Support Our Journalism

Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Politics National News World Economy Lifestyle Store

Matt Gertz

Trump White House Escalates War On The Press

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

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

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

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

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

Justice Department ends restrictions protecting journalists

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

In an internal Justice Department memo, Bondi rescinded Biden-era protections which restricted prosecutors “from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media,” stating this was necessary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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump calls for investigations of media pollsters

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

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

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

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

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

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

A cry of desperation from CBS News

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

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

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

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

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

Trump gloats about media owners bowing to his will

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

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

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

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

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Amid Pentagon Chaos, Fox Hosts Stepping Away From Hegseth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Why The Hegseth Debacle Was Inevitable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

None of them have mentioned it since.*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Right-Wing Pundits Apparently Profiting From Ivermectin Craze They Pushed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is no longer the case.

All Family Pharmacy sells easy access to the drugs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tarlov’s co-hosts were not interested.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fox excuse 5: Due process takes too long

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

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

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

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

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Heritage Foundation And MAGA Media Behind Trump's 'Autopen' Claim

The Heritage Foundation and MAGA media laid the groundwork for President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and lawless claim that he is invalidating the pardons President Joe Biden issued to the January 6 House select committee.

Trump cited the committee, particularly its co-chair, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), in the calls for retribution against his foes that were a hallmark of his 2024 presidential campaign. In response, Biden issued preemptive pardons to the committee’s members and staff in the final hours of his presidency.

“Rather than accept accountability, those who perpetrated the January 6th attack have taken every opportunity to undermine and intimidate those who participated in the Select Committee in an attempt to rewrite history, erase the stain of January 6th for partisan gain, and seek revenge, including by threatening criminal prosecutions,” Biden said in his statement on the pardons.

Trump responded hours later by proving Biden correct, promising “action” for the “J6 hostages” while denouncing Biden’s pardons of the “Unselect Committee of political thugs,” who he claimed had been “very, very guilty of very bad crimes.”

He moved quickly to fulfill his promise to the January 6 defendants. Later that day, he granted clemency to “all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection” with their actions that day — handing out pardons to people convicted of having violently assaulted law enforcement and commuting to time served the sentences of those imprisoned for participating in seditious conspiracies.

But Trump waited until after midnight on Monday to reopen his attack on the January 6 committee. The president posted on Truth Social — immediately after praising the golfer he said he had defeated to win his golf club’s championship — that Biden’s pardons for January 6 committee were “hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”

Trump continued, in a deranged rant in which he claimed without evidence that Biden “knew nothing about” the pardons, that the members were “subject to investigation at the highest level”:

In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level. The fact is, they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!

That’s not how any of this works, as NBC News made clear in its report on Trump’s posting:

However, the U.S. Constitution makes clear the president has unique executive powers to issue pardons and makes no provision for subsequent presidents to rescind them — for issues relating to the choice of pen or anything else.
Biden and President Barack Obama both used an autopen device to sign official documents, a practice which is legally binding, according to 2005 guidance from the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, commissioned by President George W. Bush.
“The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law,” the office said, adding that this includes the use of an autopen.

But Trump’s allies have spent the last few weeks creating the pretext for Trump to take such an action against his perceived political enemies, and now the president is adopting their argument. His supporters are primed to accept an investigation if the zealots Trump appointed to lead the Justice Department and FBI move forward.

Trump’s MAGA allies built his case that Biden’s pardons were void

The Heritage Foundation, a MAGA think tank that created the Project 2025 framework undergirding much of Trump’s administration, launched the autopen critique with a March 6 post from its OversightPR account on X (formerly Twitter).

“We gathered every document we could find with Biden's signature over the course of his presidency,” the account stated. “All used the same autopen signature except for the the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year.”

Trump’s media allies jumped on the report and immediately began suggesting that Biden’s January 6 committee pardons might be invalid.

“There is nobody who wants to move past this Joe Biden autopen scandal than Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Gen Milley,” MAGA influencer Rogan O'Handley wrote under his X handle DC_Draino. “If courts start to rule Biden's signatures are invalid, then those federal pardons go out the window."

By March 10, the narrative jumped to Fox News.

“A Heritage Foundation report called the Oversight Project has dug up many of the documents signed — actually signed during the Biden presidency,” Laura Ingraham told contributor Raymond Arroyo on her show that night. “And they report, I guess, that all but one was signed by autopen. Or maybe he was just busy.”

Arroyo replied that “considering that he seemed to be on autopilot for most of his presidency, this is not hard to believe.” He later suggested that pardons signed by autopen might be “null and void,” adding, “You know who's sweating the most tonight? Liz Cheney and the Bidens. This is not a happy night for them.”

On Jesse Watters Primetime the following hour, Trump counselor Alina Habba picked up the story. She said that Biden “evidently signed everything with an auto signature” and, when Watters later suggested Biden “should have handed out more preemptive pardons” to prevent Trump’s DOJ from investigating his political foes, she suggested that Biden’s pardons were void.

“I wonder if those were auto-signed as well, because I would challenge the validity of it. You never know,” she said.

Heritage President Kevin Roberts joined Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt the same night to claim that the autopen usage proved Biden was “incapacitated” and called into question the legitimacy of documents like “the pardons that President Biden made to people like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and other terrible Americans.”

The following day, Heritage’s OversightPR account responded to the spate of interest with an update on Biden’s pardons:

We analyzed Biden's Jan. 19, 2025 “pardons” for:
-Biden Family Members
-Anthony Fauci
-General Milley
-J6 Committee
-Gerald Lundergan
They all have the same exact Biden autopen signature

The post triggered more MAGA media coverage.

Newsmax’s Greg Kelly cited the Heritage report on his March 13 show, saying that it raises “questions about the validity of these pardons.”

A few days later, the president himself agreed.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

        About The National Memo
    
The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.
TAGS

Created By

RebelMouse

About Masthead Terms of Service Privacy Statement Advertise Contact

Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Sign up for our Daily Newsletter and never miss a story.

Justice Department ends restrictions protecting journalists

Trump calls for investigations of media pollsters

A cry of desperation from CBS News

Trump gloats about media owners bowing to his will

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

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

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

All Family Pharmacy sells easy access to the drugs

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

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

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

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

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

Fox excuse 5: Due process takes too long

Trump’s MAGA allies built his case that Biden’s pardons were void

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

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

Newsmax’s Schmitt and Kelly said that Trump knows best

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

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

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

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

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

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

About The National Memo