on his endorsement of Lake and directed viewers to her campaign site.

OAN has also tapped Lake to spread anti-vaccine misinformation and LGBTQ hate. In a Real America segment attacking LGBTQ representation in children's cartoons last August, Lake complained about the “whole LGBTQ+ agenda that seems to be being pushed on our children.” Against clips of Muppet Babies character Gonzo coming out as nonbinary, Lake claimed that media's “whole intent is to divide us, separate us into groups, and put wedges between us.” She concluded, “In some ways, I hope they go under, because they’re not serving America, they’re destroying free press.”

Mark Finchem (Arizona Secretary Of State Candidate)

Since current frontrunner and election denialist Mark Finchem launched his bid to become Arizona's next secretary of state last May, OAN has hosted him over 21 times; Finchem has not appeared on Fox News. The QAnon supporter and “Stop the Steal” adherent tied to an anti-government extremist group is OAN’s pick to stop leftists from enacting "totalitarian control” of the United States.

The House Select Committee recently subpoenaed Finchem over his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election – efforts which OAN regularly promoted. As the secretary of state candidate explained to Natalie Harp last November, Finchem helped draft an evidence book meant to sway then-Vice President Mike Pence into supporting an illegal alternate slate of electors for Trump.

On OAN, the Trump-endorsed candidate has pushed debunked conspiracy theories about “fictitious voters” and “sovereign fraud” to justify calls for “ending mail-in voting” and investigating election workers for “racketeering.”

Last July, Finchem assured Harp he would not have certified the 2020 election had he been secretary of state. Finchem falsely claimed that “under the 10th Amendment and the legal doctrine that the kid who steals a candy bar cannot keep a candy bar when he gets caught,” the ability to decertify elections is “a state right. it's an unenumerated power that the state legislatures have.” Finchem has also called for Arizona to “decertify, reclaim, and then petition other states to invoke the 12th Amendment" to rerun the 2020 election nationwide.

On- and off-air, OAN hosts have responded to these claims by repeatedly directing viewers to Finchem’s campaign site, which hosts a petition to decertify the 2020 election results. In February, the network promoted Finchem-backed legislation to decertify the election results of Maricopa, Pima, and Yuma counties. Legal experts and Arizona’s house speaker dismissed the OAN-promoted measure as “legally unsound” and “obviously unconstitutional."

Matt DePerno (Michigan Attorney General Candidate)

On April 23, the Michigan GOP endorsed Matt DePerno — a fringe lawyer who actively worked to overturn the 2020 election — for state attorney general. That night, DePerno tagged OAN’s Bobb in a tweet thanking his supporters for helping him win “this historic victory.”

DePerno, who has not appeared on Fox News, has been interviewed on OAN at least 16 times since the 2020 election, with the network often promoting the candidate and his “groundbreaking lawsuit” to (unsuccessfully) relitigate Michigan’s 2020 election.

Last September, “the next attorney general” promised Harp he would “assemble a coalition to investigate 2020 and prosecute anyone involved in this voter fraud.” One of DePerno’s targets is Michigan’s current Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson. On The Real Story, DePerno has falsely accused Benson of rigging election audits and entertained the host’s unfounded allegation that Benson purposefully kept dead voters on Michigan’s voting rolls to rig the 2020 election.

In a March 3 appearance on The Real Story, DePerno falsely declared the “No. 1 issue in this state” was the 2020 election, saying, “We have to cling to what’s left of the Constitution and claw back everything that’s been taken from us, and I'm the candidate to do that.” Instead of pressing him, Harp thanked DePerno for his “courage” and advertised his website to OAN viewers.

Kristina Karamo (Michigan Secretary Of State Candidate)

OAN has interviewed election-denying conspiracy theorist Kristina Karamo, the Trump-endorsed GOP pick for Michigan's secretary of state, at least 8 times since June 2021. The former poll watcher garnered attention with her December 2020 Fox interviews about supposedly witnessing election fraud in a Detroit polling center. Since then, Fox has not hosted Karamo.

On OAN, Karamo has routinely promised hosts she will recreate the OAN-supported Arizona audit, which experts decried as a “clown show,” in order to restore confidence in elections and the American republic. In one Weekly Briefing appearance last November, Karamo called voter fraud a “national security threat,” and told viewers that “we lack the people in government with the honesty and decency” to enforce the law “if a poll challenger's rights are violated.”

Against a Real Story chyron titled “Saving Michigan,” Karamo claimed on OAN last September that George Soros “injected people like Jocelyn Benson,” Michigan’s current secretary of state, into government in order to rig “one of the top states that determine presidential election outcomes.” (Karamo has spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories targeting Soros in the past, as well.)

One month later, Karamo baselessly called her Democratic opponent an out-of-state plant meant to “corrupt the election system so the people of Michigan can be disenfranchised, to put it plainly.” Harp agreed with Karamo’s comments and encouraged her to come back on OAN.

Burt Jones (Georgia Lieutenant Governor Candidate)

Georgia’s Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, Burt Jones has appeared on OAN over 10 times since Trump endorsed him last September. In the lead-up to Jones’ May 17 primary win, OAN repeatedly promoted Jones' bid to become the second-highest elected official in the state of Georgia.

The state senator— who has not appeared on Fox News— first joined OAN during a Bobb-funded June pilgrimage to check out last year’s Arizona audit, shortly after Jones’ colleagues had stripped him of his committee leadership positions for pushing election lies. On April 15, Jones toldThe Real Story that this resistance from colleagues, including current Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, inspired his campaign: “One of the main reasons why I’m running for lieutenant governor is because that's where a lot of the pushback came from.”

Last December, Harp essentially endorsed Jones, telling him, “You've been such a champion for election integrity, even when the RINOs were against you. Thank you for the work you're doing.” She stressed, “The people of Georgia have to be so excited that you're running having an election integrity champion as lieutenant governor.”

Earlier this year, Bobb asked Jones if people “actually get involved to secure their elections locally, that the election actually is salvageable, it can be saved and you can have a fair election. What do you think?” Jones responded “absolutely,” and once again plugged his efforts to eliminate voting machines and drop boxes.

At the request of OAN hosts, Jones has promised to investigate the 2020 election and fully support OAN-promoted conspiracy theorists “waging war against election corruption.” In January, OAN even recruited Jones for its ongoing campaign encouraging viewers to stop nonexistent election rigging and work the polls.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Nominee)

Kari Lake (Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate)

Mark Finchem (Arizona Secretary Of State Candidate)

Matt DePerno (Michigan Attorney General Candidate)

Kristina Karamo (Michigan Secretary Of State Candidate)

Burt Jones (Georgia Lieutenant Governor Candidate)

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