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Matt Gertz

Bomb Suspect Bust Makes Bongino Squeal On Right-Wing Media Grift

Sean Hannity's interview last week with his former Fox News colleague — and now FBI deputy director — Dan Bongino was remarkable, but not for any details Bongino relayed about the arrest of a suspect in the long-simmering January 6 pipe bomb investigation. Instead, the interview hinged on a stunning admission from Bongino that laid bare the core grift at the heart of the right-wing media complex: that people like Bongino — and by extension, Hannity — make their money by tossing off reckless speculations that confirm their right-wing audience’s biases, and face no perceptible consequences if their claims turn out to be false.

Earlier in the day, the Justice Department announced the arrest of the man who allegedly placed pipe bombs outside the offices of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee on the night of January 5, 2021; the explosive devices were found during the Trumpist revolt at the U.S. Capitol the following day. While the government has publicly revealed little information about the suspect or his alleged motive, it’s clear that he is not, as some right-wing media figures had suggested over the years, part of an inside job perpetrated by the FBI to malign President Donald Trump’s supporters.

Hannity, during his interview with his former colleague, gave Bongino an opportunity to criticize prior iterations of the Justice Department and FBI for failing to arrest anyone in the case, and praise his own colleagues for getting the job done. But then he asked Bongino about the FBI deputy director’s own role in promoting conspiracy theories about the bomber during Bongino’s past career as a right-wing commentator.

“You know, I don't know if you remember this — this is before you became the deputy FBI director,” Hannity said. “You put a post on X right after this happened and you said there's a massive cover-up because the person that planted those pipe bombs, they don't want you to know who it is because it's either a connected anti-Trump insider or an inside job. You said that, you know, long before you were even thought of as deputy FBI director.”

Bongino’s response was astounding. He looked down, as if embarrassed, and replied: “Yeah, that's why I said to you this investigation's just begun.” But after hemming and hawing about the confidence he and FBI Director Kash Patel have that they arrested the right person, he got real.

“Listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions,” he explained. “That's clear. And one day, I'll be back in that space. But that's not what I'm paid for now. I'm paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”

Bongino then quickly pivoted to attacking reporters at the day’s press conference, suggesting that he and others on the right are willing to “evolve” when they learn contradictory facts, while mainstream journalists probably “still believe in this collusion fairy tale hoax.” He offered some obsequious praise for Trump, and Hannity moved on.

Bongino is offering the most charitable gloss on his past actions possible. Another way to put it is that his job, as a commentator at Fox and elsewhere in the right-wing media, was to provide chum for the viewers. They wanted conspiracy theories, so he gave them conspiracy theories. Now, he claims, he’s at the FBI, and his job is to provide facts instead.

But there’s an entire ecosystem Bongino left behind (but to which he expects to return in the future) that is still filled with conspiracy-mongers who concoct and disseminate lies to keep their audiences content and coming back for more.

And as Bongino suggested, and as we saw in internal documents and testimony that election technology companies filed in lawsuits against Fox, those right-wing media figures don’t necessarily believe what they’re saying. Hannity, for example, said in a deposition that he had not believed “for one second” that the 2020 election had been rigged against Trump, even though he spent weeks publicly promoting that lie to his viewers following the vote.

These lies have consequences. While right-wing commentators may not believe what they're saying, some fraction of viewers believe what they’re told. And sometimes, the people inculcated with conspiracy theories end up taking action — even if that means storming the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the election they’ve been assured was rigged.

Indeed, on Friday morning, CNN reported that during FBI interviews, the alleged pipe bomber “told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen.” Perhaps he listened to too many people who were paid for their “opinions”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Pentagon Inspector General Report Demolishes Excuses For Hegseth's 'Signalgate'

A forthcoming report from the Defense Department’s watchdog dismantles the excuses that Pete Hegseth’s former Fox News colleagues offered in March after The Atlantic reported that the secretary of defense had shared plans for an imminent U.S. strike against Houthi targets in Yemen on a Signal chain with other top Trump administration officials — and, inadvertently, Atlantic editor-in-dhief Jeffrey Goldberg.

The Atlantic and CNN reported Wednesday that the DOD inspector general concluded after a monthslong probe into Hegseth’s conduct that the information Hegseth shared had been classified at the time he received it, and that sending the attack plans through unsecured networks had endangered U.S. national security and the lives of the military service members tasked to the mission. An unclassified version of the report is scheduled for release Thursday.

Fox’s right-wing stars scrambled to downplay Hegseth’s actions in the days after The Atlantic first reported on his text messages, denying that the information had been classified or that its transmission through unsecured channels carried risks and generally mocking the notion that anything untoward had occurred beyond Goldberg’s addition to the chain.

“It's abundantly clear that none of this put national security at risk,” Fox host Laura Ingraham claimed of the texts. “And there was no risk to our troops, and the entire world is safer because of the actions that our troops took. Now, some of us are actually happier about that, others are rooting for the United States to fail.”

Sean Hannity insisted to his prime-time viewers that “there was no classified material revealed in those texts,” later adding, “I would spend more time on this Signal issue, but it's such a nonissue, I don't even think it's worth talking about at this point.” On his radio show, Hannity expanded on his argument: “The distinction between sensitive and top secret classification information is very critical because we're dealing with sensitive information. The administration has reiterated no classified material was discussed, and, more importantly, the mission was operationally a complete success.”

Jesse Watters initially treated the story as a joke, asking his viewers: “Did you ever try to start a group text? You’re adding people and you accidentally add the wrong person? All of a sudden your Aunt Mary knows all your raunchy plans for the bachelor party? Well, that kind of happened today with the Trump administration.” After Goldberg released the texts, Watters declared the scandal “dead in 48 hours,” saying that all they showed was that officials “accidentally leaked to a reporter. It was a mistake. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again.”

Will Cain, Hegseth’s former co-host on Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, claimed on his eponymous show that while “it is incredibly concerning that sensitive information would be sent with a journalist included in the thread.” With that out of the way, he explained why this was actually good: “But the bigger takeaway from me is it is an insight, a transparent insight, into the thought process and dialog of our national leaders.”

And for Greg Gutfeld, texting battle plans over unsecured channels is simply “how winners live their lives.”

While Hegseth’s old buddies at Fox News were bloviating on his behalf, legal and military experts were explaining to journalists — including Fox’s own Jennifer Griffin — the grave risks of Hegseth’s actions. As more evidence arose of Hegseth’s malfeasance, including reports that Hegseth’s messages were derived from a classified email labeled “SECRET/NOFORN” and that he had also shared attack plans in a second text chain that included members of his family, they went quiet rather than either admit fault or double down on their support for the defense secretary’s actions.

The IG report’s release comes as Hegseth faces media and congressional scrutiny for reportedly ordering extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean that legal experts argue would constitute “at best, a war crime under federal law.”

It turns out there are downsides to promoting a second-tier Fox pundit best known for his defenses of alleged war criminals to lead the most powerful military in the history of the world and a sprawling bureaucracy with millions of employees.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

No, The Times Didn't 'Debunk' Post Report On Alleged War Crime In Missile Strike

Right-wing commentators have seized upon a New York Times report on the U.S. military’s September 2 extrajudicial killing of 11 people on board a boat the Trump administration alleged was carrying drugs in the Caribbean, claiming that the article “DEBUNKED” a previous Washington Post report that triggered congressional scrutiny over potential war crimes. But the Times actually confirmed, rather than undermined, the Post’s account.

The Post reported Friday that according to its sources, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken order “to kill everybody” on board the boat before the attack, and that after confirming that the first strike left two survivors, the Navy special operations commander overseeing the action, Adm. Frank Bradley, “ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions,” killing them. Lawmakers of both parties quickly vowed to aggressively scrutinize the attack, which legal experts argued would constitute, “at best, a war crime under federal law.”

Hegseth, in his prior career as co-host of Fox News’ Fox & Friends Weekend, championed U.S. service members accused or convicted of war crimes. In one 2019 segment discussing a soldier charged over the extrajudicial killing of an Afghan man accused of making bombs for the Taliban, Hegseth said, “If he committed premeditated murder … then I did as well. What do you think you do in war?”

Top Trump administration officials over the weekend denounced the “fake news” Post’s “entire narrative” as “fabricated” with “NO FACTS.” But at Monday’s briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt effectively confirmed — and defended — the actions the Post had reported, including the second strike.

This confusion left President Donald Trump’s most zealous propagandists with few clear pathways to defend the administration’s actions. But after the Times published its own account of the attack on Monday, “plenty of conservatives are now declaring this case closed,” as Politico reported. Indeed, right-wing commentators have claimed that the Times “quietly DEBUNKED” the Post’s “hoax hit piece,” which they said has been exposed as “a genuinely vile slander of both Hegseth and Bradley.”

“Disgrace to journalism that [Post reporters] @AlexHortonTX and @nakashimae got so many details of this story wrong just to smear @PeteHegseth,” posted RedState's R.C. Maxwell, a member of the new Pentagon press corps composed of MAGA shills.

Fox News, Hegseth’s former employer, had devoted 53 minutes of airtime to the story across the four days from Friday through Monday. The bulk of that coverage came from purported “news side” shows; Jesse Watters was the only prime-time host to address the story, while the defense secretary’s old program ignored it altogether. Coverage picked up on Tuesday morning, however: Apparently armed with new marching orders at last, Fox & Friends finally found an angle and reported on how the “New York Times report backs Trump admin’s account of strike on suspected drug boat.”

In reality, the timeline of the September 2 attack laid out in the Times article matches the one provided by the Post.

First, after U.S. intelligence operatives determined that the boat was carrying drugs, Hegseth issued his order to destroy it and kill those onboard.

From The Washington Post:

The longer the U.S. surveillance aircraft followed the boat, the more confident intelligence analysts watching from command centers became that the 11 people on board were ferrying drugs.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.

From The New York Times:

According to five U.S. officials, who spoke separately and on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter that is under investigation, Mr. Hegseth, ahead of the Sept. 2 attack, ordered a strike that would kill the people on the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs.
...

In interviews on Monday, two U.S. officials — both of whom were supportive of the administration’s boat strikes — described a meeting before the attack at which Mr. Hegseth had briefed Special Operations Forces commanders on his execute order to engage the boat with lethal force.

Then, the Navy launched an initial strike, which left two survivors, who were killed after Bradley ordered further strikes.

From The Washington Post:

A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.
The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water.

From The New York Times:

Admiral Bradley ordered the initial missile strike and then several follow-up strikes that killed the initial survivors and sank the disabled boat.

The Times account stresses that Hegseth’s “order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast,” and that the defense secretary “did not give any further orders” to Bradley following the first strike — but the Post’s account does not say otherwise.

It is unclear whether the Post’s reporting that Hegseth issued a “spoken directive” to kill those onboard the boat is describing something different from the Times’ reporting that Hegseth briefed commanders on his order to “engage the boat with lethal force.” But both agree that Bradley ordered a second U.S. strike which killed shipwrecked survivors.

That second strike, experts say, constitutes “at best” a textbook war crime (if you accept the administration’s dubious claims that this constitutes a lawful conflict in the first place; otherwise, both strikes are simply murder). Trump said Sunday he “wouldn’t have wanted … a second strike,” though Leavitt defended Bradley ordering one on Monday.

The right-wing complaints amount to hair-splitting over the exact extent of MAGA favorite Hegseth’s responsibility for the allegedly unlawful killings — and it's based on two reports that paint a consistent picture. Did Hegseth cause the second strike with his initial order, or did he merely watch Bradley order it in real time with no apparent qualms about it, then promote Bradley, give a speech urging military leaders to “untie the hands of our warfighters” to ensure “maximum lethality,” and then defend the attack and mock its critics?

Either way, the Times article doesn't vindicate him.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

'Stupid Rules': Hegseth Endorsed Summary Execution Of Military Captives In 2019

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, currently under scrutiny for reportedly overseeing “at best” an alleged war crime in the Caribbean, argued from his Fox News perch in 2019 of an American soldier who admitted to the extrajudicial execution of an alleged Taliban bombmaker: “If he committed premeditated murder … then I did as well. What do you think you do in war?”

The Washington Post reported Friday that on September 2, Hegseth gave a spoken order “to kill everybody” on board a boat that U.S. intelligence analysts suspected was carrying drugs off the coast of Trinidad. After confirmation that the first strike left two survivors “clinging to the smoldering wreck,” the Navy special operations commander overseeing the action “ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions,” according to the Post’s sources. The paper further reported that “current and former officials within the U.S. military and DEA have expressed doubt that all 11 people aboard the first vessel were complicit in trafficking.”

The bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees quickly issued statements promising investigations into the report. Legal experts argue the ordered killings would constitute “at best, a war crime under federal law,” as Hegseth’s former Fox colleague Andy McCarthy put it.

“Even if you buy the untenable claim that they are combatants, it is a war crime to intentionally kill combatants who have been rendered unable to fight,” McCarthy wrote Saturday at National Review. “It is not permitted, under the laws and customs of honorable warfare, to order that no quarter be given — to apply lethal force to those who surrender or who are injured, shipwrecked, or otherwise unable to fight.”

Indeed, “orders to fire upon the shipwrecked” are the textbook example of “Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations” provided in the Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual.

(McCarthy further states that beyond Hegseth’s specific alleged order, “the attacks on these suspected drug boats — without congressional authorization, under circumstances in which the boat operators pose no military threat to the United States, and given that narcotics trafficking is defined in federal law as a crime rather than as terrorist activity, much less an act of war — are lawless and therefore that the killings are not legitimate under the law or armed conflict.”)

Hegseth said Friday that the Post’s story was “fabricated” and that the U.S. operations in the Caribbean “are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict,” but also bragged that “Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them,” and subsequently appeared to make light of the allegations. On Sunday, President Donald Trump said he “wouldn’t have wanted … a second strike” and claimed Hegseth “said he didn’t do it.”

Such weak denials are not terribly credible given Hegseth’s infamous support for U.S. service members accused of war crimes in his previous job as co-host of Fox’s weekend editions of its Fox & Friends morning show.

“Put us all in jail”: Hegseth rejects war crimes as a legitimate category

Hegseth, in one particularly striking example, vigorously defended Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn during a February 2019 Fox & Friends appearance.

Golsteyn, who had been charged with murdering a captured Afghan man who was allegedly a Taliban bombmaker during a 2010 deployment, had “allegedly told CIA interviewers that he and another soldier took the alleged bomb-maker off base, shot him and buried his remains,” and replied “yes” during a 2016 Fox interview when asked if he had killed the man.

Referring to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a fellow veteran who supported Golsteyn, Hegseth said: “If he committed premeditated murder, then Duncan did as well, then I did as well. What do you think you do in war?” He added: “Put us all in jail.”

When Pete Hegseth endorsed soldiers executing captured alleged combatants www.mediamatters.org

Hegseth repeatedly used his Fox post to endorse presidential pardons for Golsteyn and other U.S. service members accused or convicted of war crimes, hosting their family members or lawyers for softball interviews and vigorously defending their conduct. (At one point, he expressed his disdain for describing such individuals as “service members accused of war crimes,” saying, “They’re not war criminals. They’re warriors who have now been accused of certain things that are under review.”)

- YouTube youtu.be

The Fox & Friends Weekend co-host also lobbied Trump directly behind the scenes, and the president issued pardons for several of the individuals Hegseth championed and even forced out the secretary of the Navy over his handling of one of their cases.

Hegseth also questioned whether the U.S. military should adhere to international law in his 2024 book, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, musing that doing so constituted “fighting with one hand behind our back.”

“Should we follow the Geneva Conventions?” Hegseth wrote. “What if we treated the enemy the way they treated us? Would that not be an incentive for the other side to reconsider their barbarism?”

“Makes me wonder, in 2024 — if you want to win — how can anyone write universal rules about killing other people in open conflict?” he continued. “Especially against enemies who fight like savages, disregarding human life in every single instance.”

Hegseth had the opportunity to implement this strategy after Trump plucked him from Fox’s green room and appointed him to lead the Pentagon and his right-wing media allies helped muscle him through Senate confirmation. Amid the chaos that resulted from putting a wildly underqualified individual in charge of the Defense Department, Hegseth has made clear that he views any restrictions of the ability of service members to kill “the enemies of our country” as “politically correct.”

“We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement,” he said in his September 30 speech to the country’s assembled military leaders. “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”

“Today is another liberation day, the liberation of America's warriors, in name, in deed and in authorities,” he added. “You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and don't necessarily belong always in polite society.”

The address came just four weeks after Hegseth reportedly committed “at best” a war crime.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

In MAGA Media Hierarchy, Benny Johnson Is Trump's Top Turd Polisher

The top tier of the MAGA influencer ecosystem is a clownshow.

Tucker Carlson is warring with Ben Shapiro over just how much antisemitism right-wing audiences should be willing to tolerate. Candace Owens is being sued (and, she claims without evidence, targeted for death) over her debunked conspiracy theory that the first lady of France is secretly a transgender woman. Laura Loomer, a self-described “proud Islamophobe” who once handcuffed herself to the doors of Twitter HQ to protest her banning by the service, is now a credentialed member of the Pentagon press corps and keeps getting Trump officials fired for insufficient loyalty. And Megyn Kelly has gone in just a few short years from anchoring a newsmagazine show for NBC to debating whether Jeffrey Epstein’s victims were young enough for him to be described as a pedophile.

But Benny Johnson stands out, even among this collection of cranks, grifters, propagandists, and sycophants. He is the Jesse Watters of the streaming set, someone who has parlayed having absolutely nothing to add to any conversation into a lucrative career as a shill for President Donald Trump.

Johnson has had perhaps the best 2025 of any streamer on the right. His YouTube videos have amassed more than 1 billion views in total this year — only Kelly compares among right-wing news and politics hosts, while Joe Rogan garnered 890 million views over the same period. Johnson's YouTube subscriber base grew by nearly 120%, with his 3.3 million new subscribers representing the largest total increase among the 400+ channels we track that are affiliated with right-leaning and left-leaning online shows. (Analysis of new YouTube subscribers and total channel views is based on data collected from Social Blade.)

All the while he hobnobbed with Trump administration power players and GOP elites, flying with Vice President JD Vance, broadcasting from House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) office during a joint session of Congress, and boasting of his contacts with White House officials.

Johnson’s rise demonstrates that what drives influence within the MAGAsphere is not diligent reporting or willingness to speak truth to power, but a willingness to loudly say whatever will make the president happy.

The streamer’s backstory is a testament to the complete lack of ethical standards within right-wing media. After getting his start at The Blaze, the right-wing outlet founded by Glenn Beck, Johnson made a foray into mainstream media in 2012 when he joined Buzzfeed News. Though he built a reputation there for viral content, he was fired after two years for serial plagiarism. That journalistic crime is often career-ending in mainstream outlets — but Johnson was swiftly welcomed back to the right-wing ecosystem, with subsequent jobs at National Review, Independent Journal Review (where he again faced plagiarism allegations), The Daily Caller, Turning Point USA, and Newsmax.

Johnson went independent in 2023, focusing on his personal podcast, streaming, and social media platforms. The following year, the Justice Department charged two individuals with covertly channeling $8.7 million from a Russian state-controlled propaganda outlet to the production companies of three U.S.-based right-wing YouTube stars in return for videos prosecutors said supported the Russian government’s goals. One of those beneficiaries of the Kremlin propaganda plot was Johnson, who described himself as an unwitting “victim” of the scheme. He was not charged with wrongdoing.

If Johnson’s conduct was not criminal, it does suggest that he was either stupid or venal enough to take millions of dollars without wondering where it came from. But a year later, it turns out no one on the right cares: He retains a fast-growing viewership and what appears to be a voice at the highest levels of Trump’s regime.

On The Benny Show, no Trump turd goes unpolished

Trump’s right-wing media coalition, united by his cult of personality and their shared hatred of the left, powered his return to the White House. But fissures soon emerged, as commentators split with the president — and each other — over his handling of issues like the Russia-Ukraine war, tariffs, U.S. strikes on Iran, immigration enforcement and reforms, and, most of all, the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Johnson tends to stay out of such squabbles. While he has some policy preferences — he hates food stamps, claims that “every single thing you hate about your life right now” could be “fixed by mass deportations,” and wants to “destroy” Social Security, for example — Trump is his top priority.

Any time Trump needs someone to move his bullshit, he can count on Johnson to show up with a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and a smile. There’s no lie too absurd for him to parrot, no corruption he won’t defend, if it will help the president achieve his aims.

Want a rationale to send troops into cities like Portland or Washington? Benny will declare to his audience that the former “has been conquered by antifa” and the latter has “entire neighborhoods” that “need to be bulldozed.”

The stiff tariffs you unilaterally implemented causing chaos in the markets? Benny will explain to his viewers that the economic “pain” is the result of “demonic possession,” and assure them that “losing money costs you absolutely nothing.”

Got a problem with a journalist getting accidentally added to the administration group chat in which your underqualified defense secretary is sharing attack plans? Benny will shift the blame to “a backdoor splinter cell group inside the CIA” and the reporter, who should be arrested.

Taking heat because the Qatari government gave you a jet described as a “flying palace” to replace Air Force One? Fret not — Benny says that is “totally permissible” and “normal.”

Need someone to carry water for your administration’s comically inept claim that President Barack Obama directed a “treasonous conspiracy”? Benny will host a discussion about whether Obama should face a “military tribunal.”

On the rare occasions when Johnson strays, he is quick to return to the MAGA fold. When the Justice Department and FBI triggered a right-wing media meltdown in July by debunking some of its cherished Epstein claims, Johnson initially joined in. But even then, he made clear that his complaint was not with Trump, claiming that his “love” for the president was “without question.”

And when Trump needed someone to clean up after new reporting detailed his own close relationship with the convicted sex offender later that month, Benny reverted to form, claiming that the reporting was “a hoax” and “the scandal is in who wrote the story.”

Johnson’s mutually beneficial relationship with the Trump GOP

Sometimes Republicans who might actually have principles consider acting on them and defying Trump in some way. All year long, when that has happened, Johnson has stepped in to keep them in line. And the Trump administration has rewarded him with access.

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine extremism jeopardized his Senate confirmation in January, for example, Johnson warned recalcitrant Republicans that they were courting annihilation. “Senators must confirm RFK or face the absolute whirlwind of some very, very powerful forces of MAHA and MAGA that will absolutely torch them and will destroy their careers because you've proven to us what you actually believe and who you actually are,” he said.

When Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said she would oppose Fox News host Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Pentagon, citing in part the “allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking” that had dogged his nomination, Johnson said that he would make an example of the “vengeful witch.” Declaring a “jihad” against the senator, he said he would “physically travel to Alaska. Expect a massive, well-funded primary challenge for Lisa Murkowski.”

Johnson credited his own work with helping to keep Republicans from abandoning Hegseth amid the Signalgate scandal.

“Well, just like the — just like at the Pentagon, and you saw the same op run against Hegseth — and we think that RFK is going to obviously survive the same way that Hegseth did, and we're going to help him do it, obviously,” he explained in September. “We're going to make sure that we stiffen the backbone of anybody who would come against him.”

The Trump administration and GOP appreciate the existence of a toady with Johnson’s reach.

In late October, Johnson accompanied JD Vance for the vice president’s appearance at a TPUSA event in Mississippi, flying with him on Air Force Two and getting “one on one time” to “sit and chill” with the vice president.
In October, Johnson went on a ride-along with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as they raided a Walmart and visited a detention facility. He also toured Portland ICE facilities with Noem.
Brendan Carr, the Trumpy chair of the Federal Communications Committee, issued his threat to ABC and its affiliates over Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes during a September appearance on Johnson’s show.
Benny kicked off an August White House press briefing from the “new media” seat, at one point asking Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “Will the president consider giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to ‘Big Balls?’’
He received an invitation to stream about Trump’s March congressional address from Mike Johnson’s office, where he interviewed the speaker to celebrate passage of Trump’s signature economic bill.

Johnson also frequently mentions what his “little birdies” in the Trump administration — including the president himself — are telling him about events.

No one has lashed themselves to Trump and his administration more than Johnson. But as the president’s poll numbers circle the drain and his allies launch proxy fights over who will be the GOP’s standard-bearer in 2028, where does that leave Benny?

Fox Hid Its Own Brutal Trump Poll Numbers While Hosts Lavished Praise On Him

After Fox News’ pollsters found that President Donald Trump’s job approval had plummeted to some of his worst numbers ever, the network’s on-air talent buried the result while puffing up the president as the “ultimate dealmaker” who is doing “incredible things” and promising that “the whole world” will soon “come kiss the ring of the king.”

Fox News Digital wrote up the network’s latest poll on Wednesday evening, finding Trump’s job approval fell to his lowest level of support at least since early in his first term: “Among all voters, 41 percent approve of the job Trump is doing, while 58 percent disapprove. Only once have his ratings been lower and that was during his first term, 38-57 percent in October 2017.”

The poll also shows Trump hitting a record low on his handling of the economy at 38-61 percent, and underwater on foreign policy by 43-55 percent tariffs by 35-63 percent, health care by 34-64 percent, and even immigration by 46-53 percent.

Trump has previously railed against Fox’s pollsters, calling for them to be fired or even criminally investigated because their negative results purportedly constitute “ELECTION FRAUD.” But if he’s been watching his favorite network in the hours since the latest poll’s release, he has not seen the devastating 41 percent job approval number aired a single time, according to a Media Matters review through noon ET yesterday.

Fox personalities have avoided mentioning those figures while instead discussing other results from the poll (which were also largely negative), such as its findings on respondents’ views of Trump’s “peace deals,” the broader economic situation and who is to blame for it, and the government shutdown.

The closest anyone came to mentioning Trump’s record-low job approval was during the 5 a.m. hour Thursday, when Fox Business’ Cheryl Casone referenced Trump’s “career-high disapproval numbers among men, white voters, and those without college degrees” without discussing any figures. Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhard also pointed out that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) “unfavorable number is 54; it was 35 in June of 2017” — but did not note that Trump’s disapproval figure in the same poll was four points higher.

While concealing from viewers their own network’s new evidence of Trump’s extreme unpopularity, Fox’s hosts are still showering him with praise.

Special Report anchor Bret Baier, fresh off attending the lavish White House banquet and afterparty in honor of murderous Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, opened Wednesday’s broadcast by declaring that “the president, known as the ultimate dealmaker, was talking business today with one of the richest nations on the planet.”

Fox prime-time host Jesse Watters launched his own program that night with a lengthy monologue praising the “golden age” Trump is ushering in, which began: “The trade deficit’s shrinking, the GDP’s growing, and you hear that giant sucking sound? We flipped it. All those jobs are being sucked back into America.”

He went on to say: “Soon, the whole world’s going to be boarding 787s to come kiss the ring of the king — just kidding, no kings — and throw back champagne in the big beautiful ballroom. Because last night's soiree in the teeny-weeny East Room was a little too cramped for these ballers. The dinner was so hot the prince left his tuxedo at the embassy.”

Trump adviser and Fox host Sean Hannity’s show also featured a monologue celebrating the president.

“It's important to stay focused, not lose sight of the incredible things that are happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” he said, adding: “America is now the envy of the world. We have reasserted our economic role as the world leader. Also, on foreign affairs — there is no country that is bringing more peace and stability to the world than the U.S..”

Hannity further claimed that Trump “is bringing people together from all walks of life and he's doing it with unprecedented transparency” and touted his “history in the making” peace deals while adding that “Trump's biggest wins are here at home.”

Hannity concluded: “We're witnessing a president like no other and something you rarely see in Washington, promises made and kept.”

Both Watters and Hannity aired a clip from CNN poll guru Harry Enten from earlier that day, in which he said Trump’s foreign policy job approval rating is “up like a rocket” from his first term — but still underwater.

For Watters, this showed that “America, just like McDonald’s, we’re loving it,” while Hannity crowed that “fake news CNN” had been “forced to admit Donald Trump's foreign policy rating is up like a rocket.”

Meanwhile, CNN’s “poll of polls” aggregate for Trump’s job approval was at 39-58%, even worse than the latest Fox result that the hosts hid from their viewers.

Fox's coverage makes sense only when you recognize that the network’s role is not to tell viewers about the state of the world and the president's approval, but to boost its propagandists’ wealth and power by desperately trying to improve those numbers.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Republicans Fold On Epstein Files, But MAGA Media Insist Trump 'Won'

President Donald Trump has spent the last four months trying to tamp down MAGA dissent over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, only to finally fold to congressional demands for more federal records related to the late convicted sex offender. According to some of his most sycophantic supporters on right-wing TV, everything is going according to plan.

“Trump’s calling their bluff on the Epstein files,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham said on Monday night. She then aired footage from earlier in the day in which the president, in a major reversal, said he would sign a bill the House of Representatives is taking up on Tuesday that mandates the release of Justice Department documents related to its sex-trafficking investigations into Epstein.

“Trump’s not hiding anything. He just said he’ll release everything the government has on Epstein," her colleague Jesse Watters crowed on the network’s next hour.

He then touted the House resolution, saying that it gives the DOJ “30 days to release everything they have on the dead pedophile. That includes the flight logs, his connections to powerful people, DOJ and FBI investigation files, and information about his 2008 sweetheart deal.”

Carl Higbie, a host of Fox competitor Newsmax, also got into the act, asking at the top of his broadcast: “Did Trump just pull like a UNO reverse on Democrats over the Epstein files?” He went on to say that “Democrats just got played” by the president saying he’d sign the Epstein bill.

“Now they have to release it,” he continued, “because all 214 Democratic Congress members signed on to the release to force the vote to release the Epstein files — against [House Speaker] Mike Johnson’s wishes, by the way, which was weird. But Trump comes out over the weekend, after months of telling people, ‘Drop it,’ and says, ‘You know what, guys, let’s just get them out there,’ and now no Democrats can hide, because last week they unanimously voted for it.”

If you’re following: Trump didn’t want the Epstein files released; Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and the Democrats did; Johnson failed to stop House Republicans from supporting the disclosure bill; Trump was about to lose, so he caved; now the records are on track to be released; and according to Ingraham, Watters, and Higbie, that adds up to a win for … Trump?

Portraying Trump’s cave as a masterful strategic gambit requires total contempt for the MAGA audience — but that’s nothing new for either Trump or his right-wing media supporters.

Back in July, the Trump DOJ and FBI roiled the right with a memo repudiating various claims that MAGA influencers — including, in years past, the current top leadership of the FBI — had offered about the disgraced financier’s life and death. Ever since then, the president has been trying to get his followers to focus elsewhere, and his zealous supporters at outlets like Fox have been happy to help.

But as new document releases provided more evidence of Trump’s own former close relationship with Epstein, Democrats and a handful of House Republicans signed on to a discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein disclosure bill. And after Johnson’s stall tactics and Trump’s lobbying failed, the president reversed himself and got behind the bill he had fought to kill.

Trump’s decision is elsewhere being cast as a “capitulation" and a “debacle.” But within parts of the MAGA bubble, every Trump move has to be a brilliant victory.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Amid Fuentes Blowup, Tucker Carlson Targets Lindsey Graham's Senate Seat

Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with prominent white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying Hitler fan, has triggered a right-wing civil war over the last week, drawing in Republican politicians and reportedly triggering a meltdown at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative movement’s most prominent think tank.

On Wednesday, Carlson opened up a new front in that conflict that seems likely to put him in direct opposition to his former colleagues at Fox News.

Carlson’s latest program features an interview with and endorsement of Paul Dans, a candidate for U.S. Senate who is widely regarded as the “architect” of the politically toxic right-wing manifesto Project 2025. Dans is mounting a primary campaign against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is one of Fox’s most frequent guests.

Both candidates have spoken out on opposite sides of the Fuentes firestorm in recent days, with Graham identifying himself as a member of “the ‘Hitler sucks’ wing of the Republican Party” and Dans declaring: “Tucker Carlson is a leading light of America First, and anyone taking out after him is not America First by definition.”

Fox has championed Graham for years

Graham has appeared on Fox’s weekday programs at least 565 times since Media Matters began tabulating cable news guest appearances in August 2017 — more than any other member of Congress except for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). Fox hosts regularly praise Graham, who repeats the network’s talking points and has used the network’s stars as a sounding board for his policy ideas.

The South Carolina Republican is a particular favorite of Sean Hannity, President Donald Trump’s political operative who also hosts a propaganda show on the network. Hannity hosted Graham 270 times over that period — more than any other congressional guest by more than 40 appearances.

Fox founder Rupert Murdoch is personally invested in Graham’s political success, as messages made public during the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against the network show. In October 2020, when Graham was last on the ballot, Murdoch emailed Fox CEO Suzanne Scott: “You probably know about the Lou Dobbs outburst against Lindsey Graham. Could Sean say something supportive? ... We cannot lose the Senate if at all possible.” Scott later followed up to confirm she had “addressed the Dobbs outburst.”

Murdoch was apparently referring to Dobbs, then a Fox Business host, saying during an October 23, 2020, rant: “I don’t know why anyone in the great state of South Carolina would ever vote for Lindsey Graham. … Graham has betrayed President Trump at almost every turn.” Hannity did a friendly interview with Graham three days later and stressed to viewers that the senator’s reelection was critical.

Carlson’s brand of ethnonationalist isolationism, meanwhile, put him in conflict with Graham even when he was still at that network.

Carlson attacks Graham as an extension of the Fuentes firestorm

On Wednesday, Carlson addressed the ongoing debate spurred by his effort to launder a toxic antisemite’s bigotry into the mainstream right. In a monologue at the top of his show, the host positioned himself and his faction as the true heirs to Trump and the America First movement, claimed that his critics are seeking “a return to the Republican Party that we had before, which is a party that has all kinds of other agendas, most of which are never publicly revealed, and that spends a lot of its time policing its own members.”

Carlson went on to accuse his opponents of dishonestly invoking the Holocaust as a ploy to bolster their effort to take control of the GOP after Trump leaves office:

The people who are benefiting from the old arrangement, which only continued because it was maintained by threats and silence, those people are going absolutely bonkers. And they have been all week, and they're claiming it's about one thing, the Holocaust or something like that.
But, no, really it's about who controls the Republican Party after Donald Trump. That's what it's really about. So ignore the moral posturing. This is a power struggle as all political parties have from time to time, and this one just happens to have a lot of emotionally unbalanced hysterical people with no limits who have access to social media, so they're scaring the crap out of everybody.

But Carlson didn’t only give his viewers and supporters a reason to disregard the complaints of his critics — he also offered them a target.

Graham, Carlson told them, “symbolizes what we're actually debating and the stakes of this conversation.” And for the remaining half-hour of his monologue, he attacked Graham’s views on Israel, immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, Trump’s Russiagate scandal, the murder of George Floyd, and more, presenting the South Carolina senator’s positions as anathema to the MAGA movement.

Carlson then introduced Dans and praised him for taking on Graham, who he said “is very obviously evil. And if he is the face of the Republican Party, normal people can't support it, including me. So it's so important to send the statement that we are not for killing of innocence or bloodlust or whatever weird demonic trip Lindsey is on.” Carlson added that he is “really praying for your victory.”

Dans — who described Graham upon launching his campaign as “a 70-year-old childless warmonger” who “has no stake in the future of this country” — told Carlson's audience that he is “original MAGA” and his race “is about the future of the movement, whether MAGA, America First, lives or dies.”

The remainder of the show was a typical Carlson special. The host gave Dans space to lay out his biography and make his pitch, and he egged on Dans' attacks on Graham. At one point, Carlson mocked Graham for being “scared shitless” during the January 6 insurrection, leading Dans to explain that Graham “knows that 2020 was infirm, it was a rigged and stolen election, and he did nothing really for it,” which Dans contrasted with what he described as his own “battle scars” from aiding Trump’s election subversion plot.

Carlson concluded the interview by asking Dans, “How can people who support the program you just described and think that it's so essential to stop this insanity before we have, like, World War 6 — how can they support your campaign?” Dans urged viewers to go to his campaign’s website and donate.

It’s worth thinking of Carlson’s latest program as a response to The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro. Shapiro devoted his entire show on Monday to a withering critique of Fuentes and his “groyper” supporters — whom he termed “neo-Nazis” — as well as Carlson and the Heritage Foundation, which he said had “facilitated and normalized” that faction “within the mainstream Republican Party.” Shapiro’s program featured numerous video clips of Fuentes, Carlson, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts to build his arguments.

Carlson, by contrast, never mentioned the names of any of his critics. Rather than address their arguments directly, he positioned them as lying about their motives in order to steal Trump’s legacy. Instead of playing defense he went on the attack, targeting for defeat Graham, a politician whom he views as supporting that project. In doing so he suggested his viewers should back that politician’s opponent, Dans, to demonstrate their loyalty to the president.

Fox is the biggest weapon Graham has in response, other than Trump himself, and the senator was on Hannity’s show the hour after the Dans interview dropped. But it remains to be seen how eager Fox’s stars really are about getting down in the muck with their former colleague.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Hannity's Campaign For New Jersey Republican Nominee Comes Up Way Short

It was a bad night for Sean Hannity.

By the time President Donald Trump’s chief on-air propagandist took over Fox News’ election coverage at 9 p.m. ET, it was already clear that Democrats were on pace to sweep races across the country. And in perhaps the ultimate indignity, it was left for him to announce that his network’s decision desk had called the New Jersey gubernatorial race for Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill over Jack Ciattarelli, a Trump-supporting Republican businessman whom Hannity had spent weeks trying to pull over the finish line.

Hannity revealed Fox’s projection for the race and noted that “the GOP had hoped that Ciattarelli could deliver an upset after a very close loss four years ago” before pivoting to what he termed the “math problem” for the party’s efforts to flip the state: According to Hannity, “nearly a quarter of a million people in New Jersey left that state” in recent years.

The Fox host repeatedly returned to that figure over the course of the broadcast, suggesting this posed an “overwhelming” hurdle for the GOP because “a great majority of those people are probably Republicans, probably seeking lower taxes, probably seeking law and order.” Per the Trump propagandist, Democrats should win such a “deep blue state” in a landslide, and “the fact that this is anywhere close in any way is fascinating to me.”

Hannity’s analysis has two fundamental problems.

First, New Jersey wasn’t “close in any way” — while the Republican pollsters Hannity hosted over the last month predicted a tight race, Sherrill ended up winning by a dominant 56 to 43 percent margin. By contrast, outgoing Gov. Philip Murphy beat Ciattarelli by only 51 to 48 percent in 2021. Indeed, Sherrill’s win was so large that even if all 250,000 people Hannity says left the state had remained, and voted as a block for Ciattarelli, he still would have lost — his deficit is currently more than 416,000 votes.

Second, Hannity had spent recent weeks urgently focusing the attention of his viewers on the New Jersey race; interviewing Ciattarelli several times to talk up his campaign; putting on a town hall for him last week that functioned as an on-air pep rally; and repeatedly hosting GOP pollsters who stressed that the race was very close and Republicans needed to get out and vote.

What a Trumpist zealot like Hannity cannot accept — and relate to his viewers — is the possibility that voters have soured on the president and are punishing Republicans up and down the ticket for his economic failures, corruption, malfeasance, and authoritarian conduct.

Hannity’s campaign to put Ciattarelli in the New Jersey statehouse

“New Jersey's gubernatorial race, it is heating up and heating up big time,” Hannity explained on his September 25 show. “Trump-endorsed Republican Jack Ciattarelli fights to turn New Jersey red. It looks like it is possible.”

Hyping an Emerson poll he said had the race in a “dead heat” and a new “bombshell” about Sherrill’s college days, Hannity told Ciattarelli that night that he planned to work to help him win his race.

“I told you the last time you were on, I'm not going to make the same mistake again,” the Fox host said. “I did not see how close it would be the last time you ran. You could have won if people paid more attention to it. I'm not making that mistake.”

“New Jersey is in play,” he concluded the interview. “We'll watch it closely. Thanks for being with us.”

Hannity again touted Ciattarelli’s chances while introducing him for an October 2 interview.

“The American public, they're fed up with the left and their antics and political stunts,” he explained. “And nowhere now is this more important than the great blue state of New Jersey. Democrats are in serious peril — this is real — of losing the gubernatorial race next month.”

“I just want to tell my friends in New Jersey, this is very real,” Hannity said at the end of the interview. “And I know other pollsters that are in the field that have you even up by one, but it's a very close race. It's a very blue state. The people of your state of New Jersey are fed up. This is a winnable race. It's going to be fun to watch.”

On October 16, Hannity brought on GOP pollsters Matt Towery of Insider Advantage and Trafalgar Group’s Robert Cahaly — credentialed by Hannity as “the guys I trust” — to discuss their new polls showing Ciattarelli trailing Sherrill by only one point and Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger leading Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by only two points in the Virginia gubernatorial race (Spanberger currently leads by 15 points with 95 percent of results in).

“In New Jersey, there's been a shift in politics in New Jersey,” Towery told Hannity’s audience. “The northern portion of New Jersey that used to be big-time Democrat is now more Republican. It's all — it's all flipped. … I happen to think New Jersey is exceptionally competitive. I think that race is closing very fast. ”

“I don't want to raise false hope in people but it seems — my interpretation of your polls, Matt Towery, is if people get out and vote in New Jersey, if they want change, they have a shot. In Virginia, they have a shot,” Hannity responded.

Towery and Cahaly returned to the program on October 30 as part of the full-hour town hall Hannity put on for Ciattarelli from the state. After declaring that “the enthusiasm is squarely behind Ciattarelli” and calling the race “tighter than ever,” Hannity touted them for having “nailed the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential election” and being “the first to pick up this race is way closer than anybody knows.” The pollsters, in turn, stressed that Ciattarelli’s victory was possible and that turnout would be crucial, as Fox’s chyron declared, “Polls Show Tight Race In New Jersey.”

The pair were back on Hannity’s show to give their final analysis on the eve of Election Day.

“New Jersey, there's a lot of energy up there,” Towery offered. “That's different than the rest of these races I'm looking at. There's a lot of energy and I think New Jersey could be a shocker tomorrow.”

If you had been getting your analysis of the race solely from Hannity and the Republican pollsters he offered up to his viewers, the results were, in fact, “a shocker.” But Ciattarelli’s crushing defeat doesn’t seem to have dissipated the Fox host’s confidence in Towery and Cahaly.

They were back on his show on Tuesday night to try to explain why a blue wave that they had apparently missed was cresting over the country, blaming the government shutdown and the need to figure out how to turn out Republican voters without Trump on the ballot. But while they found time to discuss Democratic wins in Virginia, New York City, and Georgia, New Jersey went curiously unmentioned.

At least they can take solace from the fact that the president was watching them tap-dance around his failures.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Tucker Carlson Boosting Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes Should Surprise Exactly Nobody

Tucker Carlson’s friendly sitdown with Nick Fuentes is drawing harsh criticism from elements of the right, but it seems utterly inevitable given the former Fox host’s trajectory over the last decade.

Fuentes, a white nationalist streamer and Holocaust denier who just weeks ago called for the expulsion of American Jews and Muslims, was once verboten in GOP circles. But in recent months he has become increasingly prominent, drawing millions of views in a series of interviews on right-wing podcasts.

On Monday, he scored his biggest platform yet with an appearance on Carlson’s show, which has one of the largest audiences among news podcasts. Over the course of their two-plus-hour conversation, Carlson let Fuentes retell his origin story in a manner that soft-peddled his bigotry; the pair found common ground over their shared disdain for Christian Zionists and right-wing Jews, and their contempt for liberal women and support for patriarchy; they buried the hatchet over each previously believing that the other was “a fed”; and they agreed to disagree over Fuentes’ tendency to attack Carlson’s allies.

In short, it was a massive win for Fuentes — and one that everyone should have seen coming. Carlson, who is a close ally of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, has spent years drawing similarly extreme and noxious individuals into the Republican tent and bringing their views closer to the mainstream.

Carlson is the epitome of the GOP’s country-club class: His father was a political appointee in the Reagan and Bush administrations, his stepmother an heiress to the Swanson foods fortune, and he spent decades as a magazine journalist and a host and commentator on PBS, CNN, MSNBC, and finally Fox News. But in late 2016, he began drawing a following among the most bigoted corners of the online right, drawing praise from the likes of former Klansman David Duke.

White supremacists realized early in Carlson’s rise — and were happy to say publicly — that Carlson was, in the words of the neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, “literally our greatest ally,” someone willing and capable of taking their talking points from far-right internet fever swamps to Fox’s huge national audience.

Over the next several years, Carlson helped turn far-right conspiracy theories like the great replacement into right-wing dogma while running cover for white nationalist explosions like the 2017 march in Charlottesville, Virginia. And after leaving Fox and striking out on his own he became even more openly radical, promoting Hitler apologia and explicit antisemitism.

And Carlson hasn’t just brought extreme ideas into the GOP — he’s often sought to sanitize the once-fringe elements of the right. In effect, he has turned himself into a single degree of separation between the White House and people like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and false flag aficionado Alex Jones — and now, Fuentes.

The unfortunate reality is that the party that turns Carlson into a kingmaker can’t possibly maintain a cordon against even the most extreme and bigoted figures. And that means the future of the GOP — and, perhaps, the future for American Jews — is grim.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Hegseth Replacing Pentagon Press Corps With MAGA Propagandists, Conspiracy Kooks

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is stifling the Pentagon’s channels for public information and cutting off avenues for accountability as U.S. forces deploy on missions of dubious legality that are fraught with potential danger.

President Donald Trump has sent federalized National Guard troops to multiple U.S. cities since the summer and threatened to send troops to many more. The U.S. military is massing forces in a potential precursor for regime change operations in Venezuela and recently began the extrajudicial killing of individuals on offshore vessels that officials claim, without evidence, are engaged in drug trafficking.

The public has a right to know about these deployments, which raise grave legal and constitutional questions.

But on Wednesday, Defense Department press secretary Sean Parnell announced “the next generation of the Pentagon press corps,” which he described as “over 60 journalists, representing a broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists.”

That a government official trumpeted the debut of the new people who will be covering his department is a signal of just how much that press corps has been corrupted. Its new members are a motley crew predominantly composed of right-wing influencers and Trumpist outlets. Representatives of organizations like The Gateway Pundit and Infowars will replace what Parnell termed the “activists who masquerade as journalists” who turned in their passes last week rather than accepting his department's new restrictions on the press.

Credible defense reporters will continue striving to provide the public with information and insight on Pentagon operations. But they will do so in the face of Defense Department leaders who clearly prefer working with politically sympathetic conspiracy theorists and propagandists. The “new” Pentagon press corps’ coverage will likely range from pliant to sycophantic as its members seek to comfort their MAGA audiences.

The press isn’t the only target of the Pentagon’s campaign against transparency: Hegseth, driven by an apparent urge to limit the effectiveness and volume of oversight, has also launched an overhaul of the inspector general complaint system to curtail its investigations, and he issued a new policy that prevents military leaders from talking to members of Congress without prior approval.

Together, it amounts to an information silo around the Pentagon as U.S. troops deploy abroad and at home.

A DOD campaign to hamstring Pentagon reporting

Hegseth lacked anything resembling traditional qualifications for his post when President Donald Trump appointed him, having instead spent years working for Fox News. And while his most extensive work experience is at a media company, he was by no means a reporter. A right-wing host of the network’s weekend morning show, Hegseth shared the contempt for journalists that permeates much of the network’s programming, urging readers of his 2020 book to “disdain, despise, detest, [and] distrust” the news media.

As defense secretary, Hegseth has effectively made that comment the mission statement for the department’s press relations. He has mocked and derided reporters and torn apart his senior staff in search of media leakers. Soon after he took office, the department punished national news outlets by kicking them out of their Pentagon work spaces and handing them off to right-wing publications. A few months later, new rules banned reporters from much of the Pentagon unless they were escorted by an approved member of the department. Hegseth and his department are historically lax in sharing information with the press and thus the public, as NPR reporter Tom Bowman, a 28-year veteran of the Pentagon press corps, noted:

Now, we're barely getting any information at all from the Pentagon. In the 10 months that the Trump administration has been in office, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given just two briefings.

And there have been virtually no background briefings, which were common in the past whenever there has been military action anywhere in the world, as there has been with the recent bombings of Iran's nuclear facilities and of boats off the coast of Venezuela alleged to be carrying illicit drugs. In previous administrations, Defense Department officials — including the acerbic [Don] Rumsfeld — would hold regular press briefings, often twice a week. They knew the American people deserved to know what was going on.

But limiting access for reporters and starving them of information was apparently not enough.

Last month the Pentagon rolled out strict new guidelines for the press corps which warned that “information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” and threatened to strip access from anyone who violated that stricture. On the October 15 deadline to sign their acknowledgement of the new guidelines, journalists for dozens of outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal instead turned in their press passes and left the building en masse.

“Signing that document would make us stenographers parroting press releases, not watchdogs holding government officials accountable,” Bowman noted.

But for Hegseth, that was the point — he wanted stenographers rather than watchdogs, and following the establishment of the new guidelines and the ensuing walkout, that’s exactly what he’s gotten. All the reporters who might consider themselves watchdogs have left the building. Even right-wing outlets Fox, Newsmax, The Daily Caller, The Washington Times, and the Washington Examiner drew a line and refused to sign the new guidelines to retain their access.

Those that did sign are, almost by definition, the type of willing administration lapdogs Hegseth wanted covering him from inside the building. They are, at times by their own admission, woefully incapable of doing investigative work that holds him to account — but they have the skills to promote his talking points and puff him up to their right-wing audiences.

Meet the MAGA propagandists the Pentagon is empowering

Hegseth and the MAGA right enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship. When his nomination appeared in jeopardy following allegations of misconduct that included sexual assault, workplace drunkenness, and financial mismanagement, Hegseth benefited from the furious support of MAGA influencers. Upon taking office, he then offered access to the likes of Pizzagate enthusiast Jack Posobiec and presidential daughter-in-law Lara Trump to burnish his image.

A rundown of those who will now make up the Pentagon press corps — either rare holdovers willing to sign the guidelines or new outlets that announced their involvement after Parnell’s announcement — suggests that one hand will continue to wash the other. The “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” features a host of representatives from MAGA outlets, many of which publish deranged conspiracy theories, Trumpist hagiography, or extremist commentary.

They include:

Infowars, the internet home of Alex Jones, a pro-Trump radio host and conspiracy theorist who has accused the U.S. government of perpetrating the 9/11 attacks and a host of other mass shootings and terror strikes. The site, which faces liquidation to pay Jones’ $1.4 billion defamation judgement for claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax staged by crisis actors, promotes similarly deranged content. Over the past few years it ran headlines about the Pentagon’s purported role in the “COVID Attack Plan” and “Nanotech Mind Control of Society” before pivoting to pro-Hegseth content in the second Trump term.
The Gateway Pundit, website of the right-wing blogger Jim Hoft, whose credulous promotion of hoaxes earned him the description “dumbest man on the internet.” The Gateway Pundit became a clearinghouse for election denial and voter fraud conspiracy theories amid and following the 2020 vote (and a key news source for Trump in the leadup to the January 6 insurrection, which the site initially celebrated), as well as a font of Kremlin propaganda after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Lindell TV, the pro-Trump outlet of pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell, among the most vociferous members of the election denial community, who has lost multiple lawsuits over his various false claims about fraud in the 2020 vote.
One America News Network, a third-tier Fox competitor with an obsessive focus on pushing false claims about election fraud and a penchant for promoting particularly wild conspiracy theories, including airing content which matches the description of a 2020 documentary the federal government warned had been produced by Russian proxies.
The Federalist, a virulently anti-LGBTQ MAGA website which recently published a piece arguing that Democrats “need to be treated like the domestic terrorists they are.” Its editor-in-chief, Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway, has accused various news outlets of “perpetuating” a “seditious conspiracy,” while its CEO Sean Davis regularly accuses Democrats and Trump opponents of “treason.”
The Epoch Times, an online publication closely linked to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which was founded in China and banned by its government. Epoch Times became a notorious pro-Trump publication following his 2016 election and a leading outlet for “Stop the Steal” content around his 2020 reelection defeat.
Timcast, the outlet of MAGA influencer Tim Pool, who unwittingly received millions of dollars that originated with the Kremlin. It was part of what federal officials described as a scheme to boost videos “consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests.”
Human Events, an online outlet which employs Posobiec as its senior editor.
Frontlines, the media outlet of Turning Points USA, a right-wing nonprofit organization with deep ties to the Republican Party and Trump administration.

Hegseth’s restocking of the Pentagon press room with shills and sycophants aligns with similar efforts underway at the White House, as well as an administration-wide war on journalism which includes defunding public media; suborning once-critical media owners; aiding sales of outlets to friendlier ownership; and filing lawsuits that punish news outlets for reporting that displeases the president.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

'No Violence From Right' Says Don Jr. As J6 Rioter Busted For Threatening To Kill Jeffries

Just hours after New York prosecutors charged a pardoned January 6 rioter with threatening to kill House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Donald Trump Jr. told Sean Hannity’s Fox News audience that “there is no violence from the right,” adding, “It is not both sides — it is from one side, and it was from the left alone.”

Fox viewers, however, probably did not experience any cognitive dissonance. The network all but ignored the threats against Jeffries, with its coverage on Tuesday consisting of a single largely nonspecific 36-second news read on its Special Report program, according to a Media Matters review.

CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane reported early Tuesday morning that Christopher Moynihan “was arrested Sunday after saying in text messages that he planned to ‘eliminate’ Jeffries when the top House Democrat spoke at an event in New York City on Monday” and charged with making a terroristic threat. Prosecutors noted in a court filing that Moynihan texted “Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live,” and “Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future." He was arraigned later that day.

Prosecutors previously said Moynihan was one of the first Trumpists to storm the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 insurrection and among those who occupied the Senate chamber that day. He pleaded guilty to five misdemeanors and was sentenced to 21 months in prison but was among the roughly 1,500 January 6 participants to receive a pardon from President Donald Trump on his first day in office.

Political violence does, in fact, target “both sides”

Donald Trump Jr.’s Tuesday night comments reflect a talking point frequently heard in right-wing spaces. In the wake of the shocking murder of Republican activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk, many in MAGA media and President Trump himself baselessly declared the case symptomatic of a terroristic left targeting a nonviolent right.

This argument flies in the face of what we’ve seen the last several years, as right-wing extremists have violently attacked not just the U.S. Capitol but also Democratic politicians and their families as well as Black, Hispanic, and Jewish Americans. Denying that reality derails any hope of a genuine conversation about political violence, a genuine scourge in this country, in favor of what appears to be a Trump administration plan to use Kirk’s death as a pretext to wield state power against its political enemies in a broad crackdown on dissent.

A Trump supporter who rioted against democracy and received a presidential pardon subsequently threatening to murder a leading Democratic politician hammers home the absurdity of the MAGA talking point.

And so Fox is hiding that news from its audience as part of its frequently deployed strategy to downplay or ignore stories that undermine its narratives. The network’s hosts and executives seem to prefer keeping viewers ignorant in order to maintain their fearfulness and fury at their fellow Americans.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Star Fox Host Laura Ingraham Is Now In Business With President's Son

Fox News star Laura Ingraham spent years railing against the purported corruption caused by the business interests of President Joe Biden’s son. But now she’s going into business with Donald Trump Jr., federal records show, a wildly and obviously unethical conflict of interest that no credible news outlet would tolerate.

Ingraham and Donald Trump Jr. are among the directors of “Colombier Acquisition Corp. III,” a special-purpose acquisition company which is seeking to raise $260 million in an initial public offering in order to acquire another company, according to a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday and first reported by Bloomberg.

The firm’s CEO is Omeed Malik, co-founder and managing partner of the venture capital fund 1789 Capital, which invests in companies aligned with the MAGA movement and has “grown into a financial powerhouse” since November, when Trump was elected president and his son became a partner. Several other executives and directors for the SPAC are also 1789 Capital employees, the filing shows.

The SPAC’s prospectus positions the company as a way to benefit from “the market’s excitement to fund the next chapter of American Exceptionalism by investing in the Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Growth (‘EIG’) economy, a set of era-defining business and investment opportunities that we believe will build the next period of American prosperity.”

It continues: “These opportunities are rooted in America-first cultural shifts after the 2024 U.S. election, a resurgence of merit-based investing in growth equity, a focus on market-based solutions for America, and a celebration of America’s most prominent founders. Opportunities in the EIG economy include but are not limited to companies that reindustrialize the American economy and enhance American prosperity and security.”

Ingraham’s bio in the document identifies her as “the host of ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ an hour-long cable news program, which launched in October 2017, on Fox News (weeknights),” a program which “features Ms. Ingraham’s analysis of politics, business, legal matters and the culture, along with her interviews with prominent individuals in those fields.”

The potential conflicts of interest created by Ingraham’s roles with the SPAC and Fox are legion:

She stands to financially benefit from a business plan that is explicitly tied to the success of the MAGA movement.
She stands to financially benefit from the sprawling business interests of the president’s son, which otherwise could have been fodder for critical reporting.
She seems to have received the opportunity due to her loyalty to the MAGA cause, which creates the implication that failure to remain loyal would prevent future such opportunities.
She is slated to chair the SPAC’s compensation committee, meaning she could directly control payments made to the son of a president she covers on her show.
The SPAC’s prospectus cites its team’s “unique access to celebrities, technologists, tastemakers, investors, and entrepreneurs,” which “will assist in our target sourcing efforts,” as well as their “track record of building and boosting brands by partnering with influential figures with large followings”; applied to Ingraham, this language corrupts Fox’s booking process by suggesting a potential secondary rationale for appearances on her show.

Notably, Ingraham regularly claimed the business dealings of Hunter Biden in the years prior to his father’s presidential election implicated Joe Biden in rampant corruption. Hunter Biden’s name was mentioned during at least 164 episodes of Ingraham’s Fox show in the less than two years from January 3, 2023, when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives after promising to use their power to investigate those business interests, through Trump’s election on November 5, 2024, according to a Media Matters review of the Kinetiq video database.

Ingraham claimed during one such program, in June 2023, that Hunter Biden’s clients were “sophisticated players” who were “prepared to pay millions” because “they believed they would get certain benefits in return from the U.S. government.”

“Every single person in the White House press room knows how all this works,” she added. “The only defense that they have is that we can’t prove that Biden himself did lobbying or was directing Hunter’s business.” Ingraham concluded by bemoaning that “these foreign interests are now encouraged to believe that America is for sale” and arguing that “one pillar of the 2024 campaign for Republicans should be, the Bidens are getting richer while your family is getting poorer.

A few short years later and President Trump’s son is overseeing a business empire which includes not only the venture capital funding through 1789 Capital but also foreign real estate deals; massive crypto investments; and nebulous advisory roles with several companies. And Ingraham has looked at the various financial schemes involving the president’s family and decided to join him and cash in.

Again, no credible news outlet would allow a conflict of interest of this magnitude, roughly analogous to if Hunter and MSNBC star Rachel Maddow were to have gone into business together during the Biden administration. But don’t expect the Fox brass to step in: Once you’ve put the president’s daughter-in-law on the payroll and given her an hour a week to produce propaganda for the administration, you’ve acknowledged that you are in a different line of work.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Eric Trump: Jack Smith 'Planted' Folders At Mar-a-Lago (When He Was Overseas)

Eric Trump is using a series of right-wing media appearances to baselessly accuse former special counsel Jack Smith of “planting” evidence that the FBI uncovered during its search of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence.

MAGA figures have baselessly accused the FBI of planting evidence since the agency executed its warrant in August 2022. But Eric Trump’s version of the conspiracy theory introduces a glaring new flaw: Smith was prosecuting war crimes overseas at the time of that search and didn’t take over the federal probe of the then-former president’s handling of classified documents until more than three months later.

Trump, who is overseeing his father’s business holdings alongside his brother, Don Jr., theoretically holds no position in the administration. But he has been on a tour of right-wing media in recent days making the case that the politically motivated indictments of Trump enemies are justified and promoting his new memoir, which positions the Mar-a-Lago search as proof that “America itself was under siege.”

The FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, after developing evidence countering a Trump lawyer’s statement that all classified documents that had been stored on the premises were turned over in response to a subpoena. The agents reportedly “left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.” Trump ultimately faced 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information, among other federal charges, but the case was dismissed by a Trump-appointed judge.

Trumpists have proposed two different versions of a baseless theory that the FBI had “planted” evidence. First, Trump and his right-wing media allies suggested immediately after the search that the FBI might have brought classified documents to Mar-a-Lago to frame Trump for possessing them improperly (a judge ultimately protected him from having to try to prove the charge in court). Then, after the Justice Department included a photo of documents with classification markings seized in that search in an August 30, 2022, filing, Trump’s supporters suggested that it was somehow improper for agents to take the documents out of the boxes in which they were stored and lay them on the floor so that the folders with classified markings could be seen in the photos. (Classified documents were reportedly found at Mar-A-Lago in locations including “a shower, an office, a bedroom and a ballroom.”)

Eric Trump, in three separate interviews with right-wing media figures, seemed to toggle between which interpretation he was trying to get across — but in either case, he specifically blamed Smith.

“These are the biggest criminals in the world, back to Jack Smith — he was planting classified folders on my father’s office at Mar-a-Lago,” he told Steve Bannon on October 7.

“And then in the aftermath, we find out that Jack Smith was planting classified folders, you know, on the carpet,” he said to Megyn Kelly on October 10. “You remember those perfectly orchestrated photo shoots where everything's fanned out? Like my father just leaves classified folders just perfectly fanned out on a beautiful carpet in the middle of his office.”

“Jack Smith, he dug so deep that we found out that he was actually planting classified folders in Mar-a-Lago,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on October 14.

Whichever argument Eric Trump is trying to make, his specific claim that Smith “was planting classified folders” during the August 8, 2022, search, is obviously and absurdly false. Smith did not become special counsel and take over the classified documents case until November 22, 2022. At the time of the Mar-a-Lago search, he was working in the Netherlands as chief prosecutor for a special court investigating war crimes stemming from the 1990s war in Kosovo.

But as we’ve seen over the past few weeks, Republicans are unconcerned with how thin the allegations are as long as they can be used to target their political foes — and Smith is clearly one such target.

The 'Weaponization Of Justice' Began During Trump's First Term

Pundits who portray President Donald Trump's recent steps to secure federal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James as simply a response to prosecutorial efforts to hold Trump accountable after his first term have either forgotten what actually happened during Trump’s first term or are lying to their audiences.

Trump, an authoritarian to his core, repeatedly sought the investigation, prosecution, and imprisonment of his political foes throughout his first four years in the White House. The fact that he's had more success leveling actual criminal charges at his enemies in his second term says far more about the sycophants and toadies with which he's populated the government than about his own demeanor, which has always been laser-focused on using the levers of power to punish his perceived enemies.

On September 20, Trump publicly posted a message to Attorney General Pam Bondi he had reportedly intended to be private, complaining that investigations he had demanded into Comey, James, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) had stalled. He said that he had fired a U.S. attorney who had defied White House demands for politicized prosecutions and recommended Lindsey Halligan, who was serving in the White House after working as Trump’s personal lawyer. Trump subsequently said he had installed Halligan in the vacated U.S. attorney slot, and she obtained charges against Comey and James from a grand jury.

These indictments triggered denunciations from defenders of liberal democracy agog over his decimation of the rule of law and paroxysms of glee from MAGA foot soldiers. But a third category also emerged: conservative pundits who acknowledge that the indictments are politically motivated and improper, but nonetheless claim Democrats contributed to the situation by seeking charges against Trump between his terms in office.

Right-wing commentator Erick Erickson wrote in an October 10 piece that the Comey and James indictments were “absolutely politically motivated” and described them as “persecutions.” But he also claimed they were the flip side of the “law fare” he said the president had experienced.

“Unfortunately for Democrats, some of whom are complaining that ‘Trump would do this anyway’ even without those prior indictments, we actually have a 45th presidential administration where no such things happened and that was also the presidency of Donald J. Trump,” Erickson added. “Two wrongs do not make a right, but Democrats did start this.”

The editorial board of The Washington Post, recently reborn as a right-wing organ, likewise published an October 8 piece which described the Comey charges as “pathetically weak” but also complained: “Many Democrats still cannot see how their legal aggression against Trump during his four years out of power set the stage for the dangerous revenge tour on which he is now embarked.”

And in an October 13 piece at The Wall Street Journal, columnist Gerard Baker wrote that Trump “seems intent on repaying his enemies in kind” for purported Democratic “lawfare,” even as he warned that the James indictment “corrupts the legal process, corrodes public faith in civic institutions, and invites further leaps up the partisan warfare escalator.”

This argument aligns with Trump’s presentation of these prosecutions as retaliation for past Democratic efforts to hold him accountable.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he declared in his message to Bondi. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Set aside the question of whether Democrats should have accepted that a president must be allowed to commit crimes with impunity — even attempting to overturn an election that he lost — because otherwise he might some day regain power and demand prosecutors indict his foes.

It is simply not true that Trump began seeking to prosecute his political foes only in his second term, after his indictment by state and federal prosecutors during his years out of power.

Trump’s first-term quest to lock up his political enemies

During Trump’s first term as president, he frequently sought “to deploy his power against his perceived enemies,” and after his “repeated public or private demands for them to be targeted by the government, they faced federal pressure of one kind or another,” including federal criminal probes, as The New York Times detailed in a September 2024 investigation.

The Times produced an extensive but by no means all-inclusive list of individuals who faced such treatment, noting that “there was no legal basis for the investigation of many” of the targets. In some cases, baseless but furious accusations aired in the right-wing media led to pressure from Trump for investigations into his political foes’ purported crimes — but when Trump-appointed federal prosecutors actually reviewed the allegations, they found them underwhelming and did not seek charges.

The list includes Comey, who was subjected to Justice Department investigations into whether he had leaked classified investigations and into his handling of the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. John Durham, appointed special counsel during the Trump administration, probed the latter subject for four years; he did not bring charges against Comey and failed to win jail time from any defendant.

It is difficult to take seriously the argument that Trump sought an indictment against Comey only as retaliation for Democratic efforts to prosecute him when his attempts to indict Comey predates those efforts by years.

Other targets identified by the Times who were subjected to Justice Department investigations during Trump’s first term include:

Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 election. “Federal prosecutors and a special counsel examined nearly all the issues and conspiracy theories Mr. Trump raised about Mrs. Clinton, her campaign and the Clinton Foundation, including the Clinton campaign’s role in gathering information during the 2016 campaign about ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia and providing it to the F.B.I.,” but Clinton “was never charged with anything.”
John Kerry, former secretary of state under President Barack Obama. Justice Department officials in Washington referred an investigation into Kerry’s contacts with Iran after Trump publicly highlighted them, but U.S. attorney’s offices in New York and Maryland ultimately declined to charge him.
Andrew McCabe, former deputy FBI director. “The Justice Department conducted a criminal investigation into whether Mr. McCabe had lied to the F.B.I. and Justice Department, and Mr. McCabe was investigated over whether he had leaked material to journalists,” but when prosecutors sought McCabe’s indictment, a grand jury declined to charge him.
Peter Strzok, lead FBI agent on the Clinton and Russia probes. “Federal prosecutors and a special counsel investigated his handling of the Clinton and Russia investigations” but did not bring charges against him.
John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser-turned critic. The Justice Department “opened a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Bolton had unlawfully disclosed classified information” in his 2020 book but did not bring charges against him (that probe has been revived in Trump’s second term).

Trump’s desire to prosecute his political enemies didn’t change between his first and second terms. In both terms, the FBI and Justice Department proved willing to respond to his public and private ire by looking into the purportedly criminal behavior. And in both terms, federal prosecutors eventually found that the evidence against his enemies was insufficient.

What’s changed is that during Trump’s second term, when federal prosecutors declined to bring charges, he replaced the recalcitrant U.S. attorney with a crony who had no issue seeking indictments anyway. But explaining that reality won't keep you on the good side of the MAGA movement.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Trump Gang Positions 'No Kings' Rallies As Excuse To Crush Dissent

President Donald Trump, Republican officials, and their right-wing media allies have laid the groundwork for a broadbased attack on core progressive and Democratic Party institutions in response to Saturday’s planned nationwide “No Kings” protests. They are reframing and weaponizing the concept of antifa as a framework to target their political enemies — and anyone else who dissents from their authoritarian political project.

Trump hosted a White House event last week about the purported scourge of antifa, an umbrella term for a broad and decentralized grouping of militant far-left activists who say they oppose fascism. In remarks to top law enforcement officials and a slate of MAGA influencers, the president promised to be “very threatening” to antifa, which he recently designated as a “domestic terror organization,” and said his administration would target “the people that fund them.”

But Trump quickly pivoted from describing purported antifa attacks on law enforcement and journalists to complaining about “paid anarchists” holding “very expensive” signs at protests. His remarks indicate that he is eager to stretch the “antifa” label so that it covers as many of his political enemies as possible — including peaceful protesters holding signs and the organizations and funders who pay for them.

The amorphous nature of antifa lends itself to such abuses. Though then-FBI director Christopher Wray explained in a 2020 congressional testimony that antifa is “not a group or an organization” but rather “a movement or an ideology,” the MAGA right typically applies the moniker to any person on the left engaged in violence, real or imagined, particularly at protests.

Other top Republican officials went even further in the days following Trump’s comments. In interviews with right-wing media outlets, they have claimed that antifa and other violent extremists are behind Saturday’s “No Kings” protests, which oppose Trump’s authoritarian actions. Organizers said that five million people attended the more than 2,000 “No Kings” rallies in June, and the protests are actually backed by an array of mainstream progressive organizations, led by Indivisible and including the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, and the League of Conservation Voters.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) claimed during an October 10 Fox interview that Democrats had planned “a hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall” featuring “the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people.”
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) said on Newsmax the same day that the Washington, D.C., rally would be “a Soros paid-for protest where his professional protesters show up,” adding: “The agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy alleged during a Fox Business hit on Monday that the No Kings protest “is part of antifa, paid protesters,” and said that “it begs the question who's funding it."
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) said in a Tuesday Fox Business interview: “We call it the 'Hate America' rally because you'll see the hate for America all over this thing when they show up. … The rumor is that they can't end this shutdown beforehand because this small but very violent and vocal group is the only one that's happy about this."

Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a Tuesday night Fox appearance, similarly suggested that she sees no distinction between antifa activists whom the president has identified as criminals and terrorists and peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights.

“That’s one of the things about Antifa,” she told Fox host Sean Hannity. “You’ve heard President Trump say multiple times, they are organized, they are a criminal organization. And they are very organized. You’re seeing people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought, pre-put together. They are organized, and someone is funding it. We are going to get to the funding of antifa. We are going to get to the root of antifa, and we are going to find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos.”

The MAGA plan for Saturday seems clear. The right-wing media has spent months fearmongering about the conditions in American cities to justify Trump’s desire to deploy military and quasi-military forces on their streets. They want headlines about violence at No Kings rallies that the president can use as a pretext to target his political foes.

A Trumpist plot to criminalize dissent

Trump views criticism from his foes as illegitimate by definition, and he responded to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk by threatening a crackdown on political opposition.

Before a suspect in the killing had even been identified, Trump blamed the “rhetoric” of “the radical left” as “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.” Attorney General Pam Bondi subsequently declared that the Justice Department would “absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech”; when a reporter asked Trump what she meant, he replied, “She’ll probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly, it’s hate.” These attacks on free speech crested with the Trump administration’s attempt to drive Jimmy Kimmel off the air.

Trump also promised that his administration would go after not just Kirk’s killer, but the purportedly “radical left” individuals and organizations he said “contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence.” Investigators have not uncovered any evidence of ties between the alleged killer and any left-wing group, NBC News reported last month — but that has not stopped Trump’s effort, echoing demands from his supporters, to use Kirk’s killing to justify the suppression of the Democratic Party and the left over the last several weeks.

Last month, Trump signed a national security directive on “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” also known as “NSPM-7.” The directive, as extensively detailed by investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, orders federal agencies to undertake “a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” According to the document, potential indicators of political violence include “anti-fascist” rhetoric and views like “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism,” or “anti-Americanism.” The document specifically focuses the FBI’s network of roughly 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces on combatting this purported threat.

At a signing ceremony for the directive, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that it created “an all-of-government effort to dismantle left-wing terrorism.” Trump, in turn, made clear how broadly he views that effort, naming major Democratic donors George Soros and Reid Hoffman as potential targets of the “domestic terrorism” crackdown. “They’re bad, and we’re going to find out if they are funding these things,” he explained. “You’re going to have some problems because they’re agitators, and they’re anarchists.”

The New York Times further reported that same day that the office of the deputy attorney general had “instructed more than a half dozen U.S. attorney’s offices to draft plans to investigate” Soros’ Open Society Foundations and had even listed “possible charges prosecutors could file, ranging from arson to material support of terrorism.” While the directive cited a report from the right-wing Capital Research Center as evidence supporting such charges, the Times subsequently reported that the document “does not show evidence that Mr. Soros’s network knowingly paid for its grantees to break the law, which legal experts said would be necessary to build a criminal case,” and the group’s president acknowledged to the paper that it did not show evidence of a crime.

A Reuters investigation published October 9 likewise suggests that the Trump administration is considering looking into core Democratic Party supporters like Soros, party infrastructure like the fundraising clearinghouse ActBlue, and Indivisible, the lead organizer behind the No Kings rallies that Republican officials claim are a front for antifa.

Saturday’s No Kings rallies present a potential opportunity for the Trump administration to take this effort to the next level. If no violence develops, they will move on and wait for their next chance. But if a conflict involving No Kings protesters breaks out anywhere in the country — particularly if there’s a standoff with the increasingly violent and unaccountable federal law enforcement apparatus, then all bets are off.

The right’s propagandists, eager for “war” on the left and fully enmeshed with the administration, will seize on the incident and try to turn it into a national story by whatever dishonest means are necessary. Trump officials who have lost all credibility lying on his behalf will leap to smear the left as a whole as responsible. Fox and its ilk will run whatever footage is available on a loop while their demagogic stars demand action.

Then the federal law enforcement agencies, which are serving as extensions of the president, will go to work finding ways to target the organizations and funders involved in the protests. Any career prosecutors and investigators or even Trump appointees who oppose such tactics will be ruthlessly purged.

Trump will have gotten exactly what he wanted — a chance to bend the No Kings protests to his own authoritarian ends.

'Worse Than Watergate'? MAGA Right Rewrites January 6 To Erase Trump Coup

The MAGA right’s cynical effort to rewrite the history of January 6 reached a new but seemingly inevitable low this week, as right-wing media figures, the GOP, and the Trump administration teamed up to demand retribution against those who attempted to impose consequences on the perpetrators of the event.

In late 2020, President Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican Party and right-wing media attempted to overturn the results of the election that he had lost, using false claims of widespread voter fraud. That campaign’s final phase relied on Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the electoral count based on a nonsensical legal theory. When it became clear Pence would not cooperate, a mob of Trumpists — summoned to Washington, D.C., by the president who told them “we will never concede” — assaulted scores of law enforcement officers as they stormed the U.S. Capitol, sending Pence and the assembled Congress into hiding and delaying the counting of electoral votes.

This January 6 insurrection faced widespread public condemnation in its immediate aftermath. But right-wing propagandists, led by then-Fox star Tucker Carlson, went to work dismantling what turned out to be a fragile consensus. In the insidious counternarrative they created, January 6 was either righteous or something of a nothingburger, and the true scandal was the subsequent efforts to punish its perpetrators. Four years later, that version of events is the dominant one on the right, with special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over his role treated as part of a Democratic plot. And as a result, efforts to achieve accountability for the crimes of January 6 have become partisan almost by definition.

Fox News star host Jesse Watters said the day after the storming of the U.S. Capitol that “people that think it wasn't that big of a deal” were wrong. “You can't smash windows, spray police with chemical agents, assault police officers, loot, and vandalize.”

But this week, Watters declared that “the Democrat reaction to January 6 was worse than January 6.” Watters pointed to the new revelation served up by Trump law enforcement appointees that Smith had received the phone records of several Republican senators from the period around January 6 as part of his criminal investigation of the events and baselessly concluded that “what they were probably trying to do is cast this wide net to create some grand criminal conspiracy and indict the entire Republican Party.”

Watters then demanded retribution against Smith and other federal law enforcement figures involved in the January 6 investigations. “This guy should be in prison,” he said. “And what they need to do is either appoint a special counsel or have some sort of Senate select committee to go up, do hearings, put Wray, put Garland, put Smith under oath, and if they lie, you throw them in prison.”

Legal reporters and experts have noted that seeking phone records of Republican officials who might have been in communication with Trump around the time of January 6 was an obvious step for the investigators, who ultimately indicted the president over what they alleged were attempts to use “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.” But that conclusion presumes that investigators should have been investigating at all, and the current position of the Trumpist right is exactly as Watters pitched it: After Trump’s return to the presidency, he pardoned January 6 perpetrators and purged law enforcement who helped prosecute them.

On Tuesday night, Fox hosts and the Republican guests they hosted pushed falsehoods about Smith’s probe in order to justify retaliatory investigations into his effort. The sequence of events is roughly analogous to the crusade by Trump, congressional Republicans, and propaganda outlets like Fox to secure investigations into special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. That resulted in years of content for Fox’s stars — but the resulting four-year probe failed to garner prison time for a single person.

Here we go again.

Jack Smith did not “spy” on Republican senators in a scandal “worse than Watergate”

Fox stars Watters, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham all used the same false characterization on Tuesday as they sought to stir up outrage about Smith’s January 6 probe.

Watters claimed that the “big story” was “that Joe Biden's FBI was spying on top Republican senators”; Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the senators whose records were included, subsequently told the host that the FBI “got wiretaps essentially” against them. Ingraham claimed the senators “were all spied on” in “an attempt at partisan surveillance.” According to Hannity, Smith had been “using the federal government to spy on several U.S. senators.”

Hannity and Ingraham also ran with with Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) absurd characterization of the report as “WORSE THAN WATERGATE”: Ingraham termed it “arguably worse than Watergate,” while Hannity claimed more definitively that the report was “worse than anything alleged against Richard Nixon during Watergate.”

These claims are baseless and absurd.

The Watergate scandal featured operatives associated with Nixon’s reelection campaign attempting to break into the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the orders of a White House official, most likely in an effort to place equipment to actively surveil the president’s partisan opposition for explicitly political purposes. This is obviously very different from legitimate investigative steps taken as part of a duly promulgated criminal investigation.

And the FBI document at the root of the claim does not say anything about active or real-time surveillance — it references only a “preliminary toll analysis on limited toll records associated with” nine members of Congress.

The records were reportedly obtained from major telephone providers responding to a subpoena Smith obtained. And according to Grassley, the record the FBI reviewed “shows when and to whom a call is made, as well as the duration and general location data of the call” but “does not include the content of the call.”

Fox uses false premises to call for criminal investigations

All three shows featured calls for further investigations into Smith’s probe.

“It's time Pam Bondi appoint a special counsel to investigate Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, and Chris Wray,” Watters declared. “At the very least, we should have a Senate special select committee hold hearings and have these goons testify under oath, and if they lie to Congress, off to prison. As they said, no one is above the law.”

Hawley, in his interview with Watters, likewise called for “a special prosecutor who's going to go at this hard,” adding, “We need hearings in public. Put these people under oath. Start with Jack Smith. Let's hear from Merrick Garland. Let's hear from Christopher Wray -- and anybody who broke the law needs to be prosecuted.”

“I think the time has come for criminal prosecutions,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) told Ingraham. “I think indictments should be coming here. We can't tolerate this and the Democrats try to act like President Trump's weaponizing. It's not what's happening.”

And on Hannity’s show, FBI Director Kash Patel declared that such probes were ongoing.

“We're just warming up,” he said. “But we are running our investigations to the ground. We are finding every single person involved. We will not leave a single room locked.”

“This is what Donald Trump was put in place to do,” he concluded. “And I'm honored to be his FBI director to lead this charge. And the men and women at the FBI, we're all in on this mission.”

That doesn’t include, of course, the FBI agents fired or reassigned because they worked January 6 cases. Because for this administration and the propagandists who support it, those who tried to get accountability for January 6 are the saga’s true villains.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

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About The National Memo