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Trump's State Media Struggling To Justify His Economic Failure

Trump's State Media Struggling To Justify His Economic Failure

President Donald Trump’s propaganda outlets are struggling to articulate a clear message as his sclerotic rollout of tariffs trigger widespread economic turbulence.

U.S. stock markets tumbled on Monday after Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that he could not rule out the possibility of a recession. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both suffered their worst day of the year, losing more than 2%, while the NASDAQ Composite fell 4%, its worst day since September 2022.

“The rout extended a miserable month for markets that has seen all three major indexes wipe out their gains since the US presidential election in November,” CNN reported. “The widespread selloff was mostly driven by anxiety about the impact of Trump’s tariffs.”

Here’s how the MAGA stalwarts on Fox News and Newsmax responded on Monday night.

Fox’s Watters and Hannity pretended the market fall didn’t happen

On Monday night, Fox prime-time host Jesse Watters did not mention the stock market decline outside of a passing comment about “a few rocky days on Wall Street,” instead focusing his attention on stories about how Democrats are “living a nightmare,” former first lady Michelle Obama’s forthcoming podcast, and Trump “cleaning up Biden’s mess.”

But the collapse did not go entirely unaddressed on Watters’ show. For the night’s final segment, Watters sent a producer to “explore” the political views of Gen Zers by interviewing spring breakers on the beach in Florida. When the producer asked the bathing suit-clad young people to identify the issue most important to them, one guy answered, “The stock market crashing.”

Fox host Sean Hannity didn’t send a producer to the beach, so on his program the market decline went unmentioned — his lead story was a “Hannity investigation” of “Biden’s Spending Spree.”

Fox’s Ingraham gently warned Trump about his tariffs’ potential political impact

Fox host Laura Ingraham opened her Monday program with a monologue criticizing Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) for, among other things, her “potty mouth.” But after that was over, she turned to the second-most-important story of the day: The economy.

Ingraham began the segment by noting the “rocky ride for the markets today,” which she attributed to how “businesses hate uncertainty, and for many the fentanyl tariffs, they just don't compute.”

The host walked a tightrope during the subsequent interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, offering some mild criticism of the impact of Trump’s economic policy, which she carefully caveated by making clear that she supported the president’s goals.

Ingraham portrayed herself as “very pro-tariff” and a strong supporter of Trump’s China tariffs in his first term, adding that the public can’t “process” “the fentanyl tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and then China gets only 10%, then we're doing a summit with China.”

She later argued that the public needed to wait to see the benefits from the tariffs, saying, “People don't also understand right at this moment, or maybe they can't see, or they don't really care, some of these businesses, is the economic boom that will happen when manufacturing returns.”

But she added that the lag could have political consequences, asking, “Will the voters in the midterms, depending on how long this uncertainty goes on, maybe it's not so long, the voters in the midterms, will they be patient? That, I think, is the question.”

Newsmax’s Schmitt and Kelly said that Trump knows best

The hosts of Fox competitor Newsmax apparently saw the stock market drop as an opportunity to portray themselves as the most sycophantic Trump supporters.

Rob Schmitt made the case that the market collapse was actually a good sign.

“It is important to remember as you look at the markets, that as most Americans were gutted by inflation these last three years, those same markets as indicators were skyrocketing,” he said, “So perhaps stocks need to take a nosedive so the working man can get a little relief from all of this inflation.”

And Greg Kelly argued, as his show’s on-screen text put it, that “Trump Has Always Known What’s Best For The U.S.” and that viewers are “Better Off Listening To Trump Since He’s Proven To Always Be Right.”

“Everybody needs to calm down a little bit, and have some faith,” he said, claiming that “the mainstream media, the establishment, Democrats, a lot of RINOs out there, they want people to be panicked so all this stuff gets reversed.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Putin

The American Right's Decade-Long Lurch Toward Putin's Russia

President Donald Trump’s actions over the past few weeks have drawn cheers from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government — and with good reason.

Trump falsely blamed Ukraine for the war that began with Russia’s 2022 invasion and described Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator,” then threw him out of the White House following a public confrontation. His administration over the same period began working with Russia on terms for a ceasefire with Ukraine, attempted to extort Ukraine for partial U.S. control of its rare mineral rights, voted with Russia against a United Nations resolution condemning its “aggression” in Ukraine, floated U.S. sanctions relief for Russia, and on Monday cut off military aid to Ukraine.

The remnants of the right-wing media still somewhat in step with the values of Ronald Reagan have spoken out against Trump’s Putinist turn. But its more popular and influential members are lining up behind the president and praising his actions.

The right-wing commentariat’s decade-long shift from near-universal antagonism to Russia to eager amplification of Kremlin propaganda has helped create the environment for Trump’s recent moves selling out Ukraine in favor of an effective alliance with Putin.

As late as 2012, the GOP and its propagandists were still uniformly anti-Russia. When former President Barack Obama told then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate on the issue of missile defense after the November election, his words were seized upon by right-wing commentators across the spectrum, from far-right outlets like Breitbart.com and The Gateway Pundit to the staid conservatives of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board to the pseudopopulists of Fox News, where hosts repeated the attack for years.

But following Obama’s reelection, a faction of the right changed course. Initially they were a fringe group seeking to rehabilitate Putin — a dictator who assassinated political opponents and defiant journalists — as a contrast with the purportedly elite Democratic president and what they deemed his excessively pro-LGBTQ policies. But the faction grew over time, drawing support from pundits like Sean Hannity, who sought counternarratives to excuse Trump’s Russia ties and attack Joe Biden’s Ukraine ones, and Tucker Carlson, who seemed to simply favor Russia’s success in its invasion of its neighbor.

The shift toward Russia became so prominent that in recent years, GOP lawmakers have sounded the alarm about pro-Kremlin propaganda infesting their party’s communications apparatus. And now, we are seeing the devastating consequences.

2013-2014: The right launches love affair with “macho man” Putin, calls him “one of us”

The right’s Putinist turn began as a revolt against a potential future of equal rights and dignity for LGBTQ people and escalated as the movement came to champion the brutish Russian dictator as an anti-Obama.

Putin signed sweeping laws during the summer of 2013 which banned the dissemination of “gay propaganda” and prohibited same-sex couples in Russia and foreigners from nations with marriage equality from adopting Russian children. This triggered widespread condemnation and even calls to boycott the impending Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

When Obama added his voice, saying in an August appearance that he had “no patience” for countries that impose laws “violating the basic morality that I think should transcend every country,” a faction of right-wing media responded by siding with Putin.

“Our moral and cultural elites have put Putin on notice: Get in step with us on homosexual rights — or we may just boycott your Sochi games,” wrote the paleoconservative Pat Buchanan. “What this reveals is the distance America has traveled, morally and culturally, in a few short years, and our amnesia about who we Americans once were, and what it is we once believed.”

Buchanan added that Putin was trying to restore the “moral compass” of the Orthodox Church. After quoting a Putin remark praising Christianity’s influence on Russia, he wrote: “Anyone ever heard anything like that from the Post, the Times or Barack Hussein Obama?”

(Putin’s opposition to marriage equality made him “one of us” in “the culture war for mankind’s future,” Buchanan suggested later that year.)

Right-wing commentators over the following years began praising Putin as the polar opposite of the caricature they had created of Obama as an effete, indecisive intellectual. In disputes between Putin and Obama — between Russia and the United States — they started hewing to the Kremlin line.

Amid U.S.-Russian altercations over the Syrian civil war, Matt Drudge deemed Putin “the leader of the free world,” while Tucker Carlson argued that he was “riding to President Obama's rescue.”

As Russia invaded Ukraine the following month, right-wing pundits like Fox’s Bill O’Reilly dissected photos of shirtless “macho man” Putin on a horse and a helmeted Obama on a bicycle. While Russian troops were occupying the Crimean Peninsula, Rudy Giuliani was telling Fox’s audience that Putin is “what you call a leader” because “he makes a decision and he executes it quickly,” while Obama has “got to think about it” before taking action.

At times, the right’s Kremlinist corps would make explicit its desire to have the Russian running the U.S. instead of Obama.

“Can we get like Netanyahu or like Putin in for 48 hours, you know, head of the United States?” former Fox host Kimberley Guilfoyle commented in August 2014. “I just want somebody to get in here and get it done right, so that Americans don't have to worry and wake up in the morning fearful of a group that's murderous and horrific like ISIS.”

2015-2016: Trump’s Russia ties trigger right-wing excuses

While the right-wing media’s pro-Putin faction was not yet dominant, it included one particularly influential figure: Donald Trump, the reality TV star and real estate mogul who had become the GOP front-runner for the 2016 presidential nomination.

Trump touted Putin on the campaign trail as a “powerful leader” who “represented his country” better than Obama did the U.S. That praise, along with Trump’s known past (and secret contemporaneous) business interests in Russia; his hiring of campaign advisers notorious for their ties to the country; his waffling on NATO’s security guarantees; his open call for the Kremlin to intercede on his behalf; and the clear (and ultimately successful) effort by Russia's government to help him win the 2016 election triggered widespread concern about his ties to the country as he ascended to the Republican nomination and then the presidency.

Trump’s pro-Russia stance was unacceptable for some in the right-wing media — but not the stars of Fox, who made excuses for his actions.

In July 2016, for example, Trump called on Russian intelligence services to follow up their successful hack of the Democratic National Committee by finding Hillary Clinton’s emails.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said during a press conference. “You will probably be rewarded mightily.”

National security experts were horrified. But on Fox, the comment was played off as either a joke, a misunderstanding, or a media lie.

“The media has got the whole thing wrong,” Hannity claimed. “They’re purposefully distorting this whole thing, which is what they do.”

“I think what he was saying was they already stole them. They have them. Can you please return them to us,” offered Carlson.

Both Greg Gutfeld and Bret Baier told viewers that Trump had been making a joke.

However, the Kremlin seemed to take Trump both seriously and literally.

“Russian officials began to target email addresses associated with Hillary Clinton’s personal and campaign offices ‘on or around’ the same day Donald Trump called on Russia to find emails that were missing from her personal server,” PBS reported of an indictment brought by special counsel Robert Mueller two years later.

As the extent of Russia’s pro-Trump campaign came into focus, the most devoted Trumpists waved it away.

Carlson posited that claims that Russia had been behind the leaked Democratic emails published by WikiLeaks were “a lie” and repeatedly argued that the U.S. intelligence community was pushing an “unsubstantiated claim” that cyberattacks on American political institutions were “a Russian propaganda effort.”

Hannity put forward a similar thesis about the allegation of a Russian hack-and-leak effort to benefit Trump. “I'm just assuming this is another liberal media fake news story that they're all falling for, and it's politically motivated,” he claimed.

It was not.

2017-2020: Trump defenses lead to a tightening embrace of Russian propaganda

The Trumpist right’s fervent need to defend him at all cost led to its inexorable adoption of pro-Russian narratives over the course of his presidency. During Trump’s four years in office, three main threads braided together into a rope yoking pro-Trump media figures to Putin.

First, Trump continued to habitually praise Putin and take inexplicably pro-Russian actions over the course of his presidency. In response, pro-Trump media figures defended him by explaining away or ignoring what other press outlets and even members of Trump’s own party considered abhorrent.

Trumpist commentators became practiced in responding to the president’s public statements about Russia, arguing that in contrast to his rhetoric, his “actions” against Russia had been “tough.” When Trump shocked the international community by standing next to Putin at a 2018 press conference in Helsinki and validating the Russian dictator’s false claim that he had not interfered in the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s media allies touted his “very strong” performance and criticized the “mass hysteria” to the contrary. And damning reports about Trump sharing classified information with the Russian ambassador at the White House and meeting with Putin without a note taker or translator were downplayed or avoided altogether.

Second, Mueller’s investigation created a steady stream of damaging stories for Trump as the special counsel successfully indicted and prosecuted some of the president’s closest aides, revealing both the breadth of the Kremlin’s effort to bolster Trump’s campaign and the eagerness of Trump’s allies to participate. In response, Trump’s media supporters, led by Fox’s Hannity, developed a sprawling counternarrative in which Mueller’s Russia probe was the result of a “soft coup” by a shadowy cabal of journalists, Democrats, and “deep state” operatives.

Night after night, Hannity and his anti-Mueller crew put forward a series of bogus premises: “The media has been corrupt and lying to you”; “so-called Trump Russia collusion” is a “tinfoil hat conspiracy theory,” while Democrats had committed the “real collusion” with Russia; Trump was the victim of “the biggest abuse of power corruption case in American history”; and a second special counsel was needed to “expose” all of the above and ensure that the perpetrators “go to jail.”

With Trump amplifying such claims and rewarding Republicans who promoted them, these talking points became the heart of the GOP’s Mueller rebuttal. The counternarrative even led to the appointment of a special counsel for an “investigation of the investigators,” albeit one who turned up remarkably little of note.

Third, Russia’s campaign to sway U.S. elections on Trump’s behalf continued as the president sought reelection in 2020. Right-wing media figures like Hannity and John Solomon responded by participating: They teamed up with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the minions of a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch, and a sanctioned Ukrainian lawmaker described by the U.S. government as “an active Russian agent” to concoct and disseminate purported evidence that former-Vice President Joe Biden acted corruptly by pushing Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, who was supposedly investigating Biden’s son’s business interests.

This disinformation campaign was flagrantly false — U.S. policy called for firing the prosecutor, who was viewed as unwilling to prosecute corruption by U.S. diplomats, foreign governments, international bodies, and Ukrainian anti-corruption groups.

But the right-wing narrative caught Trump’s eye. He subsequently tried to condition vital military aid to Ukraine and a state visit by Zelensky on the Ukrainian president announcing an investigation into the Bidens. The revelation of Trump’s conduct ultimately triggered his first impeachment — during which his media allies settled on the conclusion that the president had done nothing impeachable.

As Trump’s Fox propagandists scrambled to defend his conduct, one host broke new ground by suggesting that the U.S. shouldn’t have been supporting Ukraine in the first place.

“Why do I care? Why do I care what's going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?” Carlson asked on his prime-time show. “Like, why do I care? And why shouldn't I root for Russia? Which I am.”

Carlson quickly claimed he had been joking — but the mask had slipped.

2021-2024: MAGA pundits swallow Kremlin line on Ukraine, Biden

On March 3, 2022, just days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, a Russian government agency issued new instructions to state-sponsored propaganda outlets: Promote Tucker Carlson.

“It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” the memo, which was leaked to Mother Jones, stated.

The Kremlin’s assessment of Carlson’s broadcast was accurate. The Fox star, in the days before and following the Russian incursion, had passionately defended Putin, criticized Zelensky as Biden’s “puppet” and his country as a “growing dictatorship,” denied that a war was imminent and then blamed the U.S. for its start, and mocked the bipartisan supporters of U.S. aid to Ukraine. And over the following months, a Carlson-Kremlin feedback loop developed in which Carlson picked up disinformation campaigns originating with Russian state media, then Russian outlets promoted his reports.

Carlson was the loudest and most influential MAGA media figure to adopt pro-Russian talking points about the country’s brutal bombing and occupation of portions of Ukraine — but he and his guests were far from alone.

Commentary that toed the Putin line became increasingly commonplace on the right among Carlson’s Fox colleagues as well as from online fever swamps like The Gateway Pundit and far-right influencers like Jack Posobiec. Within months, the right-wing propaganda machine was in full-scale revolt over the U.S. sending aid to support Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion.

The MAGA movement’s information ecosystem became increasingly honeycombed with pro-Putin propaganda over the course of the war.

Hannity, his House Republican allies, and his Fox colleagues spent 2023 attempting to manufacture an impeachment case against Biden which largely rehashed the disinformation debunked four years earlier about the fired Ukrainian prosecutor. The story did feature one new wrinkle — a report from an FBI informant that a Ukrainian oligarch had paid Biden a $5 million bribe to get the prosecutor removed.

Hannity promoted that account in dozens of segments, arguing that the FBI informant’s “bombshell” was “smoking-gun evidence” of “the very definition of a high crime,” and “might end up being the biggest story of the year.” But the tale disintegrated in February 2024 when federal prosecutors arrested the informant — who reportedly had deep ties to Russian intelligence — and charged him with fabricating his allegations (he later pleaded guilty). The GOP’s impeachment push dissolved soon after.

Meanwhile, Carlson was not just excusing Putin’s invasion, but doing an interview with the Russian dictator that was heavily touted by Kremlin propagandists and producing glowing videos that extolled the Russian system.

The situation became so bleak that in April 2024, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) — the former GOP chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — told a reporter that because of right-wing media, Russian propaganda had “infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

McCaul was not exaggerating — later that year, federal prosecutors alleged several prominent right-wing influencers had unwittingly received millions of dollars that originated from a Russian government operation aimed at promoting Donald Trump.

They didn’t push Russian talking points for the money — the Kremlin gave them the money because, like so many of their MAGA colleagues, they were already pushing Russian talking points.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Dan Bongino

Putting Dan Bongino In Top FBI Post Signals Trump's Real Agenda

The selection of right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino for a senior FBI role hammers home that President Donald Trump is eliminating the guardrails that prevented right-wing conspiracy theories becoming criminal prosecutions during his first term. It also shovels more dirt on the farcical idea that Trump and his allies want depoliticized law enforcement.

A regular pattern played out over Trump’s first term as the president sought to wield federal law enforcement as an extension of his will. Right-wing conspiracy theorists, typically led by Trump adviser and Fox News host Sean Hannity, would offer bogus claims that Trump’s foes had committed crimes. Then Trump, an inveterate Fox viewer, would publicly or privately demand investigations and often get them. But the probes would ultimately fall apart without significant charges after Trump’s own appointees — Republicans who nonetheless evinced some semblance of independence and professionalism — figured out there was nothing to them.

Trump’s second-term selections are intended to eliminate the disruptions caused by appointees with a higher priority than carrying out the president’s whims. They are sycophants who are zealously loyal to the president and some either previously worked as his personal lawyers or have long public records of calling for criminal investigations of his foes.

Trump said on Sunday that Bongino, who embarked on a career as a right-wing media commentator after serving in the New York Police Department and U.S. Secret Service and losing several congressional campaigns, will serve as deputy director of the FBI. Bongino worked as a Fox contributor and host before leaving in 2023 to focus on his eponymous podcast, which streams on Rumble and airs on Westwood One radio stations.

In announcing Bongino’s new role, Trump said the podcaster would help restore “Fairness” to the justice system. But Bongino is one of the last people you’d select for such a role if your intention was really to run a nonpartisan bureau: He is an inflammatory partisan who has declared that “owning the libs” is “my entire life right now” because they are “pure unadulterated evil" and has fawned over Trump as “an apex predator” and “the lion king.”

Bongino gained influence and an audience during Trump’s first term specifically because of his willingness to issue florid denunciations of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. On his NRATV show and in frequent guest appearances on Fox (particularly on Trump’s belovedFox & Friends and on Hannity’s show), Bongino described Mueller’s probe as “an obvious frame job and set-up” that is “designed to cover up for the misdeeds of the Obama administration” and called for the special counsel’s firing.

That left him well-positioned to jump to a Fox job in early 2019 amid NRATV’s collapse.

Bongino’s’s views of law enforcement weaponization seem entirely based on who is doing the weaponizing.

“The FBI is lost, it’s broken, irredeemably corrupt at this point,” Bongino said in 2022 after bureau agents executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home. “It’s way past time to clean this FBI house up. They have burned every last shred of faith and trust freedom-loving Americans had in it.”

“It's clear now we're living in the police state,” Bongino said after a federal grand jury handed down an indictment of Trump over his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. “The republic is now officially dead.”

But at the same time, Bongino said there should be “an FBI raid at the White House" to target then-President Joe Biden, whom he described as “the real criminal” based on fictitious right-wing corruption claims.

An inveterate conspiracy theorist, Bongino has also pontificated about the Democrats planning a coup in the lead-up to the 2020 election; said that election was marred by “unbelievably suspect behavior”; and suggested that pipe bombs planted near the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on January 5, 2021, were an “inside job” and the FBI is withholding the perpetrator because the information would “blow up the entire January 6 insurrection narrative.”

After Trump returned to office in January, Bongino called for an investigation into “special tyrant” Jack Smith and urged the president to “set up a courtroom” in the White House and “start making judicial decisions.” Now he’ll be one of seniormost figures in federal law enforcement with a mandate to carry out such deranged ideas.

It’s unlikely Bongino will be hindered by the higher-ups Trump has installed.

Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed FBI director, said in a 2023 interview that a second Trump term would target “the conspirators, not just in government but in the media” who had “lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” The appendix of Patel’s 2023 book “names more than 50 current or former US officials that he claims are ‘members of the Executive Branch deep state,’ which he describes as a ‘dangerous threat to democracy,’” in what has been frequently referred to as an “enemies list.”

At the Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi previously parlayed frequent Fox appearances defending Trump into a post on his first impeachment legal defense team. Her acting deputy, Emil Bove, previously represented Trump in state and federal prosecutions.

Meanwhile, Ed Martin, who will oversee major cases in the District of Columbia as its acting U.S. attorney, “was an organizer in the ‘Stop The Steal’ movement that falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump” and then “worked as a defense attorney for some people charged in the January 6 riot.”

Over the first month of the Trump administration, this new team has proved grim for the rule of law, with January 6 perpetrators pardoned en masse, top prosecutors and FBI leaders purged, and Justice Department lawyers resigning after receiving what they viewed as unacceptably partisan orders to dismiss charges or launch an investigation.

On Sunday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association told its members that Patel had committed to selecting as his deputy “an on-board, active Special Agent as has been the case for 117 years” in order to preserve “operational expertise and experience, as well as the trust of our Special Agent population.” But Trump doesn’t care about any of that, and he announced hours later that Patel had picked Bongino, someone who lacks that experience but shares the president’s desire to punish his political enemies. And that means the months ahead will be worse.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Did Trump Violate AP's Freedom Of Speech? Fox Says Yes, But Its Stars Say No

Did Trump Violate AP's Freedom Of Speech? Fox Says Yes, But Its Stars Say No

The stars of Fox News have used their shows to defend President Donald Trump’s banning of Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the wire service refuses to adopt the administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” They’ve characterized the AP’s actions as “deadnaming” the Gulf and said that “the White House is right” to restrict its access in response.

But Fox has also reportedly signed on to a letter calling on the Trump White House to restore the AP’s access and characterizing the ban as “serious breach” of the First Amendment's protections for the press. So has Newsmax, whose on-air talent praised the White House response while attacking the “Fake News AP” as “Associated Propaganda.”

The disconnect demonstrates how Trumpist propaganda channels like Fox and Newsmax occasionally try to bolster their standing by play-acting as legitimate news channels which share the values of the free press, even as their on-air product plays to their right-wing viewership base.

Oliver Darcy reported last Wednesday that “40 news organizations have signed onto a confidential letter circulated by the White House Correspondents’ Association supporting the AP,” including both legitimate news outlets and “the pro-Trump channels Fox News and Newsmax.”

Darcy published the letter, which said in part:

The First Amendment prohibits the government from asserting control over how news organizations make editorial decisions. Any attempt to punish journalists for those decisions is a serious breach of this Constitutional protection.

The decision to exclude The Associated Press from covering the president aboard Air Force One and in the Oval Office is an escalation of a dispute that does not serve the presidency or the public. News organizations must be free to make their own editorial decisions without fear of government intrusion.

...

We once again ask the White House to lift this ban on the AP immediately and to underscore its support for press freedom.

But that sort of defense of the First Amendment principles and repudiation of the Trump White House’s actions is a far cry from what the viewers of Fox and Newsmax have been hearing on those channels.

Indeed, the night before Darcy’s report, Fox star Jesse Watters said of the controversy on his prime-time show: “The Associated Press took Mexico's side. They're deadnaming the Gulf, so they got kicked out of the White House.”

Watters likewise said on his February 12 show, “The Associated Press is sticking with Mexico, and now they are banned from the Oval Office,” adding, “Kick them out. Kick them out, and kick some other people out while you're there. I have a list.”

Watters’ colleagues were similarly blithe about the prospect of the federal government reducing access to reporters due to the editorial decisions of their outlet.

“So-called journalists in the media mob are ramping up their petty anti-Trump reporting,” Jason Chaffetz offered while guest-hosting the February 14 edition of Hannity. “For example, The Associated Press is still refusing to refer to the Gulf of America by its new name, despite recognition from Google, Apple, and other major outlets.”

After reading a quote from a White House official who said the AP’s decision is “not just divisive, but it also exposes the Associated Press' commitment to misinformation,” he commented, “The White House is right.”

Chaffetz later asked Fox contributor Joe Concha for his view of the White House’s restrictions on the AP. “It’s the best unintentional comedy of the week, Jason, hearing how the Associated Press, because they haven't been permitted onto Air Force One, into the Oval Office, that's somehow a threat to free press and a chilling attack on the First Amendment,” Concha said.

Other Fox hosts focused on mocking former CNN anchor Jim Acosta’s call for the press corps to take collective action and stop attending events from which the AP was barred. Greg Gutfeld said on the Wednesday edition of his show that the press would “love any excuse not to cover all of Trump's wins” and commented, “Your scam is up, media, and trust me, the hits are going to keep coming.” And guest-hosting Friday’s edition of The Ingraham Angle, Charles Hurt said of Acosta’s remarks, “I think that this derangement syndrome is in full swing, not just in celebrity la-la land, but also among our press brethren.”

Special Report, the flagship “news” show hosted by Bret Baier, has not addressed the controversy according to a review of its transcripts in the Nexis database.

Likewise, Newsmax hosts Rob Schmitt, Rick Leventhal, and Ed Henry teamed up to mock the AP and any concerns over whether the White House had breached the First Amendment during the February 13 edition of Schmitt’s show.

On-screen text castigated the “fake news AP” and called the outlet “Associated Propaganda” as Schmitt introduced the segment, blaming the Associated Press for “refusing to accept Gulf of America” and said that “the media has no right to be” in the Oval Office.

Henry, a former president of the WHCA, began his response by saying that he would not be a “hypocrite” and “always stand up for the First Amendment.” But he went on to criticize the AP on the grounds that “it’s called the Gulf of America,” adding, “If you are not going to follow the actual name of the body of water, then I can understand why they don't want to give you access. You’re not playing with the basic facts.”

Leventhal also criticized the AP, saying that “they are supposed to be free of bias and opinion” and that by refusing to adopt the Gulf of America moniker, “you're saying you don't agree with the president, you don't like what the president did, and you're not going to play by his rules. That is completely opposite of what the Associated Press is supposed to be.” He added: “You can't make those kinds of unilateral decisions. You report the news, Associated Press.”

“That's exactly right,” Schmitt replied.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Troll The Libs! Trump's Authoritarian Quote From Napoleon Thrills Fox News Hosts

Troll The Libs! Trump's Authoritarian Quote From Napoleon Thrills Fox News Hosts

Fox News has largely dodged reporting President Donald Trump’s February 15 declaration that he is above the law as long as he “saves his Country,” with much of the network’s sparse coverage focusing on how the president’s nakedly authoritarian statement triggered the libs.

When Trump posted, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” midday Saturday, the response was fierce. Trump’s remark — a quote “often attributed” to Napoleon Bonaparte, who overthrew France’s post-revolutionary republic and crowned himself emperor — followed calls from his allies to defy court rulings that strike down administration actions as illegal.

Numerous critics on the left and a handful on the right pointed out the danger inherent in Trump appearing to place himself above the law. MAGA influencers like Jack Posobiec (who recently received special access to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first overseas trip) cheered. “America will be saved,” the notorious Pizzagate conspiracy theorist wrote. “What must be done will be done.”

It should go without saying that a similar remark from Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris would have triggered days if not weeks of apocalyptic coverage from Fox. But the right-wing propaganda network’s response to Trump’s comment has been notably muted, with only about six minutes of discussion through noon ET on Tuesday.

The bulk of Fox’s coverage — more than four and a half minutes — came from a Sunday segment on The Big Weekend Show in which anchor Griff Jenkins and his panel mocked Democrats and journalists for criticizing Trump’s statement.

Jenkins introduced the discussion by reading Trump’s quote and describing it as “the left’s latest ammunition for vilifying Trump.” Jenkins then aired a series of criticisms of the remark as a chyron read “left melts down over out-of-context Trump post,” before providing the purported missing context: “Trump said only days ago that he does in fact plan on abiding by the law.”

Jenkins, having awarded the president credit for saying he would follow the law before saying that actions aren’t illegal if done to save the country, then added: “In fact, many people wonder if the ones not following the law are actually those on the left who have relentlessly gone after Trump over the past four years with questionable cases.”

The segment’s panelists celebrated Trump’s remark as a deliberate act of misdirection aimed at his political opposition.

“I am really grateful that President Trump did troll them on this, and I think he knew this was going to be their reaction,” offered Fox contributor Sara Carter.

Medical contributor Nicole Saphier added that Trump “puts up tweets like this because he knows that they are going to lose their mind. He has Democrats and left-wing media in such a tizzy.”

Fox prime-time host and Trump adviser Sean Hannity also responded by mocking Trump’s critics, tossing in a reference to the remark during a Monday recitation of purported instances of the media’s anti-Trump hysteria.

“It's like Nazi, fascist, racist, now it's Napoleon, now it's Margaret Brennan, now it's Saturday Night Live,” he moaned. “I mean, to be honest, it's like 10 years of this and they still haven't learned a thing.”

Fox contributor Andrew McCarthy offered a more cautious take on Monday’s edition of America’s Newsroom, suggesting that Trump’s comment could undermine his administration’s legal fights before the Supreme Court.

“Look, I think that some of the things the president said over the weekend about his, you know, authority, that — like, you don't violate the law if you are saving the country, and some of the stuff that has gone on with the Justice Department — I hope they haven't spooked the justices,” he said. “Because if you are going to ask the justices to uphold the law, you have to act like the law is important.”

But Trump’s remarks undermining the rule of law are not anomalous. He vowed during the campaign to act as a “dictator,” though only on “day one” of his presidency, and promised to unleash the Justice Department on his political enemies and journalistic foils. He has cited as his model the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban, a self-described practitioner of “illiberal democracy.” Trump regularly praises murderous authoritarian rulers like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, and even touted the “strength” China’s leaders deployed in violently suppressing the Tiananmen Square uprising.

And Trump’s actions suggest he means what he says: He regularly signaled during his first administration that he wanted law enforcement to act as an extension of his will, and now he has put that into practice in his second term.

Pushback from the Justice Department stymied his efforts to take authoritarian steps like prosecuting his political foes and overturning the 2020 election. But since he returned to the White House, Trump has issued mass pardons to the January 6 convicts who attacked law enforcement in a bid keep him in power; purged federal prosecutors and FBI leadership; and nominated his own former personal lawyers to lead the Justice Department and a sycophant with an enemies list for FBI director.

His appointees have overseen an effort to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for his support for Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts and an attempt to open a probe into a Biden-era contract, both of which triggered resignations from career prosecutors.

Trump has functionally ensured that his allies will remain beyond the reach of federal law enforcement for the next four years. What a troll!

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Lara Trump

Fox News Hiring President's Daughter-In-Law Is Beyond Parody

In a new piece for MSNBC, I detail the ethical absurdity of Fox News hiring the sitting president's daughter-in-law:

Media observers have long recognized that Fox News effectively serves as an arm of President Donald Trump’s political apparatus. But with Wednesday’s announcement that the network has tapped his daughter-in-law, Lara, to host a weekly show, it’s clear Fox has abandoned any pretense that it functions as something other than a state TV channel.
...
Indeed, this deal is almost comically corrupt. No one should have any illusions that Fox has hired Lara Trump to produce anything other than crude propaganda for her father-in-law and his administration. And the arrangement for Fox to put money into the president’s family member’s bank account became public two days after Donald Trump met with network owner Rupert Murdoch in the Oval Office and publicly criticized his Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.
No credible news outlet would employ the president’s relative as a host. But Fox doesn’t function like a normal news outlet, and its executives apparently no longer care to pretend otherwise. Turning over airtime to Lara Trump is simply a natural progression for a network that merged with the White House during the president’s first term and is returning to that form for his second.

Read the whole thing here.

Sean Hannity

Hannity Once Praised FBI 'Rank-and-File,' But Now Celebrates Trump Purge

Fox News host Sean Hannity praised President Donald Trump on Monday for overseeing a mass purge of FBI agents. Hannity had previously stated — on dozens of occasions over years of monologues — that the overwhelming majority of FBI personnel are heroes who “keep us safe” and that only the “upper echelon” should be punished for their purported antagonism towards Trump.

The Trump administration has “ordered the firing of at least eight senior FBI executives and a sweeping examination of the work of thousands of other bureau employees” that could include “potentially hundreds of FBI agents for possible termination,” The Washington Post reported Friday. Officials are seeking to identify agents who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s Trump cases, as well as those assigned to investigate January 6 rioters for potential firing.

“A mass exodus is in the works inside the halls of the DOJ and FBI,” Fox correspondent David Spunt reported Monday. He quoted a current FBI agent saying of the prospective purge, “We took an oath to protect the American people and the Constitution and now we are being targeted for it.”

But Hannity touted the administration’s actions during a monologue later that night.

“While President Trump is reasserting America's dominance on the world stage, he is harnessing DOGE right here at home, to drain the swamp, firing politicized bureaucrats, at both the DOJ, the FBI, those that weaponized and politicized their institutions is simply being escorted out of the building, as they should be,” he said.

Hannity then mocked how “the state-run legacy media mob of the Democrats erupt into a predictable and entertaining fit of hysteria” before airing a clip of MSNBC host Joe Scarborough saying that the result of Trump “gutting the FBI” is a win for “our enemies, those people who seek to do harm to America and to kill American citizens.”

The apparent glee of Fox’s resident Trump political operative at the potential dismantling of the FBI comes in stark contrast to how Hannity previously described his yearslong campaign targeting the bureau’s investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and other probes related to Trump. Over and over again, Hannity stressed to his viewers that his criticism was limited to a handful of decision-makers at the very top of the bureau. He frequently touted his respect for the FBI rank and file and called attention to the FBI pin he said he wore in solidarity with its agents.

Here’s Hannity in 2019:

SEAN HANNITY: My pin is not straight.

By the way, do you know what this is? This is an FBI flag pin. You want to know why I wear it?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

HANNITY: An FBI friend of mine gave it to me because he says, I know you are going after these few at the top, thank you. And that you always say the 99.9% that are putting their lives on the line for us, and I mean it. Ain't that cool?

CARLSON: Exactly, good for you. It's totally cool, and you're right, I think.

And in 2020:

SEAN HANNITY: They threaten [former national security adviser Michael] Flynn behind — to throw him behind bars, threaten his son and his family. He had mounting legal bills — oh, he's broke. After 33 years of service, the lieutenant general, yes, he was bankrupt, he lost his house, his reputation in ruins all because of [former FBI director] Comey, his corrupt agents at the very top of the FBI, they all hated Trump, they've been involved in stopping getting elected and then sabotaging him ever since, spying on him — in the words of Attorney General Barr — deep into the Trump presidency.

Now, this is why I make a distinction. You know, this pin is that the FBI pin in solidarity for the 99% of our federal and state law enforcement officials. They serve us bravely and with honor and with integrity, the best of the best. But the malignant, agenda-driven 1%, they're now threatening the very basis of our justice system, they must be held accountable.

And in 2022:

SEAN HANNITY: As a matter of fact on this program for the rank and file, the 95, 98, 99%, we are very grateful for all the good FBI agents and employees that risk their lives to keep us safe. We support them.

Now, but the FBI is not immune from oversight and they're not immune from criticism and they're not immune from having bad apples or being called out for massive agency-wide failures and the failures inside especially the upper echelon of the FBI.

And 2023:

SEAN HANNITY: So, now, we're left with one basic fundamental question, who is going to hold the DOJ and the FBI accountable? Not the rank and file, I want to be clear. They're putting their lives on the line to protect us every day. I'm talking about the upper echelon.

This isn’t the first time Hannity has abandoned his defense of law enforcement in favor of his status as a Trump lickspittle. Hannity repeatedly told his viewers that Trump’s long-stated promise to pardon what he termed the “J6 hostages” would be limited only to nonviolent offenders who participated in storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. But after Trump pardoned or commuted to time served every person convicted in connection to their actions that day — including those who violently assaulted law enforcement and participated in seditious conspiracies — Hannity gave Trump a friendly platform to downplay the attacks.

Here are 30 additional examples of Hannity stressing his support for the rank and file of the FBI (transcripts via Nexis).

From the February 13, 2018, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: One of the reasons we are getting to the truth and I think our audience needs to know this because there are good and honorable people, most of them, the vast majority, the 99 percent and the FBI and the intelligence community. They are fed up with this. They are now talking and stepping up.

From the January 15, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: The FBI should never be in the business of investigating political differences or policy decisions. They shouldn't be, well, lashing out because of personal opinions that they have. The role of the FBI which is the 99 percent of field agents of rank-and-file, they do their jobs. They investigate crimes and criminals. Not politics, not policy and especially not launching a counterintelligence investigation into a duly elected president with zero evidence because you don't like him.

From the April 18, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Every FBI rank and file guy, the 99.9 percent I know have all thanked me. Because they're hurt their rep. This is the premier law enforcement agency in the world, just like our intelligence community same thing. The premier intelligence community in the world. They were hurt by a few at the top and they're angry about it.

From the April 25, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: I agree with you about the FBI, the 99 percent are good people. And this is only a few at the top. But if they in fact use that dossier as the bulk of information and its disinformation to use the New York Times words from Russia that Hillary Clinton, the opposition party candidate paid for that they never fully inform the FISA judges of - and the Grassley Graham memo, Nunes memo are right. That means everybody that signed off on those four FISA applications that would be the first one, Jim Comey, that would be Sally Yates, Ponte (ph) today and Rod Rosenstein.

From the May 2, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: By the way, thank god for the great intelligence officers that serve we the people. They are protecting us every day, the 99 percent, thank God for the premiere law enforcement agency in the entire world, the FBI, the 99 percent.
Tonight, though, we know the deep state aggressively spied on the Trump campaign during and after the election. That is the biggest abuse of power. That's what we've got to solve, and if we don't get to the bottom of it, we lose the country.

From the May 13, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Now, the president is also calling out the current FBI Director Christopher Wray, accusing him of protecting the same gang who tried to overthrow the duly elected president of the United States. You know, we smelly Walmart people, irredeemable deplorables who cling to god, and guns, and bible, and religion. That's us.
So far, I don't see Director Christopher Wray frankly doing a darn thing to clean up the upper echelon of this FBI. That's his job, for the 99 percent of FBI special agents that put their lives at risk for us every single day, you owe it to them to get this department, this premier law enforcement agency right with the American people.
What has Wray done to hold the Comey accountable? Nothing. What about McCabe? What about Baker? What about Strzok? What about Page?

From the May 20, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: This material must be made available. Oh, where is Jerry Nadler? Where is, oh, mister -- oh, Adam Schiff, the biggest liar in Congress, the cowardly Schiff, because if Comey, Strzok, other high level officials, the highest level, not rank-and-file.
We always make a distinction. I have an FBI pin and a CIA pin on tonight. The 99 percent that protect us every day.
But those in the FBI and the CIA at the upper echelon, the intel community, they are withholding exculpatory evidence, let me tell you, this is bigger than we ever thought. It means the level of premeditated fraud, conspiracy against the FISA court. That means there was a real attempt to steal a presidential election with Russian lies paid for by Hillary and an effort to unseat when they lost a duly elected president of you, the people. Much worse than we ever knew.

From the May 28, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: How does James Comey with a straight face say, oh, we don't spy in the FBI? By the way, I believe that about the 99 percent of FBI special agents, thank God that the premier law enforcement agency in the world, by far, remains out today.

From the August 8, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Now that we have these 302s over all of this confirmation that you are hearing tonight, Congressman, we seem to have two separate paths that we use for spying. Again, the 99 percent of the FBI, great people.
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Right.
HANNITY: The premier law enforcement agency in the world. On our intelligence side, the premier intelligence agencies in the world. But at the highest levels, it seems that both we had outsourcing of tactics and means of spying on Americans that would be illegal, they did it purposely to seemingly to circumvent American laws and on the other side, of course, we have the dirty dossier.

From the August 22, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: But I can tell you with 1,000 percent confidence, all of this abuse of power and corruption did a occur, and it's all the evidence anyone would need to see it. And sadly, tonight, I must report that the new FBI director, for some inexplicable reason, Christopher Wray is now stonewalling the investigation into the investigators every step of the way.
That is not a good sign for cleaning up what I have said, I have an FBI pin right here and the American flag, is the premier law enforcement agency in the world.

From the September 4, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Now, this new information tonight takes the actions of Jim Comey to a whole level of duplicitous lying and the big question tonight is why Director Wray of the FBI not working hard to clean up his FBI, our FBI.
I have an FBI pin right here, Director Wray, if you're watching.
This is the premiere law enforcement agency in the world. Why is the FBI under Director Wray refuse to cooperate with a simple Freedom of Information Act request?

From the September 18, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: The inspector general's completed report is now in the hands of the attorney general, Barr, who along with the FBI Director Wray is reviewing this material for possible redactions. Now, Director Wray seems to be hesitant, he really does, and wanting to fix what is the greatest, the premier law enforcement agency in the entire world.
I hope Director Wray changes course and commits himself to implementing the changes so that 99.9 percent of law-abiding FBI agents that keep us safe every day that we can have confidence in all of them. It's about one-tenth of 1 percent.

From the September 20, 2019, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Matt, do we as American citizens have to worry about people that we entrust, and I'll even argue that 99 percent -- look, our FBI is the premier law enforcement agency in the world, in the world.
WHITAKER: I totally agree with you.
HANNITY: We are not talking about the 99.9 percent. We are talking about the 1 percent that we know abuse power. We now have to worry about these - - listen.

From the January 8, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: My sources are telling me, following that, American intelligence had been tracking Soleimani for days. That's how good -- you noticed how I always delineated the 99 percent of greatest law enforcement agency, the FBI, the 99 percent, the greatest intelligence agencies in the world? Yes, that's what tracked Soleimani for days. Not the 1 percent of the -- well, corrupt, abuse of power, deep state actors.

From the January 13, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: What about Director Wray? I don't see the urgency. I want to see it in FBI director, to protect the 99 percent of great, brave men and women that make up the world's best law enforcement agency ever.

From the February 6, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Director Wray, I'll say it again -- please do the job for the 99 percent of the world's premier law enforcement agency. They deserve it. That's the way you clean the swamp. If you don't want to do the job, let somebody else do it.

From the April 29, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Now, to the credit of the Attorney General of the United States Bill Barr, the attorney general has been leaving these little crumbs here, there, and everywhere, and if you listen to what he's saying, oh, the president was spied on, the candidate was spied on.
He's made other statements like, yes, no, this isn't -- this is not about writing a paper, meaning the Durham investigation, this is about justice. This, my source tells me is all happening because the attorney general believes in the rule of law.
By the way, I have an FBI pin here and I have a CIA pen here. Why? For the 99 percent that do a great job and protect us every day.
We must restore confidence in our premier law enforcement agency, the premier agency in the world, the premier intelligence agency in the world, for the sake of our Constitution, for the sake of the 99 percent of people who bravely serve these institutions and protect us.

From the May 4, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Director Wray, did you protect the deep state infrastructure? Now, do you want to restore -- this is his challenge -- America's faith and what is the world, not just the U.S., I have - this is the pin right there, this is an FBI pin right here.
I -- this is the solidarity with the 99 percent of courageous, law-abiding, good law enforcement, the premier law enforcement and the world. They deserve their good name back, because they do the right thing. They protect us, and they risk their lives.
Or, Director Wray, do you want justice to prevail? Or are you more interested in protecting likes of Comey and Strzok, and McCabe, and other, well, former corrupt individuals.

From the June 17, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: And as thousands were racing down the steps to get out of those towers -- well, this other group of people, they were running up in the other direction, brave members of the FDNY, NYPD, so many others, to save the lives of fellow human beings.
The 99 percent, they are good people. They are brave people. They deserve our respect.
As I've been critical of a few people in the FBI that abused power, I still wear this pin, the FBI, for the 99 percent. I'm -- what -- we got to make the distinction as a country.

From the July 1, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Senator, I was so critical of the 1 percent but I always went out of my way to remind people, the 99 percent in the FBI, in our intelligence community, they are good people.

From the July 20, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: I am told that we now believe we have found not only the person that was the main source for the dirty Russian Steele dossier, you're smiling. That means I'm probably over the target.
And I've also heard that there are people that are good, the 99 percent within the FBI community, the world's premier law enforcement agency, and the CIA, the world's premier intelligence agency, the 99 percent of good people. They are now beginning to talk and they are beginning to tell about stories that they warned everybody not to do certain things, and they were ignored, which means that's even worse than we thought.

From the April 12, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: And, you know, Larry, in the middle of our coverage and we were proven right about the abuse of power and corruption with the deep state, and dirty Russian disinformation dossier used a spy in a presidential candidate, then a president, it all happen. Those people still have not been held accountable.
But I always went way to point out, I don't want to disparage the 99 percent of FBI agents that do a great job for us. The 99 percent of intelligence in an evil world that keep us safe every day doing things we don't even want know about.

From the April 20, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: We made that distinction office when we expose deep state corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, the 1 percent, not the 99 percent that do their jobs honorably in the FBI.
…
Just like the 99 percent of FBI guys, I was -- I was the loudest voice going after those that abused power and those that are corrupt, but I always reminded people, that's only 1 percent. The 99 percent of officers, their jobs getting almost impossible to do at this point.

From the February 8, 2022, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Now, the only difference is they won't need to lie to the FISA court to spy. This is extremely chilling, especially because Director Wray never held these people accountable, never cleaned up his bureau of the one percent. I have my FBI pen still right there, representing the 99 percent of good people that will risk their lives and obey the laws, and not abuse power.

From the August 9, 2022, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Again, let me be very clear, I used to always say on this program during the Russia hoax, 99 percent rank-and-file FBI agents, put their lives at risk, work hard to keep this country safe. Tonight, I say it's about 95 percent. There are a lot of good people in the FBI and in law enforcement and in the intelligence community.
The FBI and the DOJ, they have sadly earned the country's distrust, especially the upper echelon which we now know has been and continues to remain rotten to the core.

From the August 16, 2022, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Again, let me be clear, I respect FBI rank and file special agents who do the work that protect and serve all of this country. They do the right thing. I have zero respect for the upper echelon of the FBI and I certainly don't trust any of them and they have earned all of our distrust. They leak, they lie and they have turned America's premier law enforcement body into a wing of the Democratic Party.

From the September 24, 2022, edition of Fox News’ Unfiltered:

HANNITY: And anyone can be investigated, I actually took notes. It's not about criminality, it is about Intel gathering.
We have agencies that are involved in that. I actually have this American flag pin right here. It's an FBI pin, and I wear it for the rank and the file. Because I know there are people that I call them the 95 -- ninety nine percent -- whatever the percentage is, these are good people that work hard, that put their lives on the line, want to do their jobs and we now have -- the floodgates are about to open. This is just the beginning, Dan.

From the October 13, 2022, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Maybe the attorney general can stop weaponizing the DOJ. Maybe Director Wray can stop politicizing FBI and return it to where it should be, and that is the world's premier law enforcement agency. I have an FBI pin right there, and that's for the 99 percent of good, honest agents that put their lives on the line every day.

From the March 1, 2023, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Yeah, like look at what -- they look at the way they treated Roger Stone or Paul Manafort.
Now, Nicole and Steve, thank you. You are leading the pack and we will be hearing from dozens of your fellow agents talking about how the FBI has been politicized, the DOJ weaponize. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your service.
And for all the rank and file FBI agents that do a great job and protect and serve this country, I can't thank them enough. We're not talking about them. Thank you for being with us. We appreciate it.

From the July 20, 2023, edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: Now, I don't work for the FBI but it doesn't really seem like Joe played a real integral role. Doesn't it seem like it, in his son's business deals? Because here's the sad part, upper management within our Department of Justice and our FBI, not the rank and file, the FBI rank and file brave people to put their lives on the line and protect our country, I'm not blaming them, but the people at the top, in the DOJ and the FBI were protecting the entire Biden family.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Sean Hannity

Fox Stars Said Don't Pardon Violent J6 Offenders, But Trump Did Anyway

Fox News stars have spent the months since President Donald Trump’s election assuring their audiences that Trump’s long-stated promise to pardon what he termed the “J6 hostages” would be limited only to nonviolent offenders who participated in storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. But on his first day in office, Trump pardoned or commuted to time served every person convicted in connection to their actions that day, including those who violently assaulted law enforcement and participated in seditious conspiracies.

Trump’s Tuesday night grant of clemency “to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack” includes pardons for “for violent offenders who went after the police on January 6 with baseball bats, two-by-fours, and bear spray and are serving prison terms, in some cases of more than a decade,” The New York Timesnoted. He also pardoned or commuted the sentences of several leaders of the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

This is precisely what Fox hosts and loyal Trump propagandists Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters explicitly said should not happen.

Numerous Fox personalities condemned the Trumpist violence at the Capitol in its immediate aftermath and called for the perpetrators to face consequences, even as they avoided assigning Trump culpability for encouraging the mob to come to D.C. and inciting it with lies about the 2020 election being stolen from him.

“Those who truly support President Trump … we do not support those that commit acts of violence,” Hannity said on his show that night, adding that people should not “be vandalizing our nation's Capitol, attacking the brave men and women that keep us safe in law enforcement,” and concluding that “all of today's perpetrators must be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

“I want to speak to the people that think it wasn't that big of a deal,” Watters said on The Five the next day. “Yes, you’re allowed, as a member of the public, to go into the people's house, but you have to go through the front door and you have to pass through a metal detector. You can't smash windows, spray police with chemical agents, assault police officers, loot, and vandalize.”

Over time, as Trumpists led by former Fox host Tucker Carlson challenged the initial consensus around the events of January 6 with a conspiratorial counternarrative that the rioters had been victims, the right came to excuse or downplay their crimes. But as Trump floated pardons for January 6 convicts, Hannity and Watters continued to maintain that violent offenders would not and should not receive clemency.

Asked by a listener on his December 3 radio broadcast about Trump potentially pardoning all January 6 convicts, including violent offenders, Hannity commented that some had received excessive sentences “for trespassing.” But he highlighted “the few people that were involved in violence against police, or whatever,” and said that “the people that are responsible for acting in ways that were absolutely irresponsible and law-breaking, they’ve got to be held accountable.”

“Donald Trump, he has said those people that did not commit acts of violence on January 6, is he's going to pardon them,” Hannity added two days later. “Why were they sentenced to five years in jail? Doesn't it seem, like, a little excessive?”

Watters has likewise repeatedly said that presidential pardons should be limited to nonviolent January 6 offenders. “If I were president, I don’t think I would pardon January 6ers who were slugging cops,” he told his Fox audience last December. In May 2023, he similarly advised Trump “to be careful here. You can't pardon anybody that committed an act of violence.”

How can Trump’s loyal propagandists square the circle between their own explicit statements that Trump should not pardon people convicted of attacking police officers and the reality that he did just that? One option appears to be simply lying about what he did.

“He made it clear, and JD Vance kind of doubled down on it — if you didn't attack officers, if there wasn't any actual violence and you were caught up within the system, you were overcharged, you’ve done enough time,” Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones said on Wednesday morning. “And promises made, promises kept on Day One.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine Wins Its January 6 Pardon

The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine Wins Its January 6 Pardon

President Donald Trump’s January 6 pardons mark the culmination of the MAGA media’s yearslong campaign to remove the stain from his supporters’ violent assault on the U.S. Capitol — and for their own culpability in that attempted coup.

On the first day of his second term, Trump is apparently giving clemency to every participant in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Speaking to reporters while signing executive orders in the Oval Office, he said he would be signing full pardons for “approximately 1,500 people” while providing six commutations. He appears to be wiping the slate clean for all of what he has ludicrously termed the “J6 hostages,” including hundreds convicted of violent assaults on law enforcement. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of crimes including seditious conspiracy for his role in the attack and sentenced to 22 years in prison, is getting out tonight.

The world watched four years ago as thousands of Trumpists broke through ranks of law enforcement, stormed into the Capitol, and sent into hiding the members of Congress who had assembled to certify the electoral vote. That mob — summoned to Washington, D.C., by Trump and incited by his lies and those of the right-wing media that his reelection had been stolen — was the final salvo in a multifaceted plot by Trump and his allies to keep him in office following his defeat at the ballot box.

A broad, bipartisan consensus formed in real time that Trump was responsible for a travesty. And the right-wing media and tech elite agreed, denouncingTrump and calling for consequences, while Rupert Murdoch proposed cutting him off from the support of his media empire.

But while Fox News stars publicly described the assailants in the immediate aftermath as “criminals” who should be “arrested and prosecuted” and do “jail time,” they also validated the mob’s concerns — and only in private did they point the finger at the president himself.

That initial reticence was a signal that the January 6 consensus was fragile — and indeed, as nearly 1,600 participants faced charges over the months and years that followed, Trump’s allies at Fox and elsewhere in the right-wing press went to work dismantling the idea that they had done anything wrong.

A coterie of Trumpists led by Tucker Carlson sought to downplay the extent of the day’s horrors and substitute a revisionist counternarrative that melded decontextualized video from the day with naked conspiracy-mongering to declare the insurrectionists the victims of a false-flag operation perpetuated by the federal government.

That twisted take drew initial resistance from more responsible members of the right-wing media, but over time, it became dominant on the right. Evidence of the day’s depravities and Trump’s culpability for them were hidden from right-wing audiences, Republicans who sought to expose them were purged, and efforts to hold Trump legally accountable met with bitter denunciations.

The right’s pro-insurrection turn was most beneficial to Trump, helping him rise to the GOP presidential nomination and back to the presidency four years after his coup attempt. But as he described the mob’s participants as “hostages” and floated pardons for their deeds, right-wing personalities who had once denounced the insurrectionists began describing them as the victims of politicized prosecutions and calling for clemency.

And now they’ve gotten their way, rewarding those who tried to tear down American democracy — and making it more likely that such a horror will again be visited upon us some day soon. And the same propaganda machine that was able to turn a nightmare that unfolded in front of all of our eyes into a story of Trumpist victims is gearing up for four more years of lies on Trump’s behalf.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters Media Matters

Corrupt Flip-Flop On Tik Tok Shames Trump's National Security Cabinet

Corrupt Flip-Flop On Tik Tok Shames Trump's National Security Cabinet

President-elect Donald Trump has corruptly flipped on his previous position that TikTok should be banned in the United States unless the social media platform disentangles from Chinese government control. His stark reversal — which one ally suggested came about because the app was “great for his campaign” — stands in contrast to the public statements of his top foreign policy, homeland security, defense, and intelligence appointees, who are on the record describing a TikTok ban as a crucial matter of national security and in some cases denouncing Democrats for using the platform.

Then-President Trump issued an August 2020 executive order requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell, spin off, or shut down the app’s U.S. operations, citing “credible evidence” the company “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” President Joe Biden ultimately rescinded the order, but following further reporting of Chinese government influence over TikTok, in April 2024 Congress passed and Biden signed bipartisan legislation requiring ByteDance’s divestment. ByteDance refused, instead preparing to shut down TikTok in the U.S. by the law’s deadline of this Sunday.

But Trump subsequently rejected the position he had once championed and is now poised to take action “to keep TikTok from going dark.” After a March 2024 meeting with hedge fund manager Jeff Yass, a GOP megadonor who reportedly held a major financial stake in ByteDance, Trump abruptly reversed his support for TikTok’s divestment, saying that “young people will go crazy without it.”

The platform also reportedly altered its algorithm to benefit Trump’s presidential campaign, which used TikTok to great effect; indeed, in a January 15 interview, incoming national security adviser Michael Waltz said Trump would sign an executive order to “create the space” for a “deal” in part because TikTok “was great for [Trump's] campaign and getting his message out."

This abrupt reversal exposes as craven hypocrites not only Waltz, but also Trump’s nominees for secretary of state, Marco Rubio; defense, Pete Hegseth; and homeland security, Kristi Noem. The four are among the right’s harshest critics of TikTok and foremost proponents of banning it. They describe the platform as a Chinese “Trojan Horse” that “the communists” are using to “compromiz[e] national security” and “propagandize to 150 million Americans,” allowing them to “poison the minds of young Americans” and get kids to “trans themselves” as part of China’s “long-term goal to destroy the United States.”

Moreover, Noem was the first governor to ban state employees from using the platform on state-owned devices, while Rubio introduced legislation banning it nationally if it was not sold.

Either they were all lying about the pressing national security threat of a ByteDance-controlled TikTok back then, or they are willingly leaving the United States exposed because they don’t want to stand up to the incoming president.

Michael Waltz, national security adviser: TikTok threatens “safety of all Americans”

  • Waltz: We can’t let the Chinese Communist Party use TikTok to “propagandize to 150 million Americans ... . We would have never stood for this with the Soviet Union.” Waltz, then a member of Congress, said of TikTok in a March 2023 Fox Business appearance, “We cannot have, on the one hand, our greatest adversary ... have access to 150 million Americans, be able to propagandize to 150 million Americans, and to be able to collect [data] on us. We would have never stood for this with the Soviet Union. We shouldn't be today.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 3/23/23]
  • Waltz: The Biden campaign “should be ashamed of themselves” for joining TikTok and “legitimiz[ing] this app and the harm it’s doing to kids for its own political gain.” When Biden’s campaign joined TikTok in February 2024, Waltz told Fox the campaign “should be ashamed of themselves” because “the Chinese Communist Party are using this as a data-collection bonanza” and could use it as a “superhighway” to “adjust the algorithms should they so choose.” He added that a presidential campaign should not “legitimize this app and the harm it’s doing to kids for its own political gain.” He added that he’s “called for a full-on ban” of the app, calling it “long overdue” because “we should not allow our greatest adversary to access 150 million Americans and their data.” [Fox News, Your World, 2/23/24]
  • Waltz on X: TikTok is “an arm of the communists” and must be removed from Chinese government control “for the safety of all Americans,” and it’s “craven” for Democrats not to ban it. Waltz, in dozens of posts to X over five years, has repeatedly criticized TikTok and called for a ban on the platform, warning that it’s “an arm of the communists,” “Chinese spyware and a national security threat,” and “a Chinese Communist Trojan Horse.” In August 2020, he posted, “For the safety of all Americans, including the millions of children using this app, we cannot allow TikTok in the US under ByteDance’s ownership.” He accused members of Congress, “almost all Democrats,” who use the app of being “complicit in allowing China to hurt our national security” and posted that “it would be craven for Biden & Democrats not to ban TikTok because it helps their campaigns.”

Marco Rubio, nominee for secretary of state: TikTok a “danger to America”

  • Rubio: We should ban TikTok to keep a “wholly-owned subsidiary of the Communist Party of China” from using it as “a danger to America.” In a 2022 Fox interview to discuss a bill he introduced to ban TikTok if it were not sold, then-Sen. Rubio said TikTok can’t be allowed to continue as “wholly owned subsidiary of the Communist Party of China,” in part because “the Chinese tried to interfere in our midterm elections” using the platform. He further called its ownership “a privacy danger to America, to our national security,” adding that “we shouldn't have the Communist Party of China having access to a treasure trove of American data that they can use to try to influence and divide us at the same time as they collect valuable information now and for the future.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 12/14/22]
  • Rubio: A ByteDance-owned TikTok is “a Trojan horse living inside our country.” He explained during a March 2024 Fox appearance that TikTok’s parent company is “under the complete control” of “a foreign government that’s hostile to the United States” and could “decide to weaponize that against us to convince soldiers not to go fight, to convince their families that it's not worth going to fight, to get involved in our elections, to spread things that make us fight against each other and further divide this country or keep us distracted, or to convince American teenagers to kill themselves because the world's about to end.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/11/24]
  • Rubio: We can’t let the Chinese Communist Party use TikTok to “poison the minds of young Americans … so that their society crumbles.” Rubio called for ByteDance to sell TikTok during a March 2024 Fox appearance, explaining that “ByteDance is a Chinese company” and under that country’s laws, “if the Chinese Communist Party goes to ByteDance and says, we want you to change the TikTok algorithm so that Americans will not be willing to defend Taiwan or surrender to China on this and that, or poison the minds of young Americans over a long period of time so that their society crumbles, if they tell them that they have to do that, ByteDance will have to do that, they will do that, and you will not be able to perceive it.” [Fox News, Hannity, 3/19/24]

Pete Hegseth, nominee for secretary of defense: TikTok is “poisoning" American kids

  • Hegseth: “Someone’s got to step up and say” TikTok “is compromising national security” and “poisoning the minds” of kids and “ban this.” Hegseth, then the host of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, said of TikTok in March 2023, “This is time for leadership. I don't care how many kids use it, I don’t care how many influencers are out there, someone’s got to step up and say, not one is it compromising national security — which it is; who knows where that data is going and how it will be used in the future — but it’s poisoning the minds of our next generation.” He added: “Think how much time you spend cultivating the mind and soul and heart of your child and then you hand over a phone and then on that phone is an app controlled by communists who are pumping things to poison their mind. Wake up!” He further called for “courageous leadership” in Congress, “especially Democrats,” to “ban this.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/24/23]
  • Hegseth: China uses TikTok to “poison” American kids and get them to “trans themselves,” and it’s “like giving the Soviets a portal into our kids in the ‘80s.” Hegseth, then the host of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, alleged in a February 2024 segment that China was trying to “poison” American children by using TikTok to get them to “dance and trans themselves and be distracted” while Chinese children are taught science and math. He went on to say that “the fact that we allow this is one of many, but actually near the top of the list, of the most foolish things we are doing in our society,” adding that TikTok is “like giving the Soviets a portal into our kids in the ‘80s. It’s insane!” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/1/24]

Kristi Noem, nominee for secretary of homeland security: TikTok "helping China destroy America"

  • Noem: China uses TikTok on kids “to manipulate their thoughts and their minds and how they feel about the United States of America.” Noem, who as governor made South Dakota the first state to ban TikTok on state-owned devices, said during a March 2023 Fox appearance that China is “using that platform to spy on our people, to communicate with them,” and “to change perceptions.” She went on to say that parents should tell children who use TikTok “to knock it off. Tell them they slept in their beds last night safe and secure because of sacrifices that were made for this country, and that, to respect that, they should not allow our enemies to come right into their homes and to manipulate their thoughts and their minds and how they feel about the United States of America.” [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 3/12/23]
  • Noem: TikTok is part of China’s “long-term goal to destroy the United States.” During another March 2023 interview, Noem said that the Chinese Communist Party uses TikTok “to influence our children, to spy on us, gather personal data, and they’re doing it to destroy us.” She added that “China has a long-term goal to destroy the United States of America” and that “when I watch people talk about how much they enjoy TikTok, I'm concerned Americans aren't even willing to be inconvenienced anymore to protect their freedom.” She went on to say that she didn’t think Biden would sign the bill banning TikTok because “over and over again this president has proven that he won’t protect America.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/24/23]
  • Noem: “If you are using TikTok, you are helping China destroy America. You are facilitating it. So get off of TikTok.” During a November 2023 Fox interview, Noem agreed that TikTok is a “national security threat” and a “spy mechanism.” She concluded: “If you are using TikTok, you are helping China destroy America. You are facilitating it. So get off of TikTok. Take a little bit of pause on what you think is fun and let's start doing the hard work of saving freedom.” [Fox News, Hannity, 11/29/23]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Amid Propaganda Firestorm, Mainstream Media Privileges Trump's Lies

Amid Propaganda Firestorm, Mainstream Media Privileges Trump's Lies

The right-wing propaganda machine’s opportunistic and unhinged response to the wildfires sweeping the Los Angeles area provide an instructive but foreboding look at what the next four years could look like.

Firestorms have swept parts of Los Angeles Country and its environs since last Tuesday, as a “perfect storm” of dry conditions (spurred in part by human-caused climate change) and winds gusting over 80 miles per hour sparked apocalyptic conflagrations and severely hampered firefighters’ response.

While the fires are not uniquely large, the fact that they are burning in a densely populated area has resulted in staggering costs — at least ten people are reported dead as of Friday morning, tens of thousands have fled their homes, and more than 9,000 structures are damaged or destroyed, with economic loss estimates in the tens of billions of dollars.

Political leaders would ideally respond to such horrific circumstances by putting aside partisan differences and standing together to help the victims rebuild. But something very different is happening this week in right-wing spaces.

President-elect Donald Trump is lying a lot in order to blame his political opponents for the fire. The president-elect's Truth Social feed this week is alternating between memes highlighting his purported plans to take over Canada and Greenland and falsehood-heavy rants about how “the gross incompetence and mismanagement” of President Joe Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are responsible for the fire.

Trump’s MAGA media allies are aiding his effort by turning the right-wing information ecosystem into an unrelenting wave of bogus attacks related to the fires. When any major story breaks, the top priority for the hosts on Fox News, Trumpist social media influencers, and the rest of the echo chamber is to identify scapegoats for their audiences to rage against.

As destruction spreads across Southern California, they are chiming in with a familiar cast of enemies: Democrats, environmentalists, and diversity. These claims have in turn fueled attacks on media outlets for debunking right-wing falsehoods, as well as demands that Trump threaten to hold back desperately needed assistance to the region once he takes office later this month.

None of this is going to inform right-wing audiences about the unfolding disaster, much less reduce the risk that another one strikes in the future. But that’s not the point. The commentariat knows that their audiences are united in their hatred of the left, and by providing the usual villains, they keep viewers, listeners, and readers engaged for their movement’s political gain.

As SoCal burns, the right finds false scapegoats

Responding to natural disasters is a core function of government, and leaders’ response to such tragedies deserves careful scrutiny. But the evidence Trump and his allies are pointing to in order to claim that California’s fires stem from liberal mismanagement don’t hold up.

The main avenue the right has seized upon — blaming California Democrats and environmentalists for supposedly limiting the water supply used to fight the fire — is entirely false.

Trump alleged on Truth Social that there was “no water for fire hydrants” to fight the fire because “Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water to flow” from northern to southern California because he wanted to protect populations of the delta smelt, a rare fish.

His right-wing propagandists quickly parroted his argument to their audiences. On OAN, Dan Ball claimed that “You liberal Democrats running that city, county, and the state have blood on your hands tonight,” before reading Trump’s post. On Fox, Jesse Watters claimed of Newsom that “there is no water coming out of the fire hydrant because this man mismanages the water there.” And Larry Kudlow said on his Fox Business show that the governor “cut the water flow that never got to Southern California, in defense of this obscure fish.”

But none of this is true.

It’s not a water shortage that is impeding the firefighting effort — Southern California’s reservoirs are full, and LA County officials say they filled “all available water storage facility tanks” before the fires started. Some water hydrants ran dry in the Palisades because the extraordinary high demand on the area’s tanks (“four times the normal demand of water was seen for 15 hours straight in the area of the fires”) depleted them faster and reduced the water pressure needed to replenish them.

The long-running dispute over protecting the smelt has nothing to do with the firefighting effort — beyond the fact that there wasn’t a water shortage, that dispute hinges on whether water resources should be used instead for farm irrigation in the South and Central Valley.

And the “water restoration declaration” doesn’t exist, according to Newsom’s staff.

The right regularly responds to disasters by fixating on efforts to hire a diverse workforce, and this case has proved no different. On social media, right-wing influencers targeted Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley, the first woman and first openly LGBTQ person to serve in the role, claiming her leadership of the department shows that “DEI is quite literally getting people killed,” “DEI = DIE,” and “DEI has deadly consequences.”

Such attacks moved swiftly up the right-wing food chain. “This is the leadership of the LA Fire Department — I sure hope they know what they’re doing,” Fox star Jesse Watters said on Wednesday while shaking his head. He later claimed that “California is committing suicide before our very eyes. DEI is deadly.”

And at times, the discourse became nakedly conspiratorial with Fox personalities darkly alleging that “the homeless” or “outside agitators” were responsible for starting the fires and that the government was deliberately allowing them to burn unimpeded.

The right uses the same playbook after every disaster

The right treats every disaster as an opportunity to attack the left, with talking points bubbling up from the fever swamps or filtering down from Trump, then spreading swiftly through the ecosystem thanks to the all-encompassing nature of its propaganda machine.

We’ve seen the same pattern repeatedly over the last few years, following deadly natural disasters in North Carolina and Puerto Rico and California, among others.

But because this is such well-trodden territory, it is disturbing when legacy media outlets are unable or unwilling to bat down the false claims.

The New York Times’ write-up of Trump’s remarks about Newsom’s water management is headlined “Trump Blames California’s Governor, and His Water Policy, for Wildfires.” Only in its final paragraphs does the story explain that the Trump claims detailed in its opening sentences are false.

Privileging the lie like this leaves Times readers poorly informed. The good news for the paper is that another opportunity for better coverage will surely follow the next natural disaster.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Book: Fox Insider Texted Questions To Trump Before Town Hall

Book: Fox Insider Texted Questions To Trump Before Town Hall

A Fox News insider gave Donald Trump's campaign the questions in advance of Trump’s January 2024 town hall on the network, according to a forthcoming book. Later that year, Trump baselessly claimed someone at ABC had “very likely” provided Vice President Kamala Harris with the questions for their debate — and called for government retribution against the network if that were confirmed.

CNN reported on the Fox revelations Wednesday after obtaining advance excerpts of Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt’s book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power. Isenstadt writes that shortly before the start of Trump’s Iowa town hall, moderated by Fox anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, a Trump staffer started receiving text messages from a Fox insider with the questions. From CNN’s article:

“About thirty minutes before the town hall was due to start, a senior aide started getting text messages from a person on the inside at Fox. Holy s–t, the team thought. They were images of all the questions Trump would be asked and the planned follow-ups, down to the exact wording. Jackpot. This was like a student getting a peek at the test before the exam started,” Isenstadt writes.

“Trump was pissed” about the questions, which he thought were too aggressive, but the campaign “workshopped answers” with him, Isenstadt reported.

While it's unclear who might have had access to the town hall questions, there is no shortage of Fox employees who value Trump’s political success over questions of journalistic integrity. The network effectively fused with Trump’s first-term White House, as several network hosts served as his advisers and a revolving door opened up between Fox and his administration. The network’s fawning coverage of his 2024 campaign helped him win the GOP primary and the general election, and he has since named 17 current or former Fox staffers to top posts in his second administration.

(A Fox spokesperson told CNN that “we take these matters very seriously and plan to investigate should there prove to be a breach within the network,” a comical sentiment based on the network’s past handling of Trump-related ethics violations.)

For his part, Trump subsequently claimed that a campaign receiving the questions from a news outlet source before a high-profile event should trigger serious consequences for the host outlet.

Following his disastrous September 2024 debate performance, Trump alleged on his Truth Social platform that “People are saying that Comrade Kamala Harris had the questions from Fake News ABC. I would say it is very likely.” He went on to claim that if that were the case, “ABC’s license should be TERMINATED.”

The former president’s claims were total garbage and a reflection of his poor information diet. Trump subsequently made clear he was running with the claims of a random X poster — whose profile stated “Black Insurrectionist--I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS” — who claimed to be in possession of an affidavit from an “ABC whistleblower” which alleged that “the Harris campaign was given sample questions."

ABC categorically denied Black Insurrectionist’s claims, and the document he eventually released was rife with inconsistencies (which did not stop several prominent MAGA influencers and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo from running with it). The Associated Press subsequently revealed that “Black Insurrectionist” was a white man who has “repeatedly been accused of defrauding business partners and lenders."

Trump’s threats of government retaliation, however, are deadly serious.

The Federal Communications Commission does not license broadcast networks — but it does license individual broadcast stations, including the eight owned and operated directly by ABC and the hundreds of additional affiliates. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Biden appointee, responded to Trump’s call by suggesting it runs afoul of the First Amendment.

But when Brendan Carr, a Republican FCC member and the author of Project 2025’s chapter on the commission, was asked about the controversy during a House hearing, he “would not answer if he believed the FCC had grounds to revoke the ABC license after the debate.” Trump has since named Carr to replace Rosenworcel as FCC chair — and Carr subsequently suggested in a letter to Bob Iger, CEO of ABC’s parent company, Disney, that his FCC would closely scrutinize ABC’s affiliate agreements.

Trump is an authoritarian who looks for any opportunity to punish news outlets he doesn’t like. But if Isenstadt’s story is accurate, he has no problem taking all the help he can get from favored ones.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

You Won't Believe...What Trump's Fluffers Once Said About January 6

You Won't Believe...What Trump's Fluffers Once Said About January 6

On January 6, 2021, as a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and halted Congress’ counting of electoral votes, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade dashed off a desperate text to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

“Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished,” he wrote of Trump, who had summoned the enraged crowd to Washington, D.C., and incited it with lies that the 2020 election had been stolen as part of a plot to subvert that election.

Kilmeade expressed a drastically different view on Monday, as a new Congress prepared to count the electoral votes that would return Trump to the Oval Office.

In one of Fox & Friends’ few references to the January 6 insurrection that morning, he mocked Democrats who “want to point out how different” today’s events will be “from four years ago” when “democracy was in danger.”

Kilmeade added that the American people think that January 6, “as bad as that day was, it’s a small part of the Donald Trump story” and that it would be “put to bed even further after today happens.”

The Fox & Friends host is one of an array of right-wing media figures who said at the time that the January 6 insurrection was a calamity, that the rioters were criminals, and that Trump himself bore responsibility for their actions. But over the past four years, they have participated in the right’s Great Forgetting, making their peace with Trump’s attempted coup and supporting his return to the presidency.

When the right said January 6 was “deplorable” and its participants were “criminals”

“Remember what yesterday’s attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol was like. Very soon, someone might try to convince you that it was different,” The Atlantic’s David Graham wrote the next day. “The health of the republic depends both on what swift consequences come—for Trump and for others—and also on how people remember the participants’ actions later on.”

Graham’s warning proved prescient. As the attack unfolded and in its immediate aftermath, many media figures on the right joined those on center and left in condemning the attack — and Trump’s work to incite it — in the strongest possible terms. But they did not sustain their initial response.

“Shoot the protestors,” influential commentator Erick Erickson wrote that afternoon. He added that Trump should receive immediate consequences that would end his political career: “Waive the rules, impeach. Waive the rules, convict. Waive the rules, deny the ability to run for election again.”

Four years later, Erickson offered this take: “First, Happy January 6th to all who celebrate. Note to the media: The exit polling in November showed that most voters do not care. That you will try to make them care today is another reason trust in the media is beneath that of Congress itself.”

Fox chief political analyst Brit Hume likewise denounced Trump at the time for having “fueled the worst suspicions of his supporters with wild claims that the election was stolen. And now we see the result.” But on Election Day 2024, he declared this “a BS issue” because “the thing was over in a matter of hours.”

Erickson and Hume are among a long list of right-wing media notables who condemned January 6 — and even Trump for bringing it about — but came around to implicitly or explicitly support his return to the presidency, even as he showed no remorse for his own actions and valorized the rioters.

Rupert Murdoch, whose right-wing media empire is one of the most potent forces in Republican politics, wrote in an email to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on Inauguration Day 2021 that Trump’s election lies had been “pretty much a crime” that made January 6 “inevitable.” He added: “Best we don't mention his name unless essential and certainly don't support him."

On Fox, numerous hosts condemned the criminal acts of the mob and said its members deserved punishment, with some even describing such denunciations as morally necessary.

“Those who truly support President Trump, those that believe they are part of the conservative movement in this country, you do not — we do not support those that commit acts of violence,” offered Fox host and Trump adviser Sean Hannity. “Every good and decent American, we know, will and must condemn what happened at the Capitol.”

“The actions at the United States Capitol three days ago were deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal,” Jeanine Pirro likewise declared. “Anyone watching this must condemn it.”

Fox contributor Marc Thiessen was among the few to single out Trump on the network’s airwaves, saying the then-president had been “responsible for what happened,” and he went much further in a Washington Post column.

“It was one of the darkest moments in the history of our democracy. And Trump is responsible for it,” he wrote. “Trump formed and incited the mob. He stoked their anger with self-serving lies. He betrayed his followers. He betrayed his office. And now he has blood on his hands.”

The organs of the upper-crust right were united in blaming Trump for the attack.

Murdoch’s Wall Street Journalwrote in a January 7, 2021, editorial that Trump should resign the presidency after committing “an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election.” The New York Post editorial board wrote that “while the roots of this madness were many, with some blame across the spectrum, it’s fundamentally on President Trump.” And the editors of National Review said Trump “found a new low” by having “whipped up and urged on a mob toward the U.S. Capitol, where it breached the building and forced his vice president and lawmakers to flee.”

The hosts of the All-In podcast, which became a key venue of the MAGA tech right, were even more scathing at the time, describing Trump as “a complete piece-of-shit fucking scumbag” who had engaged in “insane, deranged, criminal, lunatic behavior” and had “disqualified himself from being a candidate at a national level.”

The Great Forgetting and what comes next

These comments reflected the widespread initial consensus that January 6 had been horrific — and that Trump had been responsible for it. In the first days following the attack, politicians of both parties, corporate leaders, and the public at large responded with revulsion and demands for consequences.

But that unity ultimately proved fragile. A coterie of Trumpists, led by former Fox host Tucker Carlson, worked diligently to unwind it, reframing the sacking of the U.S. Capitol as either unimportant — or a conspiracy driven by Democrats and the media in which the assailants were the real victims of a crackdown on “political dissidents,” as Fox’s Rachel Campos-Duffy put it last week.

As this fraudulent counternarrative became increasingly widespread, most other conservative media figures eventually chose to join the right’s Great Forgetting. They pretended that a president who they knew had tried to overturn the republic was fit to return to that office. And in so doing, they helped power Trump from his post-January 6 position of disgrace back to the GOP nomination and the presidency.

Trump’s return to office sets the stage for more authoritarian acts. He never repudiated his election lies or the attack they incited, instead valorizing the January 6 “hostages” and promising they will receive pardons as one of his first acts in office. And he is assembling a team to carry out the “retribution” he has promised to inflict on his political foes, including an FBI director who proposed legal action against the conspirators, “not just in government but in the media,” who he claimed “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”

Trump’s authoritarian impulses may ultimately come to nothing. But with their actions after January 6, the leading lights of the right have already signaled their willingness to accept whatever he does.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Together Again: Fox And Trump Spread Lies About New Orleans Truck Attack

Together Again: Fox And Trump Spread Lies About New Orleans Truck Attack

President-elect Donald Trump keeps falsely suggesting that the native-born U.S. Army veteran who rammed a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans on New Year’s Day was an immigrant. He appears to have been misled by a Fox News report — subsequently retracted — alleging that the assailant crossed the border from Mexico two days before the attack.

The falsehoods mark a resumption of the Trump-Fox feedback loop that powered his communications during his first term in the White House. The then-president, an obsessive consumer of Fox programming, sent nearly 1,300 tweets in response to coverage he saw on Fox News and Fox Business over the last 29 months of his tenure.

At around 3:15 a.m., the driver of a pickup truck sped through a crowd of revelers on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more before being killed in a shoot-out with police. The driver was later identified as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran born and raised in Texas who claimed to have joined ISIS.

But at 10:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday — before authorities had confirmed the suspect’s name — Fox aired an anonymously-sourced bombshell report claiming that he had crossed the border from Mexico earlier that week.

“According to federal sources, the suspect drove a truck with that Texas license plate, OK — so this is just coming into our newsroom now. This is from Griff Jenkins and David Spunt working their federal sources on this,” anchor Molly Line said. “According to their sources, this person came through Eagle Pass, Texas, two days ago.”

Within minutes, Trump amplified Fox’s incendiary claim, arguing that the New Orleans attack showed he had been correct about “criminals coming in” to the U.S.

“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” he posted to his Truth Social platform at 10:48 a.m. “The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.”

But as Trump parroted Fox’s reporting, the network’s reporters were walking it back, saying that the sources only confirmed that the truck, and not the suspect, had crossed the border earlier in the week.

“We’re hearing that the vehicle was traced to coming across from Mexico into the United States at Eagle Pass, Texas, two days ago,” Spunt told Fox’s audience at around the same time Trump posted.

“To be clear, we don’t 100% know that this man — and we do know the suspect is a man — was the person driving that crossed the border,” he continued. “That is unclear at this point. We just know that the actual license plate was picked up by a reader at a border crossing. This is per two federal law enforcement sources to Fox News."

“I know that raises more questions than answers, but we are providing information to our viewers as we get it, the most accurate information,” Spunt added.

But Fox had not carefully provided its viewers — including the former president — with “the most accurate information."

Roughly an hour later, a Fox anchor reported that the network’s sources had confirmed that the pickup truck actually crossed the border at Eagle Pass on November 16 — nearly two months ago, not two days — and that the driver at the time had not been the suspect. The car-sharing company Turo later confirmed that the suspect had rented the truck used in the attack.

A few hours after that, as more information about the suspect came out, Spunt ended up in the curious position of correcting the false Trump claim that his own reporting had seemingly spurred. Spunt read the Truth Social statement during the 4 p.m. ET hour and commented, “Now, the former president said ‘criminals coming in’ in his statement, meaning into our country, but to be clear, Molly and Brian, the suspect was born in the United States.”

The correction did nothing to deter Trump, who posted overnight that “this is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS” and blamed Democrats “for allowing this to happen to our Country.”

By the following morning, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Michael Waltz, was on Fox & Friends explaining that the attack demonstrated the need to “close the border, secure our sovereignty.”

Minutes after that, Trump posted that the attack by a native-born citizen had proven him correct about the border. “With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined,” he wrote.

Trump appears to be starting his second term the same way he spent his first one — by riffing on what he sees on his television.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Media Matters Names Its 'Misinformer Of The Year'

Media Matters Names Its 'Misinformer Of The Year'

The role of the free press, enshrined by the Constitution’s First Amendment, is an essential element of our democracy. The public cannot become informed about the problems facing our country and the efforts to improve or worsen them without robust protections for journalism.

But powerful people hate the light journalism shines on them and the dissent it can spur. A coalition of right-wing billionaires, Republican law enforcement officials, and an authoritarian once and future president are using wealth, lawfare, and government power to silence the press and carry out their political agenda unimpeded. And they are perilously close to succeeding.

Media Matters is naming anti-media intimidation the Misinformer of the Year for 2024 for its chilling effect on essential press freedoms.

ABC News’ agreement to settle Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit is a foreboding sign of the current media climate and where it may be headed.

Legal experts and executives at ABC News parent company Disney reportedly thought that the outlet would eventually prevail. But its lawyers reportedly feared “litigating against a vindictive sitting president and risking harm to its brand.” They even worried that the suit could “become a vehicle for Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the landmark First Amendment decision in New York Times v. Sullivan,” The New York Times reported.

If media lawyers are worried that a defamation lawsuit could ultimately demolish the bedrock legal precedent limiting such suits, then that protection functionally no longer applies.

The results of that shift could prove devastating to news outlets large and small and chill speech across the nation.

Trump’s lawyers have already filed a new lawsuit against Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register, and the Iowa paper’s parent company Gannett, accusing them of consumer fraud for publishing Selzer’s poll.

Other suits from anyone else who benefits from a cowed press will surely follow.

The purpose of these intimidation tactics — to which we had already been subjected — is to silence adversarial speech. If powerful individuals can force critics to pay a hefty price, they will be much more hesitant to take risks. And those without the financial resources for protracted legal fights will either back down or risk crippling costs. With journalists silenced, crucial stories will go unwritten — and the American public will lose out to right-wing power.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Named To VOA, Lake Hates 'Fake News,' Called Fox 'A Globalist Network'

Named To VOA, Lake Hates 'Fake News,' Called Fox 'A Globalist Network'

Donald Trump's pick to lead the federal government's international news agency is an unhinged conspiracy theorist who lashes out at the press, hobnobs with far-right and antisemitic extremist outlets, and has criticized Fox News as “a globalist network.”

Trump announced Wednesday that he wants Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor who was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and governor in Arizona over the last two election cycles, to serve as the director of the Voice of America in his next administration. VOA claims a weekly international audience of more than 350 million people across TV, radio, and digital platforms; U.S. officials say it promotes democratic values, including the free press, and serves as a counterweight to foreign propaganda.

It’s unclear whether Lake will ever actually ascend to the VOA post. It is unusual for a president to name someone for the position and there are statutory and bureaucratic guardrails that could stall or prevent her installation, as CNN’s Brian Stelter noted.

But Trump’s selection of Lake — who he asserted will “ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media” — is a nakedly partisan assault on journalistic values that demonstrates the level of fealty he expects from the press.

Lake’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign was a Fox-fueled fever dream. An obsequious backer of Trump and supporter of his election fraud lies, she campaigned alongside MAGA extremists and drew support from figures linked to QAnon and white nationalism.

She habitually attacked reporters during the campaign, describing them as “the right hand of the devil” and running an ad in which she said “it’s time to take a sledgehammer to the mainstream media’s lies and propaganda” before smashing several televisions depicting cable news hosts, whom she accused of following “a communist playbook.” On Election Day, she promised journalists that after she won, she would “be your worst fricking nightmare.”

Lake lost. But in true Trumpian fashion, she spent the next two years claiming the governorship had been stolen from her, even as courts savaged her complaints.

As she prepared to run for Senate (even as she claimed to be Arizona’s rightfully elected governor), Lake expanded her attacks on the press to Fox itself. “Fox has proven that they are a globalist network,” she said on its competitor Newsmax in July 2023, adding that Fox supported the “uni-party swamp.” Speaking at this year’s Republican National Convention, she continued to go after the “fake news” for “lying about President Donald Trump and his amazing patriotic supporters.”

What type of media does Lake prefer? She is a friend and supporter of Laura Loomer, the deranged pro-Trump sycophant; praises the “massive following” of a QAnon show; embraces antisemitic streamers who sympathize with Nazis and claim that Jews are “taking over the world,” control the media, and “control us”; and cozies up to Brenden Dilley, the far-right podcaster who heads Trump’s “meme team.”

Lake would replace the journalist Michael Abramowitz if she actually becomes head of VOA. Abramowitz previously served as head of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that supports journalists and human rights advocates, after more than two decades at The Washington Post. But Trump wants U.S. journalists pumping out propaganda, and Lake represents his bid to get it.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Pete Hegseth

Fox News Hosts Fight To Save Embattled Hegseth From Scandals

The nomination of Pete Hegseth — the weekend Fox & Friends host Donald Trump selected to serve as defense secretary — is in trouble. Weeks of disturbing stories about Hegseth’s character and competence have Republican senators sitting on the fence, while Trump himself is reportedly contemplating other options.

But Hegseth’s Fox colleagues, who initially ignored the reports, have finally come to his defense over the last day, setting up a potential test of the influence the right-wing propaganda network will hold over the second Trump administration.

Hegseth is wildly underqualified to lead the Pentagon. The defense secretary’s job is to oversee a massive bureaucracy with millions of military and civilian employees and a budget in the hundreds of billions, and while Hegseth is a decorated military veteran, he has no experience managing such a large organization.

For Trump, however, Hegseth has the skills and experience required for any position: The former president likes his work on TV.

Hegseth spent the past decade as a Fox talking head. In that role, he pontificated about the perils of allowing women to serve in combat roles, defended U.S. service members and contractors who had been accused or convicted of war crimes, and floated military assaults on Iran and North Korea.

Along the way, Hegseth relentlessly propagandized on Trump’s behalf, which made him an influential figure during Trump’s first presidency. His selection to run the Pentagon was not an aberration — a slew of current and former network personalities could join Hegseth in the second Trump administration thanks to the incoming president’s Fox obsession.

But relying on Fox to vet cabinet nominees has left something to be desired when it comes to Hegseth, who has been battered by a series of devastating reports:

  • Days after Trump named Hegseth as his pick for defense secretary, local officials in California confirmed that the former Fox host had been investigated for sexual assault in October 2017 after speaking at a convention of the California Federation of Republican Women. A woman told police that Hegseth had “physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she ‘remembered saying “no” a lot,’” while Hegseth said they had a consensual encounter, CNN reported. No charges were filed, but Hegseth later paid a settlement agreement which included a confidentiality clause because “he didn’t want to lose his job at the network if the accusation became public,” according to Hegseth’s lawyer.
  • The New York Timesreported last week that in a 2018 email, Hegseth’s mother wrote to him, “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself.” The paper noted that she emailed her son amid his “contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha, the mother of three of his children,” who had been his co-worker at Vets for Freedom and that “Samantha Hegseth filed for divorce after her husband impregnated a co-worker,” a Fox executive producer whom he married the following year.
  • The New Yorkerreported last Sunday: “A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct. A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events.”

Fox’s right-wing propagandists and “news side” reporters alike remained silent about these controversies, as CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on Tuesday, instead using euphemisms about how Hegseth was facing “problems about his personal conduct” and is “headed for a tough confirmation.”

“In effect, Fox has insulated its conservative audience from reports that might dim their perception of Hegseth and Trump, instead offering viewers a safe space where their existing beliefs are reinforced by sympathetic hosts and guests,” Stelter wrote.

With Fox on the sidelines, GOP senators backed away from supporting Hegseth’s nomination. Trump himself reportedly began looking at other options for the Defense Department, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Fox favorite.

But Hegseth’s Fox colleagues finally rallied to his defense on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, as his nomination reportedly faced an “absolutely critical” juncture.

After NBC News reported Tuesday night that Hegseth “drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees” and had at times smelled of alcohol on the set, Hegseth’s Fox & Friends weekend co-host Will Cain organized public denials from network employees and testimonials to their former colleague’s character.

Fox & Friends’ co-hosts on Wednesday morning offered several minutes of praise for Hegseth, denials of the reports about him, and attacks on what they termed a media “witch hunt.” “No, we will not succumb to the left’s playbook,” Emily Compagno said. “We will not succumb to Kavanaugh becoming a verb in that the left likes to wield the media and a very public witch hunt to thwart the possibility for actual success.”

They hosted Hegseth’s mother later in the show, who defended her son, saying that he “doesn't misuse women” and that while he “has been through some difficult things. … I would just say that some of those attachments or descriptions are just not true, especially anymore.”

She also made a direct appeal to Trump himself.

Hegseth himself remains defiant, and he will reportedly sit down tonight with Fox chief political anchor Bret Baier for an interview aimed at an audience of one — Trump, who will almost certainly be watching as he decides whether to keep pushing for Hegseth’s nomination or cut him loose.

With Hegseth’s Fox friends trying to preserve his spot at Defense he has a chance, but their effort may be too little, too late.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.