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Tag: pundits
Candace Owens

Right-Wing Pundits Apparently Profiting From Ivermectin Craze They Pushed

Right-wing media helped dupe their audiences into believing that drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were miracle cures for COVID-19. Now, conservative commentators are apparently cashing in on that credulity thanks to the paid sponsorship of a mail-order pharmacy that provides easy access to the medicines.

The Florida-based All Family Pharmacy has sponsored a slew of right-wing commentators, including Fox News host Laura Ingraham, presidential son Donald Trump Jr., podcaster (and now deputy director of the FBI) Dan Bongino, One America News Network’s Matt Gaetz and Chanel Rion, The F1rst’s Bill O’Reilly, podcaster Candace Owens, and radio hosts Lars Larson, Michael Savage, and Howie Carr.

These pundits tout the company in social media posts and live ad reads as a way for their followers to acquire drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Some even offer personal testimonials about their own experiences as its customers.

All Family Pharmacy, in turn, points to being “featured” by the commentators on its website, and provides dedicated pages for several of them that include their images.

The company is careful, both on its website and in the ad copy read by its right-wing promoters, not to explicitly invoke the use of ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine as treatments for COVID-19 without disclaimers. But it’s very clear what’s going on.

How right-wing pundits built demand for dubious COVID-19 cures

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, right-wing media outlets combated the public health consensus by promoting the virtues of unproven drugs.

In March 2020, they touted the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as an alternative to stay-at-home orders. A year and a half later, they highlighted the purported therapeutic benefits of the antiparasite drug ivermectin as an alternative to the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines they typically deplored.

Unfortunately, studies found that the drugs do not actually work as COVID-19 therapies, and a slew of health agencies and the manufacturers warned against their use for that purpose.

As a result, when consumers of right-wing media asked their doctors to write off-label prescriptions for the drugs that the media figures they most trusted had recommended for COVID-19, the doctors sometimes refused.

But telemedicine companies filled that gap in the market, offering credulous right-wingers easy access to prescriptions and mail-order drugs.

When NBC News reported on one such company, SpeakWithAnMD.com, in September 2021, I wrote that its success “shows how the right-wing movement functions as a money-making operation that serves up its hapless members" to organizations trying to cash in on conservative trends, but noted that while right-wing media figures “play an essential role” in the scheme, “there’s no reason to think they directly profit from it.”

That is no longer the case.

All Family Pharmacy sells easy access to the drugs

All Family Pharmacy’s operation is similar to that of SpeakWithAnMD.com. “We work with doctors all over the country to help get access to medications normal pharmacies don't or are unwilling to dispense including but not limited to Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine,” its website says.

The Florida-based telemedicine company promises an “easy as 1-2-3” process of obtaining medicines in which customers “choose your meds, fill out the medical form, and pay,” and then, after “a licensed doctor reviews your form and writes your prescription,” receive the drugs by mail.

While All Family Pharmacy says it provides “Easy Access to 200+ Medications,” its website emphasizes the availability of drugs that became conservatives’ causes célèbre during the pandemic.

An image of a box of ivermectin and capsules of the drug is splashed across the website’s landing page and separate pages for the right-wingers it sponsors, and the company is currently offering a “Buy One Get One FREE” sale for both that medicine and the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine.

All Family Pharmacy provides would-be purchasers of ivermectin with their “Covid-19 Treatment Dose” and “Covid-19/Viral Prevention Dose,” but also informs them that the drug is “not FDA-approved for … COVID-19 treatment or prevention” and instructs to “consult a licensed healthcare provider for advice.”

All Family Pharmacy co-founder Michael Kuenzler touted the company and sale in a March 17 appearance on Howie Carr’s radio show.

Kuenzler explained that their business took off during the pandemic due to “patients contacting us because their doctors were not prescribing medications that they felt were helpful toward the illnesses that they were having or enduring. My brother and I, we started pushing to help patients outside of their traditional PCP doctors get access to antibiotics, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, any drugs that physicians just purely weren’t prescribing for whatever reasons.”

“I’m not a pharmacist, I’m not a doctor, I’m just here to help patients get access to a lot of these medications that they’re unable to get access to for various reasons,” he added.

The right-wing commentators pitching All Family Pharmacy’s ivermectin

Carr described himself as a “very satisfied customer” of All Family Pharmacy’s ivermectin during Monday’s interview with Kuenzler, praising the company’s pricing and easy process. “The first time I ordered it, I had it within 48 hours,” he said.

“I remember,” Kuenzler replied, chuckling. “A lot of our advertisers, they like to try the ivermectin out, and I promise you this — within 30 days, I have another request coming. It's becoming a very popular drug of choice.”

Dan Bongino, the newly minted deputy director of the FBI, is among the right-wing pundits who are not only sponsored by All Family Pharmacy but say they are also its customers.

“Need ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, emergency antibiotics, or other essential medications — you got it,” Bongino said during an ad read for one of his final podcasts. “I use All Family Pharmacy. They’ve been great to me, helped me on a couple of vacations I was on. They step up when the system fails you.”

“I never travel without my emergency kit!” Matt Gaetz said on social media last month while promoting his ad-read touting All Family Pharmacy’s ivermectin.

Donald Trump Jr. read ad copy for All Family Pharmacy on his podcast earlier this month, saying that the company is “cutting through the red tape to get you the meds you need fast, easy, with no interference, whether it’s ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, you know, those ‘bad things’ that other guys wouldn’t want you to have but have been proven to be really effective.”

Bill O’Reilly told his audience that buying drugs from All Family Pharmacy gives them protection during pandemics and political chaos.

“Yes, they’ve got the miracle drug everyone’s been talking about, ivermectin,” he added in an ad read on The F1rst in late January. “Here is the truth: When the system collapses and shortages happen, the unprepared suffer. Do not be one of them.”

Here are some more All Family Pharmacy ads from right-wing commentators who tout its supply of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, or both:

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

George Santos

Right-Wing Pundits Yearning For Santos After Special Election Defeat

Conservative media figures are expressing regret for the expulsion of disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) following the Democratic victory in last night’s special election to fill his seat. Many of them are blaming Republican congressional leadership and GOP institutions for creating an opening for Democrats to retake a seat in the U.S. House by allowing Santos to be expelled, ignoring political reporting that immigration was a key issue in the race after right-wing media and former President Donald Trump helped the GOP sink a bipartisan immigration deal just a week prior to the election.

  • A Democrat won the special election for Santos’ House seat
    • Democrat Tom Suozzi won the New York special election to fill the seat left vacant after Santos was expelled from the House. From The Associated Press: “Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip to take the seat that was left vacant when George Santos, also a Republican, was expelled from Congress. The victory marks a return to Washington for Suozzi, who represented the district for three terms before giving it up to run, unsuccessfully, for governor.” [The Associated Press, 2/14/24]
    • Congress voted on December 1, 2023, to expel Santos — who faces multiple criminal charges — in a bipartisan 311-114 vote over campaign finance violations, fraudulent schemes, and blatant lies outlined in a House Ethics Committee report. The first-term GOP representative, who announced he would not seek reelection following the report, is also facing a 23-count federal indictment and a Justice Department investigation into the allegations — which include misusing campaign funds to pay for Botox and OnlyFans, “a subscription-based website where people sell adult content.” [The Associated Press, 12/1/23; CBS, 11/16/23; CNN, 11/16/23]
  • Immigration was a key issue in the special election, and right-wing media just pushed the GOP to sink a bipartisan immigration bill
    • The New York Times reported that Suozzi “went on the attack” when his opponent “condemned a bipartisan Senate deal that included stiff border security provisions that conservatives had demanded.” [The New York Times, 2/13/24]
    • Analyzing the special election’s aftermath, The Washington Post noted, “The GOP’s immigration focus didn’t work” — in part because Suozzi supported immigration reforms while his opponent “echoed GOP attacks” against “the bipartisan Senate deal that Republicans ultimately torpedoed last week.” [The Washington Post, 2/13/24]

      • The Hill: Suozzi’s opponent “centered much of her campaign messaging around immigration as the issue received widespread attention both nationwide and in the district.” The Hill reported that polling found the district’s voters “considered immigration more important than any other issue.” [The Hill,2/14/24]
      • Conservative media pushed multiple myths about immigration and a bipartisan Senate bill to convince Republicans to kill it. After relentless opposition from conservative media, former President Donald Trump, and House Republicans, GOP senators on February 7 blocked a compromise bill that extracted major immigration policy concessions from Democrats in exchange for security aid for Ukraine and other U.S. allies. In the days and weeks leading up to the bill’s defeat, conservative media pushed multiple myths about the border deal to stir up enough opposition to block it — even though the bill itself was negotiated by conservative Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). [Media Matters, 2/12/24]
      • Conservative media attacked GOP supporters of the bipartisan bill. After the bill’s text was released, right-wing media suggested that supportive lawmakers were betraying their party and constituents. Weeks before the bill was finished, however, right-wing media were already threatening to oust Republicans who worked on the deal. [Media Matters, 2/7/24, 1/19/24]
    • Following the Democratic victory, conservatives criticized Republicans for allowing the expulsion of Santos
      • NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham: “If I were a pol, I would have voted against dumping” Santos. Graham wrote “Santos didn't deserve the seat, but the majority is paper-thin” to justify keeping Santos in the House. [Twitter/X, 2/14/24]
      • National Review senior writer Dan McLaughlin: “I still think the House - both parties - will live to regret breaking longstanding norms to expel Santos.” McLaughlin also criticized the House GOP leadership’s “choice to put a reputation for ethical standards above the party's immediate self-interest.” [Twitter/X, 2/13/24]
      • Conservative talk radio host Bo Snerdley: “Congrats to the Republican Party Republicans threw out Santos and got a Democrat.” [Twitter/X, 2/13/24]
      • Conservative Substack author @amuse: “Unforced Error: The GOP should have allowed Santos to have his day in court before expelling him. We barely could push through an impeachment today - now that he’s been replaced by a Democrat we’d lose that vote tomorrow.” [Twitter/X, 2/13/24]
    • Right-wing online show host Benny Johnson: “The outcome of expelling George Santos: Democrats gain a seat. Republicans are useless and are addicted to losing.” [Twitter/X, 2/13/24]
    • Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier: “They removed George Santos and a Democrat takes the seat. Pathetic.” Fournier added in a follow-up post, “GUT THE RNC.” [Twitter/X, 2/13/24, 2/13/24]
    • Daily Wire host Michael Knowles: “We kicked George Santos out of Congress for some reason and, you’re going to be shocked to hear it, a Democrat won his seat.” Knowles complained that “we kicked out a Republican congressman because he’s a weirdo” and, after going off on a racist tangent against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), said: “You’re going to give up potentially a razor-thin Republican majority — for what? To stand on the principles that no one applies?” [The Daily Wire, The Michael Knowles Show, 2/14/24]
    • Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones: “The real problem, guys, is, why did they give up the seat to begin with?” Jones added: “I understand people have criticism, rightfully, of George Santos. But you should allow the voters to decide. Instead, the Democrats stay together again, and Republicans voted to get rid of one of their members. Great job, now you’ve lost the seat, and you can't get anything passed.” Jones’ co-hosts followed up by explaining that Santos was a fraud and the ethics report on him was damning. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/14/24]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

For 2020, More Stupid Pundit Tricks (As If We Needed Them)

For 2020, More Stupid Pundit Tricks (As If We Needed Them)

Back in the eighth grade, when the world was young, I used to keep an annotated list ranking my feelings about girls I fancied. Imitative of Top 40 radio, the list got updated regularly. Favorites rose or fell depending upon who’d smiled at me in the hallway or let me walk them home from school. My list remained the deepest of secrets, an index of hopeless infatuation.

Has there ever been a bigger dork?

Thankfully, nobody but me knew the fool thing existed.

Indeed, I hadn’t thought of my foolishness for decades until The Washington Post recently unveiled its own version: a “Post Pundit 2020 Power Ranking” — a Top 15 list of Democratic presidential candidates in descending order of probability by the newspaper’s political mavens. It’s supposedly based upon the hopefuls’ “holistic viability to trounce Trump,” a jokey bit of alliterative jargon seemingly intended to make light of the whole enterprise.

“Holistic viability” signifies that nothing’s too trivial to be off-limits. As for “trounce Trump,” if we’re going all junior high school here, why not “dump Trump”? “Hump Trump” works for me too.

But then, I grew up in New Jersey.

The clowning continues with the Post’s thumbnail descriptions of participating staffers: “progressive brawler Greg Sargent, voice of the millennials Christine Emba … Republican stalwart Hugh Hewitt, ex-Republican stalwart Jennifer Rubin,” etc. It’s almost as if the 2020 power pundits — more alliteration — had no wish to be taken seriously.

For all of that, I intend no blanket disrespect. If there’s a single columnist (and frequent TV performer) who is today’s progressive MVP, it’s Jennifer Rubin. And “ahead-of-the-curve expat Anne Applebaum” is a serious historian. Her book Gulag: A History, won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. I have enormous respect for her work. Applebaum understands Russia like few others.

Even so, the whole thing strikes me as redolent of journalistic bad faith: a Heathers slam-book for print pundits wearied by substantive campaign coverage and possibly jealous that American presidential elections have become something akin to the fraudulent spectacles we call reality TV shows.

In this regard, it may be significant that senior Washington Post (and NPR) columnist E.J. Dionne is not among the power pundit voters. He has pointedly lamented the “Triviality Feedback Loop that is the Trump presidency,” adding that Trump’s “I’m-The-Only-One-Who-Matters approach to politics fits well with the needs of modern media, both social and traditional. Clicks, page views and ratings encourage everyone to dwell on individuals more than issues.”

Exactly what the power pundits are all about.

Spoiler alert: Of 15 potential candidates, the Post‘s panel judges Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) the likeliest to secure the nomination, although nobody outside her home state of California has ever cast a vote for her. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is ranked second, followed by old-timer Joe Biden, no-hoper Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and so on. Bernie’s in there somewhere. Bringing up the rear are some even longer shots: Sen. Michael Bennett (D-CO), Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. Who?

Meanwhile, the kinds of insulting trivialities the nation’s self-infatuated pundits have long used to ridicule previous Democratic candidates are already in evidence. Remember Al Gore’s bald spot and three-button suits? John Kerry windsurfing and his choice of the wrong — indeed, downright “inauthentic” — cheese on his Philly cheesesteak sandwiches?

Meanwhile, everybody supposedly wanted to have a beer with George W. Bush, a down-to-earth regular guy (and recovering alcoholic). And, quite coincidentally, the worst American president since the mid-19th century.

Until now.

Because an American presidential election is above all a TV show, print pundits must go to considerable lengths to get noticed (and, if possible, appear on TV). Hence the Post‘s made-for-TV power ratings. Readers are treated like so many children watching Saturday morning cartoons, candidates like animated characters.

So anyway, here we go. Right down the slippery slide to mass-market inanity: clothing, hairstyles, food choices, sexual peccadilloes. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand eats fried chicken with a fork (inauthentic). Sen. Corey Booker is a self-righteous vegan (snob). Amy Klobuchar yells at the help (bitch). Elizabeth Warren listed “American Indian” as her race on a Texas bar application (phony).

Actually, hold the phone. Warren’s blunder almost certainly dooms her candidacy, because it’s frankly laughable. (I once reported my race as “1500-meter freestyle,” but the registrar made me correct it.)

As for Trump, assuming that he’s still president in 2020, his idiosyncrasies are well known and heavily discounted. Because his 2016 campaign and his entire administration have been an extended professional wrestling extravaganza, his supporters revel in his matchless vulgarity.

Democrats are more vulnerable. Is that a fake smile or a real one?

Which candidates would you like to see naked?

I promise you, we will get there before it’s all over.

Pundits Hated Trump’s Nonsensical Foreign Policy Speech

Pundits Hated Trump’s Nonsensical Foreign Policy Speech

The reviews are in for Donald Trump’s widely anticipated foreign policy speech, and the overwhelming consensus was that it was an unmitigated disaster, full of contradictions and policy prescriptions that annoyed pundits and commentators across the spectrum.

In The Atlantic, Peter Beinart wrote that Trump’s amalgamation of various Republican foreign policy talking points contrasted with the traditional Republican line (neoconservative remnants of the George W. Bush administration). This was about as generous as reviews of the speech got: that it was bad, but not any worse than normal Republican fare, just… different.

Trump, by contrast, assesses regimes based on whether they’re taking advantage of America. And in his view, they pretty much all are (Israel excepted). Some are taking advantage by building, or trying to build, nuclear weapons (North Korea, Iran), some are taking advantage by sending America their “rapist” immigrants (Mexico), some are taking advantage by stealing American jobs (China), and some are taking advantage by making America pay for their defense (most of Europe). Because Trump focuses as much on economic threats as on military ones, he doesn’t divide the world morally the way standard Republicans do. In his speech, he didn’t utter the words “freedom,” “liberty,” or “tyranny.”

The Washington Post’s Daniel Drezner used his column to lament watching the speech sober, and then proceeded to point out the numerous contradictions (sometimes within a couple sentences of each other) in Trump’s speech.

Trump will demand that allies pay more for security but nonetheless believes that they would trust a President Trump more than the current president. He blasts policies that tried to promote democracy in the Middle East but then pledged to be “strengthening and promoting Western civilization and its accomplishments.” He said the nation needed to become more “unpredictable” and then promised to offer “a disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy.” The speech reads like someone stitched together pieces of fabric without bothering to see if anything clashed.

The Economist was not impressed by the businessman’s approach, stating plainly that the world is far bigger and more unpredictable than Trump thinks it is.

Alas this description of statecraft as a series of deals, brokered in eyeball-to-eyeball negotiations with foreign powers, bears no resemblance to real diplomacy. For an American president, world events arrive in an unending rush, and cannot be tackled one by one, by appointment. Nor can geopolitical and commercial rivals be dismissed and forgotten like disappointing business partners, for all Mr Trump’s bravado, as when he said that if America and China do not find a mutually beneficial relationship “we can both go our separate ways.”

In the Republican presidential frontrunner’s telling, even the knottiest problems in geopolitics are simple exercises in brinksmanship—ready to be solved at speed once a steely negotiator like President Trump is sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office. Thus the campaign waged by many previous presidents to stop European and Asian allies free-riding on American military spending will be solved if he is willing to “let those countries defend themselves.”

The New Republicstruggled to explain his foreign policy coherently, primarily because a coherent foreign policy wasn’t articulated at any point during the speech.

Attempting to sum up Trump’s foreign policy vision is an impossible task. He declared that America is “finally going to have a coherent foreign policy,” but literally nothing could be less coherent than the rambling, uncharacteristically telepromptered speech he gave today. He is against the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya; but he also complained that there was no intervention to assist persecuted Christians in the region suffering at the hands of ISIS. President Obama is a global puppet-master who installed the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt following the fall of Hosni Mubarak; yet he is also an impotent fool who lets the world humiliate the U.S. at every turn, a Trumpian obsession that my colleague Michelle Legro calls the Dangerfield Doctrine (“that’s the story of my life, no respect!”). He nodded to Republican foreign policy hobbyhorses: the U.S. sailors taken “hostage” by Iran in January, Obama’s alleged reluctance to name the “real” threat facing America (i.e., Muslims). But he subtweeted George W. Bush as often as he did Hillary Clinton, bringing up his opposition to the Iraq War over and over again.

Even conservatives joined in on the Trump-bashing. The National Review, which staked its ground month ago with an “Against Trump” cover, criticized Trump’s brand of politics and its ineffectiveness in the international arena.

What is incoherent, though, is populism — Trump’s brand. It is knee-jerk demagoguery: Say whatever will get a rise out of the masses; don’t fret over whether it is at odds with whatever bromide you’ve previously spouted; and, when called on the inconsistencies attack the messenger.

Today’s speech conveyed no comprehension of what caused ISIS to rise — of where it came from (al-Qaeda), of what drives it ideologically (sharia supremacism), or of the fact that it is just a subset of a much bigger challenge. Trump merely continued to do what populists do: He told you the people you love to hate are incoherent and incompetent. He never mentions that he was with them all the way, and never offers a reason to think he is any more coherent and competent — just more shallow.

As it stands, it’s increasingly unlikely that Ted Cruz or John Kasich will be able to stop Trump before he crosses the 1,237 delegate threshold he needs to win the Republican nomination outright. But the invective directed towards his foreign policy “ideas,” if they can be called that, bodes ill for his presidential ambitions, and even worse for the world should he manage to get his hands on some nuclear weapons.

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