Fox News was so panicked the network dedicated entire segments to Hasan Piker, a controversial leftwing Twitch streamer who is not well known outside of his specific audience.

The network has brought up Piker and his problematic statements for the past few months. Last week his name showed up in the transcripts 73 times which was more often than the words Israel, China, Biden, gas or even midterm appeared.

The network is determined to make Piker the new face of the Democratic Party even though he has an army of critics among prominent left of center lawmakers and political pundits.

He also has made no move to seek public office or engage in fundraising at a scale that would rival a PAC or mega donor.

Other than Fox’s obsessive coverage of Piker the network was a jumbled mess of pop culture stories, fantasies involving Hillary Clinton, deceptive segments about an interview with Abdul El-Sayed and fawning praise for the glorious leader - Donald J. Trump.

Fox News was so panicked the network dedicated entire segments to Hasan Piker, a controversial leftwing Twitch streamer who is not well known outside of his specific audience.

The network has brought up Piker and his problematic statements for the past few months. Last week his name showed up in the transcripts 73 times which was more often than the words Israel, China, Biden, gas or even midterm appeared.

The network is determined to make Piker the new face of the Democratic Party even though he has an army of critics among prominent left of center lawmakers and political pundits.

He also has made no move to seek public office or engage in fundraising at a scale that would rival a PAC or mega donor.

Other than Fox’s obsessive coverage of Piker the network was a jumbled mess of pop culture stories, fantasies involving Hillary Clinton, deceptive segments about an interview with Abdul El-Sayed and fawning praise for the glorious leader - Donald J. Trump.

Shows I covered on Fox News last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• The Ingraham Angle

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy

• Multiple Trump media appearances

• The Will Cain Show - Tuesday and Wednesday

Democrats and Their Hasan Piker Problem

For the past few weeks the folks at Fox News have brought up the controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker when discussing Democratic candidates and the midterm elections.

The network has tired to make Democratic candidates responsible for things Piker has said on his Twitch livestreams and other media appearances.

Who is Hasan Piker?

Piker is a tall and striking 35-year-old Turkish-American man blessed with a natural charisma. He is both beloved and hated by folks on the left.

Even though he was born in the United States he spent much of his childhood in Turkey where he attended elite private schools.

As an adult he studied at the University of Miami and Rutgers where he graduated with a double major in political science and communication studies. While still a student he started working for his uncle Cenk Uygur, the founder of a leftwing media company The Young Turks (TYT).

Piker started his Twitch streaming platform in 2018 while still at TYT. He eventually left his uncle’s company to focus on his Twitch platform in 2020 where he has amassed a large following.

Some of his content crosses over into the gaming world (professional video game enthusiasts) but he primarily discusses far-left politics. His Twitch platform is quite lucrative as according to leaked documents obtained by The Washington Post in 2021 Piker made $2.8 million in approx. three years on the platform.

Most of his income comes from Twitch subscriptions and ad revenue. Subscribers and fans are also able to send Piker gifts and tip payouts during his livestreams.

Piker speaks to his audience from a gaming chair in his Beverly Grove / West Hollywood mansion for hours at a time. Piker is a proverbial bomb thrower who often says outrageous and inflammatory things for shock value.

The Controversy

During one of his streams on August 19, 2019 Piker bellowed “America deserved 9/11.” Two days later he apologized for his statement during an appearance on The Young Turks.

“I was simply referencing the fact that all of the foreign policy decisions and our arming of insurgent groups in the region and our efforts in destabilizing the Middle East have a direct consequence, a boomerang effect, rather, if you will, in causing 9/11,” Piker said.

In an email to Reuters Piker said, “I used imprecise language in 2019 and immediately ‌apologized ⁠for using the word ‘deserved’ when talking about the concept of blowback. no one deserves to be a victim to a terror attack. My stance on this has been clear since 2019.”

Many of his critics have called Piker misogynistic and antisemitic, which he denies. His supporters often say his quotes are taken out of context but most Americans aren’t going to sit down for a three-hour Twitch stream especially after they hear some of his offensive statements.

Fox News and other rightwing outlets have seized on some of the worst statements Piker has said in an attempt to smear Democratic candidates he has promoted and campaigned with including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

According to reporting by Politico Piker made the following statement on August 20.

“Piker called “the idea that Jews are monolithic” in their support of Israel “a very dangerous mode of propaganda.”“If Jews in America keep putting this — this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews,” he continued. “We’re teaching people the wrong lesson. At the end of the day, American Jews do not prioritize Israel, but they do prioritize antisemitism.”

During his remarks his screen also displayed an image of state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is Jewish and a supporter of Israel.”

According to reporting by The Atlantic Piker attributed the following quote to Jeremy Moss, a Democratic candidate for congress in suburban Detroit district.

“The entire purpose of my campaign is to make sure America continues to support Israel. I don’t think it’s wrong for Jews in America to want to put Israel first. America is not our homeland and we have been victims of antisemitism here.”

Moss has publicly stated the quote is a fabrication. Piker has not provided any evidence of its authenticity.

Instead of apologizing for posting what looks like a fake quote Piker attacked his critics by implying they were connected to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

Soon after the Twitch stream that included statements about Moss and Jewish Americans Abdul El-Sayed took steps to distance himself from Piker.

According to reporting by Forbes, El-Sayed, who campaigned with Piker ahead of his primary, issued a statement on August 24, “antisemitism is a scourge, and we need to address it in all its forms. And I stand against any rhetoric that puts the community at risk,” adding, “I want to be crystal clear, nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople.”

El-Sayed also told Semafor on August 26 he has “no plans” to campaign with Piker again. A long list of other Democratic lawmakers including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) as well as Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) as well as many Democratic members of congress have admonished Piker.

Fox News hasn’t included most of this backstory. The folks at Fox News have repeated Piker’s quote, “America deserved 9/11” dozens of times a day for weeks. No one at the network has said that Piker apologized two days after he said it.

Jesse Watters even went as far to say that Piker represented the Democratic base. I would argue most Democrats have no idea who Piker is or what he talks about.

It’s also absurd to call Piker the base of the Democratic Party when he has so many prominent Democratic critics. Many advocates, pundits and political strategists have also publicly denounced the popular Twitch streamer.

Jessica Tarlov Attempted to Provide More Context for Hasan Piker

On Friday on The Five Jessica Tarlov, the liberal voice on the program, offered her opinion on Piker.

“I’m not going to sit here and explain every single comment. Some of them I just think are as offensive as you heard them. Other things, like what he was saying about America deserving 9/11 and talking about our foreign policy that led to it, or what he was saying about what happened on October 7th, and the fact that he doesn’t think that it justifies the reaction that Israel had against the Palestinians is what he was talking about. He did say that there was violence on October 7th and rapes, and that you can’t justify something like that, but that the response was disproportionate. I have never said that. I think that Israel is committing a genocide in Palestine. I don’t think that I will not change my mind on it, but a comparison to David Duke is beyond the pale. We are now on day a million. It feels like of the Hasan Piker coverage. It is exhausting. It is difficult. I understand what Debbie Dingell is saying, that Republicans want to use this to divide us, but there are really two schools of thought that I think are important here. We are talking about him too much. He has a Twitch streamer.

He sits in front of a computer for 10 to 12 hours a day and live streams all of his thoughts. We are also selectively picking what parts of the streams we talk about. The majority of what Hasan Piker talks about are things like universal health care and housing. And yeah, there’s some stuff the Marxism and that China is so great. I don’t agree with an ounce of that. But people are hearing in these conversations things that resonate with them about their quality of life, and that maybe there might be some solution that the government can provide to make our lives better.”

Worship Trump and Scare the Base

Fox News made a hard pivot last week to fall back on what it knows best - terrifying its base and promoting Donald J. Trump.

“We are just 71 days away from the single most important midterm in our lifetime, and you got to vote like your country depends on it,” said Sean Hannity on Hannity Monday August 24.

This example was one of many instances last week where Hannity or another Fox News host told their viewers that the upcoming midterm elections were the most important in the history of the United States.

“I think Trump made a huge mistake here. He’s addressing the past presidents and not future ones. He needs to make clear that he is not only the best in what already happened, but will be the best of what will ever be,” said Greg Gutfeld on The Five, Friday August 28.

“He’s (Trump) good at the Talarico because he has a villain. And so and listen, he’s so engaged. The GOP loves him on the campaign trail because they feel like he’s their best messenger,” said Shannon Bream on The Five, Friday August 28.

“You better remember, the legacy media mob is not going to tell you all of Donald Trump’s accomplishments,” said Sean Hannity on Hannity, Monday August 24.

“I watched you out there with the helipad, the ballroom. The whole world will see that. I’ve also seen you get out of a golf cart and move stakes that no one else in the world will see. I think it was a tee box and you were out of the cart in the heat. Moving stakes. Where does that come from?” asked Trey Gowdy during his extended interview with Trump on Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy, August 30.

Sean Hannity made the most absurd comment of the week.

“We don’t talk a lot about President Trump’s success, and we’ll scroll that. But you know how the media will never do it. He tries to, but you know, he’s only one person. What is the best way for him to effectively communicate that? Heading into, I think, the most important midterm in our life,” said Hannity on Hannity, Wednesday August 26.

Sean Hannity actually said with a straight face. ‘Trump tires to talk about his success but you know, he’s only one person.”

President Trump constantly brags about everything he does, exaggerates his accomplishments and completely fabricates scenarios to boost himself.

Just today in the Oval Office President Trump repeated the false claim that gasoline was $1.85 a gallon in Iowa before he made the decision to attack Iran. This was a bald faced lie.

Darline Graham is Electric!

Since Senator Lindsey Graham’s unexpected death Fox News has taken great pains to boost his sister Darline Graham in her bid to replace him in the senate. Although she was appointed by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster to temporarily fill the position she is currently running to represent the state for a full term.

On Monday Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) boasted that Graham got legislation passed within 30 days of her appointment.

“This what we know about Darline Graham. She is confident, she is qualified and she is ready for prime time. There is a reason why she earned President Trump’s support and my support. I had the chance to watch her go through the misery of two funerals, and also showed me how resilient she was by making the final vote for the AG of America, Todd Blanche. She was the deciding vote. And in less than 30 days she was able to get the Russian sanctions bill across the finish line. Her first piece of legislation done in less than 30 days. It could take years to get something done. Sean, she is electric.”

Sen. Darline Graham was not the driving force behind the legislation. After her brother died members of the Senate said they would pass the bill in his honor. It currently faces several hurdles in the House.

Jesse Watters Lied About His Own Interview

On Tuesday night on Jesse Watters Primetime Watters lied about what was discussed in an interview he taped with Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed the night before.

Watters: So while nobody’s looking, the commies are planning a smashing grab.

Producers then cut to a clip from the previous night’s broadcast.

El-Sayed: Billionaires don’t make their money off of their labor. That, I think, is where you you head off billionaires that make their money off their money. So if you have $1 billion, your billion makes another $100 million. That’s not the fruits of your labor. That’s just the fruits of your money making money. I think it’s okay if we talk to you at 7%, you’re still going to make what, a cool $30 million off your billion dollars. I think it’s okay.

Watters: So last night on prime time, Abdul in Michigan said he wanted to soak the rich tax stock market gains before you sell.

I openly yelled at my computer screen.

At no point during the interview did Jesse Watters discuss the taxation of unrealized capital gains in the stock market. The words ‘stock market,’ ‘stocks’ and ‘gains,’ did not appear in the transcript for the interview.

El-Sayed’s statement was vague and his math was off. If someone is taxed at 7% on a $100 million unsold stock market gain they would be left with $93 million not $30 million. This scenario would also include someone with $1 billion in shares of stock.

Based on that answer I’m not even sure how Watters would get

“He wanted to soak the rich tax stock market gains before you sell.”

I’d add that is some terrible grammar on Watters’ part.

In El-Sayed’s defense he was never asked a straight forward question about his plan to tax unrealized capital gains.

The interview was such a disorganized disaster that’s difficult to summarize exactly what happened without transcribing the entire exchange.

Watters asked El-Sayed about his plan to ‘soak the rich.’ El-Sayed spoke about how people with extreme wealth ($1 billion) should pay more in taxes to help pay for roads and schools that would help the entire community.

At one point Watters cut him off and implied that El-Sayed wanted the tax revenue for his own personal gain. El-Sayed scoffed and said it would go towards the public good.

This is what was said immediately before the clip showcased by Watters.

Watters: I just think I have the right to the fruits of my own labor. That’s America. It’s not communist what you’re talking about. Let me ask you about socialized healthcare.

El-Sayed: Billionaires don’t make money. Let me just ask the question. Let me, let me let me go back to that. Billionaires don’t make their money off of their labor. That, I think, is where you you head off. Billionaires that make their money off their money. So if you have $1 billion, your billion makes another $100 million. That’s not the fruits of your labor.

Watters asked a sloppy question and got a messy answer. I would have loved to have heard El-Sayed’s response about a proposed tax on unrealized capital gains in the stock market but Watters never asked him about it.

The Fox News host also misrepresented an old poll from three weeks prior to falsely claim that El-Sayed was losing to Mike Rogers by four points. Watters also repeatedly called El-Sayed a communist even though the Democratic candidate said “I am a capitalist,” during an interview with CBS on August 3.

Hillary Clinton is Going to Run for President

On Wednesday on The Five, the Fox News host known simply as Kennedy implied Hillary Clinton might run for president again.

“She can absolutely sit this one out unless she wants to lose another presidential election, which would be wildly entertaining. And I’m sure there are people on the far, far left and all over the right who would love to see her run again. She represents the Democrat establishment in all of its failure. The thing that separates establishment Democrats like Hillary Clinton from the DSA, the DSA is awful. Their ideas are abhorrent, and that has been proven generation after generation, with tens of millions of dead to show for it.”

Kennedy was responding to a brief statement Clinton made about the rise of the DSA in the Democratic Party. Clinton was not overly critical of the DSA and she didn’t say she would run for president.

Hillary Clinton has emphatically said for years that she has no interest in running for any public office again.

Candidate Endorsements

The network spent 4% of its airtime on the shows I covered endorsing candidates.

• Darline Graham - U.S. Senate, South Carolina - Republican

• Mike Rogers - U.S. Senate, Michigan - Republican

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. This list has been truncated for space. Source - The PBS News Hour transcripts. *If you don’t see a major story on this list chances are BOTH networks covered it.

• The Department of Justice spent more than a decade building a case accusing Live Nation of illegally dominating the live event industry by thwarting competition to keep ticket prices high. But according to a Wall Street Journal investigation, President Trump urged senior DOJ officials to settle the case just days before it was set to go to trial. (PBS News Hour)

• The U.K. and France pledged increased support for Ukraine as the country marked its 35th Independence Day. On his first overseas trip since taking office, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged to help Ukraine produce long-range missiles. (PBS News Hour)

• Russia and Ukraine continued their attacks. Russian officials say three teenagers were killed when a Ukrainian drone hit a building in the Southern Russian city of Krasnodar. And authorities in the Odesa region say a Russian attack on warehouse facilities there injured at least five people. (PBS News Hour)

• A federal judge rejected a bid by Ghislaine Maxwell to throw out her 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges. The former girlfriend and associate of Jeffrey Epstein had cited what she called new evidence in seeking to set aside her 20-year prison sentence. That included documents recently released by the federal government under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. But in a 67-page decision. Judge Paul Engelmayer called her claims meritless and frivolous and said the evidence actually “reinforces the correctness’ of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges. (PBS News Hour)

• The Trump administration is threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., if its plans to renovate the arts institution are not allowed to proceed. Those plans include adding President Trump’s name to the building.

  In a court filing, Justice Department lawyers called the center “structurally unsound” and said that without renovations, it will “deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down.” They suggest an outdoor amphitheater could be built on the site. (PBS News Hour)

• An immigration officer facing charges related to a shooting in Minneapolis was released from a Texas jail. Christian Castro’s release comes a day after a federal judge refused to order his return to Minnesota. He’s accused of firing his weapon through the front door of a Minneapolis home in January and wounding a Venezuelan immigrant. Castro then falsely reported he had been attacked by the 24-year-old with a shovel. The ICE officer was detained after a Minnesota judge issued a nationwide warrant for his arrest. Minnesota officials fear he may flee to Mexico. (PBS News Hour)

• Some Jan. 6 rioters are pursuing a new path to seek millions of dollars from the federal government after the Justice Department abandoned plans for its controversial anti-weaponization fund. (PBS News Hour)

• Last week in Gaza, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is again under strain. Continued Israeli strikes drew criticism from the head of the U.S.-backed Board of Peace. Even the simple joy of flying a kite sparked fear on both sides of the border. Nick Schifrin had a look at ordinary life in Gaza under still extraordinary circumstances. (PBS News Hour)

• British right-wing agitator Milo Yiannopoulos was arrested by ICE briefly detained in ICE custody and deported back to the UK last week. The Department of Homeland Security posted an intake photo on social media. Yiannopoulos was arrested last Thursday at an airport in Louisiana. The agency said he legally entered the U.S. in 2019, but overstayed and was ordered deported last month after failing to appear for an immigration hearing. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers

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The Natalie Harp Files - From the Decoding Fox News Archives 2021 - Episode One.

In this footage the OAN host spent most of her airtime discussing various conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. She implied that former Attorney General Bill Barr and Senator Mitch McConnell were somehow involved or at least complicit in installing Joe Biden as the illegitimate president of the United States.

Harp doesn’t have any specific evidence that ties Barr or McConnell to any scheme to rig the election. She just assumes they must be involved because they didn’t support or legitimize Trump’s false claims.

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The network spent over 1/3 of its airtime on the shows I covered last week trashing Democrats mostly Abdul El-Sayed and Angie Nixon.

Nixon is a talented and charismatic Florida state rep who easily won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. She is unapologetically loud and known for sharing her opinions on the House floor with a pink bullhorn.

She is also the exact type of politician Fox News loves to target and demonize - a powerful and intelligent Black woman.

Other major stories last week included a trial involving a mother with postpartum psychosis, a student led cocaine ring at Penn State, a brawl at a Major League Baseball game and the never-ending scandal involving a comment made by a WNBA player about transgender athletes.

Fox News also continued to try to change public sentiment surrounding enormous data centers and the use of AI.

Meanwhile gas prices remained elevated while Trump’s approval numbers plummeted. Measles cases continued to rise across the country while the U.S. food supply has become increasingly dangerous with recalls of beef, blueberries, jalapeños and even popsicles.

The national debt also reached a staggering $40 trillion last week.

While everything crumbles around him Trump led the press on an extended tour of construction sites for a planned White House helipad and his grand ballroom/security fortress.

Fox News also largely ignored a growing scandal involving Natalie Harp, a close presidential aide whom the Secret Service is worried has an unhealthy relationship with Donald J. Trump.

The network spent over 1/3 of its airtime on the shows I covered last week trashing Democrats mostly Abdul El-Sayed and Angie Nixon.

Nixon is a talented and charismatic Florida state rep who easily won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. She is unapologetically loud and known for sharing her opinions on the House floor with a pink bullhorn.

She is also the exact type of politician Fox News loves to target and demonize - a powerful and intelligent Black woman.

Other major stories last week included a trial involving a mother with postpartum psychosis, a student led cocaine ring at Penn State, a brawl at a Major League Baseball game and the never-ending scandal involving a comment made by a WNBA player about transgender athletes.

Fox News also continued to try to change public sentiment surrounding enormous data centers and the use of AI.

Meanwhile gas prices remained elevated while Trump’s approval numbers plummeted. Measles cases continued to rise across the country while the U.S. food supply has become increasingly dangerous with recalls of beef, blueberries, jalapeños and even popsicles.

The national debt also reached a staggering $40 trillion last week.

While everything crumbles around him Trump led the press on an extended tour of construction sites for a planned White House helipad and his grand ballroom/security fortress.

Fox News also largely ignored a growing scandal involving Natalie Harp, a close presidential aide whom the Secret Service is worried has an unhealthy relationship with Donald J. Trump.

Shows I covered on Fox News last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• The Ingraham Angle

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• IndyCar Freedom 250 - (Gave up after one hour as it was pointless)

• Trump press appearances

The Fear of a Powerful Black Woman

Out of all of the U.S. Senate races in this election cycle Fox News chose to spend an excessive amount of focus and energy on Florida.

A DSA candidate Angie Nixon, a member of the Florida House since 2020, defeated Alexander Vindman, a former Army intelligence officer who testified during Trump's first impeachment trial, in the Democratic primary.

Nixon easily beat Vindman with 56.1% of the vote despite being massively outspent.

Nixon is unlikely to win the general election based on the number of Republicans who voted for Sen. Ashley Moody the state’s former Attorney General who was appointed as Senator by Governor Ron DeSantis when Marco Rubio resigned his position to become Secretary of State.

In the special election to fill the seat with an elected Senator over 1.6 million Floridians voted in the Republican primary compared to 1.2 million Democrats. In the primary Moody got 1.3 million votes while Nixon only received 700,000.

Anything is possible but Nixon is in an uphill battle.

There are several close Senate races in places like Ohio and Iowa that Fox News could put its focus, but the network has chosen to go after Nixon.

I saw the exact same pattern in the last midterm election cycle. Fox is targeting Nixon because she’s the ideal candidate for the network to demonize - a strong, outspoken Black woman.

Nixon is known for walking into the Florida House will a bullhorn. She’s loud and unapologetic and a dynamic politician.

Fox News knows its audience will emotionally respond to someone like Nixon. It is reminiscent to how the network treated Stacey Abrams in her last run for Georgia governor.

Most polls indicated that Abrams was unlikely to win the race but Fox News acted as if the election was neck and neck to keep its viewers glued to the screen and terrified of another strong opinionated Black woman.

On Friday on Jesse Watters Primetime Watters implied that Nixon hated all white people because she was critical of the late Charlie Kirk.

“We’re getting the feeling that Angie not a big fan of the white man. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, she went cray cray,” said Watters.

Watters cut to an old media clip of Nixon speaking on the floor of the Florida House from February 2026 several months after Kirk’’s death.

“Our chains, our racism. Which is something that Charlie Kirk stood for. Our rain, our chains are attacks on the Muslim community, which is something that Charlie Kirk stood for. Our chains, our anti-blackness, our chains, our misogyny, which is everything that Charlie Kirk stood for,” said Nixon.

Kirk did have a history of making racist comments about Black Americans specifically Black women.

The Guardian compiled a list of some of Kirk’s worst statements.

“If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously,” The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023

“If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?,” The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024

Run for Your Lives The Commies are Coming!

Also on Friday Chief Protocol of the United States with the rank of Ambassador, Monica Crowley appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime to scream about her favorite topic - the impending communist revolution.

Crowley is singularly obsessed with communism and has spoken about it in nearly every segment she’s appeared on Fox News.

“I’ll tell you, Jesse. For years, I’ve been warning the American people that the United States has been subjected to a rolling Marxist revolution for well over a century. This stuff didn’t just materialize under President Obama or President Biden. This stuff has been going on for decades and decades. We are now in their end game to collapse the country, to overwhelm all of our systems and destroy the country from within. They’ve been at this for a very long time, and because now we’re in the endgame, that’s why all of these communists feel extremely aggressive. They’re more and more visible and incredibly brazen, because they see that the time is here for a tipping point for the country. They’re not going to waste it. Thank God we have a president in the White House right behind me who understands the nature of this threat.

President Donald Trump has been talking about the communist threat for decades, so he is well aware of what is going on on the other side. Thank God we have him here as a bulwark against their final push to take over the country on the Democratic side. Senator Schumer and all of the others. You know, this is the classic move in a revolution, Jesse, where the people at the top think that they can feed the crocodile and feed the crocodile, hoping that the crocodile eats them last. That’s what Chuck Schumer is doing. That’s what the House and Senate leadership, Democrats all across the country. You have a few who are relatively courageous, like Senator Fetterman, who actually see it for what it is and is willing to call it out. But other than that, everybody thinks that they can bandwagon with these Marxists. And guess what? In the end, the revolution consumes everybody in its path, and everyone who will not join the cause.

We are in a very dangerous moment here. And like I said, thank God we have the right leadership to take it on and destroy it before it destroys the country. . . There were two communists out of Columbia University, I guess, in the 1960s, who wrote this whole theory that said, in order to destroy the United States, you have to overwhelm all of her systems. That’s what the open border is about. That’s what the massive debt is about. That’s what the cultural Marxist and the economic Marxism, the political Marxism, we have been assaulted for so long from every aspect, Jesse, that everything you see in every direction is all part of the revolution. It’s all of a piece, and this is what we’re confronting right now. This is why this is such a serious moment for America.”

Crowley is describing what conspiracy theorist call ‘the long march’ that involves communists taking over institutions slowly in order to soften American’s resolve for a communist revolution.

It’s complete and utter nonsense.

There are only two DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) members who are current candidates for U.S. Senate seats, Angie Nixon in Florida and N'Kiyla Jasmine Thomas in Oklahoma. Thomas is even less likely to win her race than Nixon as Oklahoma is one of the most Republican states in the country.

The DSA is not a communist party. There is no viable communist party in the United States.

Even if the DSA were passionate communists hellbent on overthrowing the U.S. government they would be unlikely to accomplish that goal with a few House members and some local officials scattered across the country in deeply blue states.

Data Centers Aren’t Scary Just Ask Trump!

On Thursday Laura Ingraham spoke to Lydia Moynihan of the NY Post about data centers.

Moynihan: It’s sort of a data center derangement syndrome. There’s a mass hysteria both on the right and the left with people pushing back against this. And a lot of it is premised, understandably, people don’t want this in their backyard. But consider the fact that only 50% of people are opposed to a nuclear power plant in their community. Almost 75% of people are opposed to data centers. And some of this is because of misinformation. There’s been a lot of studies super off base. For instance, you mentioned water as a concern. People are worried it’s using too much water. Golf courses use 20 to 30 times more water. And you have to think about yes. Obviously there’s a natural cause, but who stands to benefit if the U.S. really tries to have data center construction?

Ingraham: China!

Moynihan: Bingo. So you have to ask, where is this coming from? Right. And it’s being amplified by the Chinese Neville Roy Singham, who I know you’ve covered on this show, who’s a big backer of Code Pink. He’s also behind some of these efforts. He’s, as a result of his NGOs and his nonprofits, has halted about $23 billion worth of data centers in America. So, look, China is eager for us to halt data centers. And that’s why I think you’re seeing a lot of this really moving at a rapid clip.

Ingraham: Now we’re seeing Greg Abbott put together a whole list of of restrictions and regulations and hurdles they’ll have to clear. He’s a pretty big free market guy, but he’s also hearing from his, you know, his residents and the voters in his state who are again. I think a lot of people are, you know, they’re very worked up about this. But in New York, Kathy Hochul created the nation’s first ban on a large scale of these data centers. . . Another thing you hear is that once the centers are constructed, then in many ways they’ll kind of power themselves as time goes on. You really won’t need any workers at these centers. So there’ll be this these giant fields of of whiring compute systems. And it’s not that they’re not going to be great job creators. What about that?

Moynihan: Yeah. And the size of Manhattan, actually. President Trump addressed this briefly yesterday saying if he was a governor, he would want these in his community. Because if you look at the outcome of a data center being built, a lot of these are beginning to offer sort of data center dividends.

Moynihan went on to tout the financial benefits that some communities have received from taxes revenue from data centers. She didn’t include the many downsides including damage to water aquifers, increases in residential utility rates, air and noise pollution and the loss of property values.

It means very little to a homeowner to get a break on property taxes if they are unable to sell their home due to a giant data center nearby.

In some municipalities local governments are forcing people off their property through eminent domain to make room for data centers.

We Need Hot Republican Candidates

On Wednesday on Fox & Friends Ainsley Earhardt suggested that Republicans needed to recruit more physically attractive candidates.

Earhardt: But there’s an article in Axios that talks about what the Democrats what their specific strategy is for the midterms. It’s interesting. They’re choosing candidates that look young, are energetic, even desirable.

(Her co-hosts Charlie Hurt and Griff Jenkins burst out laughing)

Earhardt: Like they’re going on, you see you see the El-Sayed guy. He wears the V-neck shirts, the tight shirts. He shows the muscles. And they talk about this in this article. So maybe I was thinking maybe Republicans need to get a handful of younger candidates as well to go up against, you know, to be more desirable of the old guard.

Hurt: Yes. To create their own thirst traps.

I’m not sure how it took the folks at Fox News this long to figure out that attractive candidates sometimes have an advantage in elections.

Jessica Tarlov - Things are Looking Good for Democrats

On Thursday Jessica Tarlov, the liberal voice on The Five, managed to get out some good news for Democratic candidates during a discussion about California Governor Gavin Newsom.

“Races are shifting only in the Democrats direction. Texas Senate when from lean are to toss up. So Jesse should help Ken Paxton out a little more. Iowa Senate lean are to toss up Texas governor solider to lean R and Iowa toss up to lean D so you can keep talking about this till you’re blue in the face. The country will go blue while you are doing it. I did. A nice turn of phrase, I must say so.”

Jessica Tarlov - Good News for Moderate Democrats

On Friday Jessica Tarlov had more good news for moderate Democrats on The Five.

‘But you are ignoring another side to what’s happened in this cycle. Vis-à-vis Schumer and that he recruited Roy Cooper in North Carolina who’s lapping Whatley, Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Mary Peltola in Alaska, who was hesitant to run. So he has had some wins on the board. Obviously, what happened in Maine and Michigan was not what he intended. People are focused on ideas more than they are on labels. Florida, I think, remains a pipe dream for Democrats. I think that Alex Vindman losing is a blessing in disguise because we won’t necessarily be spending, you know, tens of millions of dollars there. And we can send it to Georgia and Texas and Iowa. Oh, I should note that Chuck Schumer back Josh Turek as well.

But I think that there is a contrast worth paying attention to between what we’re hearing from even Angie Nixon, who you said she’s DSA, DSA, she’s been DSA for like about 60 days, identifies as a capitalist, as a small business owner. But she was asked about whether joining. Okay. Yes. She’s a resist Lib. Okay. Yeah. Put her in jail. She was asked about whether joining the DSA as a distraction. She said you all are the ones who are distracted. I’m actually going out talking to voters about the things that matter to them. The fact remains that there are people who are dying because they don’t have access to quality health care. That is true. There’s one party that wants you to have health care, and the other that doesn’t care has been promising us a plan for like ten years at this point.

Then you have the vice president today in Ohio, we rolled this clip where he’s talking about Sharia law. The more important stuff he was talking about was quality of life. He says we’re finally seeing the American dream of home ownership accessible again to young people. The average age of homeownership just hit 40 years old in this country. Mortgage rates are up, construction is down. That’s directly related to the war in Iraq. And then he also said, I believe in November will face a choice. Do we demand a government that serves us rather than the fraudsters and the criminals? Do we demand that the American president fight for the American people first? 70% of Americans say Donald Trump isn’t focused on lowering costs, doesn’t care about people like me. And 70% say that he has businesses influence how he makes political decisions. He’s made $2.2 billion. JD Vance is describing his own government, the fraudsters and the criminals and Americans will vote based on that.”

Candidate Endorsements

The network spent 3% of its airtime on the shows I covered endorsing candidates.

• Byron Donalds - Governor, Florida - Republican

• Ron Schutz - Attorney General, Minnesota - Republican

• Bruce Blakeman - Governor, New York - Republican

• Steve Hilton - Governor, California - Republican

• Dan Sullivan - U.S. Senate, Alaska - Republican

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. This list has been truncated for space. Source - The PBS News Hour transcripts.

• The Supreme Court has rejected for a second time President Trump’s long shot appeal of a $5 million civil judgment in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll. In 2023, a jury found that Mr. Trump sexually abused Miss Carroll in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s. He’s also asked SCOTUS to toss another larger $83 million verdict that he had defamed Ms. Carroll. The earliest the justices would reconsider that case would be after recess in the fall. Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing. (PBS News Hour)

• The national debt is expected to hit a record high as soon as this week, crossing a major threshold of $40 trillion. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins explained why that milestone is a warning sign for many economists. (PBS News Hour)

• Last month, Eddie Smith, the owner of Grady-White Boats in Greenville, North Carolina, made waves when he announced that he was pledging nearly all his company's future profits to charity. Instead of selling Grady-White, Smith chose to gift it to a perpetual purpose trust that will distribute profits to causes. (PBS News Hour)

• ABC sued the FCC, arguing the agency is waging a retaliatory campaign of censorship against the broadcast network, violating its right to free speech. ABC says the commission has wielded its regulatory power to punish and pressure the company through investigations and threats to strip local stations of their broadcast licenses. (PBS News Hour)

• In Gaza, hospital officials say an Israeli strike on a fishing seaport killed at least six people, including a child, and wounded more than a dozen others. Israel’s military says it targeted Hamas commanders and several other militants, but did not provide evidence. It comes a day after President Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner wrapped up a trip to the region with no major progress made after talks with Israeli and Hamas leaders. (PBS News Hour)

• Ukraine launched nearly 800 drones across Russia last week in one of its largest such attacks since Moscow’s invasion more than four years ago. Ukraine is increasingly using swarms of long-range drones to try to overwhelm Russian air defenses. Meantime, in Northeastern Ukraine, authorities say at least 10 people were killed and more than a dozen injured when a Russian missile strike destroyed homes and businesses. (PBS News Hour)

• The Israeli military is opening criminal investigations into two high-profile killings by its troops in Gaza. The deaths of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family in 2024, as well as the fatal shooting of 15 Palestinian medical workers the following year, caused international outrage. The cases were among 150 incidents reviewed by the military. Local Palestinian officials say at least 10 people were killed in two strikes in Gaza last Wednesday. Israel said it was targeting Hamas commanders. A Hamas official accused the U.S.-backed Board of Peace as providing, as he put it, cover for Israeli attacks. (PBS News Hour)

• Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf arrived in Iraq last week for a three-day visit as Iraq seeks special status for its oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz. The country relies on oil for about 90% of its budget, with most exports normally passing through the strait. (PBS News Hour)

• Severe storms and at least one tornado tore through parts of Germany last week. Police say one woman was struck and killed. Extreme heat and drought are still gripping other parts of the continent. Wildfires are raging in the Balkans, forming rings of flames in North Macedonia. (PBS News Hour)

• Federal health officials have issued their most severe risk level for a recall of frozen blueberries sold at Publix supermarkets across multiple states. The FDA says there is a “reasonable probability that the product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.” Publix had previously recalled various packages of its private label frozen GreenWise Blueberries and mixed berries across eight states, including Alabama, Florida, and Virginia, among others. The recall was due to E. coli contamination, which has infected at least 12 people. No fatalities have been reported. (PBS News Hour)

• More than 70,000 people in northwestern Indiana were without power more than a week after a series of storms downed trees, knocked out power lines and flooded neighborhoods. Local officials are scrambling to restore electricity as frustrated residents accuse them of not doing enough. In Gary, Indiana some 20,000 customers are still without power and air conditioning. (PBS News Hour)

• The editor in chief of Stars and Stripes says the Pentagon has fired him, along with the newspaper’s publisher and a reporter. Erik Slavin tells the Associated Press that he was dismissed for insubordination after saying in an interview that any form of censorship would “constitute a red line.” The military newspaper is partly funded by the Pentagon, but has a long history of editorial independence. It was one of the first outlets to report on living conditions aboard the USS Lincoln during the carrier’s extended deployment to the Middle East. (PBS News Hour)

• Federal health officials are warning of another food poisoning outbreak related to contaminated produce. This time, it’s alfalfa sprouts. The FDA and the CDC confirmed that 55 people have fallen ill across 15 states with either salmonella or E. coli or, in rare cases, both. They add that the real number is likely higher. At least four people have been hospitalized. Officials link the outbreak to Minnesota grower Everything Sprouts, which also sells its alfalfa sprouts under the brand name Calco. Consumers are advised not to eat the sprouts. No deaths have been reported. (PBS News Hour)

• An investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting has revealed that glyphosate is being sprayed in California forests at record levels by timber companies and the U.S. Forest Service. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, kills vegetation that competes with young trees. The weedkiller has been the subject of lawsuits alleging exposure caused cancer. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers

*The ‘New Gilded Age’ was Judy Woodruff's PBS NewsHour segment which explored the striking parallels between the original Gilded Age and modern economic and social divides.

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Thanksgiving celebrations would be canceled; football games would be replaced by Pagan transgender drum circles and air conditioners would be confiscated by the state and smashed by blue-haired women studies majors.

On the night of Wisconsin’s primary when it became clear that the Democratic Socialist gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong would be defeated by a moderate, I could almost hear a primal scream coming from the offices of Fox News headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

Every script for nearly every program was going to have to be rewritten. Even though Hong didn’t win the folks at Fox News kept talking about her for days after the election.

The network also made a slight adjustment in its messaging. Both Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt sang the praises of free market economies and daring bold entrepreneurs. Miranda Devine from the NY Post and folks from Fox Business warned of the dangers of government run healthcare systems.

Fox News also managed to stretch a minor scandal about a statement made by Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham of the WNBA into a four-week story. Cunningham made a statement about excluding transgender athletes in women’s sports and the public reacted both negatively and positively to her opinion.

It was astonishing to watch the network react with such panic and indignation over an incident where no one was fired or sanctioned and no actual transgender athlete existed.

The folks at Fox News also avoided talking about the war with Iran. The network still covered it but segments about the conflict were short and vague.

Thanksgiving celebrations would be canceled; football games would be replaced by Pagan transgender drum circles and air conditioners would be confiscated by the state and smashed by blue-haired women studies majors.

On the night of Wisconsin’s primary when it became clear that the Democratic Socialist gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong would be defeated by a moderate, I could almost hear a primal scream coming from the offices of Fox News headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

Every script for nearly every program was going to have to be rewritten. Even though Hong didn’t win the folks at Fox News kept talking about her for days after the election.

The network also made a slight adjustment in its messaging. Both Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt sang the praises of free market economies and daring bold entrepreneurs. Miranda Devine from the NY Post and folks from Fox Business warned of the dangers of government run healthcare systems.

Fox News also managed to stretch a minor scandal about a statement made by Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham of the WNBA into a four-week story. Cunningham made a statement about excluding transgender athletes in women’s sports and the public reacted both negatively and positively to her opinion.

It was astonishing to watch the network react with such panic and indignation over an incident where no one was fired or sanctioned and no actual transgender athlete existed.

The folks at Fox News also avoided talking about the war with Iran. The network still covered it but segments about the conflict were short and vague.

Shows I covered on Fox News last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• Hannity

• Jesse Watters Primetime - Thursday only

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Calling them Communist Doesn’t Work!

On Wednesday morning Fox & Friends host Charlie Hurt suggested Republicans might change their strategy in terms of the Democratic Socialists of America.

“But of course, the real big story today is are these races where you have this ongoing fight between the Democrats, old school Democrats, or not even old school, but regular Democrats, the establishment of the party and these total wacko commies. And one of the problems with that is that conservatives have been just sort of yelling commie at these people. Republicans have been yelling commie at these people, just calling them communists and not actually addressing a lot of the underlying concerns that a lot of voters have, particularly young voters who are struggling, especially with the economy. And they you have to give them more answers than just yelling commie right now.”

Sandra Smith Why Republicans Couldn’t Sell the Affordability Crisis

On Tuesday while a guest host on The Five Sandra Smith said she was confused how voters were turning to Democrats for answers about the affordability crisis.

“How in the world are Republicans letting Democrats? Far left radical socialist Democrats own the affordability thing now,” said Smith.

Inflation did spike globally during the COVID-19 pandemic during the Biden administration. Donald J. Trump also promised his supporters that he would get prices down.

Trump even made wild promises to cut energy prices in half within the first year of his second term. Residential electricity rates have risen in nearly every state since Trump took office. The price of gasoline has been elevated since the start of the war with Iran in late February.

The biggest problem for Republicans is the president’s current messaging on the crisis.

In mid-June during his statement at the G7 Summit Trump claimed Democrats invented the word - affordability.

“The word affordability is a fake word, but made up by the Democrats. Here’s where it’s fake. Because they made it up. Because I inherited these prices. And when I had my first news conference, first day, they started screaming affordability. The Democrats affordability, affordability. They’re screaming. I said, what’s that all about? They gave it to me. They gave it to me. It’s affordability. And they use that word to a fair thee well. Well, they were the ones that created the affordability crisis. I’m the one that got it done. Remember, highest insurance rates in history. Highest rates for everything. Eggs. Remember eggs? There were four times more expensive than they were in my administration. And I got it down Peter, very quickly. Our secretary did a good job of agriculture, Brooke. She did a great job with eggs and everything else. And now that the is coming down, you’re going to see everything follow. Everything follows the cost of energy, and we’re going to end up having the lowest energy anywhere in the world.”

Americans know that prices of groceries, utility bills and gasoline haven’t gone down.

When Trump took office the CPI rate was 3.0%. It is currently 3.4%. According to the BLS the elevated cost of energy is the main reason the inflation rate hasn’t dropped.

Fox News Becomes a Cheerleader for Capitalism

On Tuesday on Fox & Friends Ainsley Earhardt read directly from a Wall Street Journal editorial written by Gerard Baker. The WSJ is owned by the same parent company that owns Fox News - The Murdoch family trust (Lachlan Murdoch).

“He argues that capitalism doesn’t need replacing, it needs reaffirming. Let me read this and then we’ll kind of break that down. What he means by this. There’s the headline socialism is the wrong answer, but the questions are real. He says inequality is a feature of capitalism and a sign of its health. It isn’t only functionally efficient, but morally proper, and rewards for talent, hard work, risk taking and luck are distributed proportionately to those who possess them. But it’s also empirically obvious that the wider the inequality, the more social solidarity diminishes. Socialism has never been the answer, and it isn’t now. Capitalism doesn’t need replacing. It needs reaffirming the real political opportunity and social imperative to defeat socialism is a plausible platform to make capitalism great again and real quickly. He just goes through the principles of a true free market instead of turning to socialism. He talks about promoting true competition, which is breaking up monopolies so that these big corporations allow for growth on the small companies, eliminate corporate wealth or welfare, which means stop the government bailouts. And he addresses legitimate grievances. We need to acknowledge, as you were saying, the public’s economic pain,” said Earhardt.

Trump has boasted about the U.S. government owning large stakes in privately held companies - that is absolutely not capitalism. Government ownership of a company destroys competition and is unfair to similar companies.

The Trump administration is putting its thumb on the scale which is not how free markets are supposed to operate.

Since Trump was sworn in for a second term his administration has also made it easier for media companies to consolidate dominating markets and reducing competition.

The Trump administration has approved the merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery which would combine two of Hollywood’s five major film studios and two of the five major basic cable companies which would also reduce competition.

The president is the worst ambassador for free markets and capitalism as he has personally engaged in what looks like insider trading and self-dealing. His relatives have been awarded lucrative government contracts and the president has awarded contracts to friends and allies without a competitive bidding process.

Donald J. Trump has also directly profited from his image and likeness while president.

The Trump administration also allowed Elon Musk to defund, undermine and weaken government agencies that were investigating his companies.

Let Them Eat Food Stamps!

On Monday on Fox & Friends Charlie Hurt attempted to criticize the concept of government run grocery stores. Government run stores have failed in some cities.

Instead Hurt made the false claim that Democrats were decrying the usefulness of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) commonly known as food stamps.

“We’ve seen it in a couple of cities around the country, all by Democrats, all by this. And it’s getting worse with the Socialist surge within the Democrat Party. We have food stamps in this country. Food stamps have been around a long time, and it is amazing to me that that the party that created food stamps and is the biggest defender of food stamps is now saying food stamps don’t work. Food stamps has been a massive failure. Therefore, we need to take over all the grocery stores and make them public. It’s such an extraordinary admission on their part.”

Democrats who have promoted the idea of government owned grocery stores have not said that food stamps were a massive failure.

The Trump administration has greatly reduced the amount of Americans who qualify for SNAP assistance. According to the Center on Budget analysis Policy Priorities Trump’s signature legislation - One Big Beautiful law greatly reduced the amount of Americans who can qualify for SNAP benefits.

It also shifts some costs from the federal government to the states. SNAP participation has been reduced by approximately 4.5 million people or 11% according to USDA data.

According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

"In 2023, about 39% of SNAP participants were children, 20% were elderly, and 10% were nonelderly individuals with a disability.”

An Australian Scolded Americans about Healthcare

On Monday on Fox & Friends the NY Post’s Miranda Divine went on a bit of a rant about the U.S. healthcare system. Although Divine was born in the U.S. she was raised and educated in Australia.

Fox News producers opened the segment with a clip from NBC News ‘Meet the Press” from Sunday August 9 featuring Kristen Welker interviewing U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

Welker: Just to be very clear, you’re describing this trade off. You are effectively acknowledging that people making less than $1 million could see their taxes go up. I just wouldn’t be very clear. Is that a yes?

El-Sayed: I’m saying that we’d be paying for health care in a different way. Instead of paying a health insurance company whose CEO makes $20 million. I would much rather pay for durable health care into a government, which, of course, we all know provides health care for seniors who need health care the most. So if I’m trading paying a CEO to make more money or paying government to guarantee me health care, I’m picking the latter every time.

Ainsley Earhardt spoke to Miranda Divine about his statement. Divine is not an expert on insurance or healthcare. She is best known for writing a salacious book about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Earhardt: Miranda. How could we afford it?

Divine: Well, obviously we can’t. And you just have to look at countries around the world that have embraced a softer form of socialism. And you can see that once there is a government entitlement program, a massive one like Medicare or disability insurance, etc., you can never get rid of it. And you create this entitlement attitude among people who just don’t think they really need to work for anything. And it just destroys that resilience and that get up and go mentality that’s made America what it is today.

This was especially rich coming from a woman who benefitted from Australia’s universal healthcare system before moving back to the United States.

• According to the CDC about 11% of Americans have no form of health insurance.

• The amount of uninsured Americans has risen since Trump started his second term.

• The United States is the ONLY wealthy country without universal health coverage for its citizens.

• U.S. medical debt has increased in Trump’s second term as have bankruptcies caused by medical debt. Bankruptcies across the board have increased in Trump’s second term.

• The U.S. spends more money on healthcare per person than any other developed country.

  • The U.S. spends more than twice per capita as the average country on healthcare costs.

  • Administrative costs are significantly higher than other developed countries. This is directly related to the private for-profit health insurance industry.

• The U.S. also has worse health outcomes than other developed countries. (Peter G. Peterson Foundation)

  • Life expectancy

  • Infant mortality

  • Unmanaged diabetes

  • Heart attack survival

Keeping Transgender Panic Alive

For the past three weeks Fox News has overhyped a fairly minor scandal at the WNBA involving a statement made by one of its players - Sophie Cunningham.

Cunningham said she supported keeping transgender athletes out of women’s sports. She did not trash the transgender community or use bigoted language. There is also no transgender athlete in the WNBA.

The Indiana Fever guard did not face dislplincary actions for her statement. She has been both criticized and praised for voicing her opinion. Protesters have shown up at WNBA games in solidarity with Cunningham and in opposition of her.

Many large sporting organizations have already banned transgender athletes and a recent ruling by the Supreme Court allowed 27 states to ban transgender women and girls from competing in K-12 and collegiate athletics.

The number of transgender athletes who have competed in college sports is extremely small. According to SF.gov:

“Trans people are estimated to make up 1-2% of the population of the United States; however, trans people make up less than less than 0.002% (10/500,000) of US college athletes, and even fewer of recent Olympians (0.001%) identify as trans.”

According to reporting by The Hill NCAA President Charlie Baker told a senate panel that there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes competing in college sports in 2024. An estimated 230,077 female athletes for the academic year 2023-2024 competed in NCAA sports.

The NCAA has since banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sporting events.

Despite all of this Fox News has still presented transgender athletes as a grave threat to women’s sports.

On Thursday Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Michele Tafoya, a Republican, claimed voters told her it was their number one concern.

“It was just at a at an event and a woman came up to me and she said, I think my number one issue now I’m a single issue voter is this trans stuff. And subjecting these kids to it and allowing men and women’s sports. It is a it is something that is really upsetting a lot of Minnesotans, moms and dads, they want their kids back. Yeah, they do. And they’ve had it with being afraid to speak up. Now people are finally empowered to speak up and logic is back.”

Candidate Endorsements

The network spent 5% of its airtime on the shows I covered endorsing candidates.

• Mike Rogers - U.S. Senate, Michigan - Republican

• Darline Graham - U.S. Senate, South Carolina - Republican

• Bruce Blakeman - Governor, New York - Republican

• Tom Tiffany - Governor, Wisconsin - Republican

• Michele Tafoya - U.S. Senate, Minnesota - Republican

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. This list has been truncated for space. Source - The PBS News Hour transcripts.

• Climate disasters

  • Last month was officially the hottest month ever recorded for the contiguous U.S., in other words, all the states except Alaska and Hawaii. That's according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last month officially eclipsed July 1936 during the Dust Bowl by an eighth-of-a-degree. Scientists said one of the biggest drivers of the record heat was hotter nighttime temperatures, an indicator of human-caused climate change. (PBS News Hour)

  • Millions of people in Europe are sweltering in their fifth heat wave of the summer. The U.K., in particular, recorded its hottest day of the year so far. The air in West London exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit, only several degrees short of the country’s all-time record for August. The heat is exacerbating drought conditions across the continent, and crews are racing to contain a number of major wildfires. (PBS News Hour)

  • The Trump administration said it would stop funding the Arctic Report Card, the longstanding effort to collect research on how the fastest-warming place on Earth is changing. It’s the latest in a series of moves by the administration to curtail scientific research into the impacts of climate change. William Brangham discussed more with glaciologist Twila Moon, the Arctic Report Card’s editor. (PBS News Hour)

  • Belgium hit its highest temperature this summer, baking fields along the Semois that are normally some of the greenest in the country. Now they are scorched from a brutal drought. The conditions pose a challenge for fire crews who are battling blazes across the continent. Fast-spreading flames engulfed several homes in the U.K. And in Croatia, authorities say one person was killed after an inferno ignited last Friday. (PBS News Hour)

  • In Japan, record-breaking rainfall triggered flooding across several cities east of Tokyo, killing at least five people and stranding thousands more. Stormwater cascaded through buildings and submerged cars and railway tracks. With travel snarled, many people spent the night sleeping in airports and train stations. Authorities say three months’ worth of rain fell in just 12 hours. (PBS News Hour)

• Americans owe more than a trillion dollars in credit card debt, up 60% from just five years ago. Meanwhile, higher interest rates make debt even more difficult to pay off, a downward spiral causing credit card delinquencies to surge. (PBS News Hour)

• A federal judge in Boston has dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit against Harvard University that had accused the Ivy League school of turning a blind eye to antisemitism. Siding with Harvard, the judge said the administration failed to show any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI, which is the ban on discrimination in programs that receive federal grants. (PBS News Hour)

• Israeli settlers laid siege to the home of a Palestinian American family in the occupied West Bank, sparking condemnation from the U.S. ambassador and an Israeli military response. Nick Schifrin spoke with Qusai and Ahmed Ridi from the house in Qusra, and Qusai’s brother. (PBS News Hour)

• The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to worsen, with the number of confirmed cases climbing to over 4,600. At least 2,100 people have died, a death toll that was reached almost three times faster than the outbreak over a decade ago. William Brangham discussed the crisis with epidemiologist Dr. Anne Rimoin, director of the Center for Global Health Security at UCLA. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller remained on the decoy plane (Air Force One) along with White House staff members and the press corp.

Harp used to be a correspondent with OAN (One America News). I discovered I had old episodes of “The Real Story with Natalie Harp” from 2021 that I captured and analyzed as part of my capstone project in graduate school.

That capstone was the blueprint in many ways of Decoding Fox News.

My plan is to go through all of the episodes that I have in my archives and pull anything that I think my audience might find interesting.

This is the first video in what could become a series for paid subscribers and supporters.

I’m not exactly sure what I have yet as they are full-length episodes that will take some time to go through. I know I have at least one episode with Karoline Leavitt when she was a Congressional candidate in New Hampshire.

Thank you for your support. Decoding Fox News could not exist without my paid subscribers.

Read more

In late June the Supreme Court ruled that states were allowed to ban transgender athletes from K-12 and colligate sports programs for women and girls. This essentially barred transgender athletes from competing in women and girls’ sports in 29 states.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committee announced last July that it would ban transgender women from competing. Several other sports leagues followed suit including the International Cycling Union, World Aquatics, World Boxing Organization, World Athletics Council, and the National Athletics Council (NCAA).

Although the issue of transgender women and girls competing in women’s athletic competitions is not completely settled the SCOTUS case and athletic league bans have greatly reduced the likelihood of transgender women and girls dominating women’s sports.

Sophie Cunningham, a WNBA player, voiced support for barring transgender girls in an ESPN article in late July. Fox News acted as if Cunningham was the Rosa Parks of women’s basketball.

After the article was published Cunningham wasn’t fired or disciplined. An Adidas shoe she sponsored sold out in nearly 24 hours. She was praised and criticized for her statement with dueling protesters at some of her games.

Cunningham is entitled to her opinion of course, but the hysteria seemed displaced as there is no transgender athlete in the WNBA. Even before the SCOTUS ruling and other athletic league bans transgender athletes made up less than less than 0.002% (10/500,000) of US college athletes, and even fewer of recent Olympians (0.001%) identified as trans.

The hype and hysteria surrounding the Cunningham story is peak Fox News. The network knows that the bigotry and hatred of transgender people will keep its viewers interested in its programming while it ignores things like the affordability crisis, the war in Iran and the DOJ’s many efforts to coverup everything related to Jeffrey Epstein.

While the network whipped its audience into a frenzy about an imagined transgender takeover of the WNBA the network revived other cultural issue zombies such as rehashing disinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and the new red scare.

One of the more amusing moments last week happened when Fox News immediately distanced itself from a story involving its former host Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

In a 20-page court filing, Pirro’s office wrote that the damage to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was the result of a “botched” renovation – “not vandalism”. Her office dropped criminal charges on four people connected to incidents involving the tourist attraction.

President Trump was outraged insisting there was ‘tremendous vandalism’ at the site. Fox News did absolutely nothing to support its former host. The network did not acknowledge how it supported Trump’s false claims with surveillance footage that showed no criminal activity.

In late June the Supreme Court ruled that states were allowed to ban transgender athletes from K-12 and colligate sports programs for women and girls. This essentially barred transgender athletes from competing in women and girls’ sports in 29 states.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committee announced last July that it would ban transgender women from competing. Several other sports leagues followed suit including the International Cycling Union, World Aquatics, World Boxing Organization, World Athletics Council, and the National Athletics Council (NCAA).

Although the issue of transgender women and girls competing in women’s athletic competitions is not completely settled the SCOTUS case and athletic league bans have greatly reduced the likelihood of transgender women and girls dominating women’s sports.

Sophie Cunningham, a WNBA player, voiced support for barring transgender girls in an ESPN article in late July. Fox News acted as if Cunningham was the Rosa Parks of women’s basketball.

After the article was published Cunningham wasn’t fired or disciplined. An Adidas shoe she sponsored sold out in nearly 24 hours. She was praised and criticized for her statement with dueling protesters at some of her games.

Cunningham is entitled to her opinion of course, but the hysteria seemed displaced as there is no transgender athlete in the WNBA. Even before the SCOTUS ruling and other athletic league bans, transgender athletes made up less than less than 0.002% (10/500,000) of U.S. college athletes, and even fewer of recent Olympians (0.001%) identified as trans.

The hype and hysteria surrounding the Cunningham story is peak Fox News. The network knows that the bigotry and hatred of transgender people will keep its viewers interested in its programming while it ignores things like the affordability crisis, the war in Iran and the DOJ’s many efforts to coverup everything related to Jeffrey Epstein.

While the network whipped its audience into a frenzy about an imagined transgender takeover of the WNBA the network revived other cultural issue zombies such as rehashing disinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and the new red scare.

One of the more amusing moments last week happened when Fox News immediately distanced itself from a story involving its former host Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

In a 20-page court filing, Pirro’s office wrote that the damage to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was the result of a “botched” renovation – “not vandalism”. Her office dropped criminal charges on four people connected to incidents involving the tourist attraction.

President Trump was outraged insisting there was ‘tremendous vandalism’ at the site. Fox News did absolutely nothing to support its former host. The network did not acknowledge how it supported Trump’s false claims with surveillance footage that showed no criminal activity.

Shows I covered on Fox News last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• The Ingraham Angle

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• Multiple Trump media appearances

Jesse Watters Gives Away the Game

As much as Fox News pretends to champion women’s sports Jesse Watters admitted to hating the WNBA on an episode of The Five last week.

“This is week three of the five covering the WNBA, and I have to say I am done. I hate the WNBA. I mean, I don’t mind women’s basketball. My girls play basketball, but I don’t want to cover women’s basketball. I don’t want to be a WNBA analyst. We get paid to have an opinion about everything. And this is something I don’t care about. Every time I open up the rundown and see the WNBA in it, I feel like Jessica must feel every day we have to do this again. Really? This again? Someone wore a t shirt at a WNBA game. I remember when they were throwing dildos. Remember? That was funny. That’s his news story. This is in a news story, okay. It doesn’t matter. There will not be a man in the WNBA. We don’t even cover the NBA. Why are we covering the WNBA? This is ridiculous. I feel like boycotting the segment. I just talked about it.”

The War Fox News Wishes Would Go Away

Fox pulled way back on its coverage of the war with Iran last week. Most segment included basic facts about the conflict with very little commentary.

On Monday Charlie Hurt spoke with Brent Sadler a former Pentagon official on Fox & Friends.

Hurt: We’ve got the midterms coming up in a couple of months. Do you? If you were a betting man on this, would you think that we eventually get back to kinetic strikes before the election?

Sadler: Given the temperament of the Iranians, I think that’s a foregone conclusion. There will be more strikes. The worst thing that can happen is for the United States to do nothing or to walk away. And Iran reconstitutes itself, and we are back in a fight in the Middle East again and sometime down the road, maybe at less of an advantage.

On Tuesday the cast of Fox & Friends had very little to say about it. After Trey Yingst, chief foreign correspondent, gave the latest update Ainsley Earhardt summed it up.

“He said part one is to open up the strait, which could happen today. And then he said, part two is focus on their nuclear weapons and capabilities.”

Later on The Five Dana Perino was mildly critical of President Trump.

“And for threats to have an impact, they have to be believed. And right now, I don’t know if Iran believes that. I don’t know who we’re talking to. And our president is very transparent, but we haven’t even seen the Ayatollah because he’s somewhere like with an injury to his face and he can’t talk.”

Guest host Tyrus, a former professional wrestler, didn’t seem hopeful for a resolution.

“And the reason why our president is trying for peace. And this one more talk, one more talk thing. It becomes laughable because they’re just looking at their calendar.”

Only Jesse Watters remained the true believer. On Thursday on Jesse Watters Primetime he doubted reporting by multiple news outlets that the U.S. military was running out of specific types of weapons.

“The president wrestling with leaks back home. The media reporting we’re running out of missiles. The White House says bogus.”

Jessica Tarlov - This War is a Disaster

On Tuesday Jessica Tarlov did not hold back her opinion about the war with Iran.

“You want to dismiss this report in Reuters about the fact that we have used virtually all of our long range precision missiles in the war. I have been told before that every leak is a lie, and I’m a traitor, and everyone who says those kinds of things is going to jail for treason or whatever. There are so many of these leaks that have come to fruition. So dating back to the Atlantic, where I think it was from JD Vance or JD Vance’s team that said that we are we are concerned about the amount of long range missiles that we have in our ability to carry this out and also defend our allies in the rest of the world when China is looking at Taiwan. Licking their lips haven’t even information.”

Jesse Watters interrupted her insisting that she had the wrong information.

Tarlov added,

“There is also the story about Centcom sending out an email to a broad group of military analysts last week saying, we’re looking for new and creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran because what we are doing is not working. And if the reports are true that Iran and Oman are negotiating over the strait themselves and that we are being sidelined in that negotiation.”

Some DSA Members are NOT Ready for Primetime

For two weeks in a row Fox News has recycled media of Megan Romer, the national co-chair of the DSA, across its media platform.

On Sunday July 26, 2026 Shannon Bream interviewed Romer on Fox News Sunday. At one point in the interview Bream asked Romer basic questions about the DSA platform.

Bream: Your platform. And I want to ask you just give me sort of a true or false on these. Abolish the Senate?

Romer: True.

Bream: Okay. Replace the Presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them?

Romer: Yep.

Bream: Abolish Ice?

Romer: Absolutely.

Bream: Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently in the U.S. illegally?

Romer: As a long term plan? Yep.

Bream: Defund the Pentagon?

Romer: Absolutely.

Fox News has featured this short exchange on numerous programs for the past two weeks. Supporters of the DSA might have thought Romer did well in the interview.

Romer fell right into one of the many traps Fox News uses in a hostile interview.

There was no reason to answer the questions with one word. By doing so she shut down any discussion on each policy goal of the DSA platform and handed Fox News a quick and concise media clip that was meant to make her look bad.

A more experienced and or skilled political operative would used each question as an opportunity to sell the platform.

A hypothetical example:

Bream: Abolish ICE?

Answer: We believe ICE is an unnecessary and overfunded law enforcement agency that has engaged in acts of brutality against both undocumented immigrants and American citizens. The agency has been used to terrorize communities and harass people of color. At least 65,000 to 68,000 human beings, including entire families are being held in ICE detention centers in horrific conditions….

Romer didn’t have to say everything I wrote there but she should have gone in with specific data points that she could quickly say on live television. Bream would have cut her off and moved on to the next point but even getting out a few short statements about the many problems with ICE would have been much more effective than simply saying ‘absolutely.’

I’m also not sure how the DSA could abolish the senate or replace the president or Supreme Court. The structure of the senate, presidency and SCOTUS were all written into the U.S. Constitution by the founding fathers.

If the DSA has a specific plan to dramatically restructure the U.S. government Romer should have used that time to explain it.

Most experienced Democratic lawmakers avoid appearing on Fox News because they know the network will not give them a fair shake. Fox News hosts will scream over guests, cut them off, and purposefully misrepresent their words.

Fox News is not an honest broker. The network exists to promote a right-wing political point of view. It currently acts like an extension of the Trump administration.

A Hate Parade Against Leftists!

As much as Fox News complains about the heated and dangerous political rhetoric on the left the network doesn’t hold itself to the same standard. Last week I collected several disturbing statements made by Fox News hosts.

“Looks like the commies are hungry for more scalps and tomorrow they go hunting across the Midwest,” said Jesse Watters on Monday’s episode of The Five.

During the same episode the Fox News host simply known as Kennedy used extremely violent imagery to describe Anthony Fauci.

“But not only did Anthony Fauci want to do surgery, he was standing there with an ax, ready to start chopping off limbs. He wasn’t even using a scalpel. So it wasn’t a very subtle form of art that he was using in order to carve up the country.”

Emily Compagno appeared to slander Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in a crazed rant.

“ And then I’ll say it’s just representing, just not holding back at all.We are going to straight up burn down synagogues. No, Israel should not be a state. If you’re a Jewish person in front of me, I’ll probably punch you in the face. I mean.”

El-Sayed has been critical of the Israeli government and the U.S. government’s policies towards Israel but he recently directly addressed the Michigan Jewish community on Aug. 5, 2026,

“My commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.”

Last Wednesday on The Five Greg Gutfeld evoked Hitler while criticizing Democrats.

“I always get really nervous when I hear a liberal say the greater good, because that always ends in death. Yell Allah Akbar or Hail Hitler! They’re a party of hate people. And we know this. We know this.”

In the same program Kayleigh McEnany also trashed Democrats.

“The Party wants to rip up the foundation of our country.”

She was interrupted by Gutfeld.

“It’s completely left out. Something the Tea Party and MAGA never said kill anybody. Plenty of them on that side. That did.”

That night on Jesse Watters Primetime Watters also implied that Democrats would resort to using violence.

“The Democratic machine isn’t dead yet. They’re grabbing their guns, hopping on the saddle and heading off to battle. Now the commies, they don’t even need money. They fight just because they like the taste of blood. They’re treating the commies like Republicans. So commies get ready to be accused of rape.”

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Laura Ingraham Trying to Fake Excitement About Trump’s Bad Economy

On Tuesday Laura Ingraham attempted to celebrate Trump’s economy.

“Everything green and yes, crude oil prices down. Now this is because of Trump’s economic team, his policies brilliant. Bessent, Greer, Lutnick and a really good fed chair in Kevin Warsh holding rate steady. That’s okay in this lifts all boats because it also includes a booming manufacturing sector. Look at these export numbers. They’re up almost 300 billion from the same period under Biden. And meanwhile our trade deficit it’s dropped 33.8% compared to the same time last year. Yes. So now, where are those experts who claim that the tariffs are going to kill our exports? They should never be heard from again.”

The trade deficit and stock market aren’t major concerns for most Americans. Trump has performed miserably in terms of the affordability crisis.

Inflation

• Day Trump was sworn in - 3.0%

• Last reading - 3.4%

Gasoline Prices

• Day Trump was sworn in - $3.20 (month of Jan.)

• Today (8/13/26) - $4.07

Residential electricity rates

• Increased 18% (with some variation from state to state)

Grocery prices

• Increased 3.4% since January 2025

• In Trump’s second term some items have hit record prices according to FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)

  • Coffee

  • Beef steak

  • Ground beef

  • Orange juice

  • Tomatoes

  • Pork Chops

  • Potato Chips

  • Bananas

National Debt

• When Trump was sworn in - $36 trillion

• Currently - $39.9 trillion

Candidate Endorsements

The network spent 5% of its airtime on the shows I covered endorsing candidates.

• Mike Rogers - U.S. Senate, Michigan - Republican

• Ken Paxton - U.S. Senate, Texas - Republican

• Tom Tiffany - Governor, Wisconsin - Republican

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. This list has been truncated for space. Source - The PBS News Hour transcripts.

• More than two dozen states, nearly all led by Democrats, are suing the Trump administration over its latest tariffs. Last month, the government announced double-digit levies on 60 trading partners, saying they’d not done enough to crack down on imports produced by forced labor. The new tariffs took effect just as prior ones expired. In their lawsuit, the states argue the president exceeded his authority and is trying to replace tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down earlier this year. (PBS News Hour)

• Officials in Southern Ukraine say Russia dropped eight glide bombs in a span of 90 minutes last Monday, killing at least one person and wounding dozens more. The attacks damaged residential buildings and a warehouse complex in the southern city of Zaporizhia. (PBS News Hour)

• Russia says two separate attacks by Ukrainian forces killed at least nine people nationwide. Also last week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced military cooperation deals with nine countries. (PBS News Hour)

• Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died in ICE custody. Federal officials say the 41-year-old died following a medical emergency, though no official cause of death has been released. It marks the second death in less than a year at Delaney Hall, the Newark detention center that has seen months of protests over its treatment of detainees. (PBS News Hour)

• In Gaza, 112 Palestinians were laid to rest in a mass funeral last week nearly three years after they died in an Israeli airstrike on a residential area shortly after the Hamas terror attacks on Israel. Gaza’s Civil Defense says it took more than two weeks to recover and identify the remains, which had been buried all this time beneath the rubble. Officials say 157 additional bodies are still missing. Relatives said the day was a mixture of closure and of grief. (PBS News Hour)

• Last Tuesday SpaceX posted a half-a-billion-dollar loss for the second quarter. It was the rocket company's first such report since going public in June, but that loss was smaller than expected and revenues soared. (PBS News Hour)

• PBS produced two segments last week about the use of satellites and AI technology to fight wildfires. (PBS News Hour)

• A massive Russian missile attack killed nearly two dozen people in Ukraine last Wednesday. Such strikes have become almost routine this summer as Moscow looks to exploit a critical air defense shortage in Ukraine. U.S.-made Patriots are the only air defense weapon capable of shooting down a Russian ballistic missile. (PBS News Hour)

• The FCC voted to eliminate a cap on the size and reach of TV broadcasting companies. In a 2-1 vote, the FCC repealed a 22-year-old rule holding that a company cannot own stations that reach more than a combined 39% of the U.S. television audience. The ownership limit will be replaced by a case-by-case approach. Critics say it opens the door to mass consolidation in the industry, giving larger players more say over what viewers see. (PBS News Hour)

• Israeli prosecutors have charged a settler with killing a prominent Palestinian activist last year in the occupied West Bank. It’s the first such indictment since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks led to an outburst of Israeli settler violence.

  Yinon Levi can be seen in a cell phone video drawing a weapon on Palestinian villagers last summer. He’s accused of reckless manslaughter and faces up to 12 years in prison. His lawyers have said he was acting in self-defense. The victim, Awdah Hathaleen, was an activist featured in the 2025 Academy Award-winning documentary “No Other Land.” (PBS News Hour)

• The Trump administration is proposing new guidelines that would overhaul Head Start and could change how it’s run across the country. Launched in 1965 as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start serves 700,000 children ages three to five and 160,000 infants and toddlers through Early Head Start. (PBS News Hour)

• President Trump is reviving his push to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The News Hour has obtained a letter the White House sent to Cook this week saying it is considering removing her and giving her 21 days to respond to unproven allegations of mortgage fraud. Trump and his allies tried to force Cook out last year on similar grounds. She filed a lawsuit challenging her dismissal, and, in June, the Supreme Court blocked Trump from firing Cook while her suit is pending. But they did not weigh in on the underlying allegations against her. Cook’s lawyer called the claims baseless. (PBS News Hour)

• In Europe, a blistering heat wave is breaking records in multiple countries, helping fuel both wildfires and a worsening drought. In Central Europe, both Austria and Slovakia reached new all-time highs. In Hungary, the heat touched 42 degrees Celsius, or about 108 degrees Fahrenheit. And, in Italy, nearly all of its major cities were under the highest red alert for heat last week.

  Firefighters in Serbia are using helicopters to drop water on wildfires. Elsewhere in Serbia, water levels for the Danube River have gotten so low, they have revealed sunken World War II ships, some abandoned by Nazi Germany towards the end of the war. (PBS News Hour)

• A federal appeals court ruled that President Trump can’t continue building his $400 million White House ballroom without congressional approval. In a 2-1 ruling, the judges sided with preservationists in finding that the president does not have the authority to build the 90,000-square-foot structure on the site where the East Wing once stood. But construction may not stop right away. The judges gave the administration two weeks to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. (PBS News Hour)

• Puerto Rico is facing yet another crisis as major cities are rationing water for residents due to severe drought conditions. This problem is also exposing the island’s aging water infrastructure and lack of immediate government action, leaving many frustrated. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) cast himself as a noble physician battling what he believes is a corrupt mad scientist, Fauci, who was hellbent on accumulating power and wealth during one of the darkest chapters in recent American history. Although Paul is a medical doctor, he studied ophthalmology and briefly worked as an eye surgeon before following his father’s path in politics.

The senator might be able to surgically fix a problem in a human eye, but he has no expertise or experience with infectious diseases.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is a physician-scientist and immunologist with a decades long career as a public servant. Fauci was instrumental in the U.S. government response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Over a period of years he helped secure research funding, speed up drug trials, and helped design PEPFAR - a U.S. initiative to treat HIV/AIDS patients all over the world.

Fauci had the misfortune to run the NIAID when a new virus, SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19, spread across the world while working with one of the most incompetent presidents in U.S. history - Donald J. Trump.

During the public health catastrophe Fauci kept notes about his work on a government issued computer. Senator Paul subpoenaed the personal notes Fox News called “The Fauci Diaries” and attempted to use Fauci’s writing to bolster a false narrative about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paul’s pursuit of Fauci resulted in a Senate committee hearing last week where the doctor evoked his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination over 100 times. Meanwhile Paul and his fellow GOP senators cherry picked statements from the personal notes and mocked Fauci for passages about his fascination with celebrities and his newfound fame.

The focus on COVID provided the network with an easy way to avoid discussing an unpopular war while it provided Fox News viewers an opportunity to re-ride the roller coaster of conspiracy theories, snake oil remedies and vaccine avoidance that cost hundreds of thousands of American lives.

In addition to the network’s obsessive coverage of a senate committee hearing that gave their viewers no new information Fox News hosts continued to openly criticize Trump’s handling of the war in Iran while insisting that the United States was on the brink of a communist takeover by a small group of Democratic Socialists.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) cast himself as a noble physician battling what he believes is a corrupt mad scientist, Fauci, who was hellbent on accumulating power and wealth during one of the darkest chapters in recent American history. Although Paul is a medical doctor, he studied ophthalmology and briefly worked as an eye surgeon before following his father’s path in politics.

The senator might be able to surgically fix a problem in a human eye, but he has no expertise or experience with infectious diseases.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is a physician-scientist and immunologist with a decades long career as a public servant. Fauci was instrumental in the U.S. government response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Over a period of years he helped secure research funding, speed up drug trials, and helped design PEPFAR - a U.S. initiative to treat HIV/AIDS patients all over the world.

Fauci had the misfortune to run the NIAID when a new virus, SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19, spread across the world while working with one of the most incompetent presidents in U.S. history - Donald J. Trump.

During the public health catastrophe Fauci kept notes about his work on a government issued computer. Senator Paul subpoenaed the personal notes Fox News called “The Fauci Diaries” and attempted to use Fauci’s writing to bolster a false narrative about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paul’s pursuit of Fauci resulted in a Senate committee hearing last week where the doctor evoked his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination over 100 times. Meanwhile Paul and his fellow GOP senators cherry picked statements from the personal notes and mocked Fauci for passages about his fascination with celebrities and his newfound fame.

The focus on COVID provided the network with an easy way to avoid discussing an unpopular war while it provided Fox News viewers an opportunity to re-ride the roller coaster of conspiracy theories, snake oil remedies and vaccine avoidance that cost hundreds of thousands of American lives.

In addition to the network’s obsessive coverage of a senate committee hearing that gave their viewers no new information Fox News hosts continued to openly criticize Trump’s handling of the war in Iran while insisting that the United States was on the brink of a communist takeover by a small group of Democratic Socialists.

Shows I covered on Fox News last week:

• Fox & Friends - all three hours on Tuesday

• The Five

• The Ingraham Angle

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• Hannity

• Multiple Trump press conferences and media appearances

The Fauci Diaries

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s hearing on Dr. Fauci and his personal notes was political theater at its worst. The American public learned little more than Fauci’s interactions with celebrities and select passages about COVID meant to discredit him.

Of course, Fauci made multiple mistakes and missteps during the COVID disaster as did officials and elected leaders at all levels of government. Doctors and scientists had to scramble to learn about an infectious disease as it killed people at an alarming rate.

Fox News, like Senator Paul, placed most of the blame for school closures, business failures and the emotional toll of the ordeal on one man - Dr. Anthony Fauci, conveniently sidestepping the President who once suggested injecting disinfectant as a cure for COVID.

Dredging up memories of the pandemic felt like a re-run of a bad sitcom about a bumbling president and his cultish supporters who would rather throw a public fit in a Costco than wear a mask while fighting over giant pallets of toilet paper.

Fox News played a huge role in the hysteria and misery of the airborn virus that ended up killing 1.2 million Americans.

The network portrayed surgical masks as an affront to personal freedom, social distancing as a fascist overreach by the government and vaccine mandates as tyranny. Fox promoted several scientists and doctors, shunned by the medical community, to promote unproven snake oil remedies.

The network worked diligently to erase the harsh realities of overflowing emergency rooms, refrigerated morgue trucks, overwhelmed mortuaries, and alarming mortality rates from the novel virus.

The propaganda was effective. Although it’s difficult find the exact cause for any disease the death rate from COVID was 2.7 times higher in counties that voted heavily for Trump in the 2020 election.

Fox News - killing its own viewers to own the libs.

On Tuesday morning Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) appeared on Fox & Friends to share his feelings about the ‘Fauci Diaries.”

“Fauci was the science. Remember again? I mean, what a narcissist. So no, I mean, let’s face it, Anthony Fauci was funding gain of function research before the moratorium. The moratorium ended up being a joke because allowed them to circumvent and continue to fund gain function research. He lied about that to Congress. He knew about Ralph Burke. He knew about Peter. He knew about the labs in China. So he was fully aware of this. I think all of his lies were basically a massive coverup of his involvement in the creation of the coronavirus to create a pandemic. Then, once that pandemic began. He focused everything on a vaccine, not a vaccine. It’s really an experimental gene therapy. Okay, sabotaged early treatment, whether it’s hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, you know, these cheap generic drugs instead push remdesivir, which, by the way, nurses call it run. Death is near. It knocks your kidneys out. So, you kidding? So just about everything he did leading up to the creation of the coronavirus, his funding of the research that I think resulted in it,” said Johnson.

Johnson’s statement will filled with a combination of various conspiracy theories about the virus.

According to the FDA Ivermectin is not an effective treatment for COVID-19:

• The FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals.

• The FDA has determined that currently available clinical trial data do not demonstrate that ivermectin is effective against COVID 19 in humans.

• Animal ivermectin products are different formulations than those approved for humans. Due to the lack of testing of these formulations in humans, the safety of these products in humans is not known. Never use medications intended for animals on yourself or other people.

• Taking large doses of ivermectin can be dangerous.

According to the Mayo Clinic hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19:

• Led to serious heart problems in some people.

• Did not effectively treat COVID-19.

• Did not prevent infection with the virus that causes COVID-19.

The Mayo Clinic endorsed Remdesivir as an effective treatment for COVID with potential kidney and liver problems being on the list of side effects of the medication

Dr. Fauci also has repeatedly denied funding gain-of-function research to make coronaviruses more dangerous or to create the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Sen. Josh Hawley - Innocent People Don’t Plead the Fifth

On Wednesday night Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) appeared on Hannity to lambast Dr. Fauci for pleading the fifth during the hearing earlier in the day.

“The first one is to hold him in contempt of Congress. And I would just say this as a as a lawyer, former attorney general of my state, when you get immunity and he’s got it. He’s got immunity from Joe Biden. I wish he didn’t, but he’s got it as much immunity as Hunter Biden has. When you get that, you can’t invoke the fifth. And he came today and invoked the fifth because he is guilty as all get out and he knows it. But it was wrong what he did today. He did not have the right to do it. I think we should hold him in contempt. And Sean, I’ll just here’s just a little hint to viewers at home. Innocent people don’t invoke the fifth.”

On August 4, 2022 Donald J. Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment rights over 400 times during a four-hour sworn deposition as part of the civil fraud investigation into the business practices and asset valuations of the Trump Organization.

Over two years later a New York State Supreme Court jury found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in the same case.

Fox News Still Hates Trump’s War

On Monday producers of The Five dedicated an 11-minute segment to the conflict. Dana Perino was skeptical that a resolution would happen soon

“They have to deal with reality and so does the administration, because the Iranians are and the Gulf allies are. And the Houthis now want in. And there are multiple problems. I’m uncomfortable talking about munitions because that should be classified. The Iranians, they’ve got a death wish. And when the president says he has patience, so do they. They’ll wait this out. They don’t care about pain for their people. They don’t care about their people at all.”

The next morning on Fox & Friends Brian Kilmeade expressed his concerns.

“I don’t get it. We hear there’s friendly negotiations going on, but Iran is saying they’re not talking at all, that they’ll just keep a cease fire going as long as we don’t hit them.”

His co-host Steve Doocy shared a similar view.

“And, you know, if the Iranians are serious about, you know, let’s make a deal. Why would the Iran state linked media put out that very disturbing propaganda video about the president and his family yesterday?”

On Thursday morning Trey Yingst, Fox News Chief Foreign Correspondent, reporting for Israel mentioned new Chinese built munitions.

“We’re talking about a Chinese company that is reportedly going to provide Iran with at least 400 shoulder fired missiles over land, and these are missiles, MANPADs, that are used to shoot down helicopters and jets, the same type of missile that shot down that U.S. plane earlier this year over southwestern Iran.”

Brian Kilmeade was concerned.

“I just think you hit us. We hit you is just the worst scenario because what do we have 96 days to the midterms? Iran’s goal they know our political process is for Donald Trump’s party to pay a political price.”

That evening on The Ingraham Angle Laura Ingraham said the war was unpopular with the American public.

“And, Ned, you know, when you’re looking at these polls that came out today, there’s a huge dissatisfaction with the war in Iran. I mean, it is overwhelmingly considered a negative drag on the U.S. economy and just not worth it.”

On Friday morning on Fox & Friends Brian Kilmeade said Russia was supplying Iran with intelligence about U.S. military targets.

“I don’t think it’s more sophisticated weapons. I think they got more sophisticated targets, and that’s Russia. There’s no way Russia is not giving them the targets to locate are actively our assets in Egypt. So it’s the same drones, the cheap drones, but they’re more accurate in their targeting.”

Brian Kilmeade Challenged Trump

On Tuesday President Trump scheduled a live phone call with the cast of Fox & Friends.

Kilmeade: You’re talking right now with leaders on Iran, but Iran has come out publicly and say, we’re not talking to the U.S.. We’re going to pause as long as they pause. . . So could you tell me, who are you talking to? Mr. president.

Trump: For some reason, for some reason, we can be in the midst of a beautiful discussion and they’ll come out and say, we’re not talking or we didn’t discuss nuclear. Well, that’s all we discussed, because they’ll never have a nuclear weapon. They understand that. And we we have had some very good talks and very interesting with Lindsey. (Lindsey Graham) He was very much a hawk, as you would say, on Iran. And over the last few weeks, I would say that he became like, if you could make a deal, it’s better, better making a deal in this case than just destroying the rest of the country. We’ve destroyed most of it.

Commie Caravans!

On Tuesday Laura Ingraham repeated her claims of a communist migrant caravan.

“But of course, to that issue of cost of living, Republicans have an easy response. Imagine what the cost of living will be if another 20 million illegals are allowed into this country, and what your life will be like if criminals fear no punishment. If the socialists take over major industries and the rationing begins.”

Tarlov and a Dose of Reality

On Monday Jessica Tarlov shared some unflattering data about the Trump administration on The Five.

“Trump out there at the rally. He is boasting about an economic record that does not exist. They’ve lost thousands of manufacturing jobs, construction jobs. People are losing their health care in Michigan, and he is selling a bad bill of goods. And the American public knows that. They strongly disapprove of him across the board and in Michigan. So don’t let the framing be about this party wants to get rid of prisons, and then you have to turn around and take more of this guy.”

Candidate Endorsements

The network spent 4% of its airtime on the shows I covered endorsing candidates.

• Susan Collins - U.S. Senate, Maine - Republican

• Mike Rogers - U.S. Senate, Michigan - Republican

• Ken Paxton - U.S. Senate, Texas - Republican

• Tom Tiffany - Governor, Wisconsin - Republican

• Steve Hilton - Governor, California - Republican

• Bruce Blakeman - Governor, New York - Republican

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. This list has been truncated for space. Source - The PBS News Hour transcripts.

• What started as outrage over leaked medical entrance exams turned into one of India's largest youth-led protest movements challenging India's prime minister. They call themselves the cockroaches after a top official compared jobless youth to the pests. Producer Zeba Warsi reports on how India's Gen Z took on one of the world's most powerful leaders. (PBS News Hour)

• Firefighters in Southwest France are battling a wildfire that’s burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced more than 200,000 people to flee. More than 100 homes in the small coastal town were burned. Meantime, Spain continues to battle its worst wildfire in recent history, including one that’s burned an area five times the size of Barcelona. Spain’s prime minister says climate emergency has created the conditions for the fires. (PBS News Hour)

• In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz is calling for tougher security laws after it emerged that the suspect from last weekend’s Berlin Pride attack had tried to join ISIS. One woman was killed and more than two dozen others were injured last Saturday, when the suspect allegedly drove a van into a crowd and then started attacking people with a machete. The 21-year-old German citizen was shot and killed on last Sunday following a 24-hour search. He had previously been sentenced to prison and had only been released two months ago. (PBS News Hour)

• It's been four years since the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision opened the door to state abortion bans. Now, a new study finds those bans are hurting women who aren't seeking abortions at all. Researchers found delays in miscarriage treatment increase the risk to a woman’s health and fertility and prolong the grief of a lost pregnancy. (PBS News Hour)

• A new report is detailing the impact of cuts to USAID and the program known as PEPFAR, which has been credited with saving over 26 million lives since 2003. The study from the HIV/AIDS non-profit amfAR found that more than 1,700 treatment sites have closed in the wake of funding cuts. William Brangham discussed more with Dr. Atul Gawande, the assistant administrator of USAID under President Biden. (PBS News Hour)

• Russian authorities charged the founder of the social media platform Telegram with aiding terrorism. They accused Pavel Durov of failing to remove content from Telegram's platform, which Ukraine has used to carry out attacks. The Russian-born billionaire lives overseas and could face life in prison in Russia if convicted. He has previously accused Moscow of trying to suppress free speech. (PBS News Hour)

• Meantime, in Western Russia, Ukraine says it struck a logistics facility and two major oil refineries. Ukraine has stepped up its long-range attacks on Russian energy targets in an effort to damage Russia's war effort and its economy. (PBS News Hour)

• In Ukraine, a barrage of Russian drones and missiles killed at least 10 people, including children last Thursday. Ukrainian officials said more than 300 ballistic missiles and attack drones struck targets as far west as the city of Lviv. Russia says Ukraine responded by striking a pair of retail warehouses inside its borders. Ukraine has accused that retailer of supplying the Russian military. (PBS New Hour)

• The State Department says it takes full responsibility for hastily altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. Attendees shared photos of the incorrect map online. Coastal countries like Nigeria, Mozambique, and Cote d’Ivoire were all landlocked and in the wrong locations. Other countries’ borders were misrepresented. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI. (PBS News Hour)

• In a sign that the war in Iran may be weighing on economic growth, the U.S. economy saw a slowdown in the second quarter. That’s according to a new report last week from the Commerce Department. It all comes after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged, despite three dissents arguing in favor of a rate increase. (PBS News Hour)

• Violence surged in the West Bank last weekend when Palestinians say Israeli settlers burned two mosques following deadly clashes. The UN accuses Israeli settlers of increasing their attacks and footprint in the West Bank, the land that Palestinians hope will be their future state. Israel says it is Palestinians committing the violence. (PBS News Hour)

• Thousands of unaccompanied migrant children could lose legal representation, now that a federal contract with legal aid groups representing the minors is expiring. That contract, held by the non-profit Acacia Center for Justice, had funded legal services for unaccompanied children for the last five years. (PBS News Hour)

• Cybersecurity concerns are mounting after Anthropic said its A.I. models hacked into three organizations during testing. The company behind Claude said it happened during a large-scale security run to see if its models could access the Internet from testing environments that are meant to be sealed off. Anthropic launched the review in response to a similar incident last week, when one of OpenAI’s models went rogue and hacked another company. Anthropic said two of the three models involved in the hack were publicly available versions of Claude and that they used basic techniques like exploiting weak passwords. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers

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More American troops have paid the ultimate sacrifice as Iran managed to strike U.S. a military base in Jordan. As soon as the first retaliatory strike was launched at an Iranian target gas prices spiked.

As the midterm elections loom Trump is dropping like a stone in the polls. Most of the president’s campaign promises have not materialized as grocery prices remain stubbornly high, mortgage rates have spiked, Black and Latino unemployment are higher now than when Trump started his second term, the national debt has increasedand residential electricity rates have gone up in nearly every state.

The war in the Middle East will only make everything worse for Trump as it has caused an increase in the price of petroleum-based fuels along with fertilizer. His plan to add additional tariffs to nearly every country on planet earth won’t ease the affordability crisis.

The president continues to boast to the American public about a booming stock market, but the average citizen won’t touch most of their investments until retirement. The gains they might see in their 401(k) plans, IRAs or stock portfolios are just Monopoly money until they sell.

Trump is slowly sinking a ship he managed to pull out of the depths of his party’s losses in 2020 and the riot on January 6th.

Last week Fox News hosts openly called the war unpopular and questioned how the so called decimated Iranian military was able to strike U.S. targets. Jesse Watters was the only Fox News hosts who has not lost faith. Even Sean Hannity couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the conflict.

Producers at The Five decided the war wasn’t even worth covering so it wasn’t mentioned for most of the week. Laura Ingraham spent more time discussing the woke leadership at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

The network put far more focus on trashing Democrats last week than covering a regional Middle East conflict that could spiral out of control at any moment.

More American troops have paid the ultimate sacrifice as Iran managed to strike U.S. a military base in Jordan. As soon as the first retaliatory strike was launched at an Iranian target gas prices spiked.

As the midterm elections loom Trump is dropping like a stone in the polls. Most of the president’s campaign promises have not materialized as grocery prices remain stubbornly high, mortgage rates have spiked, Black and Latino unemployment are higher now than when Trump started his second term, the national debt has increased and residential electricity rates have gone up in nearly every state.

The war in the Middle East will only make everything worse for Trump as it has caused an increase in the price of petroleum-based fuels along with fertilizer. His plan to add additional tariffs to nearly every country on planet earth won’t ease the affordability crisis.

The president continues to boast to the American public about a booming stock market, but the average citizen won’t touch most of their investments until retirement. The gains they might see in their 401(k) plans, IRAs or stock portfolios are just Monopoly money until they sell.

Trump is slowly sinking a ship he managed to pull out of the depths of his party’s losses in 2020 and the riot on January 6th.

Last week Fox News hosts openly called the war unpopular and questioned how the so called decimated Iranian military was able to strike U.S. targets. Jesse Watters was the only Fox News hosts who has not lost faith. Even Sean Hannity couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the conflict.

Producers at The Five decided the war wasn’t even worth covering so it wasn’t mentioned for most of the week. Laura Ingraham spent more time discussing the woke leadership at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

The network put far more focus on trashing Democrats last week than covering a regional Middle East conflict that could spiral out of control at any moment.

Shows I covered on Fox News last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• The Ingraham Angle

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• Hannity

• Multiple Trump press conferences and media appearances

How Fox News Covered the War in Iran - This is Big

The corporate leadership at Fox News knows the president watches a lot of the network’s programing. There have been several examples where Trump has repeated talking points from various Fox News shows.

The network often caters to an audience of one - knowing the president is probably intently listening to every word.

Some Fox News hosts have close personal relationships with the president

Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade sent text messages to then White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the January 6th riots to pursuade Trump to call off the attack on the Capitol.

It is extremely rare for anyone on Fox News to openly criticize anything Trump does much less repeatedly complain about his foreign policy.

Over the course of five days multiple Fox News hosts openly questioned Trump’s strategy in the war. They also challenged things he said about Iran’s ability to fight back.

None of this was an accident. The folks at Fox News are desperately trying to send a message to their glorious leader - the war in Iran is a disaster.

I also suspect the war is bad for ratings as the conflict in Iran wasn’t even mentioned Tuesday through Friday on the top-rated cable news show - The Five.

In the following excerpts you can see repeated phrases and soundbites that are meant to get the president’s attention.

Monday - This is Bad

Fox News started the week with what seemed like a desperate plea to the president.

Fox & Friends - 7.5 minutes

“Nine straight days. They’re really hitting Kuwait hard. And they’re hitting Bahrain. But Jordan is the biggest surprise. . . .We’ve got to get missile defense there. As simple as that,” said Brian Kilmeade.

Retired General and former White House NSC Senior Director, Rob Spalding, warned that the U.S. military could be tied up in the region for years.

“I do expect that we’re going to be there a long time. You know Operation Northern and Southern Watch went on for almost 20 years I think.”

The Five - 10 minutes

Guest host Charlie Hurt was the first person on Fox News last week to point out that Iran wasn’t as weak as Trump and the Pentagon had promised.

“One of the things that’s really alarming right now is that those strikes on Jordan were pretty advanced weapons, and we certainly felt like a lot of the strikes previously had taken out there, a lot of their missile capabilities. So that is definitely alarming.”

Harold Ford Jr mentioned that the Strait of Hormuz was blocked

‘Mark Warner’s right. Bombing alone may not work. . . .We do not, nor have we ever controlled the Straits of Hormuz.”

The Fox News host simply known as Kennedy was worried about an increase in U.S. military casualties.

“Because there aren’t too many approaches. There aren’t too many choices left available. Unfortunately, once you’ve started something like this, the way you finish it is with American ground troops. And, you know, we’re saddened and disgusted to hear about those newly minted Gold Star families. That is not what we want. But if we see a ground invasion, you’re going to see a lot more than that. And you’re going to, you know, you’re going to have young people whose lives are destroyed. And, you know, we’re not going to be saying their names every day on TV. And it’s not just politically costly. It’s at some point it gets to be immoral.”

Harold Ford Jr. cut her off.

“The only other option is another deal. And the deal is probably, I hate to say this, this is not a political comment, but it may be worse than the deal Obama struck, because you’re going to have to unfreeze all of that money if we don’t want to put troops on the ground, because guess who else knows? We don’t want to put troops on the ground. The Iranians. So again, this is not what I want to have happen.”

The Ingraham Angle - 5.5 minutes

“Coming up, the U.S. launching more strikes tonight in Iran, a live report from the region. Plus, what’s this going to do to Republicans in the midterms? . . .Three members of our military were killed over the weekend tragedy. . . And with the midterm elections a little more than 100 days away, the clock is ticking for President Trump to get out of this war before voters head to the polls It’s making a lot of Republicans nervous. It’s already, as we know, unpopular. According to the new Washington Post Ipsos poll, 69% of Americans disapprove of the handling of this conflict. Republicans cannot let this become an endless distraction, especially if they want to win in November,” said Ingraham.

Jesse Watters Primetime - 8.5 minutes

Watters dedicated eight and half minutes to the war. He remained enthusiastic about the conflict.

Hannity - 16 seconds

Sean Hannity gave a brief statement about the war with no additional commentary.

Tuesday - A War on Two Fronts

Fox & Friends -7.5 minutes

Trey Yingst, chief foreign correspondent for Fox News, opened the segment with more details from the region.

“Saudi Arabia has rerouted their oil eight million barrels a day through the Red Sea. So, if you stop Saudi Arabia, that would really affect the price of oil and gas. Have they actually done it yet? Or they just say they’re going to do it,” asked Kilmeade.

“They say that they’re going to do it. And there are initial reports of some incidents off the coast of Yemen,” said Yingst.

The Five - No segment

The Ingraham Angle - 1.75 minutes

Guest host Charlie Hurt repeated the same talking point he’d made the day before on The Five.

“We’ve been hearing that we’ve destroyed their missile sites and flattened key military installations in Iran. But if so, how is Iran still able to launch lethal attacks against U.S. military personnel and equipment?”

Jesse Watters Primetime - 14.25 minutes

As he has for week Watters included images of weapon systems firing and aerial shots of missile strikes during his discussion of the conflict. Watters mostly spoke in soundbites and cliches.

His guest, retired general and former national security adviser to Trump, Keith Kellogg had a far more sobering take

“Here is a concern I do have for Iran, though. You have played sports. I’ve played sports, we’ve watched sports. And you let a team hang around a baseball team in the ninth inning or a football team in the fourth quarter. We were clearly the better team. You should have closed them out in the first quarter, not the fourth or the first inning, not to ninth inning. And as long as they stick around, the more dangerous they become. And that’s kind of where we’re at right now. And by the way, when people talk about troops on the ground, that’s pretty important because I’ve never seen a war won strictly from the air.”

Hannity - 6.25 minutes

Most of the time Hannity dedicated to the war was given to Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller sounded a lot like Watters. In his eyes Trump could do no wrong and a U.S. victory was certain.

Steve Harrigan, a Fox News correspondent reporting from the Middle East, took the conflict far more seriously.

“Iran’s foreign ministry also making a somewhat veiled threat, the spokesperson saying when asked about the possibility of a U.S. invasion of Iran, saying there are many in Iran who are counting down the moments until that happens, basically saying bring it on.”

Wednesday - Meet Pickaxe Mountain

Fox & Friends - 11 minutes

Trey Yingst led the segment.

“The strait remains largely at a standstill, with just three commercial vessels passing through on Tuesday, according to Kpler Shipping data. The other area of focus remains on Iran’s nuclear program that President Trump says will be targeted in the days ahead.”

This was the first time last week anyone made mention of the existence of Iran’s nuclear program. For weeks President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have insisted that Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Epic Fury had destroyed Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Suddenly Brian Kilmeade was left to explain Pickaxe Mountain, a second location deep underground that might hold additional materials Iran could use to rebuild its nuclear program.

Fox News producers created floor to ceiling graphics that contained basic details about the facility along with a giant map of potential targets in Iran.

“The president’s statement about Pickaxe. As we go over to the map,” said Kilmeade as he spoke with Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Goldberg included more details about the facility.

“You have those ventilation shafts. We don’t have the schematics of the facility the way that we probably had for Fordow. Remember, the IAEA inspectors had been down in Fordow for years. We knew the facility pretty well and could map it out for an attack. We may not have that sort of granularity unless the Israelis or somebody have the intelligence to people who inform that for Pickaxe Mountain.”

Brian Kilmeade included more ominous news about the target.

“Is any activity among the collapsed complexes where we’d like to go in and get the nuclear material, the uranium that the president calls nuclear dust? Some say if we’re going to get it on our own, we’ll need about 15,000 troops on the ground to do just that,” said Kilmeade.

The Five - No segment

The Ingraham Angle - No segment

Jesse Watters Primetime - 7 minutes

Watters had the same tone as the night before. He made sure to include that 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, one of the soldiers who was killed by an Iranian strike, was a fan of his show.

“Tyler loved Primetime, watched it almost every night. When I heard that, I was very moved. . .Trump’s going to make him pay for every innocent ship they clip in the strait and Trump says will bomb a bridge or a power plant,” said Watters.

Hannity - 1.75 minutes

Hannity just let Fox News correspondent Steve Harrigan describe the conflict.

“Now the possibility exists of a second front opening up in this war Houthi rebels, terrorists in the Red Sea attacking two tankers, both carrying Saudi oil.”

---

Thursday - Russia is Helping Iran

Fox & Friends - 16 minutes

Brian Kilmeade asked Trey Yingst about two tankers that were hit in the strait.

Kilmeade: Hey, Trey. Any word from the Saudis on two of their ships being hit? Have they commented?

Yingst: They’ve not yet commented. But this is certainly an escalation because it means it’s not just rhetoric from the Houthis in Yemen.

Kilmeade: And devastating to the markets will jack up big time. It’s already in the 90s. Thanks so much, Trey.

Kilmeade’s co-host Lucas Tomlinson pointed out that a strike to a power plant could horribly backfire.

“President wanted to order some would consider a disproportionate response. You would hit Damavand plant again is responsible for 40% of Tehran the capital’s power. The only question is, do you want to turn the lights off? For millions of Iranians who are sympathetic to the American cause.”

Later Kilmeade warned that Russia might be supplying Iran with information about U.S. military bases.

Kilmeade: A lot of people are miffed. How is Iran still able to hit us after all the damage we have done? . . . The biggest change is what Iran did in the pause in fighting since the MoU was signed. It looks like they did, and they reconfigured and they reconstituted more than we thought. . . The other thing is people are wondering how are they getting such a precise hits on our bases? It’s become abundantly clear. The Russians are providing a lot of intelligence. In fact, they hit in Saudi Arabia yesterday. They hit facilities, but they hit the exactly CIA wing of the facility. How would you know that if the Russians weren’t providing exact logistics?

The Five - No segment

The Ingraham Angle - No segment

Jesse Watters Primetime - 7 minutes

Watters continued to treat the war like a video game.

“The War Department is prepping a massive offensive. . . . Fox News alert. Bombs away. . . Trump wants revenge. The Houthis claim their blockading the Red Sea. But they’re not. They did clip some tankers. One of them a Saudi ship now leaking oil into the water. This could snarl commerce today. Today oil closed over 100 bucks a barrel.”

Hannity - 2.75 minutes

Hannity joked that the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) should flee the country.

Friday - This War is Unpopular

Fox & Friends - 7.75 minutes

Kilmeade: The one thing we did not anticipate is how quick Iran has been able to rebuild during that pause in fighting after the signing of the MoU that has surprised experts.

Hurt: You know, the president and the administration are going to have to sell this because right now, this is not a popular war, and it is very alarming, Brian, what you’re talking about, about the fact that when after all of this, Iran comes back better equipped with better missiles, better able to target more, better than better, but some of it, some of the techniques of these missiles that hit our bases in Jordan, they were guided in ways that that we that I think surprised us. Whatever the case, it’s alarming. And it suggests that that that a change of tactics is definitely necessary.

Kilmeade: Reuters reporting Russians are helping. When you hit that scary, when you hit a room in a building that the CIA is, the Russians are helping.

The Five - No segment

The Ingraham Angle- 1.25 minutes

Laura Ingraham didn’t even try to hide her disdain for Trump’s handling of the conflict.

“The New York Times reporting tonight that an Iranian threat to Air Force One did indeed prompt the plane swap during the NATO summit. So, if Iran can credibly threaten Air Force One overseas, we didn’t decimate their military capabilities. Obviously, they’re still capable of a lot of harm.”

Jesse Watters Primetime - 5.75 minutes

Friday was more useless fluff.

Hannity - No segment

Beware the Commie Migrant Caravan!

The main topic on Fox News last week was the usual - Democrats are terrible but with the added twist of Democrats are communists! I thought the war was more important to cover as Fox News will always find a reason to criticize and demonize the Democratic Party.

After weeks of warning of an imminent communist revolution Laura Ingraham added a new detail to raise the panic levels for Fox News viewers.

On Monday Laura Ingraham weaved a tapestry of paranoia and fear.

“Imagine not 10 or 20 million migrants pouring across our southern border over four years. Of course, that happened under Biden. Imagine that numbers 100 or even 200 million people, mostly from the Third World, camping out in your communities, demanding services from education to housing to health care, and imagine a government that scrambles to cater to them while leaving you and your families to pay for and live with the fallout. That’s what’s coming if the Neo Bolsheviks get real power. . . Tens of millions of indigenous flooding, the country is going to do what for the middle class destroy hospitals, destroy their schools, take over their cities and suburbs alike like everything else that these people are promising, it’s all false, and it’s going to crush our poor and our middle class worse than anyone else, that’s for sure. So this glorious socialism isn’t about advantage and opportunity. It’s about punishment and reckoning.”

On Wednesday Jesse Watters had a slightly different take on Jesse Watters Primetime.

“This race is boiling down to communism versus capitalism. Remember, communism is not a new idea. It’s an excuse for people who don’t want to work and a weapon to kill the country.”

Sean Hannity discussed the source of the simmering communist revolutionaries.

“By the way, this far left movement that he’s talking about is not new. It is the result of decade after decade of indoctrination by an anti-American college professors, this unholy alliance with Democrats and teachers unions, public schools, public museums, the media, mob, legacy, media, mob, all preaching, you know, the oppressor versus the oppressed. And now this is the, well, predictable result of life, a belief in confiscation of wealth. . . They get to steal the power, steal the money, they get to redistribute it. They get to create the voting base, and they get more powerful and you lose your freedom.”

Candidate Endorsements

The network spent 8% of its airtime on the shows I covered endorsing candidates.

• Darline Graham - U.S. Senate, South Carolina - Republican (Lindsey Graham’s sister)

• Mike Rogers - U.S. Senate, Michigan - Republican

• Ken Paxton - U.S. Senate, Texas - Republican

• Christine Drazan - Governor, Oregon - Republican

• Bruce Blakeman - Governor, New York - Republican

Sean Hannity dedicated most of his program on Monday to an extended interview with Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC). Graham was appointed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to fill her deceased brother’s senate seat for the rest of his term.

She announced her decision to run for a full term as senator during the interview.

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. This list has been truncated for space. Source - The PBS News Hour transcripts.

• The controversial influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate will remain in federal custody as they fight extradition to England. The brothers were arrested in Miami last weekend and face dozens of new rape and sex trafficking charges in the U.K. The dual U.S. and U.K. citizens are prominent figures in the so-called manosphere, where they promote their own brand of hypermasculinity and misogynistic views. (PBS News Hour)

• Protests in New Delhi turned violent last week after police intervened in a student-led demonstration calling for reforms to India’s education system. Tear gas canisters boomed through the streets, and police beat people with batons. Some protesters threw stones at security officers dressed in riot gear.

  The chaos erupted as supporters of the so-called Cockroach Movement marched toward Parliament, demanding that the education minister resign amid anger over the leak of a national exam. The protests were among the largest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in years. (PBS News Hour)

• The Israeli parliament has dissolved, paving the way for October elections. The country’s longest-serving leader is bracing for one of his toughest reelection fights. Benjamin Netanyahu faces national questioning over his leadership during and since the Oct. 7 attacks, including a constitutional crisis pitting his government against the judiciary. *Fox News has largely ignored most of the protests and public criticism Netanyahu has faced in Israel. (PBS News Hour)

• The Justice Department is investigating whether scholarships at Harvard University funded by Chinese donors favor foreign students. It’s the latest inquiry the Trump administration has levied against the Ivy League school. The DOJ announced the probe last week, citing concerns about possible discrimination against American students. It did not specify which scholarship programs are under review. (PBS News Hour)

• Artificial intelligence is fueling stock market highs, economic growth and a construction boom across the country. But it is also igniting fierce local debates about the benefits, the costs and whether the data centers that power AI should be built at all. Economics correspondent Paul Solman looked at how one of those battles is playing out in the Midwest. (PBS News Hour) *Fox News included several segments that promoted AI data centers. During an episode of Fox & Friends the network even included a full-length advertisement produced by Meta that promoted AI and data centers.

• The Senate is weighing President Trump's nomination of Todd Blanche to lead the Department of Justice as questions continue over the administration's handling of investigations into Jeffrey Epstein. It comes days after Blanche met privately with several survivors of Epstein's abuse. Justice correspondent Ali Rogin spoke with Liz Stein, one of the survivors who met with Blanche. A group of survivors who met with Blanche Thursday wrote an open letter to those senators, urging them to vote against Blanche, calling their meeting with him "an hour of deflection, interruption, and gaslighting." (PBS News Hour)

• Wildfires have engulfed entire homes in Turkey, while, in the mountains of Sicily, towns were surrounded by a wall of smoke. In Spain, a fire in Guadalajara, north of Madrid, has burned some 80,000 acres and forced more than 1,200 people to evacuate. It’s now the country’s second largest wildfire on record. In France, public health officials say there were upwards of 5,700 more deaths than usual during a record-setting heat wave last month. (PBS News Hour)

• OpenAI says it’s investigating what is called an unprecedented cyber incident after one of its A.I. models went rogue and hacked another company. The ChatGPT maker says the breach happened last week while OpenAI was testing the cybersecurity capabilities of its systems. The head of the hacked company, Hugging Face, called the attack mind-blowing, but said there was “no malicious intent.” The incident has raised concerns about the growing capabilities of A.I. and the need for guardrails to keep the technology in check. (PBS News Hour)

• A U.S. attorney in Washington state who was fired by the Trump administration is suing the government over his dismissal. Roger Rogoff was sworn in after a panel of judges unanimously selected him. Less than an hour later, he was fired via email. His lawsuit highlights the legal fight over Trump’s power to shape the judiciary. Rogoff joined Justice correspondent Ali Rogin to discuss more. (PBS News Hour)

• The man who killed Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman was sentenced to life in prison last week. Vance Boelter pleaded guilty last month to killing the Democratic lawmaker and her husband, as well as critically wounding another state senator, John Hoffman, and his wife. That plea allowed him to avoid the death penalty. Instead, he was given two life terms, plus an additional 40 years, the longest sentence the judge on the case says he has ever handed down. Boelter also faces state charges for murder and attempted murder, as well as a personal injury lawsuit. (PBS News Hour)

• An unnamed member of Vice President J.D. Vance’s security detail is under investigation over a suspected leak to the media. The Secret Service tells the News Hour that the internal review is in response to an MS NOW report last week about frustration over the vice president’s last-minute travel and his use of resources for personal matters like flying his son to a golf lesson by military helicopter.

  An agency spokesperson adds that disciplinary action could include a possible criminal inquiry for allegedly compromising operational and information security. (PBS News Hour)

• The CDC says the U.S. has now seen more cases of measles so far this year than in all of 2025. More than 2,300 infections have been reported nationwide, making this the worst year for the disease since 1991. Outbreaks in South Carolina, Utah, and Arizona have sickened hundreds of people, most of them unvaccinated. The spike comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has downplayed the risk of measles and raised questions about the benefits of vaccines. (PBS News Hour)

• The Israeli military is deploying more troops to the occupied West Bank after one of the deadliest shootings there in months. Palestinian health officials say the Israeli military shot and killed four Palestinians in the village of Tell in the Northern West Bank. The bodies of those killed were taken to a nearby hospital. Four others were wounded, some of them critically. In the meantime, Israelis buried a 32-year-old reserve soldier who was killed in the shooting, one of at least two Israeli fatalities. Both sides are offering different accounts of what led to the shooting. (PBS News Hour)

• In Ukraine, officials say at least 10 people were killed and nearly 100 others injured by a Russian ballistic missile strike in the Kyiv region. The attack happened near a defense industry event. It comes a day after President Zelenskyy met with the American defense manufacturer Raytheon, which makes the Patriot air defense systems that Ukraine says it needs. In the meantime, in St. Petersburg a Ukrainian drone attack damaged warehouses owned by Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries. Kyiv says the retailer supplies the Russian military, which the Kremlin denies. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers

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The network had no problem spinning measles outbreaks, the Epstein files coverup, the murder of Iranian school children, the mass pardon of cop beaters, the president’s insider trading, self-dealing, foreign bribes, vanity projects, or his deference to Bibi Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin.

Fox News didn’t seem to care that he kept threatening the very foundations of our democracy with unconstitutional executive orders while openly defying various court rulings.

The network didn’t mind when high-ranking members of the Trump administration openly lied about details regarding the death of two American citizens at the hands of federal law enforcement agents.

The spikes in inflation, gasoline prices and residential electricity rates weren’t even speed bumps to the folks at Fox News who kept insisting the country was experiencing a new golden age of prosperity.

As the Ukraine War raged on without an end in sight no one on Fox News seemed to remember Trump’s promise to end it before he was sworn in for his second term.

Even his deeply unpopular war of choice in the Middle East didn’t cause much concern.

Last Thursday their glorious leader took a step too far when he used up about a half an hour of primetime television to spin the same election lies that cost the network $787.5 million. Fox News still faces a $2 billion defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic for the lies the network knowingly promoted about the 2020 election.

Trump committed the ultimate sin. He was messing with the money.

Since Trump’s primetime address I’ve noticed a subtle shift on Fox News away from the president. The network is still trying to terrify its audience about the looming threat of a communist takeover of radical Democrats.

Fox News is still demonizing transgender folks and undocumented immigrants. It continues to beat the drum about the evils of diversity, equity and inclusion in American institutions.

The network mocks what it calls ‘woke’ celebrities while it promotes racist tropes about urban crime and the decay of western civilization. The cultural battles are never-ending while some of the shine of their populist hero is chipping off like the American Flag Blue coating on the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

Last week I noticed a slight transition away from the usual praise for the president. It’s beginning to sink in that his administration could be a catastrophe for the conservative movement and the Fox News media empire.

The network had no problem spinning measles outbreaks, the Epstein files coverup, the murder of Iranian school children, the mass pardon of cop beaters, the president’s insider trading, self-dealing, foreign bribes, vanity projects, or his deference to Bibi Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin.

Fox News didn’t seem to care that he kept threatening the very foundations of our democracy with unconstitutional executive orders while openly defying various court rulings.

The network didn’t mind when high-ranking members of the Trump administration openly lied about details regarding the death of two American citizens at the hands of federal law enforcement agents.

The spikes in inflation, gasoline prices and residential electricity rates weren’t even speed bumps to the folks at Fox News who kept insisting the country was experiencing a new golden age of prosperity.

As the Ukraine War raged on without an end in sight no one on Fox News seemed to remember Trump’s promise to end it before he was sworn in for his second term.

Even his deeply unpopular war of choice in the Middle East didn’t cause much concern.

Last Thursday their glorious leader took a step too far when he used up about a half an hour of primetime television to spin the same election lies that cost the network $787.5 million. Fox News still faces a $2 billion defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic for the lies the network knowingly promoted about the 2020 election.

Trump committed the ultimate sin. He was messing with the money.

Since Trump’s primetime address I’ve noticed a subtle shift on Fox News away from the president. The network is still trying to terrify its audience about the looming threat of a communist takeover of radical Democrats.

Fox News is still demonizing transgender folks and undocumented immigrants. It continues to beat the drum about the evils of diversity, equity and inclusion in American institutions.

The network mocks what it calls ‘woke’ celebrities while it promotes racist tropes about urban crime and the decay of western civilization. The cultural battles are never-ending while some of the shine of their populist hero is chipping off like the American Flag Blue coating on the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

Last week I noticed a slight transition away from the usual praise for the president. It’s beginning to sink in that his administration could be a catastrophe for the conservative movement and the Fox News media empire.

Shows I covered on Fox News last week:

• Fox & Friends - all three hours on Monday

• The Five

• The Ingraham Angle

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• Hannity - Thursday and Friday

• Trump’s many press appearances and events

How Fox News Covered Trump’s Primetime Speech

Immediately after the address Fox News producers cut back to Sean Hannity in studio. The Fox News host simply described the speech. He did not add much commentary.

“All right, President Donald J. Trump. from the East Room at the White House. He had a lot to say tonight talking about the economy, how he inherited a nation in decline. Nation he described as dead. He talked about the border crime in America, how it’s all down, the issue of Iran. Also talked about, free and fair elections. Now, the president, if you go to WhiteHouse.gov has and will has now releasing what he believes has all the corroboration that you would ever need. What is pretty remarkable, what he says are in these documents. I’m sure that anybody, that cares about truth will want to do a deep dive into all of this. Talking about the Communist Chinese, our number one geopolitical foe, literally having access names, addresses, party affiliation, phone numbers of over 220 million Americans,” said Hannity.

Aishah Hasnie, a Fox News anchor and White House correspondent was clear to point out that no one at the network was supporting Trump’s statements.

“Sean, you also heard the president made claims that electronic voting machines are vulnerable and easily compromised. Fox News has not seen that evidence yet is not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the president’s statements and claims at this time.”

No one on the shows I covered on Fox News last week gave this story any importance or focus. There wasn’t a single reference to ‘election interference’ in the transcripts from last week.

Trump’s primetime address was not brought up again on Fox & Friends, The Five, The Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime or Hannity.

No one repeated or supported any of the false claims President Trump made in his speech. None of the Fox News hosts even brought up that other networks refused to broadcast it.

Some of Trump’s comments along with the documents on WhiteHouse.gov inferred that a voting company, Smartmatic, might have played a nefarious role in the Venezuelan elections.

This is absolutely false. The New York Times did an analysis of the documents along with Trump’s comments and found that the president distorted the findings of the CIA analysis.

Smartmatic currently has a $2 billion defamation lawsuit pending against Fox News.

On Friday every evening show that I covered opened with an extended segment trashing Democrats. That morning Fox & Friends started its first hour with a story about the conflict in Iran.

How Fox News Covered the War in Iran

Monday - I killed their Leaders! They threatened to Kill Me!

Fox News finally seemed to coordinate their coverage on the war in Iran across multiple programs. On Monday every show I covered focused on two things - the U.S. decapitation of Iranian leadership and the alleged Iranian plots to assassinated President Trump.

“As far as the plot to assassinate President Trump, as relayed by Israeli intelligence, the U.S. Secret Service issued a statement while we do not confirm or comment on intelligence matters, we consume information on a global level to effectively execute our protective operations,” said Fox News correspondent Mike Tobin on Fox & Friends.

“As he’s talked about the umpteenth assassination plot against him,” said Emily Compagno on The Five.

Her co-host Jesse Watters mentioned the assassination of Iranian leadership.

“But what’s happened is the decapitation strikes in the first couple of weeks of this operation were so devastating, we basically fractured their leadership. So the people that signed this thing, they’re just the politicians, the people with the guns, the military. They’re seeing their power slipping away if they have peace.”

Tom Shillue, comedian and guest host for The Five seemed concerned that Iran had plans to kill world leaders.

“Did you see their latest? I call it a hit list. They said it’s their revenge list. Macron is number one. Starmer and Trump. He listed all three of those.”

It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone on Fox News that Iran might try to assassinate the U.S. president. Trump has bragged for weeks that he killed multiple tiers of Iranian leaders.

Iran has also been a sponsor of terrorist groups in the Middle East for decades. It would be far more surprising if Iran calmly agreed to a peace agreement.

Tuesday - Guardians of the Strait!

President Trump started the week declaring he wanted to charge a 20% toll on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Within 24 hours he dropped the idea switching to a vague promise by Gulf states agreeing to additional business investments with the United States.

The folks at Fox knew their marching orders. Suddenly the U.S. had become the Guardians of the Strait!

On Fox & Friends Lou Basenese of Fox Business saw Trump’s indecision as a masterful strategic move.

“I think this is the tariff logic applied to Iran. So it’s escalate to negotiate. I don’t think we’ll ever see this 20% cargo fee.”

On The Five Martha MacCallum opened the segment with the talking point for the day.

“America’s Guardian of the Strait.”

Kayleigh McEnany used the exact same phrase.

“And Trump making good on his promise to become the guardian of the Strait. . . Do you hear President Trump abandoning his original plan to charge a 20% toll on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz? And instead, the president says America will be compensated through massive new trade and investment commitments from Gulf allies.”

Martha MacCallum attempted to read the president’s mind.

“One thought on the, the issue of the charging people to go through the strait. I think President Trump is still really, really angry at Europe for not stepping in, because if you flooded that strait with European ships, they don’t have a lot of them and our ships and all of the allies and said, look, this is an open, free passageway. But they needed a large presence in order to do that. So he’s like, you guys are the ones who get oil through here anyway. And so why don’t you pay extra to come through here? If we’re going to be the guardians of the Strait and protect it?”

It never occurred to MacCallum that most of Europe is within striking distance of an Iranian ballistic missile. European leaders, even NATO members, are under no obligation to join a war the U.S. started.

NATO was meant as a defensive alliance. The U.S. started the aggression with Iran.

Later that night Laura Ingraham also mentioned Trump’s plans for the strait.

‘President Trump scrapped his plan to charge ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, the US naval blockade is in effect.”

She also spoke with Nathan Sales, former Ambassador at Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State, during Trump’s first term.

He also argued for European help to secure the waterway.

“Yeah, we need to be sharing the burden equitably among everybody that has an interest in Iran not being a regional hegemon. That’s us. But it’s also the Gulf Arab states, and it’s also our European allies. Now, not every country has the naval capabilities that the British do, and the French do, too, can force commercial shipping through a very narrow chokehold. But those who do have the capabilities should stand up and those who don’t have those capabilities. There’s other ways for them to contribute economically, diplomatically and so on. So this is a team effort. The United States is not going to be the world’s policeman. We will lead, but we need followers to help us out,” said Sales.

If the United States was truly the ‘Guardian of the Strait’ then we shouldn’t need help from Europe.

No one repeated ‘Guardians of the Strait’ after Tuesday. The catch phrase was completely dropped.

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Wednesday - Bridge and Power Plant Day

The next morning Joey Johnny Jones made a startling comment about President Trump.

“One thing this president does it maybe presents in the past haven’t done is he uses posturing when he says next week is ‘Bridge and power plant day.’ That’s not a message to the American people. That’s not a message to the American military. That’s a message to Iran. The hope is it doesn’t have to get to that. The problem is, when you make a threat like that, you have to fulfill it. And President Trump is known for doing that.”

The president is actually known for making threats towards Iran and not following through with them.

His co-host Lawrence Jones brought up the prospect of using ground troops.

“You know, some people have talked about the president saying, Kharg Island are going to get the nuclear dust and then require ground troops to be able to do that the right way. And there could be casualties. And the president has made it very clear he doesn’t want to have to do that unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

On The Five Dana Perino repeated the same messaging.

“The commander in chief was out in Pennsylvania telling the regime that they better behave if they want to avoid bridge and power plant day . . . and Vice President J.D. Vance telling Joe Rogan that right now, ground troops are off the table if tensions continue to escalate.”

Jesse Watters also added to the discussion as only he could.

“This is the bridge of the bridge and power plant day.”

Perino then pulled back a bit on the idea of using ground troops.

“They are able to do a lot of things where you don’t have to have boots on the ground.”

That night on Jesse Watters Primetime Watters seemed to explain his previously confusing statement on The Five.

“We hit a railway bridge That’s crucial for Iran’s trade with Russia and China. So now the land blockades up right alongside the wall of steel. This is a warning of a bridge before bridge and power plant day.”

If the U.S. military destroys civilian infrastructure such as bridges and power plants its actions could be considered war crimes. This has been briefly discussed on Fox News but no one on the networks seemed to take the prospect of the U.S. military committing war crimes seriously.

Thursday - Boots on the Ground

On Thursday the network made a far more aggressive pitch for ramping up our kinetic strikes against Iran.

Harold Ford Jr. brought it up first on The Five.

“If we need more military action to achieve our goals, lay out for the American people with the objective is and let’s get to it.”

The Fox News host simply known as Kennedy shared her concern about the use of ground troops.

“All right. But more military action obviously means more U.S. service members in harm’s way. That’s a risky proposition for this president.”

Jesse Watters matched the tone of his co-host.

“Well, he said he didn’t think the country had the stomach for major ground operations. And it probably doesn’t.”

That evening he had changed his mind on Jesse Watters Primetime.

“This may require a ground assault to secure strategic islands.”

Later on Hannity former advisor to President Trump retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.

“But I will tell you, aerial strikes alone won’t do the job. The Germans learned that in World War Two when they put the Blitz on London. You’re not talking about a grand invasion ground invasion of Iran. You can’t get there. It’s too hard to do. The country is too large. I’ve seen war games on that. You just can’t get to it. So he does some strategically and he gets he takes these targets out being Kharg Island, the Straits of Hormuz, he opens up the strait. They lose all of their leverage.”

Laura Ingraham did not include any segments about the war in Iran for either Wednesday or Thursday last week. She didn’t even mention the conflict on either day.

Friday - The Houthis or Something?

By the end of the week the network’s messaging fell apart.

The folks on Fox & Friends mainly focused on the Houthis Iran’s proxy terrorist group in Yemen.

“One of the first things President Trump did remember the whole signal chat thing. That was in response to an offensive against the Houthis to stop them from shutting down the Red Sea. Do they remember that,” asked Brian Kilmeade.

His co-host Lawrence Jones was hopeful that somehow the U.S. could openly combat the terrorist group.

“So we were told Ainsley initially that, you know, when it came to the Houthis that Israel was the problem, that Israel was going on their territory. I hope they get involved so we can eliminate them as well.”

Ainsley Earhardt was also concerned about their involvement.

“An airstrike, our airstrike campaign by increasingly hitting these bridges. And what do you what do you guys make of the Houthis possibly being involved in this? Because Iran has asked the Houthi terrorists, as we’ve been talking about this morning, to prepare to close a critical part of the Red Sea, this gateway.”

Brian Kilmeade had a completely different viewpoint about the militant group.

“But I’m not for the Houthis. Get involved because temporarily they’re going to shut down additional oil it could go to $150 a barrel. That would hurt everyone in the short term.”

I expected more discussion about the Houthis but later that evening Laura Ingraham made a few sharp comments about Vice President J.D. Vance’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

“The blockade resumed. Gas prices have bumped back up. . . .And he’s right. The public voted for President Trump precisely because they did not want endless wars.”

In the next hour on Jesse Watters Primetime John Teichert, a retired Air Force Brigadier General seemed excited about the use of ground troops in Iran.

“So if the president so chooses to implement a ground invasion in that area, then it would be easier, it would be safer and more effective. And all of those things are stemming from these type of operational targets that have been struck in the last couple of days.”

Fox vs. PBS - How Two Networks Covered the Cyclosporiasis Outbreak

In the past few weeks as an outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a gastrointestinal illness caused by a parasite, has spread across the country Fox News and PBS handled the story quite differently.

The PBS News Hour started reporting on the story a couple of weeks ago. Fox News waited until last week to dedicate a full-length segment on it.

On Monday last week Fox & Friends included a segment with Dr. Marc Siegel, a senior medical analyst for the network. Ainsley Earhardt led the interview.

The morning program spent less than two minutes on the story.

Earhardt: People in different states are hospitalized because of a parasite. I can understand if a restaurant you get one parasite because the chef didn’t wash his hands. But in this case, it’s 31 different states. What is causing this?

Siegel: It’s probably over 3000 cases. It’s something called cyclospora that basically doesn’t get absorbed past your intestine. So that’s good. But you get a lot of diarrhea, fatigue. You can get dehydrated. And that’s why people are getting hospitalized. The very young, the very old, the immunocompromised. It doesn’t get absorbed and it doesn’t pass through the air or anything. It has to be in the environment for days before it’s infectious. It’s actually hard to get rid of. But the good news is it only works in these really hot months. You’re not going to see this in August and September. It’s peaking, but we have almost never seen it this much before. And the reason is we don’t know exactly where it came from. Usually it’s from mix lettuce, produce raspberries, something that we import from somewhere else. It comes in and we track it and we say, this is it. Let’s get rid of this. Let’s get this out of circulation. We haven’t been able to figure out the exact origin. That’s one of the reasons it’s spreading. Michigan is getting really hit hard with this over 1500 cases.

How PBS covered the same story

Also, on Monday William Brangham interviewed Dr. Omer Awan from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Awan is also a board-certified practicing physician.

The segment on PBS was far more comprehensive. The network dedicated nearly seven minutes to the story.

Brangham: Some critics have pointed out that CDC last year stepped back from some of its foodborne sort of poison pathogen surveillance. Is that contributing to this problem at all or not?

Awan: I would say absolutely it is, William, for a couple reasons. One is, remember that the the HHS and the federal government laid off a lot of CDC employees. Many of them were the very employees that would track these particular outbreaks. And the other is is that, from July of 2025 last year, the CDC has no longer required reporting cyclosporiasis has become optional to report this to the CDC food borne disease active surveillance network. So, this is precisely why we don’t have a good handle of exactly the number of cases. If you remember, the CDC has reported less than a thousand cases, but we know that there are more than 3000 or 4000 cases. I mean, there are more than 2600 cases in Michigan alone. So, the states have more of an accurate representation. And actually, even the federal government, the CDC. So these two reasons are really the main reasons why our response outbreak has really been hampered, for cyclosporiasis.

Candidate Endorsements

The network only spent 0.74% airtime on the shows I covered endorsing candidates.

• Mike Rogers - U.S. Senate, Michigan - Republican

• Bruce Blackeman - Governor, New York - Republican

Senator Lindsey Graham’s Passing

The sudden and unexpected death of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also took up a significant portion of programming last week. The only Fox News hosts to hint that there could have been foul play involved with his death was Jesse Watters.

Graham death at age 71 was caused by an aortic dissection which can be caused partially by hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure. Graham’s father died at the age of 69 of a sudden heart attack in his sleep.

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States.

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. This list has been truncated for space. Source - The PBS News Hour transcripts.

• A federal judge in Florida issued a scathing ruling last week regarding President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, saying it was filed for, as she put it, an improper purpose. Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, also referred the lawyer who brought the case to the Florida bar for possible disciplinary action. President Trump had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax information by an agency contractor. The DOJ settlement of the case included the creation of a $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund, which was scrapped after bipartisan criticism. (PBS News Hour)

• Ukraine is joining nine other nations in creating a coalition to protect Europe from the threat of Russia’s ballistic missiles. The air defense arrangement was announced last week at a gathering of world leaders in Paris. It’s seen as an alternative to the U.S. Patriot missile system. For his part, President Putin promised more strikes against Ukraine in response to recent drone attacks on Russian oil targets. Moscow launched more than 100 drones and missiles across Ukraine last week. Ukrainian officials say at least two people were killed and dozens more injured. (PBS News Hour)

• An American aid worker who tested positive for Ebola is now in stable condition at a hospital in Germany. The individual had been working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has now confirmed more than 1,900 cases and at least 702 deaths from the outbreak. Dozens of health workers at one hospital have gone on strike over their working conditions and unpaid salaries.

  And the virus continues to spread, with health officials saying it’s now in two more provinces. Last week, the University of Oxford launched its first human trial of a vaccine aimed at reining in the outbreak. (PBS News Hour)

• California and 11 other states are challenging Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. In a lawsuit filed last week, they argue the $81 billion deal would extinguish competition and threaten jobs in the media industry. The Justice Department has already signed off on the deal, which would combine the likes of HBO Max and CNN with CBS and Paramount+, among others.

  A Paramount spokesperson said §the company plans to “vigorously defend the transaction.” (PBS News Hour)

• In France, a heat wave fueled wildfires across that country, including two massive blazes just south of the capital, Paris. The high temperatures have hampered containment efforts for the fires, which have scorched nearly eight square miles and forced 1,000 people to flee their homes. The heat in France tempered some of the nation’s Bastille Day celebrations, with authorities canceling fireworks displays and other events. But the military parade went through Paris as planned. (PBS News Hour)

• Several New York Times reporters were subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury after the paper published stories raising security concerns about the new Air Force One. White House correspondent Liz Landers discussed questions the case is raising about freedom of the press with Will Creeley of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. (PBS News Hour)

• Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. use AI-powered cameras to scan billions of vehicles each month, often without drivers ever realizing. Supporters say the technology is a tool for solving crimes. But critics warn it’s creating a nationwide surveillance network, raising urgent questions about how much privacy Americans are willing to sacrifice in the name of safety. Paul Solman spoke to concerned residents and law enforcement agents about the technology. (PBS News Hour)

• In Ukraine thousands poured into the streets last week to protest President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to fire his popular defense minister. Mykhailo Fedorov was seen as an innovator of the country’s use of drone technology in Ukraine’s war effort. But he often clashed with the more traditional military establishment. Another part of Zelenskyy’s government reshuffle, Ukraine’s Parliament approved a new prime minister, the former head of a state energy company. Sergii Koretskyi is the third person to hold the role since Russia’s invasion more than four years ago. (PBS News Hour)

• In Gaza, health officials say several Israeli attacks last week killed at least a dozen people. A series of overnight airstrikes killed three family members in Central Gaza. That’s according to a local hospital. Israel has not commented on those strikes. The near daily attacks come despite a cease-fire that took effect last year between Israel and Hamas. In a separate strike, six police officers and a woman were killed in Gaza. Israel has said that some of them were Hamas militants, but provided no evidence. More than 1,100 people in Gaza have been killed since the cease-fire took effect, along with at least five Israeli soldiers. (PBS News Hour)

• Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers about the vetting of federal immigration officers following an Associated Press report about the ICE agent who shot and killed a Colombian man in Maine earlier last week. Close relatives and his ex-wife told the AP that David Brouillette is an Army veteran with a history of violence and serious mental health issues. They say he never should have been given a badge and a gun. DHS says the officer “feared for the public safety” after the motorist, Johan Sebastian Guerrero, attempted to flee the scene in his vehicle. DHS has not provided evidence to support that account. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers

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The president claimed that the intelligence community had unleashed a large trove of documents on WhiteHouse.gov that would reveal a vast conspiracy by the People’s Republic of China to influence and interfere with past elections.

Most of what was released was old news repackaged and formatted to try to make it look salacious. The Trump administration also released raw intelligence which is notoriously unreliable and normally not meant for public review.

Much like the documents in Hunter Biden’s laptop Trump administration officials have attempted to cobble together disparate theories and investigations to fit a false narrative.

It was ultimately a huge publicity stunt intended to promote The Save America Act an unpopular bill that does not have enough votes in the House and Senate to pass. Many critics of the legislation have called it a voter disenfranchisement bill that would essentially gut mail-in voting and make it harder for lower income and elderly folks to vote.

I transcribed the entire speech and added fact checking for some of the more outrageous claims made by the president.

For paid subscribers I’ve added a video where I’ve replaced Trump’s voice with my own and covered his face with captions much like my popular “Trump without Trump” videos. Thank you for your support.

This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Trump: Good evening. Before we begin, I’m proud to report that our country is safer, stronger and far wealthier than it has ever been before. We are doing great. Less than two years ago, we inherited an economic and social disaster after the worst inflation in 48 years. The wide open borders with millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, including criminals of all types and 11,888 murderers, many of whom killed more than one person.

Fact check:

• The national debt has increased since Trump was sworn in for his second term.

• The U.S. is currently engaged in a war with Iran. That would not make the U.S. safer.

• Trump implied that 11,888 murderers recently entered this country. This line is part of Trump’s stump speech of sorts. He uses it often and sometimes exaggerates it. The number is based on a letter ICE sent to Congress in 2024 but Trump is misrepresenting the data.

  • According to reporting by NBC News: A DHS spokesman said in a statement: “The data in this letter is being misinterpreted. The data goes back decades; it includes people who entered the country over the past 40 year or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this administration. It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.”

Trump: We had transgender for everybody, men in women sports, crime ravaging our cities. And the whole world was laughing at us as a nation, but not anymore. Two years ago, our country was dead. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. America is respected like we have never been respected before. We have more money being invested in the United States than at any time in the history of our country. More Americans are working today than ever before. This week, it was announced that inflation saw the largest monthly decline in more than six years. Just happened. Just given out. The media reported it and we accept it the best in six years. The tax cuts in our great, big beautiful bill are saving hard working families thousands and thousands of dollars.

Fact Check:

• Inflation saw the largest monthly decline in more than six years - The last reading for inflation (Consumer Price Index) was 3.5% which is higher than it was at the start of the second term of the Trump administration (3.0%). Bragging about a drop in inflation is also odd since it was 4.2% the month prior which was also during the second year of the Trump administration.

• Transgender for everybody - This is a strange bigoted comment that Trump makes often in his speeches. Absolutely no one is promoting the idea that everyone should be transgender.

• More Americans are working today than ever before - Trump makes this claim often in his speeches. It’s largely meaningless as it’s driven by population growth.

  • Black unemployment

    • Trump Jan. 2025 - 6.2%

    • Trump June 2026 -6.6%

    • Tump Nov. 2025 - 8.2% - highest for second term

  • Latino unemployment

    • Trump Jan. 2025 - 4.8%

    • Trump June 2026 - 5.2%

    • Trump Sept. 2025 - 5.5% - highest for second term

• The tax cuts in our great, big beautiful bill are saving hard working families thousands and thousands of dollars. - According to Tax Policy Center the average tax savings was $2900 most of which went to high income Americans.

  • Low income (Less than $35,000) - average of $160 or less than 1% of after tax income

  • Middle income ($67,000 - $119,000) average of $1,850 or less than 2.4% of their after tax income.

  • Higher income ($460,000 - $1.1 million) average tax cut of $21,000 or 4.3% of their after tax income

  • Highest income ($5 million or more) average tax cut of $300,000 or 3.3% of their after-tax income.

Trump: Like with the provisions, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security for our great seniors, along with the interest deduction on a loan used to purchase a car, but only if that car is made in America, and a 100% expensing for our job creating businesses. Our stock markets are at their highest point in many years. But we can actually say of all time and year 401K’s pensions and retirement accounts are setting records every single day, the highest in history. For years we paid the highest price for prescription drugs anywhere in the world. Now we pay the lowest price under my most favorite nations policy, because I was able to get the rest of the world and the pharmaceutical companies to act responsibly. Drug prices are coming down by 70, 80 and 90%. TrumpRx.gov. This will ultimately reduce the cost of health care. You have to go to TrumpRx.gov and take advantage of it. But the cost of healthcare is coming way down because of what we’ve done with prescription drugs and with Trump accounts. Every child in America now has access to a tax free investment account to save for their future.

Fact Check

• No tax on Social Security - According to the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy ITEP - This only applies to some Americans who receive Social Security benefits.

• No tax on tips - According to the Bipartisan Policy Center - The benefit only applies to around 2.6% - 3% of Americans. It is also capped at $25,000 per year. The deduction is written as a temporary provision of the tax code and applies from January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2028.

• No tax on overtime - According to the Tax Policy Center only benefits about 9% of the U.S. workforce. A worker can deduct no more than $12,500 in overtime pay ($25,000 if married). The deduction applies only to the portion that exceeds their regular pay. It is also temporary and will expire in 2028.

• For years we paid the highest price for prescription drugs anywhere in the world. Now we pay the lowest price under my most favorite nations policy - This is incorrect and misleading. This particular lie is quite brazen as most Americans would notice that the cost of their prescriptions hasn’t changed. According to FactCheck only a few companies have agreed to lower prices on some drugs. TrumpRx includes an extremely limited amount of medications with deals for people who can pay with cash without insurance.

Trump: Billions and billions of dollars are being invested, put in by companies and individuals to take care of our children so that at age 18, they will have potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in their account, and they’ll get off to a great start in life. So for that, go to TrumpAccounts.gov and sign up your child or any child who’d like to sign up. Our previously wide open borders have been transformed into the most secure borders in the history of our country, with zero illegal aliens being admitted to the United States in the past 14 months, that is zero. Nobody thought it was possible. We had the worst border in the history of our country and now we have the best. Crime is plummeting nationwide with the murder rate at its lowest level since 1900, or more than 125 years ago.

Fact Check

• Trump accounts will most likely benefit the children of wealthy parents who can afford to invest far more than a lower income family. Families are allowed to contribute up to $5000 annually tax free. Trump accounts provide higher income Americans with another way to lower their tax liability. They will likely make income inequality worse.

• Zero illegal aliens being admitted to the United States in the past 14 months - although illegal crossing have been greatly reduced there’s no evidence that it’s been reduced to absolutely nothing. According to the Cato Institute the Trump administration has reduced legal immigration more than illegal immigration. Illegal immigration was already on the decline when Trump started his second term.

• Crime is plummeting nationwide - This is true but misleading. According to the Council on Criminal Justice the trend started before Trump was sworn into his second term. The dramatic downward trend started in 2022 after a brief spike caused by the pandemic.

Trump: We’re making a record investment in our armed forces, and we have the strongest and most powerful military by far anywhere in the world. I built it during my first term, and unfortunately, we’re forced to use it now. We won in Venezuela, which is now working with us to produce millions and millions of barrels of oil. We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly.

Fact Check

• We won in Venezuela, which is now working with us to produce millions and millions of barrels of oil. - There has been little transparency about exactly what is going on with the oil extracted from Venezuela. According to the Council on Foreign Relations Venezuela has exported around $8 billion worth of crude oil since Maduro was forcibly removed from office by the United States. Most of the oil was exported to the U.S., India and Spain. The Trump administration told Congress that there is an account in Qatar that is handling some of the transactions. There has yet to be a public accounting of where the funds are going or how they are being spent by the United States or Venezeula. Most of the corrupt Maduro regime remains in power in Venezuela.

False Claims About Election Integrity

Trump: America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed, because no country could be great without fair and honest elections. You have to trust your country, because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness. And that’s very simple. No trust, no greatness. For many years, I’ve called for a bold, swift, and decisive action to protect the integrity of America’s elections. Every American deserves to know that when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, and that is to make that system secure. One where cheating and interference are not just difficult, but virtually impossible. Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard. Tonight I’m announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence. Revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes, like levels never thought possible to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.

Fact Check

• Revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure - According to reporting by The New York Times:

  • One of the documents posted on the White House website was blunt: “We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results.”

• Trump is also sabotaging his own efforts. According to the New York Times

  • Despite his stated concern about U.S. election security, President Trump during his second term has overseen significant cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), including to its election work.

    • Trump has cut around 1/3 of the workforce at the CISA

    • The agency does not have a senate confirmed leader in Trump’s second term.

    • Last week Trump fired the three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, an independent, bipartisan commission that supports states in administering their elections.

Trump: Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you. The American people are beautiful, our great American people. But that all changes right now. The documents we will release starting tonight have been gathered by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, a great group of people, along with the staff of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, supported by our top intelligence agency chiefs, who have all personally reviewed the findings. We are presenting this evening and fully confirmed their authenticity. You can see these documents for yourself at WhiteHouse.gov. That’s WhiteHouse.gov. Go check it out. Our purpose in disclosing this information is not to weaken confidence in elections, but to earn that confidence by confronting vulnerabilities and correcting them very, very quickly. And that’s what we’re doing. The documents cover five major areas of concern. First, they show that over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files.

Fact Check

• China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files. - According to the U.S. Census only 174 million Americans were registered to vote in 2024. Some voter information is publicly available or available for purchase from states. Since states are in charge of elections, not the federal government, the rules vary from state to state.

Trump: That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening. This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare. The intelligence even shows that China has signed a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project. Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the Deep State very, very famous group of people, many cases in our intelligence agency work to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China’s sinister election meddling.

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Fact Check

• The Deep State - according to EBSCO - The term “deep state” refers to a purported covert network within the U.S. government that is believed to exert significant influence over national policy and decision-making, despite lacking formal legislative power. Advocates of this concept suggest that its members operate behind the scenes, impacting various facets of governance such as the military and intelligence agencies. The deep state is complete nonsense. Some folks on the far left also claim it’s manipulating governments against leftist causes.

Trump: Covering it up from both the president and the American people like nobody thought was possible. U.S. spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020, when they discovered that tens of millions of voter data think of that. Tens of millions of voter’s data in 18 states have been bought, stolen or hacked by China. Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden. They did not disclose to me as president or to anyone else. And to the best of our knowledge, they did not inform Congress. In fact, all they kept saying is this is the most secure election in the history of our country.

Fact Check

• This is the most secure election in the history of our country. - The fact that U.S. elections are NOT federalized makes them more secure. According to the PBS News Hour

  • America votes in more than 10,000 different election jurisdictions, each with different rules set by state and sometimes local governments.

    That structure makes the nation’s elections extraordinarily complicated — and also safe from widespread fraud. And when misconduct does happen — rarely — security protocols frequently catch it.

Trump: A standard, very pat line that was divvied out to, say, the cover up of this colossal security breach is even more disturbing in light of the additional information showing that China engaged in other election related activities to undermine my first administration and our 2020 campaign. They did not want and they just didn’t want it. They fought like hell not to have it. Donald Trump to win. And for good reason. As the documents we are releasing show CIA reporting explicitly stated, and I quote in mid 2018, the Chinese Communist Party’s policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president in an effort to reduce the U.S. president’s votes and make him resign or prevent his reelection. Isn’t that nice? Also in mid 2018, China was working to influence the results of the U.S. midterm elections, and later, the results of the 2020 presidential election itself. Separately, in mid 2019, the Chinese government’s strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the U.S. president.

Fact Check

• Chinese government’s strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the U.S. president. - According to reporting by CNN the exact opposite is true.

  • This is not what the official Intelligence Community assessment concluded after assessing all of the material related to the 2020 election. The intelligence services agreed that China, rather than actively fighting to block Trump from winning, did not try to interfere in the election because they felt such meddling would not be worth the risk. Read morefrom CNN’s Sean Lyngaas.

Trump: They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn’t so hot, when actually your president has done a great job and they did everything possible to do exactly that. Going on, this document says, and this is by the CIA. The strategy included efforts to use Chinese contacts with big U.S. companies to influence U.S. business leaders, to turn against the president of the United States of America.

Fact Check

• Chinese contacts with big U.S. companies to influence U.S. business leaders, to turn against the president of the United States of America. - The Chinese wouldn’t have to do much to make Trump unpopular as he was polling in the high 30s and low 40s in the last two years of his first term.

Trump: The Chinese government sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president and paid them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him, as many as they could, and they didn’t care what they said. The Chinese government wanted U.S. president to lose the next election, and the reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them, charge them billions and billions of dollars worth of tariffs and built the strongest military anywhere in the world. We have the strongest military anywhere in the world. These are exact quotes from the CIA reporting.

Fact Check

• Charge them (China) billions and billions of dollars worth of tariffs - According to the Council on Foreign Relations - Foreign government do not pay tariffs. American companies that import Chinese goods pay the tariffs when they are imported into this country. Tariffs are in import tax paid for by Americans.

• The Chinese government sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president and paid them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him. This is ironic since Russia paid right-wing influencers large sums of money to trash Joe Biden during his presidency. In many cases the influencers didn’t know they were being paid by Russia they thought they were working for an American media company. Russia has also worked with far left-wing media personalities to sow division in the U.S. The goal of the Russian government is to create as much political discord within the U.S. as possible.

Trump: The name of the person doing the quote is now under review, but it gets even worse. Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China’s activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden. Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China’s election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. These were briefings I would get almost every day. Everything was kept out. That was of importance. One email among intelligence analysts admitted that they had, quote, deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing to withhold information regarding Chinese activities related to the election. Another official inside the FBI wrote that she was running, quote, a shadow government, unquote, to keep intelligence about China’s election meddling from becoming known and to keep it away from the honorable press. Other officials who witnessed such efforts perceive the motivations to be blatantly political.

Trump: Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags information, and this is a group of bags that were used to destroy information given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned. It was supposed to be burned. These bags were supposed to be at a different level by different people, incinerated and checked. But it never happened. Maybe we got lucky. We believe this was not done on purpose, but rather through gross incompetence of the people that was supposed to burn the bags. But the findings are stunning.

Fact Check

• Destroy information given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned. - Now we are getting into things I couldn’t possibly fact check because they are so fantastical. Trump is going all the way back to the Obama administration. He offers nothing specific. In other parts of this speech Trump claimed China was plotting against him as early as mid-2018. In order for Obama to be involved in any of this we’d have to go back to January 20, 2009, to January 20, 2017. This also doesn’t follow basic logic as I guess the Chinese wanted Trump to win in 2016.

Trump: Today, I’m asking the office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden, to fire those involved in the cover up, and to file criminal charges, if appropriate, against these people. Yet concealing China’s meddling was only the beginning. The third set of documents we are releasing proves that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems. Dishonest. Almost all.

Fact Check

• The third set of documents - According to reporting by CNN

  • The emails released by the White House are heavily redacted. Officials repeatedly try to make clear their belief that China is not actively trying to interfere in the election. Follow along with CNN’s team reading the newly released documents.

  • I will defer to a larger media company over this point as I do not have the resources to attack an avalanche of paperwork put out by the White House. I will do my best to provide you has many links as possible to reliable sources. Larger media companies have entire teams dedicated to sorting through what is most likely useless documents.

Trump: They’re vulnerable and they’re easily compromised. And people within our government knew that. Tonight, we’re publishing a series of previously classified U.S. intelligence community assessments and other reports proving that our government has long known these machines are extremely exposed to attack. As one assessment states, we judge that the United States adversaries, including, at a minimum, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, as well as non-state groups have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure. That’s unquote. But that’s some statement, isn’t it, made by supposedly great patriots of our country. The document goes on to further state that, quote, we assess that centralized election related data repositories such as voter registration databases, poll books and other official election websites are most vulnerable to exploitation, and adversaries could use this access to these systems to disrupt election processes within the United States of America. Tonight, we’re releasing all of those findings and spanning from January 2020 to June 2026. This is a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy. Many people have questioned whether it could actually be possible to electronically manipulate vote totals or change election results on these terrible machines. Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime, and Venezuela.And that’s exactly what happened. Conspiring to digitally rig their own country’s elections in 2020. And that’s what they did. This reporting included precise details about methods the regime developed to digitally alter vote totals in ways that could not be detected, even with an audit, no matter how deep they went.

Fact Check

• Centralized election related data repositories - the key word in that phrase is centralized. The U.S. has no federalized voting systems. Since voting is handled by the states any voter rolls or databases would be broken up into 50 states and U.S. territories. States are allowed to use different voting machines, counting systems and even have their own set of rules for mail-in ballots or early voting. This complicated multi-state system makes the U.S. voting process much more difficult to hack or manipulate.

Trump: This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never, ever be hacked or compromised like it was in the past. The fourth set of documents reveals that even when significant evidence of fraud has been detected, it has been buried and covered up. Among the disclosures tonight are FBI files detailing evidence of alleged fraud by a large scale voter registration operation in Michigan. In 2020, Michigan State Police raided a Democrat Get out the vote organization corrupt group in Muskegon. And we’re so concerned by what they found. They were just so concerned. They couldn’t believe it, actually, that they contacted the FBI in Detroit. The documents state that some canvassers admitted to FBI agents that they signed voter registration forms and other people’s names, submitted fraudulent registration for people who did not exist, and received gift cards tied to their number of applications that they produced. In other words, it was pay, play and cheat. The FBI agents working on the case believed that crimes were committed. Yet the Biden Department of Justice slow walked the investigation and killed it. Tonight I’m asking the FBI director to ensure that the matter is fully investigated and to work with the Department of Justice to prosecute those responsible for any crimes.

Fact Check

• Biden Department of Justice slow walked the investigation and killed it. - According to reporting by CNN

  • According to local reporting at the time, no ballots were issuedas a result of this incident. A clerk noticed problems with the forms and they were not processed. Attorney General at the time said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud despite efforts to find it.

Trump: Finally, to reveal just how vulnerable our elections continue to be. We are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. According to the DHS review, state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democrat states refused to share their voter files. The real number is actually much higher than that.

Fact Check

• 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote - According to the Bipartisan Policy Center non-citizen voting is extremely rare. Nationwide, records from a federal citizenship verification tool show that just 0.04% of voter verification cases are returned as noncitizens.

• In some cases a noncitizen can be registered to vote through a clerical error or mistake. Being registered to vote is not the same thing as casting a ballot or voting in a federal election.

• Even the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation found in its study that non-citizen voting was not a concern.

  • According to the American Immigration Council The Heritage Foundation documented just 68 total cases of noncitizen voting going back to the earliest cases documented in the 1980s.

Trump: Yet even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote. Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible. Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls. And yet we still have elections with no voter I.D., no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.

Trump: As one example of the insanity, California’s recent election for mayor of L.A. and Governor was held on June 2nd a long time ago. But it was just completed a few days ago, on July 10th. Think of that. Much more than one month took a month to count the votes. I wonder what they were doing. This is worse than any third world country. There’s no third world country that has elections like we are.

Fact Check

• California’s recent election for mayor of L.A. and Governor was held on June 2nd a long time ago. But it was just completed a few days ago, on July 10th. - There is no evidence of any widespread voter fraud in the state. The fact that Steve Hilton, a Republican, made it into the top two candidates of the jungle primary system is more evidence that the voting system was fair. Often the two top candidates in California for a statewide primary are Democrats.

Trump: In a rare move, NBC and ABC Fake News have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it. They and others in the media, as part of a plot they want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to keep it going. They want to protect the radical left. They can’t have a great country. And that’s true. You can’t have a great country without free and fair elections. Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses. They use our public multi-billion dollar in value airways for absolutely no money. They pay nothing. All we want is honesty in our elections and honesty in reporting. They pay nothing for a multi-billion dollar assets.

Fact Check

• NBC and ABC Fake News have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it. - Presidential speeches are not automatically approved for primetime airtime. Networks are even more hesitant to broadcast presidential speeches during and election year. The major broadcast networks have denied requests from past presidents including Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Trump: Great damage has been done to our country. Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen and the trust of the American people was lost. This cannot be allowed to continue. Every American, whether you a Republican, Democrat, independent or otherwise, should be able to agree that we deserve the most secure, honest and fair election system anywhere in the world. Secure elections shouldn’t be a partisan. Really should just. We should be together. Democrats, Republicans, independents, everybody. And it should not be a partisan issue. It should cause to unite us, not to divide us. This should be a cause. We should be united, not divided in light of the brand new and irrefutable information I have revealed tonight, my administration is in the process of notifying the states whose election data was compromised by the People’s Republic of China and many others. We will be working closely to mitigate any harm, and we’re taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected so we can never be bought. We can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again. Tomorrow, the Secretary of Homeland Security will hold a briefing to outline his department’s recent work confirming cyber vulnerabilities in our electronic voting systems.

Trump: They are bad. We’re in the process of informing governors, senators and members of Congress of potential issues in their states. If you look at voting today, it’s in such bad shape in so many states, and we are committing to fix it. And we’re also committing to be working with those states and local jurisdictions to help them fix and patch known technical vulnerabilities. Before the midterm elections. We have very important elections coming up. We want those elections, to be honest. I’ve also ordered DHS to notify every state about non-citizens on their voter rolls, and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from the lists immediately. But most importantly, addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass this Save America Act.

Fact Check

• But most importantly, addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass this Save America Act. - According to reporting by The New York Times The Save America Act could disinfranchise an estimated 9% of eligible voters or 21.3 million Americans.

• In 2011 the state of Kansas issued similar rules which resulted in about 12% or 31,000 eligible voters having their applications rejected. A federal judge ended up striking down the law in 2018.

Trump: How easy is that to do? Unless you want to cheat. The only reason you wouldn’t do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad, and your candidates are so pathetic that you can’t get away or can’t get elected any other way. This landmark bill requires that all voters must show photo voter ID. How simple is that? Could I have your photo, please? Photo voter I.D.? All voters must provide proof of citizenship. Are you a citizen of our country? Please. And hopefully, there will be no corrupt mail in ballots. Which, if you watched California in so many other places, mail in ballots are inherently corrupt. So you would have no mail in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel. If you’re going away on business or vacation. These reforms are urgently needed to stop the vulnerabilities that I’ve mentioned to all Americans. I ask you to pick up your phone tomorrow, call your representatives in the House and Senate, and demand that they pass the Save America Act without delay. Together, we will restore faith and confidence in our country, and we will be bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. Thank you. God bless you. God bless our great military and God bless America. Thank you very much

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According to the Fox News narrative party leaders decided to pick a deeply flawed yet charismatic blue collar oyster farmer, Graham Platner, to run for the U.S. Senate in Maine. The second he started to dip in the polls the Democratic machine convinced one of his ex-girlfriends to tell the press that Graham sexually assaulted her.

When Platner dropped out of the race the Democratic establishment would replace him with their preferred candidate - someone less radical and more likely to defeat Susan Collins, a moderate Republican who has represented Maine in the U.S. Senate for over 29 years.

Did this theory make any sense? No, but that wasn’t going to stop anyone at Fox from promoting it. Platner’s many shortcomings and disastrous personal life was somehow all part of the master plan to disenfranchise voters and sneak in a new candidate at the last minute to run against a well-funded incumbent.

Also last week as more evidence came out during the preliminary hearing for the suspect in the murder of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk the network lambasted opportunistic un-named podcasters and pundits who knowingly promoted false stories about his death.

So, Fox News, the same network that pushed elaborate fabrications about the 2020 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden family, the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, undocumented immigrants, and the World Economic Forum was suddenly outraged about conspiracy theories.

All irony is dead on Fox News.

Other major stories on the network last week included:

• The new red scare - the communist takeover of the United States

• Trump’s intervention into a red card call at the World Cup

• The war in Iran (the network’s least favorite subject)

According to the Fox News narrative party leaders decided to pick a deeply flawed yet charismatic blue collar oyster farmer, Graham Platner, to run for the U.S. Senate in Maine. The second he started to dip in the polls the Democratic machine convinced one of his ex-girlfriends to tell the press that Graham sexually assaulted her.

When Platner dropped out of the race the Democratic establishment would replace him with their preferred candidate - someone less radical and more likely to defeat Susan Collins, a moderate Republican who has represented Maine in the U.S. Senate for over 29 years.

Did this theory make any sense? No, but that wasn’t going to stop anyone at Fox from promoting it. Platner’s many shortcomings and disastrous personal life was somehow all part of the master plan to disenfranchise voters and sneak in a new candidate at the last minute to run against a well-funded incumbent.

Also last week as more evidence came out during the preliminary hearing for the suspect in the murder of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk the network lambasted opportunistic un-named podcasters and pundits who knowingly promoted false stories about his death.

So, Fox News, the same network that pushed elaborate fabrications about the 2020 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden family, the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, undocumented immigrants, and the World Economic Forum was suddenly outraged about conspiracy theories.

All irony is dead on Fox News.

Other major stories on the network last week included:

• The new red scare - the communist takeover of the United States

• Trump’s intervention into a red card call at the World Cup

• The war in Iran (the network’s least favorite subject)

Fox Shows I covered last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• Hannity

• The Ingraham Angle - Tuesday and Wednesday

• Trump’s many press appearances

Conspiracy Theories are Amazing When They are About Democrats

Last week, Jenny Racicot, an ex-girlfriend of Graham Platner, told POLITICO that he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago.

Racicot previously spoke with The New York Times about Platner but had only included details of the alleged sexual assault ‘off the record.” She was quoted by the News York Times as describing his behavior as ‘reckless’ and ‘unsettling.’

Immediately after the alleged attack Racicot spoke to her therapist and later shared details about what happened with Platner with a new boyfriend in 2022 and later an acquaintance in 2023.

She also saved private Facebook messages warning the acquaintance about getting involved with Platner. In the exchange Racicot implied that Platner sexually assaulted her.

Last week she shared her story with Jack Tapper at CNN where she came across as a highly credible person with receipts to back up her account. Racicot also said she shared the same politics as Platner which was one reason she didn’t come forward sooner.

Platner denied any wrongdoing but within a few days of the new accusations against him decided to drop his candidacy for U.S. Senate in Maine.

This was the number one story on the shows I covered on Fox News last week taking up about 27% of programming.

In the past few weeks Fox News already spent an inordinate amount of time on Platner’s many liabilities - the Nazi tattoo on his chest, sexting scandals outside his marriage, profiles on sketchy dating websites, as well as numerous accounts of his erratic and allegedly abusive behavior towards women.

Fox News didn’t just report on the alleged sexual assault they crafted a conspiracy involving the Democratic Party.

On Monday on Jesse Watters Primetime, Kevin McCarthy, former Speaker of the House, was the first person on the network to make involve the Democratic Party in Platner’s disastrous personal behavior.

“His poll numbers were dropping. They only had to July 13th to replace if this had happened past July 13th. They couldn’t take them off the ballot. And it seems as though they should have known with all the backdrop.”

“So I want to ask you about this. It smells highly coordinated, as you said,” said guest host Charlie Hurt.

Later the same night on Hannity Republican strategist Erin McQuire also said the accusations against Platner were somehow coordinated by the Democratic Party.

“And now that they are seeing the polling numbers soften, they are seeing Susan Collins run, as she always does as a candidate for Maine. They’re saying, oh, we’re about to lose again power is all we care about. So we’re going to try to push Graham Platter out.”

The next day on The Five Dana Perino made the same claim.

“It’s because the recent polling shows that Graham Platner was going to lose to Susan Collins. And they thought, wow, we only have two weeks to figure this out. So we I guess that we had better do that.”

Radio host Dana Loesch made the same accusation that night on Jesse Watters Primetime.

“They were all in on him until they started seeing some of the most recent polling. According to two new New York Times Siena News poll, that came out and was looking at, voters in Maine, and it showed that he’s slipping significantly amongst working class voters.”

On Wednesday Joe Concha, a Fox News contributor, also repeated the exact same talking point.

“Exactly, Charlie. We’ve seen this movie before, right? A Democratic candidate dropped in the polls. In this case, the Nazi tattoo guy. Now he’s trailing in most surveys to Republican Susan Collins. Democrats panic. That deadline you talked about July 13th of either being stuck with Plattner or replacing him with a candidate, that party leader decide and not the actual, you know, public through voting.”

Conspiracy Theories are Bad When they Are About Charlie Kirk

Last week Fox News included exhaustive coverage of a preliminary hearing surrounding the assassination of Charlie Kirk. As the folks at Fox News laid out the evidence that was presented to the court they complained about predatory podcasters who were profiting from false stories about Kirk’s murder.

On Thursday on Fox & Friends Brian Kilmeade spoke about Donald Trump Jr.’s concern for the truth about Kirk’s murder.

“Meanwhile, Don Jr, was, in this was in the courtroom and he was escorted Erica Kirk, day one and heard enough. He said this should kill off what he’s heard so far. Should kill off all the conspiracy theories.” said Kilmeade.

Producers included a brief statement the president’s oldest son made about the trial. It was repeated several times across multiple programs last week.

Kilmeade’s co-host Emily Compango also complained about the conspiracy theorist.

“This is fueling the fans of conspiracy theories. Just let it go. And the defense is arguing, you know, again, they’re arguing things that have a place in trial, which they are not there yet. So they say, well, the defendant has a right to face the accuser, etc.. That doesn’t even come into play until later,” said Compango.

Kilmeade also chimed in.

“Podcasters who sit there and loving it because they get their clicks making up stuff that is, anyone paying attention knows they’re being taken aback.”

Lawrence Jones thought it might be affecting the trial.

“Well, see, that’s my problem with this whole thing is because although the defense is not making those arguments that the podcasters are making. They’re using as leverage in this case. They keep asking questions that hint hint at that.”

Later during the same program, Miranda Devine, a journalist who wrote a book about unproven crimes discovered in Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop had strong words about conspiracy theorists.

“At the I think the good thing that’s come out of this preliminary hearing so far is that it really makes the conspiracy theorists look like idiots, because there are.”

On Friday Lawrence Jones brought it up again on Fox & Friends.

“Some of the conspiracies. I’ve tried to track down those leads that they’re talking about these red herrings, but none of it matches the evidence that,” said Jones.

He was cut off by Brian Kilmeade,

“You mean that Erika was involved, that Israel was involved. Egypt was involved, that Erika’s boyfriend was involved. And you mean all those ridiculous conspiracy theories?”

Most of the conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s murder are fueled by folks further to the right of Fox News. Candace Owens, a popular podcaster and virulent antisemite has been one of the major sources of disinformation about Kirk’s death.

Fox News has criticized her before without naming her.

Fox News Said A Bunch of Crazy Things about the World Cup

President Trump’s interference with a game involving the U.S. soccer team was a major story last week on Fox News. The president was disappointed that a star player, Folarin Balogun, was issued a red card in a game against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The penalty would have made him ineligible to play in a Round of 16 match against Belgium. President Trump personally contacted FIFA President Gianni Infantino to request a review of the suspension.

FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee intervened by applying Article 27, which deferred the automatic one-game ban and placed him on a one-year probation.

Trump’s actions drew massive international criticism as it appeared that the president of a host country was putting his thumb on the scale to give an unfair advantage to his country’s team.

Belgium ended up trouncing the U.S. in Round 16 eliminating the U.S. team from the World Cup entirely.

Fox News reacted by downplaying the controversy and trashing Europe. On Tuesday Benny Johnson made several alarming comments about the incident on Jesse Watters Primetime.

“We could do a trade, man. We’re talking sports here, Charlie. We could just swap. We could swap these miserable lives. They can go live in their socialist utopias in Europe with no ice and no air conditioning. And they’re the glorious free health care that we paid for with our military budget. And we can swap them. This has been an incredible propaganda win for Trump and the American people. . . .The incredible result of having the World Cup here and the people of Europe saying, we love it here in America. They have this thing called ranch dressing. They have this thing called free refills. It’s a paradise. Belgium. . . . You’re not going to believe this has won zero Super Bowls. And Belgium has won zero World Series and I think that’s really important for people to take away. . . And also I would like to propose a rule for FIFA. Nobody asked me, but I think this should be something that is standard. If if America has had to invade your country to liberate you in the last hundred years, then we should get a one goal advantage,” said Johnson.

The next day Laura Ingraham also seemed to take personal offense to the fact that the United States was no longer part of the competition.

“But Europe is dominating the game. But America still leads where it actually matters. Innovation ie military power, our economy, energy production, our GDP and of course now space exploration,” said Ingraham.

Dan Dakich of Outkick declared that Trump would have been called racist if he hadn’t stepped in to try to help Folarin Balogun.

“You know the guy, Laura, that he helped Folarin Balogun is Black. Had he not helped Folarin Balogun? I’m going here. He would have been considered racist for not helping a Black player.”

No one on Fox News mentioned that Folarin Balogun was only able to play for the United States team due to birthright citizenship. Balogun was born in Brooklyn, New York after his Nigerian mother was told she was too pregnant to board a flight back to Africa.

War with Iran - Boots on the Ground?

Tuesday - July 7, 2026

On Tuesday the U.S. struck military targets in Iran after ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz. All of the evening shows included a short segment that included basic facts about the attacks.

• The Five - one and a half minutes

• The Ingraham Angle - one minute

• Jesse Watters Primetime - one minute

• Hannity - two minute segment

Wednesday - July 8, 2026

Things changed a bit on Wednesday as fighting continued

• The Five - 10-minute segment with commentary. The full panel discussed the conflict at length

  “And so the red line seems to be approaching, which is what the one thing nobody wants is boots on the ground. But I don’t see how you get the straights open. Rid of the IRGC and the nuclear material secreted in a way that we can definitely say it’s all out of there, but without putting eyes on, I just don’t see it,” said Paul Mauro, an attoney and retired NYPD inspector.

• The Ingraham Angle - Lucas Tomlinson, a Fox News correspondent, briefly discussed the military strikes in Iran for about 30 seconds before transitioning to a brief segment about Trump at the NATO Summit.

• Jesse Watters Primetime - Guest host Charlie Hurt also included information about the NATO summit. Hurt also spoke with Chuck Devore, a retired military intelligence officer.

• Hannity - Guest host Kellyanne Conway also included a lot of media of Trump speaking about the conflict from the NATO summit. Conway also spoke with Victoria Coates of the Heritage Foundation and Jim Hanson chief strategist of the Middle East Forum. Hannity covered the story for a total of nine and half minutes. Hanson suggested Iranians could rise up against their own government.

“The people seem to assume that if we’re going to do regime change in some way or support it, that means we’re going to, you know, send the Navy Seals into Bangor to Tehran and try and overthrow the government and put U.S. boots on the ground. There are plenty of people in that country who do not want that government any more, you know, terrorizing their lives and ruining their country. They are the ones who can do that. And if we help them and tell them, that might be the best way for them to do this. That could be a way for it to happen.”

Thursday - July 9, 2026

• Fox & Friends - 11 minutes the war was discussed at length. Producers also included the same media clip of President Trump making declarations about his plans for Iran. Brian Kilmeade also spoke with Retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, former Deputy Commander of the United States Central Command.

“Well, again, I’d start outside the Gulf itself. Where you’re sure, in Chabahar or a city called Jask. That’s that’s risk free. Almost. It’s the hardest point in Iran for them to supply. Take. There’s a major port there. Start there. Take it out. Put boots on the ground, if you would. After you put any boots on the ground. And while I know there The message to the population of Iran that America is serious. Maybe I’ll finish this thing is the end. So part way up into the Gulf, towards Ketchum, towards Bonder boss, those areas and all along the Gulf control that and you can control Iran,” said Harward,

Interestingly enough Harward also appeared on the PBS News Hour last week where he also advocated for sending ‘boots on the ground’ into Iran.

Fox vs. PBS - How Two Networks Covered the Re-naming of Palm Beach International Airport

On Thursday Palm Beach International Airport was officially renamed Donald J. Trump International Airport.

To celebrate, the president’s son Eric Trump and a few other family members, got up in the middle of the night to fly Trump’s Boeing 757 out of PBI only to land it minutes later in DJT in order to be the first official flight.

Fox News was there with cameras on the darkened runway to capture the completely unimpressive moment.

Eric Trump then went on to praise his father for four and half minutes.

“I don’t think there’s anybody more synonymous with Palm Beach. The Donald Trump and maybe all of Florida. But, you know, it’s his home. He absolutely loves the state. . . Won the state by a major margin. You know, and this is the name change. And so now at the top of your take, instead of seeing PBR, you’re going to see DJT in perpetuity. And as I said before guys, I mean, you know, my father really put Palm Beach on the map in a, in a way. I mean, everybody considers Mar-A-Lago to be the winter White House, Southern Boulevard, which is a major road right in front of the airport. It just got renamed to President Donald J. Trump Boulevard in Palm Beach. And it’s actually why it’s now, obviously, President Donald J. Trump international Airport.”

How PBS Covered the Exact Same Story

The PBS News Hour included the name change in its news summary section in a brief 30-second segment.

“You get as of today, travelers flying in or out of Palm Beach, Florida will pass through President Donald J. Trump International Airport. The change follows a law Governor Ron DeSantis signed back in March, renaming Palm Beach International Airport after nearly half a century under that name. It’s part of a broader push to put Mr. Trump’s name or image on public buildings and other institutions. About a dozen U.S. airports are named for presidents, but it’s rare for an airport to be named after someone still living. And this is the first named for a sitting president. President Trump also took the unusual step of registering trademarks for the airport’s new name, raising questions about whether he stands to profit,” said co-anchor Geoff Bennett.

Fox News did not mention that Trump registered trademarks for the airport.

Candidate Endorsements

Candidate endorsements made up 1.4% of the airtime on the shows I covered last week.

• Mike Rogers - U.S. Senate, Michigan - Republican

• Rep. John James - Governor, Michigan - Republican

• Rep. Byron Donalds - Governor, Florida - Republican

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News with five hours of The PBS News Hour. This list has been truncated due to space. Source - PBS News Hour transcripts.

• Hamas says it has dissolved its government in Gaza as it prepares to transfer power to a U.N.-backed technical committee. A lower-level official made the announcement at a news conference last week as part of a U.S.-brokered cease-fire deal with Israel. But the militant group stopped short of saying it would disarm or hand over security to an international force, both of which are requirements in the deal’s second phase. Israel dismissed the announcement as an attempt by Hamas to avoid disarming, and it’s unclear what impact it will have on the ground, if any. Some Palestinians say they hope it’s a step toward peace. (PBS News Hour)

• Health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo say more than 500 people have now died in the Ebola outbreak. The Ministry of Health says the virus’ spread continues to outpace the response, with confirmed cases now above 1,500. In the meantime, health workers on the front lines are threatening to go on a 24-hour strike over unpaid benefits and poor working conditions.

  That could jeopardize clinical trials with experimental treatments, which opened for enrollment last week. (PBS News Hour)

• America's 250th birthday produced memorable images of fireworks and military aircraft flying over D.C. monuments. But one set of photos has gained notoriety for other reasons. They capture masked members of the white supremacist Patriot Front group marching through parts of Washington. Images of them on the Metro alongside other riders have gone viral. Amna Nawaz spoke with one of those riders. (PBS News Hour) *Fox News did not address this incident directly but on X (Twitter) Laura Ingraham claimed with no evidence that the group was somehow leftist protesters or an antifa group disguised as white supremacists.

• In Georgia a federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to collect the names and contact information of every Fulton County election worker from the 2020 election. In his ruling, the Trump-appointed judge said that, given the low need for the subpoenaed information and the highly burdensome nature of the disclosure, the subpoena is unreasonable. President Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that voter fraud in the heavily Democratic county led to his loss in Georgia in 2020. (PBS News Hour)

• In France, far right leader Marine Le Pen says she will run for president in 2027 after an appeals court shortened a ban on her eligibility to hold elected office. Last week the Paris court upheld Le Pen’s embezzlement conviction from the previous year and sentenced her to wear an electronic monitor. She has said such a condition would make campaigning impossible. During a TV interview, Le Pen said she would appeal the decision. (PBS News Hour)

• For more than 60 years, the federal government has relied on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce laws against workplace discrimination. The Department of Justice is now challenging a legal framework that has underpinned that work for decades. Geoff Bennett discussed the policy shift and its implications with Jenny Yang, a former chair of the EEOC. (PBS News Hour)

• A federal judge ordered that more than $5 million in damages be released to writer E. Jean Carroll, stemming from her case against President Trump. The money has been held in escrow since a jury found the president sexually abused her in the 1990s and then defamed her after she revealed the attack. In a two-page order, the judge cited the Supreme Court’s decision last month not to hear an appeal of the 2023 civil verdict. President Trump’s lawyers have already appealed to try to stop the payment. (PBS News Hour)

• Rahm Emanuel, a longtime defender of Israel, also warned that the country had become a “regional pariah who sees enemies everywhere.” Emanuel instead pushed for a 23-state solution involving Israel, the Palestinians, and the 21 Arab League nations. His comments reflect growing unease among Democrats about U.S. ties to Israel, with a recent survey finding that nearly six in 10 feel the U.S. is “too supportive.” (PBS News Hour)

• Ukraine struck more energy targets inside Russia last week with long-range drones. Its military released videos of strikes on tankers and other vessels in the Sea of Azov. They also hit oil refineries elsewhere. Also last week, President Trump pledged to grant Ukraine a license to build its own patriot air defense systems. In response, the Kremlin largely downplayed that development and instead focused on U.S. diplomatic efforts to end the war. (PBS News Hour)

• U.S. home prices hit an all-time high last month. The National Association of Realtors said that the median price for existing homes rose nearly 2% to around $440,000. Those elevated prices and high mortgage rates are adding pressure to would-be homebuyers. (PBS News Hour)

• With planning for the midterm elections well underway, President Trump has ousted the remaining members of a bipartisan federal agency that helps state and local officials run smooth elections and certify voting equipment. White House correspondent Liz Landers explained what happened at the Election Assistance Commission and the impact it could have in November. (PBS News Hour)

• There was a deadly ICE shooting in Houston last week of a Mexican man who had been living in the U.S. for decades. The Department of Homeland Security says Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not the intended focus of an immigration enforcement operation when the shooting occurred. Federal officials claim an officer then fired in self-defense after Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle,” but have provided no evidence to support that claim. A lawyer for three men who were also in the car is demanding an independent investigation. (PBS News Hour)

• The CDC says an intestinal parasite called cyclosporiasis has now reached more than 30 states. The agency has confirmed more than 800 cases of the parasite, which can cause weeks of gastrointestinal illness. At least 86 people have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported, and the source has not been identified, but it typically stems from contaminated irrigation water. Experts say to thoroughly wash fruits and vegetables or cook them before eating. (PBS News Hour)

• There were also wildfires in Spain and extreme flooding in China that Fox News did not report on last week.

By the Numbers

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