According to Fox News: Kamala Harris is A Flip Flopping Fading Fabulist

A condensed overview of 17 hour of Fox News for the week ending 9/8/24

Last week on Fox the network had to cobble together multiple grievances to attack Kamala Harris - she was fading in the polls, her accent changed in a speech, and she flip-flopped on fracking and plastic straws.

How dare anyone question Americans’ right to suck down 80 ounces of a highly sweetened, artificially colored and flavored beverage through a polypropylene hollow tube? What is freedom without plastic straws?

While Fox was worked up about Kamala Harris’ stance on beverage accessories Donald J. Trump held a press conference about a civil case where a jury found him liable of sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room.

The network’s glorious leader could, cheat on all three of his wives, file for bankruptcy multiple times, steal confidential documents, stiff contractors, lie about the 2020 election, impersonate his own publicist, cost Fox $787.5 million, compare migrants to animals, mock deceased veterans, and sit in the White House dining room while the U.S. Capitol was sacked and Fox News was still going to bash Kamala over her changing stance on plastic straws.

Anyone exclusively watching Fox News last week might not realize hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested their own government’s policies regarding the conflict with Hamas, the earth had its hottest summer on record, and a former Trump campaign official was indicted by the Department of Justice for work he did for a Russian media company.

Shows I covered last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• Hannity - Wednesday and Thursday - Trump Town Hall

Kamala Harris - Much Ado About Nothing

Last week the folks at Fox were really scraping the bottom of barrels in search of something horrible they could say about Kamala Harris.

She changed her mind about plastic straws.

The term ‘plastic straws’ showed up six times in the transcripts last week. In 2019 during a climate change themed town hall on CNN Kamala Harris was asked if she would support a ban on plastic straws.

"I think we should, yes," Harris responded. "Look, I'm going to be honest... It's really difficult to drink out of a paper straw... so we kinda have to perfect that a little bit more."

Harris has since changed her position. Fox News thought this was an incredibly important story. On Friday on “The Five,” Judge Jeanine Pirro presented Harris’ changing opinion as a ‘flip flop.’

“The hiding Harris strategy protects the VP from her epic list of flip flops, the latest being this 180 on banning plastic straws,” said Pirro.

Harris never promoted any legislation banning plastic straws while she was vice president but that wasn’t going to stop anyone at Fox from promoting the idea that it was a major part of her agenda.

Kamala Harris Slightly Changed Her Voice

Another pressing matter for Fox News hosts was the issue of Kamala’s regional dialect which they referred to as an ‘accent.’ On Tuesday during the first hour of “Fox & Friends,” Ainsley Earhardt brought up Harris’ speech in Detroit.

“There she is in Detroit she changed her accent when she was there in that similar accent and says she did the same, different accent,” said Earhardt.

Many Black pundits and journalists defended Harris.

Brian Broome, a columnist for the Washington Post, opened his op-ed about Harris’ appearance in Detroit with the following statement.

“I do not talk the same way in front of my White friends as I do my Black friends. I don’t care how long I’ve known the White person; I don’t care how close I am to them. I do not use the same language, or the same inflections, patterns or even vocalizations, that I do with my Black friends and my family.”

Harris’ slightly changing dialect was a great example of what linguists refer to as code switching - when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation.

Speakers might use code-switching, particularly with members of the same minority ethnic group, to make themselves more relatable to an audience.

Harris Changed her Record on Fracking

During the same CNN climate change marathon town hall in 2019 Harris said she would support a ban on fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, commonly simply referred to as simply fracking is a technique used to enable the extraction of natural gas or oil from shale and other forms of “tight” rock.

Fox featured a short media clip of Harris saying she would ban fracking repeatedly on every program I covered last week. It was also broadcast multiple times during the Trump town hall on “Hannity.”

The term ‘fracking’ showed up 57 times in the transcripts from last week.

“Will voters be able to overlook her fracking flip flop?” asked Emily Compagno asked as she sub-hosted “Fox & Friends,” on Monday.

Harris made no move to ban or limit fracking while she was vice president. In the past four years the use of fracking to extract oil has increased.

Everyone Hates Kamala Harris Now

The folks at Fox News really pushed the idea that most of the support for the Harris/Walz campaign has faded even though most polls weren’t showing it.

On Tuesday on “The Five,” Jesse Watters openly bragged that he doesn’t really care about reality.

“Judge. I only look at the stuff that makes me think Trump is going to win,” said Watters.

His co-host Dana Perino said she was bored with Harris.

“I do think that in the last two weeks she is losing airspeed and altitude,” said Dana Perino. On Wednesday she repeated herself. “And as I said yesterday, losing airspeed and altitude. Actually, this morning I was like, I'm bored. Why am I more interesting? I like all the vibes of the sugar. Highs are gone. Where's the nutrition? We need some nutrient. There's nothing on the table to eat. And now we have to wait another five days.”

On Friday Jesse Watters made an abrupt pivot from declaring he wasn’t interested in polls that didn’t show Trump winning to citing specific polling analysts.

“It’s fading. She’s fading. She peaked in August. Everybody knows that. Nate Silver now gives Donald Trump a 62% chance of winning the Electoral College. I don't care how much money she raises, not about his convention, but I don't care how much money she raises. Hillary raised twice as much as Trump and he smoked her.”

In 2016 Hillary won the popular vote and Trump only managed an electoral college win with razor thin margins in a handful of states.

Jessica Tarlov Defended Kamala Harris

On Friday, on “The Five,” Jessica Tarlov, the lone liberal on the show, defended Vice President Harris.

“I understand this is something that aggravates the media, because all we want to do is to have people accessible to us, so we can constantly talk about them and scrutinize every single thing that they said. But this will carry a lot more weight. If she hadn't just sat down with Dana Bash, she is doing debate prep. If you want a mark her for trying to be prepared for what could be the biggest night of her life that's going to fall on, it's in bad taste. That false? Yeah. I don't know what the right thing is for it. Kamala Harris is running a campaign that is resonating with the American public. That's just a fact about it. She has moved so far ahead of where Joe Biden was, you know, up 7 or 8 points in some of these states. She just pulled in $361 million in fundraising in August. That's triple what Trump brought in. And the most exciting part of that is that 1.3 million of those donors are new donors,” said Tarlov.

Tim Walz’s Distant Relatives Are Voting for Trump

On Wednesday on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” the Fox News hosts tried to make a lot out of an image of Trump voters in Nebraska.

“They say blood is thicker than water, but Tim Walz, his family in Nebraska won't be bleeding blue this November. His cousins put out this photo wearing ‘Walz’s for Trump’ shirts, and Trump reposted it, saying he looks forward to meeting them all soon. We have to be completely transparent. These are third cousins of the what's guy. Does it still count? Yeah, it does,” said Watters.

Although many folks on the internet thought the photo of a small group of folks in ‘ “Nebraska Walz’s for Trump”,” t-shirts was an AI generated image, it was authentic.

According to reporting by USA Today, the folks in the photograph were the descendants of Joseph Francis Walz, the brother of Walz’s grandfather.

Their surnames aren’t Walz which might be why they used the wrong punctuation for the plural form of Walz on their t-shirts.

The plural for Walz would be Walzes not Walz’s. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

“Names are proper nouns, which become plurals the same way that other nouns do: add the letter -s for most names (“the Johnsons,” “the Websters”) or add -es if the name ends in s or z (“the Joneses,” “the Martinezes”).”

Jesse Watters is Proud That He Sounds like Russian Disinformation

Last week the Department of Justice issued a criminal indictment to two employees of a Russian State-controlled media outlet which it said deployed nearly $10 million to publish content favorable to Russia using rightwing American influencers.

The scheme involved a Tennessee based media company that used well-known personalities Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson as well as three others to sow political division in the United States and weaken U.S opposition to Russian interests. The social media personalities were reportedly paid the outrageous sum of $400,000 a month to create content on YouTube.

Jesse Watters thought the entire story was another hoax designed to smear Donald J. Trump. On Wednesday on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” he proudly declared that his program could pass for Russian propaganda.

“If you're wondering what this Russia disinformation looks like, here it is. If you see the following narratives on the internet, it could be Russian interference. Are you ready? Record inflation. Unaffordable prices for food and essential goods. Risk of job losses for white Americans. Privileges for people of color. Threat of crime coming from people of color and immigrants. Overspending on foreign policy. The United States government wants us to believe that the Russians are using Republican talking points to interfere with the election. And if we see things online about DEI or migrant crime or even record inflation, it could be Russian propaganda. And anybody who emails this stuff around or says it on TV could be a Russian agent and should be under investigation. This show tonight has all the earmarks of Russian propaganda.”

Hunter Biden - The Dream Has Died

Multiple Fox News hosts could not hide their disappointment that they wouldn’t be able to obsessively cover the Hunter Biden’s criminal tax trial for the next few weeks.

Hunter Biden destroyed the hopes and dreams of the producers at Fox News when he pleaded guilty to all the charges he faced on the first day of his trial. The network’s hosts looked like children who got a smiley faced sticker were promised a pizza party with ice cream.

The term “Hunter” appeared in the transcripts 82 times last week. On Thursday Fox hosts tried to hype up the story.

“His dad on the last day in office in January, is going to pardon his son,” said Steve Doocy on “Fox & Friends,”

“They lost. I mean, they they by pleading guilty on the eve of the trial. You don't have much to trade away,” said Jonathan Turley on “Hannity.”

Jesse Watters added a conspiratorial twist to the story.

“He didn't pay his back taxes. The sugar brother, who's protected by the CIA, paid him. So the only option for Hunter was to plead guilty to all counts.”

On Friday, Francey Hakes, a former federal prosecutor, explained what she thought would happen to Hunter Biden during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“I think he'll get pardoned. I think his dad will pardon him going out. I don't think there's any question about that. I don't think Hunter Biden is this brave, selfless person. He's trying to portray by pleading guilty to save his family.

If that's what he wanted to do, he could have done it years ago. He could have done it when the charges were lodged against him. He could have negotiated a plea with the government. He could have pled guilty during that ridiculously soft plea agreement that they offered him last year. And he backed out of. So, I think that he'll never see a day in jail. And I think that the timing of this was such that it protects his father in pardoning him after the election rather than before.”

Fox News Gets Fact Checked by a Local Fox Affiliate in Colorado.

On Tuesday, on “The Five,” Jesse Watters brought up a story about Venezuelan gangs terrorizing an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado.

“Kamala’s open borders insanity is wreaking more havoc. Officials in Aurora, Colorado, are setting up a task force after terrifying video emerged of a vicious apartment invasion, allegedly by a dangerous migrant gang,”said Watters.

As he spoke an image of armed men trying to break into an apartment was featured on the left side of the screen.

I discovered a segment from a local Fox affiliate in the Denver area.

After two un-named anchors explained that residents in the apartment claimed poor management, not gangs, were the problem they cut to Courtney Fromm a correspondent reporting on location.

“The neighbors who actually live in the Edge at Lowry Apartments. They actually had a rally yesterday to talk about all of this and say, hey, this is not what's going on. . . Now, those who live there, they tell us they have had no issues with gang activity, but say the real crime is the horrible living conditions they've been dealing with, like the mountains of trash, bedbugs and even mice. And they say all of this happening without any help from the property management company . . . Now, the city shut down Nome Street because of code violations, but the management company says that they couldn't go in there and actually deal with the code violations because it was overrun by a Venezuelan gang.”

Steve Doocy Repeats a Lie About 9/11 Promoted by Trump

On Tuesday on the first hour of “Fox & Friends,” Steve Doocy repeated a myth that has been promoted by Donald J. Trump.

“Well, you know, Lawrence, after September 11th, you know, we saw here in the New York City area, particularly over in New Jersey, there were reports of people celebrating, went after the planes flew into the buildings,” said Doocy.

During the 2016 election cycle former president Donald J. Trump used to say that he saw thousands of people celebrating in Jersey City, New Jersey on the morning the the 9/11 terrorist attack.

"I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down, and I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering."

Trump also said he was in his Manhattan apartment the morning of the attack.

I’m not sure where Trump would have seen a scene like that as no one has unearthed media coverage of anyone celebrating the attack in the United States and local law enforcement in New Jersey have refuted Trump’s claims.

In reality Muslims in Paterson, New Jersey put up a banner on the city’s Main Street that said, “The Muslim community Does Not Support Terrorism.”

Fox Deals with the Reality of the Conflict in Israel

Since the vicious Oct. 7th attack Fox News has tried to posture as a strong advocate for Israel. For the first couple of weeks following the attack the network featured segments about the conflict on a daily basis.

As the war dragged on Fox largely ignored it. The network shifted its focus to pro-Palestine protesters and antisemitism on college campuses.

Fox has also promoted a false narrative that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a popular and beloved figure in Israel. Although he has devoted supporters Netanyahu has been polling miserably for months with many Israelis blaming him for the October 7th attack.

The conflict was reduced to short segments on “Fox & Friends,” along with a few mentions on the primetime shows. The PBS NewsHour, which has not taken a political stance on the war, featured hostage member families more often than Fox has.

Last weekend, after the murder of six hostages in Hamas captivity, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime. Angry Israelis also staged a massive general strike calling for a cease-fire agreement and immediate release of the remaining hostages.

Fox News threw together a segment that featured misleading images that downplayed the protests and called the general strike a ‘labor strike.’

Pete Hegseth interviewed Jonathan Dekel-Chen, an American Israeli whose son Sagui is believed to be held hostage by Hamas.

As Hegseth largely stared in shock Dekel-Chen explained how many Israelis view the conflict.

“Well, thank you for having me. First, a small correction. There are actually seven U.S. citizens still being held by Hamas as hostages four, we hope, are still alive. And three, that their murders have already been confirmed. As far as, messaging to, the Israeli government. My government. It's that, you know, the time is over for sort of selling, perpetuating this fantasy of total victory over Hamas based on the sacrifice of our sons, daughters, grandparents who are hostages in, in in Gaza.

You know, we've been at this for 11 months, hearing from our government that, you know, a little more military pressure and a little bit more military pressure is going to cause Hamas to come begging for an agreement in an exchange of our hostages. Clearly, that has not happened. Six bodies were returned yesterday of hostages who were alive until this past week. A week before that, six other hostages were returned after their murder. In months and months after October. October 6th. And so it is absolutely clear the only way to get the hostages home alive is by, some kind of negotiated agreement with Satan. Keeping in mind that all of this raid, all of Israel's military and intelligence, its senior commanders have been saying for weeks, if not months, then the fighting needs to stop in order to get the hostages back as many as possible alive. But all of the 101 hostages still remaining.”

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS NewsHour. The following list are stories PBS covered that Fox News did not. This week the list is slightly truncated due to space.

• Climate Disasters

  • The city of Phoenix, Arizona hit a new record last week as temperatures hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 100 days in a row. The last record of 76 days was set in 1993. This summer was the hottest summer on record across the planet.

• Updates in the Israel-Hamas War

  • PBS produced segments on how children in Israel-Palestine are going back to school during wartime. The network interviewed families in Northern Israel who have been displaced due to shelling from Hezbollah. PBS also featured a second segment of equal length about how children in Gaza are being educated in tents as nearly all of the schools in the region have been damaged or destroyed from Israeli airstrikes.

  • The U.S. called on Israel to investigate the death of a Turkish American citizen who was killed during an anti-settlement protest in the occupied West Bank. Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was fatally shot in the head by IDF forces. Witnesses say she did not pose a threat to Israeli forces.

  • The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that its plans to vaccine children in Gaza for Polio are going better than expected.

• Updates in the war in Ukraine

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted the resignation of Ukraine’s foreign minister. Four other Cabinet members have also resigned. Zelenskyy indicated last week that a reshuffle was imminent, with the war poised to enter a critical stage and as its 1,000-day mark looms in November.

  • A Russian missile attack on the city of Lviv near the border with Poland killed seven people. The attack prompted NATO member Poland to scramble fighter jets to the Ukrainian border area.

  • The U.S. committed another $250 million for weapons for Ukraine so it can defend against Russian attacks. Zelenskyy asked top U.S. military officials for permission to hit targets deeper inside Russia.

• The Justice Department today announced the seizure of a Dassault Falcon 900EX aircraft owned and operated for the benefit of Nicolás Maduro Moros and persons affiliated with him in Venezuela. The aircraft was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to the Southern District of Florida at the request of the United States based on violations of U.S. export control and sanctions laws.

• Last week hotel workers in Baltimore joined in a massive nationwide hotel strike formed by UNITE HERE, against Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott. More than 10,000 workers around the country went on strike for better pay and working conditions.

• PBS continued its coverage on the civil war in Sudan. International aid groups issued a joint declaration that the hunger crisis in Sudan is of historic proportions. Shopkeepers and school teachers have been deputized by the Sudanese military to help protect villages from the marauding Rapid Support Forces. Nearly 11 million people have been displaced due to the fighting.

• A Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant for the opposition’s former presidential candidate Edmundo González. The U.S. and other countries have declared González the winner of the last election as the ruling party and President Maduro have yet to offer up any evidence that they won.

• The activist group Human Rights Watch found links to the Venezuelan government and the violent crackdown on protesters, bystanders, opposition leaders, and critics following the July 28th presidential election.

• At least 100 were killed in northeast Nigeria when Boko Haram Islamic extremists opened fire on a market. More than 50 extremists drove in on motorcycles and started firing indiscriminately into places of worship and homes before setting buildings ablaze.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Haiti to meet with Prime Minister Conille, the Transitional Presidential Council, other political and security leaders, to advance a shared commitment to a secure and democratic Haiti.

• The Department of Justice charged Dimitri Simes, a former advisor to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, for work he did for a sanctioned Russian TV network.

• Rebecca Cheptegei, a 33-year-old Ugandan Olympic marathon runner, has died after being attacked by her former boyfriend. The man doused her in petrol and set her on fire after an argument over a piece of land.

• The Republic of Congo received a first delivery of 99,000 vaccines for Mpox after a massive outbreak of the virus. Jean Kaseya, Director-General of the Africa Centers for Disease Control, has said the continent now needs some 10 million doses to stop the spread of the virus.

• China will no longer allow international adoptions. At least 150,000 Chinese children have been adopted abroad in the last three decades. Hundreds of families who were in the process of adopting Chinese children are now in limbo.

• Sérgio Mendes, a Brazilian musician, died at the age of 83, after a career that spanned 60 years and produced over 35 albums. Mendes helped popularize Bossa Nova globally.

• Linda Deutsch, a special correspondent for The Associated Press, died at the age of 80. Deutsch’s career spanned 50 years where she had a front row seat to some of the most famous criminal and civil trials from Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, among others

By the Numbers