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Pete Hegseth

On Fox, Pete Hegseth Wanted More Wars -- And More War Crimes

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, making it abundantly clear that this will be round two of the revolving door between Fox News and Trump’s administration.

During his tenure as a Fox host, Hegseth endorsed a “preemptive strike” against North Korea, voiced support for American soldiers committing war crimes, smeared veterans applying for government benefits as “dependent,” said January 6 rioters “love freedom,” and repeatedly railed against a supposedly “woke” military.

Hegseth demonstrated his influence over Trump in 2019 by aggressively lobbying — both on-air and privately — for Trump to intercede in the cases of various accused or convicted war criminals, resulting in multiple pardons and the removal of former U.S. Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer.

  • Hegseth has a record on foreign policy and national security of advocating for aggressive military action and championing war crimes

    • Hegseth: “There's merit in a preemptive strike” against North Korea. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/11/17]
    • Hegseth defended Blackwater contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians: “They're making tough calls on the battlefield.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/11/19]
    • Hegseth dismissed a whistleblower’s account of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “One man’s whistleblower is another man’s political leaker who has an agenda.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 9/26/19]
    • In opposition to then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Hegseth repeatedly advocated that Trump intervene and pardon convicted war criminals. Trump ultimately followed Hegseth’s urging. [Media Matters, 11/8/19, 11/15/19]
    • Months after then-President Trump withdrew support from Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, Hegseth declared that America can still work with allies “like the Kurds.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/3/20]
    • Hegseth suggested targeting Iran's energy production sites: “Do they want their economic sites, their military sites, political sites and/or cultural sites targeted? How about their oil and gas?” [Fox Business, Varney & Co.,1/6/20]
    • Hegseth said he supports America committing war crimes: “I don't care about Iranian cultural sites.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/6/20]
    • Hegseth called for massive strikes against Iran to take out infrastructure and possibly cultural sites. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/8/20]
    • Hegseth: Democrats and the media “are the agents of Russia. Not Donald Trump.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/21/20]
    • Hegseth attacked the International Criminal Court: “These international bodies can turn and can turn against you.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/6/20]
    • Hegseth on reports of a lack of White House response to Russian bounties for killing U.S. troops: “You can make a decision to do nothing too.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 6/28/20]
    • Hegseth suggested that former President Barack Obama played a role in instigating the war in Ukraine. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/26/23]
    • Hegseth suggested that “signals have been sent” to Iran by the Biden and Obama administrations that it can fund terrorism. “You see our administration working very hard to say, ‘Oh the $6 billion, it’s not in their bank account yet.’ There may be technicalities about that. As you pointed out, it’s all fungible. But you also have the Obama administration giving away cash to the Iranians, multiple times. And then you got the easing of sanctions and lightening of the restrictions against Iran under the Biden administration,” Hegseth said. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 10/8/23]

  • Hegseth has advocated against veterans' benefits

    • Hegseth, along with co-host Brian Kilmeade, criticized American veterans who apply for all the government benefits they qualify for, calling them “dependent.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/5/19]
    • Hegseth called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) a “mindless moron” after she resisted calls to privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs: “She is a moron — I'm going to say it. No, especially on this issue, she is a mindless moron who knows nothing of this topic.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/23/19]
    • Hegseth worked with the for-profit college industry against protections for student veterans. [Media Matters, 6/26/19]

  • Hegseth has complained that the military is too “woke” and focused on diversity

    • Hegseth said that “we've seen the woke ideology make its way into the military” and that it’s unfortunate that “so many of our Pentagon brass have … bought into these ideas.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 3/28/21]
    • Hegseth claimed that “instead of training, our leaders are focused on turning our troops woke.” A chyron during this segment read “Air Force implements a woke ‘safe space.’” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/19/22]
    • Hegseth chastised the Army for recognizing Pride Month when the agency’s birthday is also in June. “It's sort of the perfect end state of what the left would like,” said Hegseth. “You are an individual automaton that we will celebrate.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 6/2/24]
    • Hegseth: “The Pentagon likes to say our diversity is our strength. What a bunch of garbage.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/3/24]
    • Hegseth argued that “DEI” in the “woke” military makes it “less equipped to fight the wars it needs to fight.” Hegseth commented, “It's one thing to have DEI inside your corporation or inside your university; it’s a whole other thing to have it inside the 101st Airborne.” [Fox News, The Five, 6/3/24]
    • Hegseth said the military needs “a new commander in chief that’s going to get rid of all of this CRT, DEI nonsense, all the gender nonsense.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/4/24]
    • Hegseth complained about “a generation of guys” in the military “who have been filtered out for multiple reasons because of political ideologies at the top,” including “genderism, DEI, CRT, whatever it is.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 6/14/24]
    • Hegseth claimed that “patriots” don't want to serve. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/7/24]

  • Hegseth has railed at the idea of women in combat

    • Hegseth claimed the military was at “a crisis moment” because of “social justice prerogatives” in the military such as “women in combat.” [FlashPoint via Victory Channel’s YouTube page, 6/4/24]
    • Hegseth promoted his new book by denigrating women in the military: “The book is not just about me — it's the social justice, politically correct issues being pushed from Obama and Biden appointees that generals are allowed to happen, from women in combat lowering standards, to CRT and DEI, to trans in the military.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/5/24]
    • Hegseth complained that Obama’s secretary of the Navy had dismissed a Marine Corps study “that proved women should not be in combat units.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/7/24]
    • Hegseth: “I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.” Hegseth then suggested institutions not “incentivize” women in “places where traditionally — not traditionally, over human history — men in those positions are more capable.” [Shawn Ryan Show, 11/10/24]

  • Hegseth has supported nativist immigration policy and attacked migrants

    • Hegseth defended separation of immigrant children from parents because the kids get food and “soccer and video games.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 6/17/18]
    • Hegseth: Border patrol work is “much like being in combat sometimes.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/22/19]
    • Hegseth: “Who's been dehumanized? It's been the ICE agents and the Border Patrol agents.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/19/19]
    • Hegseth dismissed concerns about crying children left without parents by ICE raids. “The left will always call them ‘raids,'” he said. “They [ICE] say, ‘Hey these are just worksite enforcement.'” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/12/19]
    • Hegseth defended Trump's “public charge” rule restricting legal immigration for those who might use public benefits as a “common sense measure.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/13/19; NPR, 8/12/19]
    • Hegseth: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is what “unchecked illegal immigration and massive waves of refugees look like without assimilation.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 5/4/21]
    • Hegseth attacked pregnant migrants: “Anchor babies will soon be here to keep them in the U.S.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 9/21/21]
    • After Fox correspondent Bill Melugin said there have been migrants entering the U.S. from countries he “had to Google” because he’d “never heard of them before” and reported that “the Chinese numbers, they’re up over 900% right now,” Hegseth mused that “it’s almost like we don’t have a country.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 3/26/23]
    • Hegseth promoted a hoax about homeless veterans being displaced to make room for asylum-seekers. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 5/13/23; AP News, 5/19/23]
    • Hegseth claimed an expanded humanitarian parole program is a “secret program that’s flying illegal immigrants into our country where they just skip the border.” Hegseth continued, “We hop the border for them. … What are the implications of this? How much do they vet them in the home country?” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 3/5/24; FactCheck.org, 3/14/24]
    • Hegseth complained that the federal government is “distracted” at the border because the focus has been on “mostly peaceful protesters on January 6.” [Fox News, One Nation with Brian Kilmeade, 3/16/24]
    • Hegseth likened Trump’s plan for mass deportations to President Dwight Eisenhower’s removal of millions of immigrants in the 1950s, noting that “it was very controversial because some of them were here legally.” “That’ll be the challenge in this one [Trump’s deportation plan] too. Because people will say, ‘Well they claimed asylum, so they have a legal claim,’” Hegseth said, adding, “They’re going to have to be real tough to deal with this illegality.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 3/17/24]
    • Hegseth said, “When you import the Third World, you get Third World hierarchy, values, and chaos.” He continued, “Your quality of life is going down. You feel less safe. Your resources are being drained. ... But don't speak up about that. If you do, you're the racist.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 10/11/24]

  • Hegseth supported insurrectionists and refused to admit Trump lost the 2020 election

    • Hegseth: “Republicans will keep losing” if they don’t make it more difficult to vote. [Fox News, Hannity, 11/13/20]
    • Hegseth thanked a former congressional candidate for “keeping up the fight” to get mail-in ballots thrown out. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/29/20]
    • Hegseth defended the January 6 insurrectionists: “They love freedom.” Hegseth continued, “You don't have to believe the election was stolen to know that the system has begun to undercut people who love our country.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/7/21]
    • When pressed by guest James Talarico to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election, Hegseth demurred: “I’m not – don’t really feel any obligation to answer anything.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 7/13/21]
    • Five days after the 2022 election, Hegseth cast doubt on why ballots were still being counted in Arizona, mentioned that then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs “is in charge of the elections there,” and said, “We don’t know whether people are cheating or not.” Hegseth lamented the rate of ballot counting in Arizona, stating, “You want to see a threat to democracy? It’s what we’re watching in Arizona right now.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/13/22]

  • Hegseth has made virulent anti-Muslim remarks

    • In a segment about Hamtramck, Michigan, which has a Muslim majority, Hegseth pushed fears about the “assimilation” and “integration” of Muslims. [Media Matters, 2/3/16]
    • Hegseth criticized former Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges for giving her state of the city address at a mosque. He stated: “This is the left doing everything they can to fall over themselves to fawn over a new community.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/17/17]
    • Hegseth said France is experiencing “a slow motion 9/11” and a “demographic invasion” because “Muslims are having 2.6 kids, whereas French-born folks are having 1.6 kids.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 5/13/18]
    • Hegseth: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) “has a Hamas agenda.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/29/19]
    • In response to U.S. troop withdrawal, Hegseth called Afghans “illiterate poppy farmers." [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 7/14/21]
    • In his 2020 book, Hegseth complained about “Muslims’ birth rates” and praised “crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes.” [Media Matters, 11/12/24]
    • Hegseth supported far-right conspiracy theorist and anti-Muslim bigot Laura Loomer’s failed 2020 congressional campaign. [Media Matters, 11/12/24]

  • Hegseth has mocked the threats from climate change

    • Hegseth urged Trump to “take credit for solving global warming” because of cold temperatures from a “bomb cyclone.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/7/18]
    • Hegseth: “Democrats are more obsessed with climate change” than talking “about the problem of radical Islam.” Hegseth made the comments during one of Fox's “straight news” programs, claiming Democrats are “obsessed with climate change as a religion. They refuse to talk about the problem of radical Islam. And as a result it's infiltrating institutions.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 3/20/19]
    • Hegseth said addressing climate change is the left's “religion” and “they want to fight the weather.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/13/19]
    • Hegseth claimed that climate activists want to “fight the weather.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/22/21]
    • Hegseth suggested that climate activists attempting to mitigate climate change are “wanting to play God.” Hegseth said: “This goes back to people wanting to play God. Climate has happened for thousands and thousands of years.” [Media Matters, 12/11/23]
    • Hegseth mocked reports of record-breaking heat and blamed media for “hyping climate insanity.” “One thing the mindless left loves to magically discover every year, it’s that summer is hot,” he said. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/7/23]

  • Miscellaneous

    • Hegseth: Democrats skipping the AIPAC convention “are at some level anti-Israel or maybe antisemitic.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/22/19]
    • Hegseth blamed “gun-free zones” for deaths in the El Paso, Texas, mass shooting. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/5/19]
    • Hegseth donated to a candidate who killed someone in a drunk driving crash. [Media Matters, 5/31/22]
    • Hegseth blamed crime on a “culture of criminality” that he said arose after the protests over George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police in 2020, and he lamented that it will take “a very long time to rebuild the perception or the morale of” law enforcement. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/28/22]
    • Hegseth praised vigilantism against crime. “Who is there to protect us? There are some cases that take on a life of their own. They become emblematic of a situation in the city. Marine veteran Daniel Penny is precisely that.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 5/21/23]
    • Hegseth participated in a smear campaign against a Pentagon official in charge of mitigating white supremacy. [Media Matters, 5/25/23]
    • Hegseth falsely claimed Kamala Harris wants to “get rid of red meat.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 7/27/24; Yahoo! News, 8/1/24]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

New Orleans truck attack

Fox Still Falsely Linking Migrants To New Orleans Truck Attack

After a truck-ramming attack killed at least 14 people at a New Year's celebration in New Orleans, Fox News misreported that the vehicle used came across the southern border two days earlier, implying that the suspected perpetrator — later identified as an Army veteran born in the U.S. — had also crossed the border.

Although the network has seemingly attempted to quietly walk back the false information, Fox personalities and guests — including some former and incoming Trump administration picks — have continued to baselessly connect an act of terror reportedly committed by a U.S. citizen to the southern border in order to fearmonger about terrorists entering the country.

After a deadly truck attack in New Orleans, Fox News quickly sought to tie the attack to the southern border

    • On January 1, a truck rammed into a New Year's celebration along Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing at least 14 and injuring dozens others before the driver was killed in a shootout with police. The truck was rented through the vehicle-sharing app Turo, and was driven to New Orleans from the Houston area. [ABC News, 1/1/25; ABC 13-KTRK, 1/1/25]
    • Fox News initially reported during the 10 a.m. hour that “anonymous sources” claimed that the truck used in the attack had crossed the southern border at Eagle Pass, Texas, two days prior to the attack. Shortly after, Fox senior national correspondent Aishah Hasnie walked back the claim, posting at 11:55 a.m. ET that the truck “crossed Eagle Pass, TX on November 16th -- not two days ago. The identification of driver that crossed border does not appear to be the shooter.” A Fox News article also quietly removed any mention of the border in an article which originally reported that the truck used “was tracked crossing the southern border into the U.S. at Eagle Pass, Texas, in November.” [CNN, 1/2/25; Twitter/X, 1/1/25; Fox News, 1/1/25, archived 1/1/25]
    • President-elect Donald Trump spread Fox News’ faulty reporting by posting the same misinformation minutes after the network reported it. Trump posted to Truth Social: “When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true.” [Media Matters, 1/2/25]

After Fox walked back its reporting, network figures continued to fearmonger about “potential terrorists” crossing the southern border

    • Fox host Julie Banderas shifted focus to the southern border by claiming that “the license plate on this truck has a history of plate readers at the border in patterns that, and I’m quoting, ‘may be suspicious for human smuggling.’” Banderas added: “When you hear human smuggling, you think about the border, and the border has obviously been such a dangerous, ignored problem for this country with so many of these sleeper cells and terrorists who want to harm Americans, illegally crossing our borders.” [Fox News, Fox News Live, 1/1/25]
    • Fox News national correspondent Griff Jenkins claimed the attack is “raising new concerns about the terror threat across the country, including at our southern border,” before interviewing Trump’s border czar Tom Homan. Jenkins said: “The New Orleans terrorist suspect, a U.S. Army vet carrying an ISIS flag from his truck's trailer hitch, is raising new concerns about the terror threat across the country, including at our southern border — where just months ago, eight Tajikistan nationals with ISIS ties were arrested in several major U.S. cities after entering illegally.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/2/25]
    • After reporting that the suspect was a U.S. citizen who drove from Texas, Fox’s Todd Piro asked his guest, “Would you say we are at pre-9/11 threat level specifically because of Joe Biden's border policies — in other words, is there an extensive ISIS threat in our homeland?” His guest, former Trump Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary Jonathan Fahey, responded: “We don't really know what that threat is but I do think Biden's border policies — whether or not it had anything to do with this, where it doesn't seem like it did — but it does create the perception we do not have a secure border and a secure country, and that this administration is more concerned about advancing their political agenda than they are about protecting public safety and national security.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends First, 1/2/25]
    • On Hannity, Homan claimed Biden “bragged” that the New Orleans attacker is a U.S. citizen and said that the border was the “biggest” national security threat. Homan added, “I wouldn't hang his hat on these attacks being done by U.S. citizens. It's coming. Even [FBI Director] Christopher Wray ... said the southern border has the biggest national security vulnerability he's ever seen.” Guest host Tammy Bruce also warned, “Now we have millions of people, we don’t know who they are, hundreds of people — regarding the terrorist watchlist, people who are dangerous, who are roaming about.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/1/25]
  • Discussing Biden’s remarks about the attack on The Ingraham Angle, guest host Jason Chaffetz said that “it was odd how much emphasis he gave to the fact that he was a United States citizen.” Nathan Sales, a former counterterrorism coordinator under Trump, stated that Biden “almost seemed relieved that the perpetrator was an American citizen because if this guy had actually illegally come to the United States across our southern border, he would have a lot to answer for.” Sales added, “Today, the person who committed this attack was indeed an American citizen, but let’s indeed not take our eyes off the bigger picture here, which is that over the past four years, millions of people have come into the country. We have no accountability for who they are, and we have to take seriously the risk — the threat that some of these people may be here to do us harm.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/1/25]
  • During a segment discussing the attack, The Five co-host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery mentioned “hundreds, maybe thousands of people associated with, you know, groups from ISIS-K to Al-Shabaab in this country illegally, potentially gotaways we don't even know about.” Co-host Jessica Tarlov noted that “there are two stories being told about this perpetrator, one that ... this was a home-grown American terrorist" and “then there is another narrative that is being boosted by people who want to make a case about open borders, that this is someone who, you know, flew through Eagle Pass, drove to New Orleans and tried to kill a bunch of people. That's obviously not what happened here.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/2/25]
  • Former acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf accused the Biden administration of not responding to the reported heightened threat environment, “whether it’s along the border, whether it’s vetting more individuals coming in.” Anchor Trace Gallagher added that everyone took FBI Director Christopher Wray’s terror warning seriously “because we had seen this crush of people coming across the border that we did not know.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 1/2/25]
  • During a straight news panel discussion about the attack, Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen declared that Trump “has got to find those people who snuck into our country and deport them.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 1/2/25]
  • Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt responded to the New Orleans attack and the Las Vegas explosion by casting suspect on migrants: “What else don't we know? If these are a couple of people who are homegrown, what don't we know of all of these people who’ve come across the border?” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/2/25]
  • Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed the New Orleans attack on soft-on-crime and open border policies. Pompeo claimed, “When America fails to lead, when you don't engage in solid law enforcement and enforcing criminal laws, when you can't secure your borders, when you refuse to call out radical Islamic terrorism and punish it, you get the events of October 7, you get the events of just this past week in New Orleans.” Pompeo later fearmongered about migrants crossing the southern border, saying, “We’ve also seen a couple of hundred folks that are on the terror watch list come across our southern border. We don't have any earthly idea where many of these folks are.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 1/2/25]
  • Former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien complained that “we’ve had a wide-open border for four years” and “hundreds of thousands of gotaways,” claiming that “bad guy central, it’s here in America.” A chyron reading “New Orleans attacker ‘inspired by ISIS’” aired during the segment. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 1/2/25]
  • On Hannity, guest Brett Tolman mentioned a “porous immigration border” and predicted foreign attackers “will be actually rallied and they’re going to be inspired” by the New Orleans attack. [Fox News, Hannity, 1/2/25]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

MAGA influencers

MAGA Media React To Russian Influence Indictments With Conspiracy Babble

Right-wing media figures are responding to news that several prominent MAGA influencers were unwittingly working on behalf of Russia by spouting absurd conspiracy theories and attacking law enforcement officials who uncovered the apparent scheme.

The Department of Justice announced Wednesday a multidepartment effort to target Russian-backed attempts to interfere with the 2024 U.S. presidential election, including criminal charges against two Russian nationals, sanctions against 10 other individuals and entities, and the seizure of 32 internet domains.

A released indictment details how two RT employees allegedly financed a U.S.-based media company, which reports have subsequently identified as Tenet Media, a right-wing media operation that has employed prominent MAGA influencers including Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern. MAGA personality Lauren Chen and her husband have been identified as the founders of the company. Only the two RT employees were charged in the indictment.

As CNN reported:

At Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direction, three Russian companies used fake profiles to promote false narratives on social media, US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. Internal documents produced by one of those Russian companies show one of the goals of the propaganda effort was to boost the candidacy of Donald Trump or whoever emerged as the Republican nominee for president, according to an FBI affidavit.

Separately, two employees of RT, the Russian state media network, were indicted in a US court for allegedly being part of a scheme that funneled nearly $10 million to set up and direct a Tennessee-based front company to produce online content aimed at sowing divisions among Americans, according to the Justice Department. The scheme targeted millions of American news consumers with what Attorney General Merrick Garland described as “hidden Russian government messaging.”

WIRED also reported:

A Tennessee-based media network that produces shows for high-profile right-wing influencers such as Benny Johnson and Tim Pool was largely funded by Russian state-backed news network RT, according to a federal indictment against two RT employees that the US Department of Justice unsealed on Wednesday. The DOJ claims the US company—which WIRED, along with other news outlets, was able to identify as Tenet Media but goes unnamed in the indictment—posted hundreds of videos on social media that pushed Kremlin-approved talking points.

With the tagline “Fearless voices live here,” Tenet Media’s network includes online creators known for their right-wing politics, including Johnson, Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern. In addition to the followings of the network’s individual creators, which collectively number in the millions, Tenet Media itself boasts more than 315,000 followers on YouTube and thousands more across Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.

Johnson, Pool, Rubin, and Southern did not immediately respond to requests for comment; none are accused of wrongdoing.

Fox News, Newsmax, and other MAGA media personalities reacted to the news of Russian attempts to influence the 2024 election by attacking law enforcement agencies, dismissing the gravity of the interference attempts, and claiming that the effort was an attempt by the Justice Department to steal or influence the election in Vice President Kamala Harris’ favor.

Fox News

Special Report

Fox News' Mollie Hemingway attacked American law enforcement: “Our Department of Justice and FBI are the least credible people to talk about this." [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 9/4/24]

The Ingraham Angle

Laura Ingraham claimed that the DOJ may be “laying the ground for more censorship” while guest Vivek Ramaswamy claimed that the real threat is from the “administrative state.” Ingraham agreed that the threat is from the “enemy within.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 9/4/24]

Jesse Watters Primetime

Jesse Watters mocked concerns of Russian interference: “This show tonight has all the earmarks of Russian propaganda.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/4/24]

Jesse Watters reacted to the Russian election interference indictment by calling it “dirty tricks” from the Department of Justice. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/4/24]

Watters: “So people here took money, they didn't know where the money was coming from, and it didn't change the way they talked on the internet.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/4/24]

Newsmax

Rob Schmitt Tonight

Newsmax's Rob Schmitt said that Attorney General Merrick Garland is “resurrecting” the Russian interference narrative. [Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, 9/4/24]

Newsmax guest says the Department of Justice is trying to create a Russian “boogeyman” where there isn't one. [Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, 9/4/24]

Prime News

Newsmax host Michael Grimm: “The left is blaming Russia for their unpopular policies.” [Newsmax, Prime News, 9/4/24]

Greg Kelly Reports

Newsmax's Greg Kelly: “Russian disinformation is basically code for stories Democrats don't like.” [Newsmax, Greg Kelly Reports, 9/4/24]

Chris Plante: The Right Squad

Newsmax host Chris Plante claimed that Russia prefers Democrats in power: “This is what Democrats do when they're losing. They panic. ... Their playbook has one thing when all else fails: Blame Russia. The only problem is, you know, Russia prefers Democrats, as you might expect, to be in charge in the United States of America. Not Trump. They don't want President Trump in charge. In fact, Vlad the Impaler Putin admitted that earlier this year.” [Newsmax, Chris Plante: The Right Squad, 9/4/24]

MAGA personalities

Charlie Kirk

Timcast co-host Ian Crossland suggested that the situation may be a “psyop within a psyop.” [YouTube, Timcast, 9/4/24]

TimCast

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk posted in response to the DOJ election threats task force: “The regime is ramping up its fear campaign ahead of November” and in a separate post, “It's 2016 all over again.” [Twitter/X, 9/4/24, 9/4/24]

Jack Posobiec

MAGA personality Jack Posobiec wrote, “Crazy how all the Russia collusion stuff reappears the day after Trump says he is going to declass the Epstein client list… Really makes you think.” [Twitter/X, 9/4/24]

Dan Bongino

Right-wing radio host Dan Bongino wrote, “Trust absolutely NOTHING emanating from the DOJ or FBI that even remotely whiffs of politics.” He added, “Especially before an election, where they have a deep and troubled history of election interference in defense of their democrat allies.” [Twitter/X, 9/4/24]

Rogan O'Handley

MAGA commentator Rogan O'Handley, also known as DC Draino, wrote a long post claiming the Justice Department is weaponized against MAGA, writing, “Today’s DOJ indictment mentioning prominent MAGA Youtubers is just a preview of what the weaponized Kamala regime will do to every prominent voice in the Patriot movement.” He added, “The regime knows it’s being rejected by the American people and is desperately lashing out" and “No more distractions, no more purity tests for Trump, no more BS - we ALL have to fight like hell to get him elected or most of us are going to end up targeted by the Deep State.” [Twitter/X, 9/4/24]

RedState

Right-wing news site RedState published an article titled “Kamala’s Campaign Is Flailing So Badly the DOJ Just Tried to Toss Her a ‘Russia Collusion’ Lifeline” in which they call the indictment another “fake Russia meddling hoax.” [RedState, 9/5/24]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.