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Tulsi Gabbard's 'Russiagate' Conspiracy Crumbles In Fox Interview

Tulsi Gabbard's 'Russiagate' Conspiracy Crumbles In Fox Interview

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claim that former President Barack Obama directed a “treasonous conspiracy” against President Donald Trump took a hit on Tuesday night when she was asked the most straightforward question possible about her allegations during a Fox News interview. Her response demonstrates how painfully little she’s actually found — and how far over their skis the MAGAverse and Trump administration have gotten in response to her absurd charges.

In mid-July, as Trump sought to defuse a right-wing revolt over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, Gabbard claimed to have uncovered and referred to the Justice Department documents which she said showed that at the end of Obama’s second term, his administration attempted “to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup.” Her ridiculous and revisionist claims were widely touted by Fox stars and other MAGA propagandists eager to help Trump change the story from his former friend, the deceased sex offender Epstein.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has reportedly ordered federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury probe in response to Gabbard’s referral. Responding to that news on Monday night, Fox host Sean Hannity suggested that the probe’s targets could include Obama, former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former special counsel Jack Smith. Fox legal analyst Gregg Jarrett replied that “those are appropriate names,” adding that “dozens, I think, could be charged as co-conspirators,” including former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

But a “telling exchange” on Tuesday night between Gabbard and Fox’s Laura Ingraham, first flagged by CNN’s Aaron Blake, shows that what Gabbard considers the most damning revelations of Obama’s malfeasance were actually reviewed years ago by the GOP-led Senate Select Intelligence Committee, whose membership at the time included current Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Ingraham asked Gabbard: “Now, director, you said there was irrefutable evidence that Obama was the mastermind of this intelligence manipulation and the perpetuation of the Russia hoax. What is that irrefutable evidence for our viewers tonight?”

Gabbard replied that the documents she had uncovered showed “how President Obama directed that a National Security Council meeting be called to talk about Russia, that the report that came out of that meeting was filled with tasks that were delivered by James Clapper's assistant to John Brennan and to other elements of the intelligence community — John Brennan was the head of the CIA at the time — all saying per the president's direction, per the president's order.”

She continued:

TULSI GABBARD: And very specifically, they were tasked to create an intelligence assessment that detailed how Moscow tried to influence the election. Not “if,” but “how.” And this was the beginning of this manufactured intelligence assessment where they knowingly wrote things in this assessment that were false, and they knew they were false. They knew that they were basing it on discredited intelligence or documents like the Steele dossier that was politically motivated and that they knew was false, and this was how they came up with — with the Russia hoax that was then weaponized and used to try to delegitimize the president, President Trump, and to try to ultimately enact this years-long coup throughout his entire four years of his first administration.

But Gabbard’s discoveries aren’t sinister — they aren’t even new.

The 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that Obama ordered is the subject of the fourth volume of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s bipartisan Russia investigation, a 158-page document published in April 2020.

That report states that at a December 6, 2016, meeting of the National Security Council, “President Obama instructed Director Clapper to have the Intelligence Community prepare a comprehensive report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.” This was apparently such a banal request that it drew no commentary from the report’s authors.

The committee also reviewed the assessment itself and concluded that, far from some sort of malicious attack on Trump, it was “coherent and well-constructed,” featuring “proper analytic tradecraft,” and its authors experienced “no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions.” From the report:

From a report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, "Russian active Measures and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 4: Review of the Intelligence Community Assessment"

Then-committee Chair Richard Burr (R-NC) issued a statement alongside the report in which he said, “The ICA reflects strong tradecraft, sound analytical reasoning, and proper justification of disagreement in the one analytical line where it occurred,” adding, “The Committee found no reason to dispute the Intelligence Community’s conclusions.”

Gabbard’s position appears to be that asking for and receiving intelligence showing that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on Trump’s behalf is an attack on Trump by definition — one that Bondi now seeks to criminalize. But the Justice Department and the Senate Select Intelligence Committee under Rubio’s leadership came to the same conclusion.

We’ve seen all this before. Fox — and Hannity in particular — spent years promising viewers that investigations into the Russia probe were about to finally send all their political enemies to prison, only for those efforts to come up short or fall apart.

Unfortunately, Trump’s second-term appointees to top law enforcement and intelligence leadership are people like Gabbard — conspiracy theorists who are in positions of power because they’ve demonstrated to the president, through myriad Fox News appearances, their willingness to put his desires above all else.

So here we are, doing it all over again.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Need To Deflect Public Rage? Take Aim At Obama (And Murdoch!)

Need To Deflect Public Rage? Take Aim At Obama (And Murdoch!)

President Donald Trump is seeking to reunify allies enraged by his administration’s repudiation of MAGA claims about late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein by offering up spurious attacks on common and familiar enemies: the media — in this case Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal — and former President Barack Obama.

Trump brought together an ideologically diverse coalition and a fractured right-wing media ecosystem during his 2024 campaign based largely on their shared hatred for Democrats, liberal institutions like the press, and the left. His administration’s actions have at times sparked criticism from different factions over the handling of issues like the Russia-Ukraine war, tariffs, U.S. strikes on Iran, immigration enforcement, and, most of all, disclosures in the Epstein case.

The president spent last week failing to tamp down discussion of the Epstein story that seemed to be fracturing the MAGA movement. He tried claiming that his political enemies had “written” the “Epstein Files,” argued that the Epstein case is “pretty boring stuff,” and even lashed out at supporters who talk about it as “weaklings” and “stupid people.” But while the propagandists at Fox News were willing to play ball, Trump’s statements backfired elsewhere, leaving many right-wing media figures and the base alike in a state of revolt.

On Thursday, however, The Wall Street Journal reported that a “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s signature had been included in an album created for Epstein’s 50th birthday (before allegations of his sexual abuse of girls became publicly known). The document, according to the Journal, had been reviewed by Justice Department officials who handled Epstein’s case.

The Journal report could have focused the right’s attention on Trump’s voluminous ties to Epstein. But Trump redirected them at a familiar target: journalists. responded that night by calling the letter “FAKE,” denouncing the paper, and claiming that he would sue. The following day, he followed through with a defamation lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from the two authors of the article; the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co.; parent company News Corp and that company’s CEO; and Murdoch himself.

Trump’s lawsuit is both unprecedented and consistent with Trump’s authoritarian treatment of a free press whose criticism he seeks to curtail through corrupt means. The message it sends is straightforward: If you publish reporting that displeases the president — even if, like Murdoch, your support was crucial to his political ascension — he may try to ruin you, so don’t try it.

While the Journal’s corporate cousins at Fox News mostly avoided the story on Friday, the network’s competitors throughout the fractured marketplace of right-wing media responded by sharpening their knives and attacking the paper. Laura Loomer deemed the Journal story “totally fake,” Charlie Kirk accused the Journal of a “terrible drive-by,” and Benny Johnson claimed that the real “scandal is in who wrote the story,” referencing a baroque conspiracy theory that was circulating on the right at the time.

The same day Trump’s lawyers filed their suit, former Fox contributor and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard offered even more grist for the right-wing media mill. In a story served up to Fox as an exclusive, Gabbard claimed to have uncovered documents proving “a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government” which aimed “to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup.” She suggested that figures including Obama “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” and said she was referring the documents to the Justice Department. Leaving nothing to subtext, Trump subsequently posted to Truth Social an AI video featuring Obama beng arrested and imprisoned.

Those documents, however, demonstrate nothing other than Gabbard’s own ignorance and/or malice. They show that Obama received an intelligence report that Russia had not hacked election systems to change vote totals in the 2016 election — which is consistent with what the Obama administration said publicly at the time — then asked for and subsequently received another intelligence report detailing other actions taken by the Russian government in an effort to influence the election. That effort, according to the intelligence community, the Justice Department, and a Senate committee helmed at the time by current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, included hacking and releasing Democratic emails.

Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy, in a withering piece at National Review, described Gabbard’s argument as a “frivolous” attempt to further Trump’s “foolish stance” that Russia had not tried to influence the 2016 election via “overwrought and misleading” language and “thundering claptrap.”

But her attacks served to reignite years of conspiracy-mongering about the Russia “witch hunt,” and thus were credibly regurgitated elsewhere on the right, including by Fox’s stars, with some echoing Gabbard’s demagogic language about purported “treason.” Trump, meanwhile, repeatedly posted Fox clips and articles from right-wing media hyping the purported scandal.

Much of MAGA media seems eager to target the Journal and Obama on Trump’s behalf. But it remains to be seen whether those influencers — or their audience — will be willing to allow the Epstein story to fade away altogether.

That said, Trump’s best hope of keeping his supporters happy may very well be increasing the scale and tempo of his authoritarian attacks — and that means there will be more to come in the months ahead.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Eating Their Own: MAGA Media Trash Trump, Bondi Over Epstein Files Fiasco

Eating Their Own: MAGA Media Trash Trump, Bondi Over Epstein Files Fiasco

President Donald Trump appointed conspiracy-obsessed MAGA media favorites to the highest levels of federal law enforcement, and now those figures are coming under fire from the right-wing fever swamp for failing to confirm their bullshit.

Axios reported on Sunday night that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation had concluded that there was no evidence convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “blackmailed powerful figures, kept a ‘client list’ or was murdered.” Those findings repudiated claims that had for years permeated the MAGA influencer ecosystem and been promoted by the stars of Fox News and the broader right-wing media.

The Trump-appointed leaders of both the FBI and DOJ had previously stoked the same conspiracy theories their agencies rejected. “As social media influencers and activists, Kash Patel (now the FBI's director) and Dan Bongino (now deputy director) were among those in MAGA world who questioned the official version of how Epstein died,” Axios noted. Moreover, Attorney General Pam Bondi had claimed in a February interview on Fox News that the purported “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”

While the Epstein saga is a bit of a sideshow in the grand scheme of things, what it highlights about the underlying dynamics of the MAGA movement is deeply unsettling. It demonstrates that the Trump administration is in hock to some of the most deranged conspiracy theorists imaginable, treating them as among its closest allies and devoting substantial resources to their care and feeding.

The White House brought 15 MAGA influencers in to meet with Bondi in February, sending them home with glossy binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” When those binders did not satisfy the MAGA faithful, the attorney general reportedly tasked “hundreds of FBI employees” with reviewing Epstein investigation documents for release. In May, Patel and Bongino were sent to Fox to make the case, with the fervor of the converted, that Epstein had actually killed himself. And now the FBI and DOJ have produced a memo detailing their findings and released footage taken from outside Epstein’s cell in the hours surrounding his suicide.

The final result left Trump’s most zealous online allies with two options: They could finally acknowledge that they had been peddling nonsense for years — or they could insinuate that the Trump administration itself is part of the cover-up.

MAGA’s Epstein conspiracy theorists lash out at Bondi — and even Trump

In the hours after Axios’ story broke, several prominent MAGA influencers took the latter path, hammering the administration for failing to confirm their Epstein hypotheses.

“This new DOJ memo admits there are countless victims of Epstein on video but no client list or evidence of other rapists they can charge. Oh it claims Epstein wasn’t using videos as blackmail,” Robby Starbuck sneered on X. “NO ONE believes this for very good reason.”

Starbuck put the blame squarely on the attorney general.

“Bondi just made it all worse with this memo,” he wrote. “What a terrible, terrible idea it was to write this memo. It’s also incredibly insulting to our intelligence.”

Noting her prior claim on Fox that she was in possession of Epstein’s “client list,” he commented, “Was she lying then or is she lying now?”

Laura Loomer also blamed Bondi.

“Blondi lied,” she posted on X, using the nickname she typically utilizes for the attorney general. “She was always lying.”

Others were less specific about who was responsible for the cover-up.

“We were all told more was coming,” Jack Posobiec lamented. “That answers were out there and would be provided. Incredible how utterly mismanaged this Epstein mess has been. And it didn’t have to be.”

Tim Pool suggested that the administration was protecting “the adult child rapists who were blackmailed” and floated the possibility that they were protecting “shareholder value” from “the economic fallout if say, hypothetically, Bill Gates was revealed to have been flying around with Epstein and then we got videos of him abusing underage girls.”

And Mike Cernovich suggested that the buck stopped with the president.

“No one is believing the Epstein coverup, @realDonaldTrump,” he wrote. “This will be part of your legacy. There’s still time to change it!”

The right-wing media ecosystem is built to manufacture and distribute conspiracy theories to an audience trained to believe them. Under the incentive structure this ecosystem creates, it makes sense that the Trump campaign relied on conspiracy theorists to bolster its position, that Patel and Bongino boosted their standing within that ecosystem by echoing such claims, and that Bondi kept claiming an Epstein reckoning was imminent.

But eventually, the Trump administration trapped itself. Bondi, Patel, and Bongino were unable to produce the information that the MAGA faithful demanded, and they seem unable to convince them the information does not exist. It is the nature of conspiracy theorists to insist that anything which appears to rebut their claims actually confirms it. And now they’re turning on their erstwhile allies.

The truth about Epstein and Trump

One ironic aspect of the Epstein saga is that while MAGA influencers were apparently certain that the Trump administration was going to implicate a wave of prominent individuals in Epstein’s sex crimes and, perhaps, his death, there are few figures as prominent with ties as close to Epstein as Trump himself.

Consider:

  • Trump was quoted in a 2002 profile describing Epstein as a longtime friend and “terrific guy” about whom “it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
  • Trump was among the politicians and celebrities who hitched rides on Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s.
  • In 2019, shortly before Epstein’s arrest on sex charges, longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon prepped Epstein for a potential interview.
  • Trump chose for labor secretary in his first term Alex Acosta, who as a U.S. attorney oversaw a sweetheart plea deal for Epstein that a judge later ruled illegal.
  • Alan Dershowitz, the Trump supporter who served on the president’s second Senate impeachment trial team, was one of the defense lawyers who helped Epstein secure that plea deal.
  • Epstein’s 2019 suicide occurred while he was in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, an agency overseen at the time by the Trump-appointed attorney general, William Barr.
  • After longtime Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2020, Trump told reporters: “I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.”
  • Trump waffled about whether he would “declassify the Epstein files” during a Fox interview — but the network edited out that portion of his answer.
  • Trump appointed as attorney general Bondi, who was “Florida's attorney general 2011-2109 -- a period of time when Jeffrey Epstein's plane records became public, victims' lawsuits were filed and a lot of new evidence against Epstein surfaced –” but she did not take action.

None of this is actually proof that Epstein was killed to cover up the fact that he had possessed evidence that he had sex-trafficked underage girls for Trump. He killed himself, and the idea of a “client list” was, as the reporter who exposed Epstein put it, “a figment of the internet's imagination -- and a means to just slander people.”

But if, say, a similar set of facts linked former President Joe Biden and his associates to Epstein, you can bet that MAGA’s conspiracy corps would treat them as clear evidence. And so it will be interesting to see, as they scrounge for an explanation for the Bondi/Patel/Bongino about-face, if any of them eventually land there.

Why the right’s conspiracy theory engine matters

The Epstein saga is ultimately a minor drama. It is embarrassing for the right that so many of its leading lights pushed the conspiracy theories for so long, and it’s unnerving that some of those conspiracy theorists now occupy the highest levels of government, but on its own terms, the stakes for the public are relatively low.

But this treatment of the Epstein saga is not an anomaly — the right responds in this same fashion to every news event. Its ecosystem is constantly pumping out new conspiracy theories intended to prove the perfidity of the left, its audience is trapped in a bubble in which it is constantly bombarded by such claims, and the consequences can be real and dire.

Following MAGA media’s fervid promotion in September 2024 of the racist, baseless lie that Haitians were stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, local institutions received bomb threats and residents kept their children home from school out of fear for their safety.

Officials at all levels of government seeking to respond to a devastating hurricane in North Carolina the next month were forced to spend precious time debunking that ecosystem’s deranged lies because those were the sources some victims counted on for their information.

When the Epstein conspiracy theories are firmly in the rearview, everyone involved in propagating them will retain their influence over a Trump administration that is more concerned with placating them than in acting in the public interest. And that is truly dangerous.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Fox Hacks Push Trump Budget Hard (While Hiding What's Really In It)

Fox Hacks Push Trump Budget Hard (While Hiding What's Really In It)

Fox News’ propagandists aren’t terribly interested in the contents of the Republican tax and spending bill the Senate will vote on on Monday, or on the devastating impacts it might have on their viewers. But they know that President Donald Trump wants it to pass, and so they’re greasing the skids with their viewers to help it over the finish line.

An exchange between two of the co-hosts of Fox & Friends — the morning show beloved by the president — exemplifies how the network, and the broader MAGAspere, has treated the legislation, which agglomerates much of Trump’s domestic agenda in a single bill.

“It’s not perfect, but it does need to pass if we want this tax cut,” Ainsley Earhart told viewers.

She then offered up some pablum about the bill’s contents: “It’s the largest tax cut in history. And also no tax on tips or overtime, which is great for the working class, and that’s what Donald Trump ran on. … It funds border security and deportations, it funds our military, it begins to reform Medicaid.”

That sort of surface-level support for the legislation is commonplace on Fox and its counterparts — the president’s propagandists tend to back whatever version of the bill is under discussion without much consideration for its impacts.

MAGA media revolves around Trump and his desires, but its personalities tend to be more invested in waging the culture war than in the nitty-gritty of policymaking. Views on economic issues like tariffs or national security ones like the U.S. military strikes on Iran can shift rapidly to align with whatever it is the president supports at any moment. Fox hosts like Earhardt likewise tend to be supportive of the bill but haven’t dwelled on it.

Why is there so much urgency to pass this bill right now? Earhardt doesn’t say. But the reason is that Trump has imposed a deadline for the final legislation to pass both houses of Congress and come to his desk by July 4 as “a wonderful Celebration for our Country.” Congressional Republicans could be working to improve a bill that Earhardt acknowledges is imperfect, but the party and its propagandists are prioritizing Trump’s desire to get a win on schedule.

By passing the bill quickly, Republicans hope to minimize the grueling political damage caused by enacting legislation that is wildly unpopular — and likely to become more so as the public finds out what is in it.

Fox’s job is to ensure that viewers remain placid about the impact of the bill before it passes. The messaging dilemma for Trump supporters like Earhardt is that bumper-sticker claims of the bill being “great for the working class” and working to “reform Medicaid” won’t hold up to scrutiny. Here’s who benefits from the bill’s tax cuts, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

And here’s how The Associated Press sums up the latest score of the Senate bill from the Congressional Budget Office, including its impact on Medicaid:

The CBO estimates the Senate bill would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1 trillion increase over the House-passed bill, which CBO has projected would add $2.4 to the debt over a decade.

The analysis also found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law, an increase over the scoring for the House-passed version of the bill, which predicts 10.9 million more people would be without health coverage.

So the Senate bill blows an even bigger hole in the deficit than the House version does, and its cuts to Medicaid would knock more people off the health insurance rolls, all while providing tax cuts weighted toward the wealthiest Americans.

Earhardt’s co-host Brian Kilmeade offered a hand wave of a response to these deep flaws in his reply. In the program’s sole reference to the Senate bill’s CBO score, he followed the GOP strategy of attacking the agency.

“Democrats are holding on to the CBO — their report says it adds $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years,” Kilmeade said. “But they look at growth at 1.7%. … Under the bill, what they want to do, growth is going to be a lot higher than that. And you gotta think if interest rates go down, that’s why … Republicans say, through dynamic scoring, they’re going to have a more accurate account. They say, once again, the CBO will be wrong."

This amounts to an admission that all he has as a rebuttal to the CBO’s devastating score is “nuh-uh.” In reality, it is the Republican growth estimate that is out of step with the consensus.

The brand of tap-dancing seen on Fox & Friends can get the hosts through the show without criticizing Trump’s priority — and perhaps help the bill to final passage. But people will notice if they suddenly lose health insurance, or their local hospital closes. They will notice if the funds they use to feed their kids disappear, or their electricity bills soar.

And if the bill passes, the goal of MAGA media will pivot from telling viewers that the legislation needed to pass to hiding its role in those crushing impacts.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Johnson Privately Confirms Deep Medicaid Cuts He Denied On Fox News

Johnson Privately Confirms Deep Medicaid Cuts He Denied On Fox News

Twenty-four hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) used Fox News’ platform to claim Democrats are lying when they say that the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill cuts Medicaid, Politico reported that he is privately warning House Republicans will lose their majority if the Senate version’s Medicaid cuts are enacted.

Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Johnson during a Tuesday interview to explain the differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation on “Medicaid and the SALT deductions and other areas,” and to respond to Democrats “that are pushing this narrative that's not true that Republicans are cutting Medicare and Medicaid.”

Johnson responded that the Democratic claims are “nonsense” because “we are not cutting Medicaid” but instead “strengthening the program for the people that desperately need it and deserve it” by instituting work requirements. He said Democratic ads saying otherwise had been “taken down.” He did not address the part of the question about how the House and Senate Medicaid provisions differ — though he did go on to warn Senate Republicans they would be “playing with fire” if they touch the House bill’s boost to the cap of the State And Local Tax deduction.

But when Johnson talks to Republican power players instead of Fox viewers, he is saying something very different, Politico reported on Wednesday:

Speaker Mike Johnson is warning in private that Senate Republicans could cost House Republicans their majority next year if they try to push through the deep Medicaid cuts in the current Senate version, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the matter.

That comes as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) cautions GOP senators that those same cutbacks could become a political albatross for Republicans just as the Affordable Care Act was for Democrats.

“[Barack] Obama said … ‘if you like your health care you can keep it, if you like your doctor we can keep it,’ and yet we had several million people lose their health care,” the in-cycle senator told reporters Tuesday. “Here we’re saying [with] Medicaid, we’re going to hold people harmless, but we’re estimating” millions of people could lose coverage.

While the Senate’s proposed cuts are even steeper, the House bill, contrary to what Earhardt and Johnson suggested to Fox’s audience, also includes devastating Medicaid cuts. It would drive nearly 8 million people off the Medicaid rolls over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office found. Analysts say those cuts, along with other health cuts in the bill, would result in more than 11,000 medically preventable deaths annually and could force rural hospitals to close.

These Medicaid cuts are hideously unpopular, but Fox figures are helping Johnson keep his speakership by downplaying their impact to viewers — when they talk about them at all. Indeed, Fox & Friends did not address the Medicaid cuts on Wednesday, including after Politico’s report contradicted Johnson’s claims to their viewers.

Meanwhile, though Johnson told Earnhardt that Democratic claims about the GOP’s Medicaid cuts were so obviously false that ads on them have been taken down, an ad denouncing Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) for having “voted for the biggest Medicaid cut in history” has run more than 100 times on TV stations in his district this week, according to a Media Matters review of the Kinetiq database.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Trump's Fox News Obsession Driving US Toward War With Iran

Trump's Fox News Obsession Driving US Toward War With Iran

President Donald Trump appears to be careening toward a U.S. military strike on Iran as current and former Fox News figures — from posts on the network’s airwaves, elsewhere in the right-wing media ecosystem, and within his administration — fight to influence his decision.

For years, Trump's obsession with the Fox universe has driven policy decisions, administration staffing, and countless stream-of-consciousness social media posts. Now, the network will have an outsized role in determining America's potential involvement in a spiraling regional military conflict.

The George W. Bush administration spent months “following a meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein” before finally launching that war in March 2003. That strategy — based on cooked intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction dishonestly sold to American people — resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. service members and more than 200,000 Iraqi civilians as well as a massive financial cost.

Two decades later, Trump seems poised to join Israel's attack on Iran, with the stated goal of preventing that country from acquiring nuclear weapons that the U.S. intelligence community says it is not seeking. The president on Tuesday threatened to assassinate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bragged that the U.S. is involved in securing the airspace over that country, and called for “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” all while the U.S. military is marshalling forces in the region. And that push has come with little effort to convince the public, which overwhelmingly opposes U.S. military involvement in Iran, of the necessity of such a course.

The Fox propaganda engine is driving this chaotic process. Trump reportedly became more interested in U.S. military action because he saw favorable Fox coverage of Israel’s initial attacks on Iran, while more recent segments have stressed the importance of U.S. involvement. Fox host Mark Levin and his former colleague Tucker Carlson are waging a scorched-earth battle for Trump’s ear, with Levin apparently gaining the advantage. And top administration officials with roles in a potential conflict — including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — are in their positions in the first place because Trump approved of their previous work at the network.

It remains unclear what the president will decide to do and how any of it will play out for the country and the world. What seems likely, however, is that the Trump administration will undertake its Iran policy with the same inconsistency that characterized his tariff policy; the same low quality of staff work that got a reporter added to a text chain where top officials shared info about a forthcoming U.S. strike; the same lack of care for the lives of foreigners that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people; and the same disinterest in following the law on display in his deportation plan.

And Trump’s action, regardless of what it is, will receive sycophantic cheers from his propagandists at Fox.

The Fox-Trump feedback loop is powering Iran policy

A June 17 New York Times story detailing how Trump had shifted from trying to restrain an Israeli attack on Iran while overseeing negotiations with its leaders to supporting Israel’s strike and considering U.S. involvement highlights the role of a key player: Fox.

“When he woke on Friday morning, his favorite TV channel, Fox News, was broadcasting wall-to-wall imagery of what it was portraying as Israel’s military genius,” the Times reported. “And Mr. Trump could not resist claiming some credit for himself.”

Under typical circumstances, a U.S. president shifting the nation’s military posture based on a few cable news segments would sound fantastical. But under Trump, major aspects of federal policy regularly turn on what he is hearing from his favored TV personalities. Fox hosts understand their influence and regularly seek to influence Trump’s decisions, both through their programs and in private conversations with the president.

Fox’s hosts thus wield incredible power over Trump’s actions. And in recent days, those figures have been using their platforms to tell the president that U.S. strikes on Iran are both important and likely to succeed with little cost. They know which buttons to push and are banging on them as hard as they can.

“Trump's favorite TV network has staked out the pro-war position – and it isn't making as much room for debate,” CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on June 18. “Guest after guest on Fox has played to Trump's ego — simultaneously praising the president and pushing for US intervention through his television screen.”

Carlson and Levin go to war

Carlson and Levin are waging a scorched-earth campaign against each other, with each presenting their own views as the true America First position as they seek to influence Trump’s decision-making.

Carlson, a proponent of the right’s white nationalist and Holocaust-denying wing who tends to oppose foreign military interventions in favor of attacks on domestic enemies, claims that bombing Iran would “shut down Trump’s three core promises.” Levin, a staunch advocate for deploying U.S. power in the Middle East, argues that American intervention would be consistent with Trump’s policy of “peace through strength.”

Levin currently appears to have the upper hand. Politico reported last week that Levin made his case to Trump directly at a June 4 meeting:

During a private lunch with the president at the White House last Wednesday, conservative talk show host Mark Levin told Trump that Iran was days away from building a nuclear weapon, an argument Trump’s own intelligence team has told the president is not accurate, according to an intelligence official as well as another Trump ally familiar with the matter. Levin urged Trump to allow the Israeli government to strike Iranian nuclear sites, which Trump has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would torpedo the diplomacy.

Carlson subsequently lashed out at Levin and other Fox figures whom he (accurately) described as “warmongers.” He wrote on June 13:

The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians. The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it — between warmongers and peacemakers. Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran. On that list: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson. At some point they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now.

Levin replied, calling Carlson “a reckless and deceitful propagandist” who “promote[s] antisemitism and conspiracy nuts” (all obviously true). He added: “It doesn’t occur to you that your supposed sources are disloyal to POTUS. You and they are undermining him and you just declared your break from the President.” In a series of subsequent posts, he denigrated his former colleague as “Chatsworth Qatarlson” and accused him of “rooting for Iran” and “trashing our president.”

Carlson responded in a June 16 appearance on his ally Stephen Bannon’s program in which he claimed that Levin is “terrible on TV” (true) with a screen presence reminiscent of “listening to your ex-wife scream about alimony payments” (sexist but at least directionally correct). He further claimed that Levin’s appearances on Fox demonstrate that what the network is “doing is what they always do, which is just turning up the propaganda hose to full blast and just trying to, you know, knock elderly Fox viewers off their feet and make them submit to where you want them to” (extremely accurate).

Trump, for his part, weighed in on Sunday, June 15, saying of Carlson’s critique of his Iran policy, “I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen.” In a Monday night post, he described Carlson as “kooky” (another accurate characterization), adding, “IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” Levin swiftly highlighted both comments on social media.

Levin took a curtain call on Hannity’s Fox show on Tuesday night, screaming, “You’re either a patriotic American who’s gonna get behind the president of the United States, the commander-in-chief, or you’re not!”

Many key administration roles are filled by former Foxers

Several senior administration officials who will play key roles in advising Trump on whether and how to conduct military strikes and then implement that policy are wildly unqualified people who got their jobs because the president liked their Fox appearances. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are among the 23 former Fox employees Trump has appointed to his second administration.

Gabbard, a former Fox contributor from the Carlson wing of the MAGA movement who lacks “the typical intelligence experience of past officeholders,” said in congressional testimony earlier this year that it was the conclusion of the intelligence community that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”

Trump, however, apparently preferred Levin’s lunchtime claim that Iran was actually days away from a bomb, telling reporters on June 17, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having a weapon.” The president, Politico reported Tuesday, “has increasingly mused about nixing Gabbard’s office completely” and, according to one source, “thinks she ‘doesn’t add anything to any conversation.’”

Trump promoted Hegseth from Fox & Friends Weekend co-host to the leadership of the Pentagon, and based on his past Fox commentary, he is likely a voice in favor of military action. His early leadership of the Defense Department is not encouraging for how such action might go — he has driven off his senior staff, discussed U.S. strikes in private texts that subsequently leaked, and oversaw a costly and ultimately ineffective campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Other relevant former Foxers include Mike Huckabee, the former network host Trump installed as U.S. ambassador to Israel, and Tammy Bruce, the former Fox contributor currently ensconced as the State Department spokesperson.

No matter what happens, this much is certain: A bunch of current and former Fox News employees are essentially deciding whether the U.S. is going to war.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Gavin Newsom

Fox Lies Obscure The Facts About Trump-Newsom Phone Dispute

A Fox News anchor, the network’s White House correspondent, and two of its prime-time hosts all apparently decided to lie to their audiences on Tuesday about a dispute over when Donald Trump last spoke to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, with each dissembling over what Trump or Newsom said rather than admitting that the president was wrong. And Trump’s own furious response to an inaccurate Fox chyron apparently set off that Orwellian chain of events.

A reporter asked Trump at an Oval Office event on June 10 when he last spoke with Newsom, whom the president has suggested should face arrest for his handling of rioting in the Los Angeles area. Trump replied that he called Newsom “a day ago” to criticize his response.

Newsom’s X account quickly reposted the video clip of the Oval Office exchange, saying, “There was no such call.”

As is often the case with Trump, it’s difficult to determine whether the president had been deliberately lying about the call, accidentally misspoke, or had some sort of senior moment. But the president quickly doubled down — albeit while directly proving his own initial statement was inaccurate.

Fox “news side” anchor John Roberts discussed the dispute a dozen minutes after Newsom’s post. He aired the video of Trump saying he had called Newsom “a day ago,” and provided Newsom’s post on X “pushing back.” Roberts promised to “try to get to the bottom of that and find out when the call actually happened."

Notably, on-screen text during the segment read, “Newsom says Trump never called him over L.A. riots.” That’s not true — Newsom responded on X to Trump’s claim that they had spoken “a day ago,” but the governor previously discussed a call with the president that he said occurred “late Friday night, about 1:30 plus, his time” in which he said Trump “never once brought up the National Guard."

That error may have proved crucial. The president, who is notorious for his obsession with Fox’s programming, was apparently watching Roberts’ show on Air Force One and took the time to quickly call the anchor to respond, as Roberts relayed on-air a half hour after his initial segment. He told viewers that Trump had told him he had a call with Newsom that lasted 16 minutes on which the president told the governor to “get his ass in fear and stop the riots” and that he produced “evidence” Newsom was “a liar."

Roberts also posted Trump’s statement on X, as well as an image of a call log showing that Trump placed a call to Newsom at 1:23 a.m. ET on June 7 (for Newsom, in California, 10:23 p.m. PT on June 6). MAGA influencers quickly presented that as case-closed proof that Newsom had lied and Trump had been vindicated.

The “evidence,” as Trump put it, that he spoke with Newsom on June 6/7 does disprove the claim from the inaccurate Fox chyron that Trump “never called” the governor. But Trump producing proof of a June 6/7 call to which Newsom already attested, but not the June 9 call he claimed, also suggests the latter did not occur. It only proves Trump’s Oval Office statement correct if one pretends that June 6/7 occurred the day before June 10.

Telling Fox viewers that the president was wrong about something, however, is not really in the job description for the network’s employees — such acts of reporting could even irritate the network’s audience enough to drive them to a competitor.

Roberts finessed that difficulty on-air by lying to his viewers about what the president had initially said. The Fox anchor claimed that Trump had said in the Oval Office that he phoned Newsom “the other day, maybe yesterday,” while not calling attention to the fact that the call log he had obtained placed the call several days earlier.

JOHN ROBERTS (ANCHOR): President Trump is winging his way to Fort Bragg, North Carolina aboard Air Force One. He is clearly watching the program and saw that we said that Gavin Newsom claimed that the call that the president alluded to that was made the other day, maybe yesterday, never happened. Well, the president told me this in recent moments. He said the first call was not picked up. The second call Gavin picked up. We spoke for 16 minutes. I told him to essentially “get his ass in gear and stop the riots, which were out of control.” More than anything else, this shows what a liar he is. He said I never called, here is the evidence. We will see if the California governor responds to that, but that from President Trump before Air Force One just a couple moments ago.

In another report on the dispute the following hour, Roberts again hid that Trump had been wrong, falsely claiming the president had said he spoke to Newsom “yesterday or the other day.”

Notably, neither of Roberts’ segments about Trump’s response aired the video of Trump’s June 10 claim that he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago,” which had been included in the initial report that provoked the president.

Others on Fox followed Roberts’ lead in shielding their viewers from the fact that Trump had said something that wasn’t true.

Peter Doocy, Fox’s White House correspondent, aired Trump saying he spoke to Newsom “a day ago” in a segment on Special Report, the network’s flagship “news side” broadcast. But he then suggested Trump’s response to Roberts disproved Newsom’s denial, saying, “Newsom then claimed, ‘There was no call, not even a voice mail.’ A screenshot of an iPhone call log provided to Fox's John Roberts shows two calls from the president to Newsom on Saturday. One lasted for 16 minutes.”

Fox’s hardcore Trump propagandists, of course, were all-in on the notion that Trump had caught Newsom in a lie.

Trump crony and Fox prime-time host Sean Hannity claimed on his radio show, “I just love when politicians get caught red-handed in a lie. Gavin Newsom saying that Trump never even called him, and Donald Trump actually takes a picture of his phone showing that they talked … for 16 minutes."

Jesse Watters, whose show generally amounts to a reheated TV version on the day’s takes from MAGA influencers, aired a version of Trump’s Oval Office statement about his call with Newsom that was cut to exclude the president’s statement that the exchange happened “a day ago.” Watters then lied about Newsom’s response.

“Newsom responded and he said there wasn't a phone call — he said Trump never called him, not even a voice mail, he said,” Watters claimed. “But John Roberts got Trump's call logs and it shows Trump called him late Friday night and they talked for 16 minutes."

“Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?” Watters asked.

Watters also falsely claimed on The Five that “Gavin Newsom said Trump never called me. Trump showed his phone to John Roberts, he had a 16-minute conversation."

Watters added, “They just tell you you are not seeing what you are seeing and think they can get away with it."

Indeed.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Fox Fantasizes About Migrant 'Insurrection' To Justify Tyrannical Response

Fox Fantasizes About Migrant 'Insurrection' To Justify Tyrannical Response

Fox News’ depiction of the protests that began in and around Los Angeles over the weekend is a grim fantasy — but one that encourages President Donald Trump to realize his vision of U.S. troops crushing left-wing dissent.

Prime-time host Jesse Watters laid out his network’s dominant narrative in a Monday night monologue.

“Democrats are causing mayhem in their cities, so when Trump restores order, they can label him a dictator and stir up even more hatred and violence against him,” Watters alleged. “They're burning their own cities just to prove to their bloodthirsty base that they're fighting Trump in the streets, burning their own cities for power.”

None of this is true. The LA immigration protests are an organic response to Trump’s dramatic escalation of immigration enforcement. Democratic politicians have vocally opposed the riots that have sometimes accompanied those protests. That rioting, while deplorable, has not engulfed the city. But Trump has used it as a pretext to deploy U.S. troops for the confrontation with protesters he has long sought.

It is a core function of the government to maintain order on the streets and enforce the laws. That is properly the responsibility of officials like Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who have condemned the rioting, attacks on law enforcement, and destruction of property that at times have occurred amid the protests and called for legal accountability for perpetrators.

By suggesting that those officials are instead actively supporting riots, while inflating the extent of those riots, Fox is creating a justification for Trump to step in. And given Trump’s drive to dominate his perceived enemies and his glorification of state violence, that could end very badly.

Immigration protests are an organic response to Trump’s escalation of enforcement

The Wall Street Journal published on Tuesday an extensive investigation of what it termed “The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the L.A. Migrant Crackdown.”

The story details how White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — disappointed by a pace of daily deportations that was below what the Biden administration attained last year — instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens” at targets like Home Depot and 7-Eleven.

According to the Journal, “ICE agents appeared to follow Miller’s tip and conducted an immigration sweep Friday at the Home Depot in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Westlake in Los Angeles, helping set off a weekend of protests around Los Angeles County, including at the federal detention center in the city’s downtown.”

The story also provides this summary of the extraordinary tactics the Trump administration has used to try to increase its deportation numbers:

Federal agents make warrantless arrests. Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. And across the U.S., people suspected of being in the country illegally are disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys, witnesses and officials.

Trump won the 2024 presidential election while promising an agenda of mass deportation. But the naked cruelty and questionable legality of these policies will inevitably spur dissent, and some who oppose them will exercise their First Amendment rights to speak out against them, including at public protests.

Democratic politicians don't support rioting that sometimes accompanied those protests

The civic core of Los Angeles has seen unacceptable levels of violence over the past several days. As the Los Angeles Times reported, “Protests have devolved into clashes with police and made-for-TV scenes of chaos: Waymo taxis on fire. Vandals defacing city buildings with anti-police graffiti. Masked men lobbing chunks of concrete at California Highway Patrol officers keeping protesters off the 101 Freeway.”

That rioting, according to LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, was caused not by “the people that we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their First Amendment rights,” but “by masked ‘anarchists’ who he said were bent on exploiting the state of unrest to vandalize property and attack police.”

Fox propagandists like Watters, echoing Trump administration officials, have suggested that Democrats could instantly make the rioting stop but are refusing to do so because they support the violence.

They don’t offer evidence for this Democratic support for rioting. Democratic leaders have rightfully and repeatedly condemned the violence targeting law enforcement and destruction of property as anathema, as a simple perusal of their X accounts reveals. In addition to denouncing such tactics on their merits, they frequently point out that rioting plays into Trump’s hands.

Newsom’s messages to the public over the last few days have included:

Bass has likewise said:

Their statements are not anomalous. Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) “message to the people in LA” is “keep speaking out and protest peacefully.” His colleague Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) posted, “Los Angeles — violence is never the answer. Assaulting law enforcement is never ok.” Other caucus members who are as ideologically diverse as Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are on the same page, calling for peaceful protest while condemning violence. Indeed, the lack of support for rioting has led to condemnations of the Democratic Party from the left.

No one in a position of authority in the Democratic Party is following the path that Trump and his supporters at Fox took after the January 6 insurrection by making excuses for rioting and paving the way to pardon the offenders.

These riots, while deplorable, have not engulfed the city

Right-wing pundits have suggested that journalists are minimizing the violence by pointing out that the protests are occurring in a tiny fraction of a massive city where the vast majority of residents are unaffected by any violence that has occurred. But the scope of the problem really does matter in determining the appropriate government response.

Trump claimed on Sunday that Los Angeles “has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals” and that action is needed “to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.” On Monday, an official Defense Department social media account reported that “Los Angeles is burning, and local leaders are refusing to respond.”

The more extensive the destruction, the more justification there is for federal action.

In 1992, for example, President George H.W. Bush deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to days of widespread rioting following the acquittal of the police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King. Time reported of the LA riots:

Over the course of several days, more than 60 people died, while another 2,000 were injured. More than 1,000 buildings were defaced, leading to damages that amounted to some $1 billion.

Bush called up the National Guard under the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the President to deploy the typically state-controlled military force in certain situations involving invasions or insurrections, on the third day of the riots.

“What followed Wednesday's jury verdict in the Rodney King case was a tragic series of events for the city of Los Angeles: Nearly 4,000 fires, staggering property damage, hundreds of injuries, and the senseless deaths of over 30 people,” Bush said in an address at the time. He went on to announce the commitment of thousands of additional troops to the city “to help restore order” at the behest of the governor and mayor, and the federalization of the National Guard.

The violence against law enforcement and property damage that has occurred since Friday is unacceptable, and the governor and mayor are right to try to control the chaos. It’s also not on the scale of the Rodney King riots, happening over what amounts to a handful of city blocks, as these graphics from The New York Times show.

But Trump has responded in unprecedented fashion. He has federalized and deployed roughly 4,000 soldiers of the California National Guard, an order the state called “unlawful” and that Newsom said came without the president “conferring with the state.”

He also deployed 700 U.S. Marines, which “are typically not trained or equipped to deal with civil disturbances,” as retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré told Task and Purpose. Absent clear coordination, the arrival of those forces “presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us tasked with safeguarding this city,” according to McDonnell.

Trump is determined to get an escalation

The president has been described as a fascist by those who served at the highest levels of his first administration, including his former White House chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, as well as by Gen. Mark Milley, who served under him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He promised on the campaign trail to “root out the communist, Marxist, fascist and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” and floated using the National Guard or even the military against “the enemy from within,” which he described as “radical left lunatics.”

He reportedly considered invoking the Insurrection Act during the 2020 civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd, was rebuffed by Esper and Milley, and said that he regretted not “immediately” sending in the military.

He has selected more pliant defense officials for his second term, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox host who supported the domestic deployment of the military and is known for defending U.S. service members who had been accused and convicted of war crimes.

Trump has praised the Chinese government’s murderous response to student protesters at Tiananmen Square, saying it showed “the power of strength,” and has repeatedly urged law enforcement officers to use rougher, more brutal tactics in dealing with those they apprehend.

And the president does not appear to observe a distinction between peaceful protest and violent riot — if the perpetrators aren’t his supporters, it’s all insurrection to him.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Even 'Fox & Friends' Can No Longer Deny Tax Bill Will Explode Deficit

Even 'Fox & Friends' Can No Longer Deny Tax Bill Will Explode Deficit

Reality crept into Fox News’ coverage of the Republican tax bill on Monday when a Fox & Friends co-host acknowledged that the legislation will increase the budget deficit because the GOP Congress is prioritizing President Donald Trump’s tax cut agenda.

The White House and House Republican leaders seem to have adopted a strategy of flatly lying about the deficit implications of their “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought falsely claimed that the bill “doesn’t increase the deficit or hurt the debt” while House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) falsely claimed it is “not going to add to the debt” in June 1 appearances on Sunday morning political talk shows.

But Fox & Friends' Ainsley Earhardt acknowledged the following morning that the bill will cause the deficit to increase due to its tax cuts — though she minimized by how much.

“I don't think anyone wants the deficit to go up,” Earhardt said. “But more importantly, it was the permanent tax cuts, it was no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, that’s more important to the American people than seeing the deficit go up a little bit.”

“No one wants that, but they prefer to have these other things,” she added.

While Earhardt claimed that the bill would cause the deficit to rise only “a little bit,” nonpartisan budget analysts say it would “balloon federal deficits by well over $1 trillion.” The Congressional Budget Office, for example, found that the legislation’s “tax provisions would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending,” for an overall increase in the debt of over $3 trillion over 10 years.

The legislation’s proposed spending cuts — while much too small to make the bill deficit-neutral given the mammoth size of the tax cuts — would nonetheless be devastating to millions of Americans. The bill would “reduce federal spending on Medicaid by at least $600 billion over a decade and reduce enrollment by about 10.3 million people,” according to the CBO, and “take food assistance away from millions of low-income families” through the “deepest cut” to food stamps “in history,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found.

And while Earhardt directed attention to Trump’s campaign promises about cutting taxes on tipped income, overtime income, and Social Security, those account for a tiny fraction of the bill’s tax cuts. The bulk of the deficit increase is caused by the bill’s extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.

The CBO combined the impact of the tax and spending portions of the bill and found that it would reduce resources for the poorest households while increasing them for the richest.

At the same time, the bill is projected to fuel little economic growth and could trigger a bond market meltdown that could raise interest rates for consumers, increase borrowing costs, and threaten the broader economy.

As Earhardt might say, “no one wants that, but they prefer to have” tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Jeanine Pirro

Fox Producer Said Pirro Is 'Nuts,' So Trump Names Her Top D.C. Prosecutor

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro is so unhinged that the network took her show off the air following the 2020 election out of (subsequently confirmed) fear that she’d use it to launder deranged conspiracy theories about the results. But she’s a fanatical supporter of President Donald Trump, and that is apparently enough to get her tapped as the top federal prosecutor for Washington, D.C.

Trump announced Thursday night that he was appointing Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, specifically praising her Fox News career. Earlier in the day, Trump indicated that he planned to move on from acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, another right-wing media figure, who appeared unable to muster sufficient votes for Senate confirmation. Pirro is the 23rd person with Fox on their resume whom Trump has selected to join his second administration.

While Martin’s legal support for January 6 defendants reportedly played a major role in the failure of his nomination, Pirro has no recent legal experience to speak of. She was elected as a Westchester County Court judge in New York in 1990, and then she served as the county’s district attorney before suffering through an aborted run for U.S. Senate in 2005. Pirro joined Fox in 2006 and has been firmly ensconced on its sets for the last two decades, serving as a legal analyst, host of the weekend evening program Justice with Judge Jeanine, and then co-host of the weekday panel show The Five.

Following Trump’s rise to the presidency, Pirro stood out among the network’s stable of shills and propagandists for providing what my late colleague Simon Maloy deemed “advocacy for the president [that] is so aggressive that it often borders on insane.”

Her lowlights during his first term included calling for a “cleansing” of the FBI and the Justice Department, which she said were full “of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in handcuffs”; describing Trump as “a nonstop, never-give-up, no-holds-barred human version of the speed of light” and comparing his negotiation prowess to the skill of NFL running back Saquon Barkley; repeatedly urging then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign if he was unwilling to protect Trump and prosecute his enemies; speaking on stage at a Trump campaign event in apparent violation of network policy; and getting suspended by Fox for pointing out that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) wears a hijab and asking, “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to sharia law which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?”

Pirro’s zealous support for Trump loomed over her coverage of his lies that the 2020 election had been stolen from him through election fraud. Fox preempted her first broadcast of Justice following Election Day. But when she returned to the airwaves for subsequent broadcasts, she provided conspiracy-minded segments that promoted false claims about the election results, including attacks on technology company Dominion Voting Systems. Those segments played a key role in Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox, which the network ultimately settled for a massive sum.

That lawsuit also provided a keyhole view of how Pirro’s own colleagues viewed her. In an email, Fox executive David Clark, who oversaw her show, privately explained why he had taken her off the air at first: “I don’t trust her to be responsible. … Her guests are all going to say the election is being stolen and if she pushes back at all it will just be a token.” Internal Fox communications also show her executive producer describing her as a “reckless maniac” who is “nuts,” promotes “conspiracy theories,” and “should never be on live television.”

But it’s hard to get fired from Fox for being too supportive of Trump — and indeed, Pirro subsequently received a promotion to The Five. She used that post to furiously denounce the legal cases against Trump and the prosecutors and even jurors involved in them.

“We have gone over a cliff in America,” she said after a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts. “This is a new era in America, and I think it goes against the ilk of who we are as Americans and our faith in the criminal justice system.”

Since Trump returned to office, Pirro has kept busy by showering him with praise. “Donald Trump is not panicked and neither should we be because he's bringing us to the golden age, Harold, and that's the end of it,” she said last month.

She’s also lashed out at anyone attempting to stand in his way, from federal employees who “think they’re entitled to a job” to “stupid” judges who rule against him to governors who won’t let state law enforcement cooperate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Pirro spent years denouncing the Justice Department for not serving as an extension of Trump’s will and throwing his political foes in jail. Now she’ll have the opportunity to do just that.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Trump White House Escalates War On The Press

Trump White House Escalates War On The Press

President Donald Trump is ramping up his assault on the press, opening new avenues for federal retribution against outlets which displease him as his administration prepares to mark 100 days in office.

Trump has long railed against journalists as the “enemy of the people,” used the power of the state as a cudgel against the industry in his first term, and promised more of the same in his second.

His return to office brought what Columbia Journalism Review’s Jon Allsop described as a “sharp, often contemptuous rupture” between the federal government and the press, with the White House seeking over the last few months to dominate reporters, place new restrictions on critical outlets, and lift up right-wing propagandists in their place.

The president’s threats against news outlets have been so extreme for so many years that by contrast, such moves struck some observers as “small beer” or “trivial nonsense.”

But Trump’s talk is cheap until it isn’t — at any time, on a whim, he or the assortment of ideologues and shills he’s appointed can set the gears of government grinding against his foes. And this weekend brought a sharp escalation and worrying signs for the future.

Justice Department ends restrictions protecting journalists

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday laid the groundwork for the imprisonment of journalists who produce reporting that damages the president’s interests.

In an internal Justice Department memo, Bondi rescinded Biden-era protections which restricted prosecutors “from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media,” stating this was necessary “in order to identify and punish the source of improper leaks” by individuals whose conduct she described as “treasonous.”

Notably, her memo targets not just the leaking of classified information but also “disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”

Trump regularly rails against reporting based on anonymous sources. Bondi’s move raises the prospect of the Trump administration responding to such reports by forcing reporters to choose between revealing their sources and going to jail.

Bondi, a Trump loyalist who previously parlayed frequent Fox appearances defending Trump into a post on his first impeachment legal defense team, will apparently be making the call over when the Justice Department uses that legal tool.

Other top prosecutors and investigators who might weigh in include her deputy, Emil Bove, who previously represented Trump in state and federal prosecutions; Ed Martin, the lawyer for January 6 defendant who now serves as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia; FBI Director Kash Patel, who has called for the federal targeting of journalists; and his extremely online deputy, the former Fox host Dan Bongino.

How far will they go? Trump wants them to go very far indeed.

Trump calls for investigations of media pollsters

Trump responded on Monday to new surveys which show his approval ratings plunging in light of his catastrophic tariff rollout by calling for investigations into the pollsters and the media outlets which conduct them.

Trump claimed in an early morning post on Truth Social that results from New York Times/Siena and ABC/Washington Post polls were due to the surveys “looking for a negative result.”

“These people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you’re at it,” he wrote. “They are Negative Criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I WIN ELECTIONS BIG, much bigger than their polls showed I would win, loose a lot of credibility, and then go on cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse.”

Trump regularly accuses his media foes of breaking the law, and in a March speech at the Justice Department headquarters he instructed its employees to “watch for” their “totally illegal” behavior.

The president is currently suing Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer over the results of one of her presidential campaign surveys.

Trump has personally dictated Justice Department investigations into two former officials from his first administration who became critics, as well as into ActBlue, the hub for Democratic campaign fundraising — and he could launch a similar legal assault on any news outlet which displeases him at any time.

A cry of desperation from CBS News

60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley concluded Sunday’s broadcast with a blunt explanation for the resignation last week of Bill Owens, a journalist with decades of experience at CBS News and the show’s longtime executive producer.

“Our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger,” he said. “The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

Trump and his administration had targeted CBS News for retribution following a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris, the editing of which the president alleged had been unfair to him.

Trump launched a lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from the network, which First Amendment attorneys described as “ridiculous junk” and “a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.” Brendan Carr, his handpicked chair of the Federal Communications Commission, is conducting an investigation into the editing that former FCC commissioners have denounced.

Rather than stand firmly behind the company’s journalists, Paramount Chair Shari Redstone is reportedly seeking a settlement with Trump and an agreement with Carr that will allow the company’s merger to go through.

Trump gloats about media owners bowing to his will

Trump thinks he’s winning his battle against the press, as The Atlantic reported in a recent interview with the president:

“Tell the people at The Atlantic, if they’d write good stories and truthful stories, the magazine would be hot,” he said. Perhaps the magazine can risk forgoing hotness, he suggested, because it is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, which buffers it, he implied, from commercial imperatives. But that doesn’t guarantee anything, he warned. “You know at some point, they give up,” he said, referring to media owners generally and—we suspected—[Washington Post owner Jeff] Bezos specifically. “At some point they say, No más, no más.” He laughed quietly.

Trump understands that many of the news outlets whose work he decries are owned by multinational corporations or wealthy magnates whose business interests make them vulnerable to federal retaliation.

After only a few months in office, he’s seen the pressure he’s exerted on CBS News push it to the breaking point, while the resolve of major newspaper owners is seemingly crumbling. And he has years more time in office to try to break them to his will.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Pete Hegseth

Amid Pentagon Chaos, Fox Hosts Stepping Away From Hegseth

Fox News’ biggest stars have stopped defending Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid the weeklong firestorm over their former colleague’s dysfunctional management of the Pentagon and his potentially illegal handling of classified information.

Three months after Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 Senate tie to install the historically underqualified Hegseth at the Pentagon, journalists routinely describe a department in “chaos.” Five top Hegseth aides have left the department since last Friday amid reports of “vicious rivalries,” and a “leadership vacuum.” Reporters further revealed that Hegseth had shared details about U.S. strikes in Yemen in a second unsecured Signal chat, potentially endangering U.S. service members, and had the app installed on his Pentagon computer.

Hegseth responded to his growing list of scandals with a combative Tuesday appearance on Fox & Friends, whose hosts defended his conduct.

But other Fox hosts have been silent, even after rallying to support Hegseth when his nomination came under fire and again following the first revelation of his use of Signal to share attack plans.

Fox’s evening lineup of The Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime, Hannity, and Gutfeld! have ignored Hegseth’s struggles this week (a passing remark from guest Jimmy Failla to host Laura Ingraham was the only mention of the story on any of those shows). The Five, the Fox panel show which features Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Jeanine Pirro, and Dana Perino, also has not covered the subject.

Even Will Cain, who spent years sharing the couch with Hegseth as co-hosts of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, hasn’t mentioned his former colleague’s name on his afternoon show this week. (He did not comment on Fox correspondent Kevin Corke’s report about the Signal story during Monday’s program.)

As Fox’s stars take a pass, full-throated defenses of Hegseth’s leadership are coming from the likes of MAGA stalwarts like Charlie Kirk, Benny Johnson, and Laura Loomer, while their corporate cousins at The Wall Street Journal editorial board savage his handling of the Pentagon.

Two explanations seem plausible for why Fox’s biggest stars have gone silent as their former colleague comes under fire:

  • They’ve decided that the best way to help Hegseth is to keep pretending the Signal story is over, hide other damning reports about his leadership from their viewers, and hope the firestorm dies out.
  • They think Hegseth’s performance is so bad and the stakes of his failure at the Defense Department are so high that they are unwilling to keep sticking their necks out for him.

Either way, this disaster was the predictable result of President Donald Trump putting a former Fox weekend host with little relevant experience in charge of the Pentagon. The secretary of defense oversees a massive budget and bureaucracy and has the authority under certain circumstances to launch nuclear weapons and end human civilization. The risks of handing the position over to someone because of their takes on TV are almost incalculably high.

Hegseth is currently struggling to manage the Pentagon when its biggest problem is a costly, ineffective, and apparently unending bombing campaign in Yemen. How will he respond if India and Pakistan start trading fire?

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Pete Hegseth

Why The Hegseth Debacle Was Inevitable

President Donald Trump’s second administration hasn’t yet hit the 100-day mark, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is already being routinely described as “embattled.” On Friday, Hegseth fired three of the top aides he had brought with him to the Pentagon amid an investigation into unauthorized leaks. Sunday brought two new body blows: News that Hegseth had shared details about U.S. strikes in Yemen in a second unsecured Signal chat — this one including his wife, brother, and personal lawyer — and a scathing op-ed from a former top Pentagon spokesperson who accused Hegseth of creating “total chaos” at the department.

It’s unnerving to see the management of the world’s most powerful military described as “a run of chaos that is unmatched in the recent history of the Defense Department,” or to read reports about how the internal dysfunction is leading some officials “to wonder how the Pentagon would function in a national security crisis.” Trump, however, is standing by Hegseth — apparently the only reporting that can get high-level figures removed in this administration is that of conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.

Hegseth’s disastrous run at the Pentagon is entirely predictable, the natural result of elevating a co-host of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition to sixth in the line of succession because the president liked his Fox News hits.

Hegseth lacked anything resembling the traditional qualifications to lead the Defense Department. Other recent picks have leaned on their experience at the top levels of the military, the Pentagon bureaucracy, or congressional oversight of the department, but Hegseth had none of these — he led a platoon in the Army National Guard and oversaw small right-wing veterans organizations before joining Fox as a contributor in 2014. His elevation might nonetheless be explicable if he had unique personal virtues or strong outside-the-box ideas for how to manage the Pentagon, but he’s been dogged by reports of public drunkenness, sexual assault, and financial mismanagement, while his vision for the military seems to begin and end with the notion that it had become excessively “woke.”

What Hegseth had in spades was the one attribute Trump seems to value above all others — years of expressing sycophantic public support for the president on Fox. For Trump, a Fox obsessive who stocked both of his administrations with familiar faces from the network’s green rooms, that was enough.

Trump reportedly considered Hegseth to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs in his first term but ultimately retained him as an outside adviser — one whose counsel he took in offering clemency to several accused and convicted war criminals the Fox host boosted. But for his second time in the Oval Office, Trump tapped Hegseth to run the DOD.

Asking a Fox & Friends weekend host to oversee a massive bureaucracy with millions of military and civilian employees and a budget in the hundreds of billions is obviously stupid, and Hegseth’s nomination appeared to be in jeopardy amid a series of damning reports. But Trump’s MAGA media supporters decided to lay down a marker, threatening Republican senators with primary challenges if they did not support Hegseth’s confirmation, and he ultimately squeaked through as Vice President JD Vance voted to break the Senate’s 50-50 tie.

Hegseth’s actions in office quickly vindicated his critics and forced his defenders to scramble on his behalf. March’s revelation that Hegseth had shared detailed information about imminent U.S. military strikes over a commercial messaging app led to days of strained explanations from his former Fox colleagues and others in the MAGA media.

The response has been somewhat different following Sunday’s revelation of the second such set of messages. Some on Fox have offered defenses for Hegseth, while a Media Matters review found the network’s popular panel show The Five and evening hosts Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Sean Hannity have ignored the story on their programs. Other MAGA media figures have blamed the report on the “deep state,” with some suggesting that Hegseth has been targeted as part of a struggle within the Trump administration over Iran policy.

The defense secretary, meanwhile, has responded to the string of damning reports by leaning into what got him the job in the first place: He has publicly lashed out at his critics and lavished praise on the president.

“They've come after me from day one, just like they've come after President Trump,” Hegseth said in a Tuesday appearance on Fox & Friends. “I've gotten a fraction of what President Trump got in that first term. What he has endured is superhuman.”

Hegseth isn’t the only right-wing media star turned top Trump appointee to struggle in the administration’s early days, and we should expect more such stories in the days to come. The president has prioritized hiring people who are adept at throwing red meat to the MAGA base. While that may help them weather scandals that would doom a member of a normal political movement, it is not a skill that translates to overseeing complicated bureaucracies.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

As Houthi Attacks Persist, Hegseth's Main 'Signalgate' Defense Fails

As Houthi Attacks Persist, Hegseth's Main 'Signalgate' Defense Fails

In their quest to undermine the scandal about key Trump administration national security officials discussing detailed military attack plans on a commercial messaging app, President Donald Trump and his media propagandists repeatedly claimed that the uproar was a minor sideshow that paled in comparison to the fact that the mission had been a resounding military victory.

“The mission in Yemen was operationally a complete success,” Fox News host and sometime Trump adviser Sean Hannity proclaimed on his show. “Why focus on the successful military operation when you can trash Donald Trump and people that work for him?”

But that defense of the administration has withered under scrutiny in the intervening weeks. Any tactical victory achieved during the initial March 15 attack has not fulfilled the intended U.S. goal of curbing Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, a major international trade route.

When The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been inadvertently added to a Signal group chat where Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and other senior officials discussed a planned attack on the Houthis, the MAGA commentariat scrambled to respond.

Trump’s media allies lashed out at Goldberg and sought to downplay the importance of his reporting, even as stunned experts pointed out that Hegseth’s sharing the exact strike times and the weapons packages to be used hours before their deployment over an insecure channel put U.S. forces at risk.

As part of their PR strategy, Trump’s Fox News propagandists instead touted the effectiveness of the strike on the Houthis — then stopped talking about the campaign. But two weeks after Goldberg published the administration’s messages, and nearly a month after the first bombs fell, U.S. forces are still embroiled in an open-ended air war in Yemen that has reportedly cost nearly $1 billion, with no conclusion in sight.

Trump, Fox hosts declare U.S. strikes on Houthis “successful”

Trump sought to downplay the scandal, in part by driving attention toward the purportedly effective strikes he claimed had received insufficient coverage.

“The main thing was nothing happened, the attack was totally successful,” the president told reporters on the afternoon of March 25. He said during a media availability the next day the press coverage of the Signal saga was “a witch hunt,” adding that “the attacks were unbelievably successful, and that’s ultimately what you should be talking about."

Hannity, the Fox star and Trump political operative, apparently heard his music. He lashed out at “the state-run legacy media mob” on his March 25 broadcast, claiming that “perhaps most importantly, something they'll never think about, the military mission thankfully was a complete success.”

Hannity added that “the outrage from the left over a reporter accidentally being added — a one-off, one-time, minor accident that did not impact the operation — to a White House group chat about a successful strike on Yemen is just a political show” by people who “want to smear Donald Trump and the White House” and claim “any political scalp they can get.”

“The mission in Yemen was operationally a complete success,” the Fox host said the next night. “It can’t get any more successful.”

After airing footage of Trump saying that “the result” of the strikes “is unbelievable” because the Houthis now “want to negotiate peace,” Hannity asked viewers, “Why focus on the successful military operation when you can trash Donald Trump and people that work for him?”

Several of Hannity’s colleagues followed suit over the same two-day period.

“What the media will not and cannot address is that the mission to destroy key Houthi targets was itself a huge success,” claimed Fox host Laura Ingraham. “So I think we should judge a policy by its outcome, not by an unintended error in transmission.”

“The strikes were successful,” according to Fox host Jeanine Pirro.

“The mission was a success,” said Fox host Jesse Watters.

“Nothing happened other than a successful military operation was executed,” offered Fox host Will Cain, adding that those who argue otherwise are “playing politics, not principles.”

And with that, they declared the Signalgate story was over — and stopped discussing the U.S. military strikes in Yemen on their shows.

None of the hosts mentioned the conflict between March 27 and April 2, when Hannity asserted that “just recently, when European trade routes were blocked off by the Houthi rebels, well, we were the ones that delivered a massive blow to Iran's proxy. Looks like we might be giving another one.”

None of them have mentioned it since.*

In Yemen, an open-ended U.S. air war without a plan for victory

Recent reporting contradicts Trump’s Fox-echoed claims of success in Yemen, finding instead that the U.S. is engaged in a costly fight that has had little impact on Houthi attacks and with little apparent strategy for victory. “In closed briefings in recent days, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that there has been only limited success in destroying the Houthis’ vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers, according to congressional aides and allies,” The New York Times reported on April 4.

The officials briefed on confidential damage assessments say the bombing is consistently heavier than strikes conducted by the Biden administration, and much bigger than what the Defense Department has publicly described.

But Houthi fighters, known for their resiliency, have reinforced many of their bunkers and other targeted sites, frustrating the Americans’ ability to disrupt the militia’s missile attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea, according to three congressional and allied officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

According to the Times’ sources, the “total cost could be well over $1 billion by next week,” and the military is going through munitions so quickly that “some Pentagon contingency planners are growing concerned about overall Navy stocks.” CNN likewise reported on April 7 that “the senior echelon” of the Houthis’ “military and political leadership appears intact,” and the group continues to fire ballistic missiles at U.S. targets in the region.

“The Houthis have been bombed tens of thousands of times over the past decade and remain undeterred,” Yemen expert Elisabeth Kendall told CNN. “So one is left thinking that the bombing is largely performative: let’s show the world - we’ll do it because we can.”

*Based on a Media Matters review of Fox transcripts in the Nexis database for references to “Yemen” or “Houthi.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Laura Loomer

'Real Power': Trumpist Kook Laura Loomer Lights A Five-Alarm Fire

President Donald Trump’s abrupt apparent removal of the general who oversaw U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency at the reported behest of the MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, a notorious bigot and conspiracy theorist, is a five-alarm fire for national security and good governance. The move demonstrates that the only qualification for service in the administration is personal loyalty to the president as determined by his most zealous sycophants.

Top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees said on Thursday night that Gen. Timothy D. Haugh had been removed from his positions as director of the NSA and head of the military’s Cyber Command. According to The New York Times, “a U.S. official briefed on the matter said Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and outside adviser to President Trump, called for General Haugh’s removal during her Oval Office meeting on Thursday. Mr. Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to fire General Haugh, the official said.”

Loomer subsequently appeared to take credit, writing on X that Haugh and his deputy had been “fired” because they were “disloyal to President Trump” and thanking the president “for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you.” She gave no evidence of Haugh’s purported disloyalty in her post — nor any critique of his service in his positions — instead criticizing him as “a Biden appointee” who “had no place serving in the Trump admin given the fact that he was HAND PICKED by” former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley.

Haugh is not the only apparent casualty of Loomer’s efforts. His seeming removal comes amid a firestorm caused by the revelation that Hegseth had provided precise details about an imminent U.S. military strike in Yemen in a Signal messaging group of top Trump officials assembled by national security adviser Mike Waltz, a move experts said endangered the lives of U.S. service members.

Waltz and Hegseth still remain in their posts — but as that story continued to metastasize, Loomer met with Trump in the Oval Office and provided him “with opposition research on [National Security Council] staffers whom she views as neoconservatives or not sufficiently loyal to the president.” The White House purged at least six NSC staffers following that meeting.

Trump surrounds himself with and takes counsel from a litany of right-wing media figures because he appreciates their fervent public support, particularly though not exclusively on Fox News. Those individuals wield immense power over every aspect of governance despite their total lack of relevant qualifications or temperament.

Even among the MAGA movement’s constellation of grifters, con artists, bigots, and loons, Loomer shines brightly. Here’s what I wrote about her in September as her presence accompanying Trump on the campaign trail triggered concern even from some of his other close allies:

Loomer is a self-described “proud Islamophobe” who is “pro-white nationalism.” She has claimed there is a “genocide” of “native white populations,” which she says are “being replaced in this country by third-world invaders,” and accused “so many rich Jews” of having “a fixation on trying to destroy America.” She has accused the Biden administration of seeking to assassinate Trump; called for the execution of unnamed “Democrats who are guilty of treason”; said that “all of these communist secretaries of state who try to rig our elections” against Trump “belong in jail for election interference”; and shared a video which claimed “9/11 was an Inside Job!”
...
Loomer has in recent weeks described [then-Vice President Kamala] Harris, whose parents immigrated from India and Jamaica, as “a brain-dead bimbo who sucked so much c**k in order to get to the political position that she's in today,” said she “is NOT black and never has been,” said her election would ensure that “Ebonics will replace English as the language of our land,” and said that if she’s elected “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand.”

Loomer is nonetheless unusually influential because Trump apparently appreciates her personal, fanatical loyalty. “I don’t really have much of a life, you know?” Loomer told The Washington Post last year. “So I’m happy to dedicate all my time to helping Trump, because if Trump doesn’t get back in, I don’t have anything.”

She apparently has something now — enough influence to impose her own loyalty tests on high-ranking government officials and see them cashiered by the president (and, she claims, to help shape his foreign policy). And so the country turns on the whims of someone once described by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), herself no stranger to bigoted and unhinged conspiracy theories, as “mentally unstable and a documented liar” who “can not be trusted” and is “toxic and poisonous.”

If you had said in October that if Trump were elected he would end up firing the NSA director and purging the NSC on the advice of someone like Loomer, you’d have been accused of having a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. And yet here we are, careening up to worst-case scenarios before the president’s 100-day mark.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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.

Migrant arrests

No Problem! Fox Hosts Unfazed By False Arrests And Torture Of Innocents

Fox News propagandists are employing a variety of defenses in response to revelations that the Trump administration has sent people in error to a notorious foreign prison, from alleging that migrants don’t deserve due process to attacking other news outlets for reporting on the “one-offs” to arguing that such mistakes are acceptable because “a lot of people in this country” are “arrested for things that they didn’t do."

The Trump administration last month sent more than 260 largely Venezuelan immigrants whom it alleges are members of Tren de Aragua and other gangs for imprisonment in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center. The administration is acting in part through the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows wartime deportation without a hearing, after President Donald Trump issued a proclamation declaring Tren de Aragua an invading force.

There would be any number of moral and legal problems with transferring individuals from U.S. custody to a foreign prison notorious for abuse, in potential violation of a judge’s order, and under the questionable justification of a rarely used 200-plus-year-old statute that has previously been invoked only during a war declared by Congress — even if those individuals had all been convicted of serious crimes in U.S. courts.

But adding to the dystopian nature of the Trump administration’s policy is that family members and lawyers for several of the people deported to the foreign hell-prison without due process say they have no criminal history or links to any gang — and the administration’s lawyers have claimed in court that they are unable to recover an immigrant who was in the U.S. legally and was, by their own admission, sent to the prison due to “administrative error."

If the Trump administration can do this to a legal resident, it can, through malice or incompetence, do it to anyone.

But to watch Fox in the Trump era is not to wonder whether its personalities will defend the latest atrocities from the administration — it's merely an exercise in finding out how they will do it.

Fox excuse 1: Critics sympathise with “illegal alien gangbangers”

After lone Democratic co-host Jessica Tarlov highlighted the “numerous cases confirmed of people in that mega prison who should not be” on Friday’s edition of The Five, her co-panelists attacked her for sympathizing with criminals.

“Jessica, you're showing more sympathy to these illegal alien gangbangers than you showed to American citizens when you mistakenly let 10 million people in,” Jesse Watters replied.

“Maybe you should have the pictures of the victims of these people,” said Jeanine Pirro. “And it's real deterrence, so the American people and you can see it."

“There are people who will always argue on behalf of the criminal element, but they will be the first to cross the street if they see them come their way,” Greg Gutfeld added. “If one of these liberals were ever to run into these thugs, they would have a literal bleeding heart."

Fox excuse 2: These reports are “false sob stories” impugning “great law enforcement”

Fox anchor Harris Faulker asked Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin to respond to “critics [who] are saying that innocent people are being swept up in the illegal gang member deportation operations,” during a Monday interview.

McLaughlin responded that the administration has “very intense scrutiny and intelligence assessments for these members of Tren de Aragua that we send to El Salvador and to other prisons,” and complained that “the mainstream media is absolutely doing the bidding of these vicious gang members that they are sharing false sob stories."

“Of course you will be careful who you scoop up and who you don't scoop up right away,” Faulkner agreed. “It is old-fashioned great law enforcement that’s being carried out."

“You mentioned false sob stories and other actions by some in the liberal media — and I guess by ‘some,’ I would need for somebody to show me an example of them not doing it at this point,” she added. “Is that kind of a distraction?"

Fox excuse 3: “It’s just a gay barber,” it is normal for people to be unjustly imprisoned

On Monday’s edition of The Five, Tarlov described the plight of one of the deportees who, while being beaten by guards during his entry to the prison, reportedly sobbed, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.” The individual may be Andry José Hernández Romero, a 31-year-old asylum-seeker with no removal order or criminal history who had been held in an immigration jail due to government concerns about his wrist tattoos of “a crown, with the words ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ inked next to them in English."

Tarlov’s co-hosts were not interested.

“You've been talking about this gay barber from El Salvador with some stupid tattoo for weeks,” Watters replied. “It's just a gay barber."

“Yeah, come on,” Gutfeld interjected. “He’s not into you."

Watters continued, “He's an innocent guy who got swept up in deportation and hopefully we get it figured out and straightened out, but a lot of people in this country, Jessica, get arrested for things that they didn't do, get falsely accused, falsely convicted. That doesn’t mean you just stop arresting people."

“I have nothing against the gay barber — gay barbers usually give the best haircuts,’ he added. “We should bring him back just for that."

Fox excuse 4: “Other networks” are “only focused on the one-offs”

Some on Fox are suggesting that the media is deliberately covering people erroneously sent to the Salvadoran prison to hurt Trump.

“I do find the coverage interesting, if you turn to the other networks, they are only focused on the one-offs, they’re not focused on the criminals, and they’re not focused on the victims of illegal immigration, the people that have been assaulted,” Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones said on Tuesday’s show.

“And you know why that is — that’s because border and immigration is Donald Trump's No. 1 issue and they don't want to talk about that,” replied co-host Steve Doocy.

Fox excuse 5: Due process takes too long

Another argument on Tuesday’s Fox & Friends claimed that deporting people to El Salvador without due process is necessary because the U.S. court system takes too long to work.

Comparing “using the Alien and Enemies Act” to seeking a court deportation order, Jones complained that “it is a long process before you get a final deportation order."

Jones continued, “This is why the administration is saying, ‘Do we wait until we are out of office where we have no control — you want us to wait four years before we start getting the gang members and criminals out?’"

“I mean, it just doesn't make any sense,” he added.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.