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Matt Gertz

Outraged By Schumer Cameo On Fox, Trump Demands Uninterrupted Propaganda

President Donald Trump lashed out at Fox News on Wednesday with a lengthy online harangue that made little sense but demonstrates the network’s impossible task in satisfying the president’s demand for pure propaganda.

“Why does FoxNews always put Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Jessica Tarlov, and every Democrat on, saying bad things about the Republican Party and, of course, me?” Trump posted to his Truth Social account at 12:15 pm ET. “I actually think they get more airtime than Pro Republicans. This is why MAGA, and REAL Patriots, will never like Fox! They repeat a completely negative narrative, on and on it goes, and then we get a quick retort.”

I’ve spent nearly a decade following the twists and turns of Trump’s symbiotic relationship with Fox, particularly the ways in which his social media activity often corresponds to what he sees on his television — and I’m not quite sure what he’s talking about. The president’s commentary about Fox typically blends praise for the hosts he loves and segments he appreciates with critiques of personalities who don’t meet his standard for sycophancy and attacks on the network’s accurate pollsters, but usually his complaints are more coherent than this.

The most plausible hypothesis I can come up with is that Trump looked up at his television at 12:09 p.m. ET, saw a brief clip that Fox Business was airing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) criticizing the GOP’s AI strategy, and flipped out — and that suggests that Trump doesn’t want his propaganda network to even air footage of the Democratic opposition (except, perhaps, to deride them).

Meanwhile:

Schumer does not appear in Media Matters’ database of Fox News weekday appearances, which dates to August 2017.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has made at least 5 appearances on Fox weekday shows since November 2018, with the most recent airing in January of this year.
Fox’s Jessica Tarlov is the Democratic host tasked with matching up against four conservatives at once on the network’s weekday panel show, The Five. She made 2 guest appearances on other Fox shows in September; conservative co-hosts Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, and Dana Perino all have separate weekday Fox shows of their own.
In September, weekday appearances on Fox News by congressional Republicans and Trump administration officials outnumbered appearances by congressional Democratic guest appearances by 148 to 7.
Fox literally employs the president’s daughter-in-law, former Republican National Committee chair Lara Trump, as the host of a weekly program she uses to promote his administration. (And of course, his current defense secretary is a former Fox host; his U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is a former Fox host; his transportation secretary is a former Fox host whose wife still works for the network; his former campaign manager, his former secretary of state, and his former White House press secretary are on the Fox payroll; and so on and so forth.)
The network relied on Sean Hannity — a confidant and adviser to Trump who uses his show to propagandize on the president’s behalf — to lead its coverage of the GOP’s midterm convention.

And that’s before we even get into the network’s sycophantic coverage of Trump and his administration.

Fox celebrates Trump's supposed successes and promotes the GOP — but it's never enough for him

Fox programming — in the lead-up to the midterms in particular — is a non-stop exercise in assuring viewers that Trump is giving them everything they’ve ever wanted, while sidelining stories that could potentially upset them or harm the GOP’s election push.

On Monday night, for example, Jesse Watters opened his primetime show with a mash note to Trump that simply must be seen to be believed.

Watters and his colleagues have spent substantial portions of their shows this week lavishing Trump with praise and issuing dire warnings to their viewers about what might occur if Democrats were to triumph in the midterm elections.

Just hours before Trump lashed out at the network, high-brow hack Hugh Hewitt said on Fox & Friends that the president would be a boon to GOP candidates because Trump is “the get-out-the-vote machine for the MAGA base and for everyone that doesn't want their inflation to go nuts.” (As of October 1, The New York Times poll average places Trump’s approval rating at a catastrophic 37-61.)

“Trump has won in Iran,” Hewitt explained. “He’s won in the battle of the Strait of Hormuz. He's won with his economic policies. I think the Republicans have a good case to make. They just have to make it every day, morning, noon and night, and I think they're beginning to get into that groove and they've got plenty of time to make the argument.”

Later in the program, the hosts highlighted different Trump policies that appealed to them, with Lawrence Jones concluding that the White House simply faces a messaging problem.

“I just think that maybe it has been bad producing from the White House when it comes from the message, but this story has not been told,” he said. “Maybe so much and so complex or the president is just focused on doing his agenda, but the communications need to do a better job letting the American people know exactly the benefits that they’ve been — because a lot of people don’t even know about it."

Examples like these are a dime a dozen — but apparently not enough for Trump. The president won’t be satisfied until every minute of Fox programming is indistinguishable from North Korean state TV — and every minute of coverage at every other outlet is as well.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Rerun Season: Fox News Revives 'Migrant Caravan' For Midterm Election

President Donald Trump’s extreme unpopularity has the Republican Party seemingly on course for a midterm elections drubbing — which means it’s once again time for Fox News to try to scare its viewers to the polls with frantic coverage of a “caravan” of migrants in Central America headed toward the U.S.-Mexico border.

In October 2018, Fox hosts began warning viewers that a group of up to 4,000 Honduran migrants were moving through Central America with plans to “storm our border” — and urged Trump to make that “caravan” a central issue for that year’s midterm elections. Trump, an inveterate Fox watcher whose worldview is shaped by the network, obliged. Fox showered its viewers with hours of coverage over the ensuing days, and the story also became a major fixation of mainstream news outlets in the leadup to the election.

Eight years later, Fox is starting to run the same play. Trump’s approval numbers have tanked due to his economic policymaking and Iran war, and GOP officials are reportedly panicking over the upcoming midterms and treating the president as a liability for their prospects. Fox and the Trump administration are using the narrative of a new “caravan” to drive attention back to border security, a rare issue where Trump and his party retain an advantage in the polls, but one whose salience has fallen.

Anthony Aguero, a former GOP congressional candidate turned conservative border news streamer, drew attention to the “caravan” on Sunday with a viral social media post. “Over 400 aliens predominantly from Honduras entered Mexico on Thursday, ready to make their way to the US southern border,” he wrote. “Here’s footage of the caravan. Someone is incentivizing this movement, this is not organic.”

While the group is reportedly growing, it remains a fraction of the size of the 2018 “caravan” — which was successfully dispersed by U.S. authorities rather than “storming” the border — raising questions about why the 2026 version deserves significant coverage at all.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump critic, has a hypothesis. “We have not seen a caravan headed to the U.S. southern border in several years, why now?” she responded to Aguero’s post. “Oh yeah, there is an election coming and the GOP needs to scare you into voting because nothing else is working.”

To be sure, Greene is a notorious conspiracy theorist who sees insidious forces everywhere.

But sure enough, on Monday, Fox News Digital ran a story featuring what it termed an “ominous warning” to the “caravan” provided to Fox by the Department of Homeland Security. “Biden’s disastrous open border policy has been SEALED SHUT,” DHS stated. “Anyone attempting to illegally enter the United States will be apprehended, prosecuted, and removed from the country.”

That night, Fox host Laura Ingraham gave the story a partisan spin during her opening monologue. Ingraham denounced “blue cities” for “doling out the cash” to “illegals,” then raised the specter of the “new caravan.”

“So with all this cash waiting and what they perceive to be a weakened GOP, hundreds of migrants have now organized themselves into a new caravan and are heading through Mexico toward the U.S. border,” she said. “Now, someone got to them and probably got them to pay heavy prices in hopes that if they reach the border and Republicans get shellacked in the mid-terms, they'll just be let in.”

Ingraham’s program aired footage of a column of migrants walking along a highway over the chyron, “Amnesty for all is the Dem plan.”

The Fox host later brought on White House “border czar” Tom Homan, who was conveniently available, to fearmonger about the migrants and assure viewers that Trump would keep his promises about border security.

Fox & Friends, the president’s beloved morning show whose fixation on the 2018 “caravan” played a key role in attracting his attention, joined in on Tuesday.

“Right now, a caravan of more than 600 migrants is heading toward the U.S.,” co-host Brian Kilmeade warned as Fox aired footage of the group, noting that it is “traveling through Mexico — you’re looking at them now — after departing Honduras earlier this month.”

Kilmeade read from the DHS statement, then added, “Critics say the mass migration could be on hopes Democrats will embrace open border policies if they control Congress.”

His guest, retired chief border patrol agent Chris Clem, then speculated that the migrants were involved in illicit election interference.

“It is a different election cycle, but the same bad cast with the same bad script,” Clem claimed. “But here’s the good news, we’ve got a president and a border security policy that shuts this down. So, I think this is just about propaganda to bring some kind of sympathetic plight to the migrants.”

“This is really about showing some kind of opportunity at the midterm,” he added. “We saw this play out in 2018, we saw this play out again in 2020, they are coming here to try to make a point against the strong enforcement policies by this administration.”

The same “bad cast” does seem to be running the same “bad script,” and there’s definitely “propaganda” involved.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Trump Believes Press Deserves No Freedom Unless It Repeats His Propaganda Messages

The Justice Department sought last week to justify President Donald Trump’s decision to ban three news outlets from the White House by arguing that their reporters had jeopardized national security. But Trump’s own statements show what he actually wants from the press: servile propaganda that parrots what he and his political allies say about his administration.

“‘The United States has the BEST Employment Numbers in HISTORY,’” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform in the 7 a.m. hour Monday morning. Trump attributed the quote to “FoxNews,” then added: “The Fake News Media REFUSES to report this rather significant development, however!!!”

The president, who regularly posts in near-real time about Fox segments that strike his interest, was actually quoting a Fox Business chyron, which attributed the statement to Trump himself during a segment that aired roughly 30 minutes before the post. He went on to tout the “fantastic” performance of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts during the segment, whose “topic” he said “was Fake Polls and how well the Republicans are going to do in the upcoming Midterms.” (Roberts, echoing Trump, called midterm election polling a “psyop” intended “to depress conservative turnout.”)

In reality, U.S. population growth ensures that every president can boast that more people are employed than ever before (as long as they avoid a recession) and hiring numbers are slack, while Trump’s own policies have triggered higher interest rates and inflation, and Fox’s own poll shows cataclysmic numbers for the president and his party.

Monday’s posts — while a perfect encapsulation of this phenomenon — were just the latest indications that Trump’s press ban has nothing to do with the administration’s stated pretext.

The White House press bans aren’t about ethics in journalism

Trump has feuded with the press for a decade, and in his second term has casually accused outlets of treason while surrounding himself with appointees eager to use state power to punish them. After the president’s September 18 announcement that he had banned CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House due to “their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS,” DOJ tried to argue in court filings last Tuesday that the barred outlets had been stripped of access because they had been “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information.”

But the president’s own statements about the press since those filings reveal that his actual concerns have nothing to do with national security or the publication of classified information — he’s mad that news outlets are reporting things he thinks make him look bad and not covering things that make him look good.

On Thursday, for example, Trump griped that CNN and MSNOW had not covered “one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years,” the lavish welcome ceremony he threw at the White House for “the Highly Respected President of China, Xi Jinping, and his beautiful wife, Madam Peng.” The president added: “The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to ‘TRUMP,’ they refused to be there.”

On Saturday, Trump claimed that “Another Fake Story is that a very close friend of mine, a man I endorsed very early, Byron Donalds, is taking me off his website and Campaign materials.” He lashed out at USA Today, which broke the story on September 22 that Donalds’ campaign website had been revamped to deprioritize his relationship with Trump, and a string of other outlets for following up on it, saying, “This was a Fake Story, with no sources, and the only justification for it is they want to stop my ever upward momentum.”

Trump went on to link the story to his press ban, saying, “Fake News Media been doing this for years, I call them out, but they should really be called out by the Courts, and should not be allowed to enter the White House premises, or Press Room, because they are CORRUPT and DISHONEST!” But the story that the Donalds campaign had changed its website to remove references to Trump is true, and Donalds himself has acknowledged as much.

Later on Saturday, the president again lashed out at the “Fake News,” this time for allegedly not reporting about “our incredible results” with regard to the economy.

“If anyone else were President, this would be all the Media would talk about,” he said. “But because no one ever wants to give me credit, no one is talking about these Historic Numbers.”

“The FAKE NEWS and DUMOCRATS hate these reports, and these Record Setting Numbers,” he added. “They hate the TRUTH, and they hate the Great Success that our Country is having. Just look at the Numbers — THE BEST IN HISTORY.”

Comments like these expose the impossible task news outlets would face in trying to appease the president. Trump’s complaints are, at bottom, not actually about the disclosure of classified information, or the use of anonymous sources, or any other question of media ethics that could be plausibly applied in an even-handed fashion.

His actual concern is quite straightforward: The president does not support free speech that is critical of him or his administration, he wants every outlet to mimic the treatment he receives from his most zealous supporters at Fox, and he has no regard for the First Amendment’s protections for journalists who violate that standard. Any attempt to reckon with his administration’s treatment of reporters that does not reckon with those facts is doomed.

Trump Constantly Accuses Mainstream Outlets Of 'Treasonous' News Coverage

President Donald Trump, in a Truth Social post published shortly before midnight on Tuesday, declared reporters at news outlets that produce reporting critical of his administration as “treasonous.”

Trump, in his rambling and confused message, expressed dismay that CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and other unnamed “SLEAZEBAGS” had been present to cover his Tuesday appearance at the United Nations General Assembly after he banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House on Friday. He added of Collins: “She’s got a ‘TRUMP’ addiction, and so does CNN and MSDNC [MSNOW]. They’re all sick, treasonous, and demented!”

The post marked at least the third time this month, and the ninth time since March, that Trump had accused news outlets of “treasonous” reporting, according to a Media Matters review of his statements on social media and transcripts of his public events compiled by Roll Call’s Factba.se. The president also said news outlets had nearly or almost committed treason on four additional occasions during his second term, though since May he has transitioned to making outright accusations.

Treason is “the only crime expressly defined by the Constitution,” which limits such charges to “levying war” against the United States or “in adhering to [its] enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and the Supreme Court has narrowly interpreted that definition. Trump has nonetheless declared that a slew of figures — from Democratic congressional leaders like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to leakers within his administration to critics of AI to members of the group that filed suit to block his construction of a White House ballroom — have committed treason by defying his will.

But his frequent claims that news outlets are committing treason by publishing reports he doesn’t like are particularly worrisome and fit into a larger war on the press in which his administration has used state power to punish journalists for their work. The Justice Department, for example, argued in a Tuesday night court filing that the president’s banning of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House is justified because the outlets’ reporting on stories related to the Iran war and the ballroom “have threatened national security.”

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On Wednesday evening, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to “return, reinstate, and restore” the reporters' credentials while litigation proceeds. But journalists from those outlets were denied access again on Thursday morning.]

In December, Trump responded to reporting on his apparent physical decline by calling it “seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.’” That was the first example we found of the president linking reporting with treason since his return to the White House.

But Trump’s treason accusations really picked up after the war he launched against Iran on February 28 began to falter. Since then, Trump has accused CNN, MS NOW, ABC, NBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times of treason, singling out CNN’s Collins and Times reporter David Sanger in particular. He has specifically described it as “treasonous” to report that the Iran war has left Iran in a strengthened position, that it has reduced U.S. munitions stockpiles to a critical level, and that he is displeased with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The best case scenario is that the president of the United States is an addled old man who is impotently lashing out at his critics as his administration collapses around him. Possible alternative explanations — that Trump is encouraging his pliant Justice Department appointees to actually file charges against reporters, or his followers to take matters into their own hands — are more sinister.

Here’s a list of examples of the president’s treason rhetoric.

September 22, 2026: CNN, MS NOW are “sick, treasonous, and demented!” [Truth Social]

September 3, 2026: “For the treasonous SCUM that refuses to accurately report on our Military Operation in Iran…” [Truth Social]

September 3, 2026: “Media Outlets that keep harping on the fact that we have no ammunition … are actually treasonous.” [Truth Social]

August 6, 2026: “I really believe” The Washington Post’s “fake ‘reporting’” that Trump is displeased with Hegseth “is treasonous!” [Truth Social]

July 13, 2026: “I actually think it’s treasonous” that The New York Times reported Iran is “stronger today than they were four months ago.” [Interview, Fox News’ Fox & Friends]

July 13, 2026: “The fake news would rather see us lose the war than win the war, which is really treasonous, which is really treasonous in a certain way.” [Remarks]

June 21, 2026: The Times’ Iran coverage “is, in my opinion, ‘TREASONOUS.’” [Truth Social]

May 15, 2026: Trump tells Times reporter Sanger, “I actually think it's sort of treasonous what you write” about Iran, “I actually think it’s treason when you write, like, ‘They’re doing well militarily.’” [Press gaggle]

May 12, 2026: “When the Fake News says that the Iranian enemy is doing well, Militarily, against us, it’s virtual TREASON…” [Truth Social]

April 12, 2026: “CNN, The New York Times, ABC fake news, NBC fake news … they report things that they know are false. It's almost treasonous, actually.” [Interview, Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures]

March 27, 2026: “If you read the Times, you think we’re doing poorly [in Iran]. It’s so — It’s almost treasonous.” [Remarks]

March 15, 2026: “The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!” [Truth Social]

December 9, 2025: “I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.’” [Truth Social]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Fox News Hides Contributor Karl Rove's Column Warning Against GOP Bigotry

Fox News contributor Karl Rove sounded the alarm about a rising tide of racism and antisemitism within the Republican Party in his Tuesday column for The Wall Street Journal. But while CNN and MS NOW have both covered Rove’s warning, the network where he has worked since 2008 has not mentioned it.

Rove, who masterminded George W. Bush’s campaigns for Texas governor and president and served in his White House before joining Fox, wrote on Tuesday that he planned to “vote for only the second Democrat in my life” rather than support Republican nominee Bo French’s campaign for Texas Railroad Commission.

Rove pointed to the “raw, uncut bigotry” displayed in the racist social media post French authored Sunday about students at the University of Texas, as well as other “bigoted comments” French had made. But Rove also extended his argument well beyond French, writing that “the GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches—and not only in Texas.”

He continued:

Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a “heritage America” composed of white descendants of the original European settlers. There are “just asking questions” Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won’t differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots.

Rove is correct that the GOP has what New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie describes as a “neo-Nazi problem.” And his message is essential for the viewers of Fox, whose stars played a key role in mainstreaming white nationalist ideas once relegated to the fringe of American politics.

But while Rove’s column drew attention from his employer’s mainstream competitors — garnering about 15 minutes of coverage on MS NOW and four minutes on CNN as of 1 p.m. ET on Thursday — his colleagues at Fox have not mentioned it, and he hasn’t been hosted on its airwaves since its publication, according to a Media Matters review.

Indeed, Fox has not mentioned French a single time since his social media post. Meanwhile, others on the right like Benny Johnson and Jack Posobiec have filled the vacuum by defending the Texas candidate.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Fox News Covers Russian Oligarch Bankrolling Trump Jr Wedding -- For One Minute

Fox News devoted a grand total of one minute of airtime to Monday's bombshell report that a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the lavish Bahamas wedding of Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. The coverage came entirely in a single segment framed around the response to the story from Trump Jr.’s wife, Bettina.

The “lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands” to celebrate Trump Jr.’s May wedding “was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin,” who attended the exclusive event, according to ProPublica. It further reported:

Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

The September 14 article went on to detail the incredible nature of this naked corruption. “Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family,” the article stated. “For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term.”

Fox hosts and anchors once treated significantly more tangential ties between foreign businessmen and a president’s son as of vital importance. They flooded the airwaves with overwrought attacks on Hunter Biden when such claims could be used to damage Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy and then presidency. But such coverage has vanished since Trump returned to office and he and his family began profiting off the presidency on a massive scale.

Network star Sean Hannity, who accused the “Biden Crime Family” of masterminding “potentially the biggest bribery, money laundering scandal in American history,” had nothing to say about the ProPublica report during his Fox show on Monday. Nor did his “opinion side” colleagues Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham, and Greg Gutfeld; or the co-hosts of Fox & Friends; or “news side” anchors Martha MacCallum, John Roberts, or Dana Perino.

Indeed, the only Fox News program to mention the story at all on Monday was Special Report, which offered a single superficial account from correspondent Lucas Tomlinson that leaned heavily on the response to the story from Bettina Trump.

“Lucas, another story, there was a report about Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding back in May, and questions about foreign influence as a Russian businessman with close ties to Vladimir Putin helped pay for the celebration in the Bahamas,” anchor Bret Baier said at the end of a package on AI.

He then asked Tomlinson, “Has there been a response from the White House or the newlyweds?”

Tomlinson replied:

There has, Bret. In a new post on Instagram, Bettina Trump says the party was planned well in advance of the wedding and was never intended to be a wedding weekend. She thanked her friend Umar Kremlev, who made a fortune in Russian-backed gambling and commercial businesses. He's sanctioned by Ukraine, and he reportedly spent hundreds of billion — millions of dollars — hundreds of thousands of dollars on the two-night wedding celebration in the Bahamas. And Bettina put out, quote, “Friendship doesn't require a political motive. Generosity doesn't automatically come with an agenda, and sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding gift.” And the White House referred us to this post, Bret.

“OK, Lucas Tomlinson at the White House,” Baier concluded.

And that was it from Baier, who once said the press had an obligation to scrutinize the Trump family’s business dealings but whose program has largely looked away from the myriad financial conflicts that emerged over the course of the president’s second term.

Update (9/16/26): Special Report provided an additional 2 minutes of coverage on Tuesday about a Russian oligarch bankrolling Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding. Bret Baier asked correspondent Aishah Hasnie for an update on the story and later noted in a panel segment that “there would have been a lot of coverage of this” if it involved the son of a Democratic president. After Axios reporter Stef Kight said that “we are not hearing anything from Republicans” about a “very similar situation,” Baier commented: “Well, we want to cover it, cover it all.”

No other Fox show mentioned the story on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Watters Pushed Reflecting Pool “Vandals” Story, But Now Conceals Humiliating Truth

Fox News host Jesse Watters’ coverage of the alleged vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool provides a useful case study in how the network’s MAGA stars respond to the collapse of their narratives.

Watters was a furious defender of President Donald Trump’s claims that vandals defaced the Reflecting Pool, then dropped the story completely rather than admit to his Fox audience that those claims were debunked. He still hasn't discussed the fact that prosecutors dropped charges and acknowledged that the damage resulted from “a botched installation and not vandalism,” or that the contractor has reportedly admitted fault.

Trump made renovating the pool an administration priority as he sought to beautify Washington, D.C., for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July. But when the $14.7 million paint job Trump had ordered deteriorated just weeks after the pool was refilled, the president blamed “Deranged Vandals” for sabotaging his efforts by supposedly slashing the pool liner.

Watters emerged as the most strident supporter of Trump’s vandalism claims. While others in the MAGA commentariat seemed conspicuously uninterested in promoting the president’s narrative, Watters repeatedly portrayed the supposed vandals as America-hating leftists bent on destroying the country.

The Fox host scrutinized “tapes” of the purported vandalism he said had been provided by the Department of Interior, cited an anonymous official “confirming someone cut the liner,” and highlighted the Democratic donations and legal representation of David Hearn when the former Olympic canoeist was arrested after sticking his hands in the pool.

And so it was no coincidence that when the office of Jeanine Pirro, Watters’ former colleague at The Five who now serves as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, secured felony charges against Hearn, she went on Watters’ show to take a bow.

“Fox News Alert: I hope Democrats enjoyed their little pool party, because Judge Jeanine just shut it down,” Watters said at the top of their July 2 segment. Trump “was fed up watching his new Reflecting Pool get savaged, so he sent his favorite attack dog to bite back — and she came armed with an indictment.”

“A lot of people, when this first happened with the pool, didn't believe the president that there was vandalism,” Watters told Pirro after that inadvertently revelatory introduction. “That's not the case.”

“Yes, it is not the case at all,” Pirro replied. “In fact, I was at the Reflecting Pool yesterday. There not only is a vandalism that is reflected in today's indictment, but there is a cutting of the liner of the pool, at the base of the pool for several yards across the pool.”

Pirro went on to claim that “someone was intent on doing incredible damage to the pool” and that those supposed vandals “are going to be made accountable, and in D.C. they will be.”

“I’m sure they will be,” Watters replied.

Watters has not returned to the Reflecting Pool story since that interview, according to a Media Matters review of the Nexis transcript database. (Charles Hurt, Watters' guest host on August 14, aired a correspondent segment that mentioned the DOJ had dropped charges in the case.)

He ignored the bombshell July 31 filing from Pirro’s office dropping charges against Hearn, citing new evidence “showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.” The motion to dismiss cites documents showing the damage “was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (‘AIC’), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”

Nor did he explain to his viewers that Trump subsequently posted that he disagreed “100%” with Pirro; publicly maligned her in the Oval Office; and reportedly considered removing her until she made a high-profile trip to the White House to explain herself.

Friday’s revelation from The New York Times that government documents show that the pool’s contractor “has told the Trump administration that errors in its own work and flaws in the repair plan, not vandalism, caused the pool’s new blue liner to peel and break loose,” went similarly unaddressed by Watters.

The smear got plenty of airtime — its repudiation got basically none. That’s how MAGA media operate as they attack Democrats and progressives in service of Trump.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

At GOP Midterm Fest, JD Vance Echoed Tucker Carlson’s Anti-Immigrant Slurs

Vice President JD Vance used his keynote address to the GOP’s midterm convention to echo one of Tucker Carlson’s most infamous statements, just one week after publicly refusing to distance himself from the right-wing podcaster.

“Two years ago, we have to remember — our nation, ladies and gentlemen, was tired,” Vance told the attendees in Dallas on Thursday night. After citing factory closures and drug overdoses, he continued: “We were tired of seeing the cartels and the criminals given free rein over our great country. And we were tired of being called racist for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous.“

Who was “called racist” for suggesting “our country was becoming dirtier and poorer”? That would be Carlson, who declared that immigrants were the cause.

“Our leaders demand that you shut up and accept this,” Carlson told his Fox News audience during a December 2018 monologue. “We have a moral obligation to admit the world's poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided. Immigration is a form of atonement.” He then aired footage of what he described as “an endless chain of migrant caravans” in Mexico.

Carlson’s statement that immigrants make the United States “poorer” is incorrect, and his claim that they make it “dirtier” was widely recognized as bigoted. More than two dozen companies dropped their ads on his show in response.

But Carlson refused to back down, repeatedly offering similar remarks and using his Fox show to mainstream other white nationalist tropes and talking points. And a few years later, an enterprising would-be GOP politician adopted the host’s language in a successful effort to win his favor.

On July 1, 2021 — the same day he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate — Vance went on Carlson’s Fox program and told the host that he was running to ensure that his kids “live in the same great country that I lived in. And if we don't do something, if we don't fight back against what's going on in our country, they're going to lose it, they're going to grow up in a country that's much poorer, that's much dirtier, that's much uglier, and where they can't even speak their mind as citizens.”

Carlson fawned over Vance throughout the interview. “I probably shouldn't say this, I'm really glad you're doing it,” he said at its conclusion. “I admire you and I wish you luck, very much. Thank you for doing this. Congratulations.”

Vance would continue to mimic Carlson’s rhetoric on the host’s show, and Carlson in turn backed his Senate campaign on-air — and used his personal relationship with Donald Trump to convince Trump to endorse Vance. Two years later, he helped convince Trump to select Vance as his 2024 running mate.

Since then, Carlson has dived even further into the right-wing fever swamps. He became the nation’s most prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorist; declared that “the defining fact of our lives is that whites around the world are being eliminated”; warned frequently of the influence of “demons”; and hosted a notorious white nationalist and a Nazi apologist for friendly interviews. That last point has triggered calls on the right for Vance to disavow or distance himself from the man who helped cement his political career.

But instead, Vance used a September 3 White House press briefing to portray Carlson as merely a “friend” with whom he sometimes has “political disagreements,” and to attack his critics as un-American.

And last night, Vance gave a wink and a nod to Carlson and his audience on the biggest stage available to him.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Fox News Presents GOP Midterm Convention As A Very Special Episode Of 'Hannity'

“‘The vibes are very bad’ in Texas” was the headline of Politico Playbook’s dispatch from Dallas, where the GOP’s “Trump-a-palooza” midterm convention had Republican attendees fearing “what could transpire on the stage — and what it might mean for lawmakers back home.”

But let not your heart be troubled, Fox News had the solution on hand — more Sean Hannity.

The Fox brass has decided to give its 10 p.m. timeslot during the convention to the network figure closest to President Donald Trump, “to make sure all the key speeches and anti-Dem video montages are seen,” CNN’s Brian Stelter reported Wednesday. That’s a shift from its coverage of the 2024 Republican National Convention, when Fox assigned chief political anchor Bret Baier and The Story’s Martha MacCallum to host a nightly special featuring a panel of the network’s political contributors

Hannity’s selection was a clear signal that Fox aimed to produce a GOP infomercial, and was functionally equivalent to simply letting the Republican National Committee program the coverage. Hannity is a confidant and adviser to Trump who uses his show to propagandize on the president’s behalf. Over the years, the host has appeared in a Trump campaign video; spoken at a Trump rally; scripted a Trump campaign ad; served as a White House back channel; sought, received, and carried out marching orders from the Trump White House about what to say on Election Day 2020; and strategized with Trump family members and White House aides.

Hannity and colleagues try to manifest a GOP vibe shift

On the eve of the midterm convention start, Hannity and his colleagues were trying to raise Republican spirits by sheer force of will, highlighting Trump’s purported successes and warning of dire consequences if Democrats muster election victories.

Hannity opened his Fox primetime show on Tuesday with a segment on the convention, promising viewers that “we will be there” and urging them not to read anything into the numerous Republican candidates in tough races who aren’t appearing at the event. He assured the audience that he “was able to get confirmation” that the candidates attending “were invited and they're the most competitive races in the country. … Not every Republican that's running for office was invited.”

He went on to give viewers a pep talk, urging them to “take nothing for granted” because “the stakes have never been higher during a midterm election” and instructing Republican candidates to “treat every single day with the proper amount of urgency.”

Hannity reeled off a list of “promises made, promises kept by President Trump and his Republican allies,” which he contrasted to “what the radical socialist Democratic Party is now offering the country. They want to completely upend our way of life. They want to strip you of your very humanity. If they get their way, you — you will have domain over nothing. Not even your own family.”

“In 56 days, this November, the choice will be very simple,” he concluded. “You can vote for Democrats who believe America is fundamentally evil and want to humble and humiliate the American people, or you can vote for liberty, freedom Republicans, albeit many Republicans, far from perfect, but they're not DSA members. And by the way, they believe in lifting everybody up through the concepts of liberty and freedom and safety and security and opportunity.”

Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters similarly touted Trump’s leadership and emphasized that the midterm elections will be a referendum on his performance on their Tuesday broadcasts.

“Tomorrow in Dallas, Republicans kick off that first-ever midterm convention, and gavel to gavel, the Angle will be there,” Ingraham said. “We'll broadcast live from the American Airlines Center. Cannot wait. President Trump will headline both nights. Now, what's the goal? To fire up the base with his vision, the Republican vision for continued economic growth and rigorous border enforcement.”

While she spoke, on-screen text read, “History in the making in Dallas.”

Ingraham later claimed that “we always take these polls with a grain of salt … I mean, at this point, you don't even know what's what with the polls, but there does seem to be some pro-GOP movement in some of these polls, especially the ones that came out today.”

Watters launched his own broadcast with fulsome praise for the convention and the president at the top of his show the following hour.

“We're less than 24 hours from Trump-a-palooza where the Republicans are going to hold their first ever midterm convention right in the heart of Texas,” he said. “President Trump will be there, so will JD Vance, Bobby Kennedy, and a long list of big-name Republicans. The goal of the convention: You make this election between communism and common sense, and the commies are making it too easy.”

Watters then offered a paean to what he portrayed as a laundry list of Trump accomplishments — over a chyron that read, “Republicans have a record to show off.” The host’s litany included that “jobs market has never been hotter for people with just a high school diploma”; “people took home big refund checks and realized if you start a family and open Trump accounts, your children will retire as millionaires”; “we just captured the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela”; “the border sealed, crime all-time low, and doctors aren't giving sex change surgeries to kids anymore”; and “MAHA is cleansing what we eat.”

He went on to praise the Iran war, saying, “Republicans will have to tackle high gas prices but they'll argue that President Trump stopped Iran from nuking up, killed the ayatollah, took out the world's No. 1 state sponsor of terror, and our Navy in the strait [is] bringing prices down.”

“So the election is going to come down to Republican results and whether voters are going to buy what Democrats are selling,” Watters concluded. “They have no record to run on, no new ideas, just a mix of TDS with a whiff of communism. Republicans have to lock in these gains because there's a lot at stake.”

Watters and his Fox colleagues will be doing everything they can over the next few days — and weeks, and months — to ensure that happens.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

JD Vance's Wildly Disingenous Defense Of His Alliance With Antisemitic Carlson

Vice President JD Vance responded on Thursday to critics of his close relationship with Tucker Carlson by dodging their actual concerns with Carlson’s promotion of antisemitism and smearing them as anti-American. His handwaving portrayal of the right-wing podcaster as merely a buddy elides Carlson’s actual role as one of the architects of the vice president’s political career.

Vance’s Carlson ties were back under the microscope this week after he dodged a question about the right-wing podcaster platforming antisemites during a Monday night Q&A at the summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Pressed on the point at a White House briefing on Thursday, Vance dissembled — while wrapping himself in the flag. He called Carlson a “friend,” said he disagreed with Carlson’s criticism of President Donald Trump — then pivoted, saying it was “a travesty” that “in the United States of America, we let political disagreements define who our friends are going to be and not going to be.”

“Tucker is a friend, despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things, and I’m not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them,” the vice president said.

“I think that is a terrible place for the United States to go, and if you have a disagreement with somebody politically, even over a deeply-held issue, you should still be friends with that person, because the whole republic depends on people of different perspectives being able to talk to one another,” he continued. “That’s how I try to live my life.”

This is wildly disingenuous.

No one cares if Vance and Carlson spend their days palling around at the podcaster’s Maine home, chomping on his nicotine pouches, wearing matching flannel shirts, and pretending to be woodsy.

The reason their relationship matters is that Carlson has been a key cog in Vance’s political machine who was essential to his electoral rise — while generating numerous firestorms over the years due to his promotion of white nationalist talking points and willingness to grant friendly interviews to notorious antisemites and Nazi apologists.

Vance used dozens of appearances on Carlson’s Fox show beginning in 2018 to shapeshift from an elite favorite who privately compared Trump to Hitler to a MAGA culture warrior in the host’s own image.

The then-Fox host endorsed Vance’s 2022 Senate campaign on-air. “Occasionally, you run into somebody who could actually change things,” he told viewers on the eve of the Ohio primary. “That would be J.D. Vance.”

Carlson repeatedly used his then-close relationship with Trump to bolster Vance’s career, successfully lobbying Trump to endorse Vance’s Senate campaign and then select him as his 2024 running mate. Carlson spoke at the Republican National Convention that year, then Vance joined him on his own political tour.

And while Vance preps for a 2028 presidential run that Carlson seems almost certain to support, the podcaster has been saying things like, “The defining fact of our lives is that whites around the world are being eliminated,” and attributing “the rage of the neocons” to “demonic influence.”

The public deserves a more complete accounting of precisely where the vice president’s “disagreements” with Carlson lie.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Fox News Investigates: What 'Yard Line' Has US Reached In Trump's Iran War?

As Donald Trump’s war against Iran stagnated into a stalemate and strategic defeat, hawkish Fox News personalities who urged the president to attack in the first place have repeatedly used a football metaphor to emphasize how close the U.S. was to some nebulous victory.

Trump and his Fox allies began predicting an imminent end to the Iran war just days after the start of the U.S. bombing campaign. But four weeks into the war, the Iranian regime was intact and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz threatened global trade in energy and fertilizer, rattling even some of the president’s allies.

Fox contributor Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, and Fox senior strategic analyst Jack Keane, a retired Army general — both avid Iran hawks whose commentary on the subject reportedly influenced Trump’s thinking — responded by stressing that the U.S. was “on the 20-yard line” and “in a red zone.”

“After three weeks of operations, we’ve got them at the 20-yard line, but you’ve got to get into the end zone to score,” Thiessen said during a March 26 interview on Fox & Friends. “The question is how do we finish those last 20 yards? The last 20 yards are the hardest. What’s left — all the easy targets have been hit. What’s left is the hardened targets, the hidden targets, the deeply buried stuff. We are dismantling that. We have a plan to do that.”

Thiessen repeatedly claimed over the following months that the U.S. remained at the “20-yard line” but could score whenever it mustered the will to do so, before conceding last month that he was “willing to live with” stopping in that position because Trump had gone “80 yards better than any president before him.” His Fox colleagues and their guests, meanwhile, more hopefully claimed that the U.S. was even closer to victory — and abruptly dropped the metaphor over the summer as the war settled into a quagmire.

March 27. “I try to describe it in a football analogy,” Keane explained on Fox & Friends. “You know, we’re in the red zone here, we’re on the 20-yard line, trying to get to the goal line, and the opposition is putting as much impediments in because they can see how close we are to attaining our objectives.”
April 1. The late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), discussing a speech in which Trump said the war was “nearing completion,” told Fox’s Sean Hannity: “We’re inside the 10-yard line, and he’s telling Iran how this movie ends.”
April 21. “I still agree with the general though — Gen. Jack Keane — is, we’re on the 5-yard line right now,” Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones said on the show.
April 22. Jones again cited Keane the following day, saying, “We’re on the 5-yard line right now.” His co-host Ainsley Earhardt responded: “We’ve continuously heard that we’re on the 5-yard line. We’ve got to finish, we’ve got to make that touchdown, and we’ve got to bleed them dry, and that’s what President Trump is doing.”
May 11. “There is no doubt in my mind, taking out the ayatollah, a lot of their leadership, has put us in a better position,” said Jones. “Are we on the 5-yard line? Of course, but the president had to take this action.”
June 9. Thiessen, responding on America Reports to Iran downing a U.S. helicopter, said Trump should “finish Operation Epic Fury, which was stopped at about the 20-yard line, take it into the finish line, announce that you've achieved your objectives. Then once they have been disarmed of all that capability, open up the strait by force and over time hand it off to an international coalition, and then arm the Iranian people to take down this regime.”
June 10. On Special Report the following night, Thiessen defended Trump’s frequent claims that a deal with Iran was imminent by saying, “He doesn’t need a deal. … He was at the 5-yard line, we have to hit the targets.”
June 11. The Five co-host Dana Perino commented, “It feels like we’ve been in this doom loop on the 1-yard line for three months, and I hope that that is true.”
July 8. Jones said on Fox & Friends that “from a military standpoint, we’re still on the 5-yard line.”
July 21. Thiessen, asked on Special Report how the war could end, said: “We stopped the fighting and the ceasefire on the 20-yard line, we take it into the end zone. We have about 14 days of combat where we have to take out all the targets that we have available. We took out 85% of their defense industrial base, we take out 95% of it, we set back all their programs, and we further entomb the nuclear dust. Then we stop major combat operations, we impose the blockade, we open up the Strait of Hormuz, and then we go and we help the Iranian people overthrow the regime.”
July 25, July 29, July 30. Thiessen reiterated his July 21 remarks claiming the U.S. campaign was “on the 20-yard line” before the ceasefire on multiple Fox shows.
August 4. On The Story, Thiessen credited Trump with “huge accomplishments” in Iran but added: “We have to acknowledge that when we had the ceasefire in April, we stopped at the 20-yard line. … If it turns out that we are only going to go to the 20-yard line, I'm willing to live with that. You know, it's 80 yards better than any president before him and it's a huge accomplishment, but we have this opportunity here to irreversibly change the course of the Middle East sitting right here for the president to seize.”

The war reached the six-month mark on August 28, having “deteriorated into a quagmire of the president’s own making with no clear goals, no obvious strategy and no end in sight,” while senior U.S. military leaders warn that “prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Fox News Did One Thing Right, And Hegseth Has Shunned Network Ever Since

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy, while anchoring The Sunday Briefing on October 5, 2025, aired a lengthy interview he had conducted the previous day with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the sidelines of the Navy-Air Force football game. Hegseth, who was plucked by President Donald Trump from the cast of Fox & Friends' weekend edition to serve as the Pentagon’s leader, hasn’t returned to the network since.

Over that 11-month period, Trump and Hegseth embroiled the U.S. military in an open-ended war with Iran; the U.S. military continued to carry out their policy of illegally bombing purported drug cartel boats at sea and oversaw a regime change in Venezuela; and the defense secretary repeatedly came under fire for purging the top ranks of the armed forces.

Hegseth’s disappearance from Fox is notable as he initially remained a fixture on the network’s airwaves — his interview with Doocy marked Hegseth’s 24th Fox interview since he was sworn in on January 25, 2025, according to a Media Matters review. And while the defense secretary maintains an antagonistic relationship with the press, he has not abandoned media appearances since his most recent Fox hit, sitting down with CBS News for interviews in January and June.

It’s unclear why Hegseth has not appeared on Fox since October 5 of last year — but the timing is conspicuous. Just days after that interview, Fox became one of numerous outlets to condemn the defense secretary’s stringent new restrictions on Pentagon reporters.

When Doocy asked Hegseth during the interview about “leaks coming out the Pentagon,” the defense secretary not only decried the leakers but said journalists were “disgusting” for attempting to “solicit things like that.” (Pentagon reporters quickly disputed Hegseth’s claims about their methods on social media.)

He went on to tease the newly proposed press restrictions, which included requiring credentialed journalists “to sign a pledge to refrain from reporting information that has not been authorized for release — including unclassified information.”

“We're setting clear rules at the Pentagon,” he told Doocy. “We're not playing games. We're not allowing everybody to roam around the building.”

“Yes, you can be in the press area, briefing room, but if you want to move around the building, you're going to have a badge,” he explained. “It's going to be clear. You're going to be escorted when you do so. We have the expectation that you're not soliciting classified or sensitive information.”

“The Pentagon press corps can squeal all they want, we're taking these things seriously,” he added. “They can report, they just need to make sure they're following rules.”

The Pentagon Press Association's efforts to negotiate over the restrictions failed, and Fox joined every major news organization as well as some right-wing outlets like Newsmax in publicly refusing to sign the new access rules.

Fox, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News issued the following joint statement on October 14, 2025 — nine days after Hegseth’s final Fox interview aired:

Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.

Fox chief political anchor Bret Baier read the statement on Special Report that night. His guest, Fox senior strategic analyst Jack Keane, a retired general who served as U.S. Army vice chief of staff, then laid into both the restrictions and the Pentagon’s motives.

“What they're really doing, they want to spoon feed information to the journalists, and that will be their story,” Keane said. “That's not journalism. Journalism is going out and finding the story and getting all the facts to support it. And that no one's going to walk in and bang on a door of a four star general or or senior civilian policy leader in the Pentagon.”

Keane went on to say that when he served at the Pentagon, he always saw the press as “your conduit to the American people,” adding: “Were there times when stories were done that make me flinch a little bit? Yeah. But that's usually because we had done something that wasn't as good as we should have done it.”

“Well, we're all standing in solidarity — almost all of us — and we hope that changes,” Baier replied.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

JD Vance Refuses To Condemn Antisemitism Voiced By Crony Carlson

Vice President JD Vance put his relationship with Tucker Carlson back in the spotlight this week when he was asked about the right-wing podcaster’s history of promoting antisemites at a meeting of Jewish Republicans and refused to condemn his longtime political ally.

“Vance was asked during the fireside chat about right-wing podcasters who have platformed antisemites, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson,” The Washington Post reported of his appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s summit on Monday night. “He declined to criticize Carlson specifically, instead training his fire on podcaster Nick Fuentes, who Vance said ‘really does hate Jews.’”

Carlson spent the last decade diving deeper and deeper into the far-right fever swamp, drawing plaudits from white nationalists for bringing their bigoted talking points and conspiracy theories like the “great replacement” to his then-platform at Fox News. (As Andrew Anglin, a neo-Nazi, put it in 2016: “Tucker Carlson is literally our greatest ally. I don’t believe that he doesn’t hate the Jews.”) He also became a GOP kingmaker, helping shape the party’s platform and pick its candidates, and received a plum speaking slot to endorse Donald Trump at the 2024 Republican National Committee.

But Carlson’s star has dimmed somewhat since Trump’s reelection. His rhetoric has become ever more bizarre and bigoted (he said earlier this year that “the defining fact of our lives is that whites around the world are being eliminated” and previously suggested Jewish university donors were behind the “white genocide”). His softball interview with Fuentes last year drew condemnations from fellow right-wingers and drove a media and political firestorm. And he had a falling out with Trump over the Iran war and his sense that the administration has been less fascistic than he expected. Carlson recently called for Trump’s removal from office, while the president posted that the podcaster “is a loser, and always has been!”

Fuentes is, as Vance alluded, a notorious white nationalist whose long trail of noxious commentary includes claiming that “Jews are running society” and “are money changers, bullshit artists, psychopaths, charlatans, grifters, manipulators”; explicitly describing “the Jews” as among “our actual enemies”; saying the Holocaust is “fake”; and proposing the identification and arrest of all members of “American Jewry.” And Vance has been happy to condemn Fuentes in the past, saying during the 2024 presidential campaign, “I think the guy's a total loser. Certainly I disavow him.”

But Fuentes’ star continued to rise after Trump’s reelection in no small part due to the willingness of Carlson to promote him. The former Fox host offered up his platform to Fuentes for an interview that Fuentes himself described as “so friendly” (even as he excoriated the host for being merely “antisemite-light”).

So why did Vance pass — yet again — when the opportunity to condemn Carlson was handed to him on a silver platter? Perhaps because the vice president owes the former Fox host for his political success.

Vance underwent a dramatic transformation as he entered the political arena, using dozens of appearances on Carlson’s show beginning in 2017 to rebrand himself from an elite favorite to a populist culture warrior in the vein of the host himself. Carlson, in turn, lavished Vance with praise, and privately lobbied Trump to endorse Vance’s campaign for the U.S. Senate and, two years later, pick him as his running mate.

It’s unclear, at this point, how close Vance and Carlson remain.

In a May interview with The New York Times, Carlson repeatedly refused to divulge when he last spoke to the vice president, saying, “I don’t want to cause him more problems.”

“I couldn't be a bigger fan of him as a man,” he later added.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Fox Hosts Are Talking Nonstop About WNBA 'Drama' But Can't Explain Why

Fox News stars are struggling to defend the obscene volume of coverage their programs have been devoting to culture war stories about the WNBA.

Fox dedicated 206 segments and more than 13.5 hours of airtime to WNBA coverage from June 25 through August 11, typically demagoguing issues related to race and trans inclusion in the women’s basketball league, a Media Matters study found. Such content, which has by no means abated since August 11, is likely more palatable and less depressing for its viewers than the deterioration of President Donald Trump’s Iran war or the GOP’s dwindling prospects in the midterm elections.

The co-hosts of Fox & Friends stressed the necessity of such seemingly endless coverage on Tuesday morning, portraying themselves as having their hands forced by the league’s actions.

“Let's talk about the WNBA because it's been seven minutes and I think we should be talking about that league,” Brian Kilmeade said, teeing up a segment about the Sunday ejection of Enes Kanter Freedom from a WNBA game after his courtside stunt provoked an altercation with Chicago Sky guard Natasha Cloud.

“I cannot believe how much we are talking about the WNBA, but having said that,” Kilmeade added.

“It’s not about the basketball at all, it’s all about the other drama,” Lawrence Jones replied.

After the hosts spent several minutes discussing the “drama,” Jones closed the segment by blaming the WNBA for the hosts’ decisions to cover the Freedom controversy instead of the league’s on-court play.

“The whole thing is ridiculous that we are to this point,” Jones said. “Like, [Indiana Fever star] Caitlin [Clark] gets 30 points the other night. This would be something that we would be talking about, like, that's historic … but instead we are talking about drama. And that’s not a league that is going to be taken seriously. You never talk about this sideline stuff in the NBA, and you just want to see a good game, and they are destroying it, they are destroying the league.”

Fox & Friends has featured discussions of the league on at least 14 of its 17 episodes this month, according to a Media Matters review.

The discussion of the network’s coverage by the Fox & Friends cohosts echoes similar remarks from America’s Newsroom anchor Dana Perino, who noted Monday that “we are talking about the WNBA in this way three to four times a week amongst all the other problems in the world,” and questioned whether the “controversy” is “helping or hurting the league.”

Fox News primetime host Jesse Watters, meanwhile, expressed exasperation during an August 3 WNBA segment on the panel show The Five, complaining: “I don’t want to cover women’s basketball. … We have to do this again, really?”

The Five subsequently covered the WNBA on four more episodes through Monday, when co-host Perino declared: “They are proving that women shouldn't have a league. It's too dramatic. Why can't you just play?”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Trump's War On Press Has Intensified Since Speech At Correspondents Dinner

One month ago, the White House Correspondents Association gathered for its annual “dinner that celebrates the First Amendment” with President Donald Trump.

Journalists assembled in Washington, D.C., sat impotently as the president delivered remarks that mixed empty platitudes about his “respect for your profession” with withering insults directed at individual reporters. The evening “was a public humiliation for the White House Correspondents’ Association” that “left the association looking naïve about its decision to invite the man who has spent years using both his personal and government means to wage war against the free press and its ability to report on his actions,” Status’ Jon Passantino wrote.

Trump’s behavior was extremely predictable given his long record of vitriolic attacks on journalists and news outlets — not to mention his administration’s frequent use of state power to try to cudgel them into line. And the president’s long war on free speech and the free press has continued without pause since he broke bread with reporters at the Waldorf Astoria on July 24.

Since then:

The Washington Post reported that Trump secretly left the old Air Force One jumbo jet on the tarmac in Turkey last month and used an alternate military transport to fly to Britain in response to an Iranian assassination threat, effectively turning into a “decoy” the plane that carried top aides — and the unwitting press corps. The WHCA subsequently asked the Trump administration to “work with us on a protocol for handling extraordinary security circumstances in the future.”
Disney and ABC sued the Federal Communications Commission, saying it violated the First Amendment with its pretextual and retaliatory decision to order an unprecedented early review of Disney’s eight ABC station licenses. The FCC’s move came the day after Trump, who has frequently called for networks to lose their stations over coverage he dislikes, demanded that Disney and ABC “immediately fire” Jimmy Kimmel over a joke the late night host told on his ABC show.
Trump’s personal lawyers threatened a $5 billion lawsuit against the Center for American Progress if the progressive think tank did not withdraw its report which found “no evidence that National Guard deployments have reduced violent crime.”
The Defense Department fired the editor in chief and publisher of Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that covers the U.S. military and is partially funded by the Pentagon but whose editorial independence is enshrined by statute. Erik Slavin, the editor in chief, said in a statement that according to the termination notice he received, “I am being fired for stating in a CBS interview that censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.”

None of this seems likely to convince the WHCA to change course, and it’s unclear what if anything Trump could do to the press that would result in the rescission of his invitation for next year’s dinner.

The organization’s leadership has moved from an employee of one pro-Trump media oligarch to another, with Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for David Ellison’s CBS News, succeeded by Jacqui Heinrich, White House correspondent for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. And Heinrich told New York magazine earlier this month: “This dinner precedes President Trump. It will continue after President Trump. And we will invite the president no matter who the president is every year.”

“I thought it was valuable to have him taking part in a tradition that recognizes the importance of the free press,” Heinrich later added, without addressing who it might benefit or how. “And he’s already said he’s going to come next year. It’s going to be at the Hilton. If they want to complain about it, that’s fine, but it’s happening.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Trump Binkie: Natalie Harp's Rise Began With This Appearance On 'Fox & Friends'

Natalie Harp, who serves as President Donald Trump’s executive secretary, has been at the center of a media firestorm since Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) invoked her name during a speech last Sunday, saying: “And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

While right-wing pundits feigned outrage over the reference to Harp, reporters at mainstream outlets used the opportunity to empty their notebooks on the heretofore little-discussed White House aide. Harp, readers learned, is Trump’s gatekeeper and social media posting partner, someone so zealously committed to the president that she writes him devotional letters and once jumped into the trunk of an SUV to ensure she could accompany him to a courthouse. Trump’s other aides have nicknamed her “the human printer” because part of her job entails printing out articles for him, and she has been termed Trump’s “binkie” by New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, the paper’s longtime Trump beat reporter.

Harp’s story, as with so much of the saga surrounding Trump and his orbit, would have been impossible without Fox News, the MAGA propaganda outlet with a central role in shaping the president’s worldview.

Trump was first introduced to Harp through a June 14, 2019, segment on Fox & Friends, the sycophantic morning show that helped launch his political career. During that segment, the hosts tried to parry then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s promise to “cure cancer” if elected by lifting up Harp, who in a LinkedIn essay had credited the “Right to Try” law Trump signed in May 2018 for saving her life from terminal cancer.

Harp punctuated the interview with praise for the president. “I’m not dying from cancer anymore, thanks to President Trump, I’m living with cancer,” she said. “I’m walking, I’m healthy. I am living the quality of life that I always wanted to have that it took me four years to find because I wasn’t offered it here. It took President Trump going to Washington to be able to get that for me.”

(After Harp repeated these claims during a speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention, The Washington Post reported that experts “point out that Harp’s description of the treatment she received and her timeline for receiving it make it unlikely Trump had any effect on her case”).

“Thank you so much, and happy birthday, President Trump,” Harp interjected at the conclusion of the interview. “He’s hearing you, he’s on in an hour and a half,” co-host Brian Kilmeade replied.

Kilmeade was right: Trump was watching Harp’s interview, and — as he did hundreds of times during his first term via the process I’ve termed the Fox-Trump feedback loop — soon responded on social media to what he had seen on TV.

“Natalie Harp fighting Stage 2 Cancer and doing really well was a GREAT guest on @foxandfriends,” he posted shortly after the segment aired. “Right To Try is producing some truly spectacular results. Proud of Natalie!”

Trump also brought up the “young, beautiful woman” unprompted during his own Fox & Friends interview after Kilmeade mentioned an Esquire report that claimed Trump “hates the job” of president.

“No, I love the job. Well, it’s the fake media. You know, they’re just so fake, you don’t even respond to them anymore,” Trump said. “I love it because I don’t think anybody’s accomplished so much in two and a half years, what we’ve done. You know, I watched Natalie Harp, that young, beautiful woman, who was — they made some kind of a medical mistake a long time ago and she’s lived a tough time. And I watched her. I think she’s one of the best guests you’ve ever had. … Her spirit was so incredible.”

Trump later added, “There’s so many people like Natalie, but I thought she was just an incredible person.”

Less than two weeks later, Trump declared during a speech at the right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference that Harp had “lit up the television screen like very few people I’ve ever seen do it,” before inviting her to join him onstage and tell her story.

From there, Harp would rise through the MAGA ranks. She spent two years as a host for the far-right One America News Network, where she drew attention for her notably obsequious treatment of Trump and her hardcore election denial, before taking a job working for Trump in 2022 and, after his 2024 election, joining his White House.

But as with the careers of numerous Trump administration aides and several of the president’s major initiatives in office, it all started with Trump liking what he saw on Fox.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Hegseth For President? It's A Laughable Idea That Must Be Taken Seriously

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may be contemplating a promotion. His Monday trip to campaign with Republican congressional candidates in Iowa, home of the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, spurred a Washington Post report that the visit is consistent with the belief among “officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking” that he “is considering a run for president or some other political office after his time in the Trump administration is over.”

Hegseth, a bombastic former Fox News weekend host who spent years speaking directly to the Republican base through that MAGA propaganda network, may be uniquely attuned to the right's attention economy. He could become the presidential candidate of the right-wing media’s id, running a furious culture war campaign fixated on domestic political enemies that checks all the boxes for authoritarian-minded pundits indifferent to traditional policy issues.

Anti-Muslim. Hegseth has much to offer the MAGA pundits who casually declare that “Islam is here to kill us and convert us” and call for “using military force to start raiding mosques and removing these people from our country.” At home, he has decried the “Muslims’ birth rates” in multiple states and fearmongered about the success of Muslim political candidates, warning that “Islamists” are trying “to seed the West with as many Muslims as possible.” And abroad, he has written that “just like the Christian crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes in the twelfth century, American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against Islamists today” — then literally overseen U.S. forces bombing Muslims in Iran and Yemen as defense secretary.

Anti-DEI. At Fox, Hegseth was at the forefront of the right’s assault on policy initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, warning that such policies had weakened the military and calling for “a new commander in chief that’s going to get rid of all of this CRT, DEI nonsense, all the gender nonsense.” He’s now put that into practice at the Pentagon, firing or canceling the promotions of numerous Black and female senior officers, overseeing the banning and attempted expulsion of trans service members, and launching a study that seems engineered to ban women from serving in combat roles.

Anti-press. Right-wing media hate the traditional press, and Hegseth, who urged readers of his 2020 book to “disdain, despise, detest, [and] distrust” the news media, never misses an opportunity to demonstrate his contempt for mainstream reporters. He’s smeared news outlets as unpatriotic for not running headlines like “Iran increasingly desperate,” and mocked and derided individual reporters, even denouncing his former Fox colleague Jennifer Griffin as “the one who misrepresents the most intentionally.” Under his leadership, the Pentagon rolled out a stringent new set of rules for reporters and, when journalists at major news outlets turned in their press passes rather than signing them, replaced those reporters with right-wing influencers and staffers from MAGA outlets.

Anti-immigrant. Perhaps no current issue unites the right-wing commentariat like virulent attacks on immigrants — and Hegseth’s rhetoric aligns perfectly with them. “When you import the Third World, you get Third World hierarchy, values, and chaos,” he said in a November 2024 Fox segment, adding: “Your quality of life is going down. You feel less safe. Your resources are being drained. ... But don't speak up about that. If you do, you're the racist.” As defense secretary, he used a speech in France marking the anniversary of D-Day to attack the “invasion” of migrants hitting European beaches, asking, “When will European capitals do something about that invasion?”

Pro-war crimes. It’s not an overstatement to say that Hegseth has his current position because the president appreciated his Fox advocacy on behalf of U.S. service members accused or convicted of war crimes, which he seems to reject as a legitimate category. He wrote in 2024: “Should we follow the Geneva Conventions? 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?” At the Pentagon, Hegseth “has fired and reassigned uniformed lawyers and dismantled many of the offices set up to prevent the targeting of civilians and related sites,” focused his public statements on the need for “lethality,” and carried out operations in the Middle East, Indian Ocean, eastern Pacific Ocean, and Caribbean Sea that experts say could include war crimes, as The New York Times reported.

Pro-Christian nationalism. Hegseth has “invok[ed] Christian theology in public statements about the war with Iran,” including urging the American public to pray “every day, on bended knee” for a military victory in the Middle East “in the name of Jesus Christ,” and told a conference of defense ministers from the Western Hemisphere that “our nations” are “Christian nations under God,” the Times reported. He invited Pastor Doug Wilson, “a self-described Christian nationalist who wants to repeal a woman's right to vote, has defended slavery and believes homosexuality should be a crime,” to give a sermon at the Pentagon earlier this year.

Together with his abject loyalty to Donald Trump, those positions make Hegseth a plausible candidate for the GOP ticket. That could come in the form of a 2028 primary battle against Vice President JD Vance, who has fallen out of favor with much of the right-wing media. But the former Fox & Friends Weekend co-host is also just 46 years old — if Vance wins the nomination but loses the general election that year, Hegseth could easily spend a few years returning to the network as a contributor or hosting a podcast, sitting on defense industry boards, and campaigning for Republicans before running for the 2032 nomination.

Hegseth was manifestly unqualified for his current position, his stewardship of the Pentagon has been a series of rolling disasters, and he is among the most unpopular members of Trump’s widely reviled administration. But in a world in which the former host of The Apprentice is currently serving his second term in the Oval Office, it is worth taking Hegseth’s potential candidacy seriously.

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