Biden's Use of an Autopen - The Latest Bright Shiny Object

A condensed overview of 18 hours of Fox News for the week ending 6/8/25

Like many divorced urbanites with a master’s degree my domestic life is shared with two slightly hyperactive male cats who can turn any quiet moment into an epic thrown down that ends in smashed ceramics, broken glass, or papers scattered across the floor. Thor, an undersized tuxedo and Odin, a sleek and lean black cat with oversized ears will often get into passionate play fights on top of my kitchen island, my desk or even the top of my refrigerator.

So far Thor has broken two rice cookers, two glass lamps, countless mugs, an imported German doll, a stainless-steel French press, a metal coffee canister, an entire set of drinking glasses and even a toilet - that’s a story that is too complicated to tell in this newsletter, but he was a very adventurous kitten.

Sometimes if I notice Thor, the usual instigator, about to pounce on his buddy Odin I’ll toss a catnip filled distraction to try to prevent another duo feline battle royal. A well-placed plastic spring toy directed at a dark corner of my kitchen will sometimes do the trick too.

Fox News has its own form of catnip or distracting shiny object for its constantly enraged mostly geriatric audience - any negative story about Joe Biden.

Biden no longer has influence or control over any American’s life but that won’t stop Fox News hosts from obsessing about him.

Last week before Trump decided to abuse the power of the presidency with his inappropriate use of the U.S. military the network was dedicated to a story that most Americans couldn’t care less about - the former president’s use of an autopen.

The term ‘autopen’ showed up 69 times in last week’s transcripts. Last week congressional Republicans led by Rep. James Comer launched a pointless investigation into Joe Biden’s use of a signing machine or autopen.

American presidents have used machines to sign documents for decades. The use of an autopen is not illegal or unethical. Republicans, helped by Fox News, are trying to create a narrative that Biden was so mentally incapacitated that he had no idea what he was signing or that someone else in the Biden admin. was signing documents without the president’s knowledge.

The autopen scandal is just the latest bright shiny object to keep the Fox News audience focused on something besides Trump’s attempts to turn the United States into his own private fascist fiefdom.

Shows I covered on Fox News last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• Jesse Watters Primetime

• Hannity - Thursday only to cover feud between Musk and Trump

• Special Report with Bret Baier - Thursday only

• The Ingraham Angle - Thursday only

The New Never-ending Story - Democrats are Terrible

When Biden was still president the folks on Fox News spent an inordinate amount of time, energy, and focus on Joe Biden’s wayward son - Hunter Biden.

Even though Rep. James Comer never found any evidence of criminal activity that linked Joe Biden to his son’s business dealings that wasn’t going to stop Fox News from constantly recycling images from a sad drug addict’s broken laptop.

The network has shifted from nonstop Hunter Biden coverage to portraying Democrats as a dysfunctional party filled with coastal elites who are drowning in a sea of woke culture, transgenderism, identity politics and a deep-seated hatred of Donald J. Trump.

As most Americans still worry about grocery prices, the job market, paying for a home, their kid’s college education or saving for retirement Fox News will waste its airtime obsessing about something Rep. Jasmine Crockett said or some drama between the co-chairs of the Democratic National Committee.

On Tuesday on “The Five” Dana Perino boasted that the useless segments would continue on until at least the next presidential election.

“And so, Dana, we're in June. Yeah. The election was a while ago. We had tacos. We have the sons giving them advice. How do you think the Democrats are handling this?I think this is a cue for producers everywhere. That this is a story we can do every day from now until the night of election night, 2028.”

Sean Hannity Got REALLY mad about Jim Acosta holding a Town Hall in D.C.

On Thursday Sean Hannity was outraged and disgusted that former CNN anchor Jim Acosta, now on Substack, held a town hall event in Washington D.C. with various guests including a live feed with Rosie O’Donnell who spoke from Ireland and Miles Taylor, a Trump administration whistleblower.

At the end of the event Acosta asked the crowd to turn on the lights of their cell phones and hold them up in a symbol of hope. Sean Hannity showed a brief clip that featured this moment before going into a rant about the Acosta.

“Is why I wouldn't want to be there. First of all, Jim Acosta was like the angriest guy that ever existed in the history of television. Take out your cell phone. Take it out. I want you to turn on the light. And you might feel you're living in darkness and you're not living in darkness. And that's the whole point. And you know the what? What they cannot get over is the fact that they lost an election. They lost it. And they, you know, you would think after an election loss that you might look inward and you might say, well, what did we do wrong? Where are we? Out of touch,” said Hannity.

Hannity has no shame and no self-awareness. Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million in a defamation settlement.

According to court documents related to the case Fox News executives and hosts admitted to knowingly featuring guests who promoted the false narrative that the 2020 presidential election was rigged or stolen from Donald J. Trump.

During his deposition in the case Sean Hannity testified under oath that he "did not believe it for one second"that there was widespread voter fraud or that Dominion's voting machines had rigged the 2020 election.

President Trump frequently brings up the 2020 election which he still calls rigged or stolen despite a slew of failed court cases and no credible evidence to back up his delusions. Even judges who were appointed by Trump himself shot down his many attempts to challenge the validity of the election.

According to reporting by USA Today, In 2022, eight conservative legal experts published a report called "Lost, Not Stolen," reviewing the evidence in 64 different cases in six swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They found that Trump and his allies simply didn't provide evidence of widespread election fraud.

Even as countless allies and supporters of Trump have ruined or destroyed their careers or spent millions in their own defamation lawsuits surrounding these false claims the Big Lie persists.

Fox News still faces an even larger defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic over the same lies about the 2020 election.

Aishah Hasnie Repeats Trump’s Campaign Spin in an Interview with a World Leader

On Thursday’s episode of “Special Report with Bret Baier,” guest host Aishah Hasnie interviewed Friedrich Merz the newly elected Chancellor of Germany. Merz was in Washington D.C. to meet with President Trump.

As fortunate as she was to have a world leader in studio for an extended interview Hasnie blew it by repeating Trump’s sad tired line about having superpowers regarding world conflicts.

“President often likes to say that this war would have never happened had he been in the White House. Do you agree with that?” asked Hasnie.

“Well, this is, this is, a theory or speculation, which could be right or wrong, but this war is now happening, and we have to tackle that, and we have to resolve it now. It makes no sense to discuss the past. This has happened. If we had Ukraine as member in NATO, which was applied in 2008, and the Americans gave support to that, the French and the German government were against it. You can again speculate would this war have happened. Ukraine was then a big nuclear power. They were the third biggest nuclear power in the world, and they agreed to get rid of all the nuclear weapons. And thereafter Russia attacked Ukraine. Would this have happened? Had happened with nuclear weapons on the ground? You can ask the same question again. No, this war is now happening, and we have to stop it now. This is our task,” said Merz.

Trump lives most of his life in delusions created in his own mind. He boasted for months before the 2024 election that he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine before he was sworn in as president.

He said more than once that he could end the war in a phone call. Trump seems to believe that what he thinks is his close relationship with Putin would cause the Russian leader to drop any ambitions he had for erasing Ukraine entirely.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 Ukraine was briefly the third largest nuclear power in the world. The Soviet government stashed thousands of nuclear weapons across Ukraine when it was still part of the USSR.

In 1994, during Bill Clinton’s first term as president, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons along with a promise of security by the U.S., U.K. and Russia in an agreement known as Budapest Memorandum or the "Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine's Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”

The Budapest Memorandum prohibited Russia, the U.S. and the U.K. from using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan with an exception for self-defense in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

From 1993 to 1996 all three nations gave up their nuclear arsenals. Russia violated this agreement in February 2014 when it annexed Crimea. Two months later Russian paramilitaries seized several towns in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine.

In 2018, during Trump’s first term as president, in another violation of the agreement, the Russian coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy ships in the Kerch Strait, a waterway between mainland Russia and Crimea. The Russians also blocked access to the Sea of Azov and scrambled helicopters and jets over the area.

Russia claimed the Ukrainian ships violated territorial waters even though the area was supposed to be shared by both countries according to a 2003 treaty.

In late February 2022 Russia launched a full scale invasion into Ukraine where it has repeatedly targeted civilian areas and hospitals, medical facilities and the energy grid including nuclear power plants. The Russian government has also forcibly removed Ukrainian children in an attempt to resettle them with Russian families and remove their cultural identity and language.

Fox & Friends Found a Way to Blame Transgender People for an Antisemitic Domestic Terrorist Attack

On Tuesday on “Fox & Friends,” Brian Kilmeade inserted transgender Americans during a segment about the horrific antisemitic domestic terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado.

“When people do things like pretend men's and women's sports and pretend that this wasn't a terror attack motivated against Jews, that all plays into the lack of common sense that people on the left don't understand, that the people in America care about,” said Kilmeade.

Later his co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy brought up a transgender school shooter.

“It's duplicitous. Just like when we had the trans attack on the Christian school in Tennessee,” said Campos-Duffy.

“It's so true,” said Lawrence Jones.

“They wanted to hide that manifesto. So, we can't talk about it. We can't. The second they think it might be a Trump supporter, but they're right on it,” said Campos-Duffy.

This was especially puzzling since the attack in Boulder, Colorado had absolutely nothing to do with gender identity or transgenderism.

On June 1, 2025, a suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, allegedly attacked people attending a peaceful demonstration to remember the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza.

According to the police report Soliman attacked the crowd with homemade Molotov cocktails and a device that was a makeshift flame thrower. The suspect yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack.

The suspect told police after he was arrested that he wanted to "kill all Zionist people,” according to court documents. Soliman is an Egyptian national who overstayed a tourist visa.

According to court documents he had planned to target the group for over a year. Soliman has been charged with multiple felony counts, including attempted murder, and a federal hate crimes charge. The FBI has called it a "targeted act of violence," and are investigating it as an "act of terrorism."

Kilmeade was frustrated that the local police were hesitant at first to label the attack as a terrorist attack. It’s not uncommon for local police forces to complete an investigation before labeling any violent crime as a terrorist attack.

Although there’s plenty of evidence linking antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli government as a motive for the attack transgenderism played no role whatsoever.

What the suspect might not have realized is that many Israelis and Americans who advocate for the safe return of hostages are extremely critical of the Israeli government’s policies towards Hamas.

Many Israelis have protested their own government for its policies and strategy surrounding the return of hostages since the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attack.

Even if the demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado were enthusiastic supporters of the Israeli government, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and his policies, people still have the right to protest in the United States without fear of being physically attacked.

Jessica Tarlov on Masked ICE Agents

On Thursday on “The Five” Jessica Tarlov, the liberal voice on the program, addressed the controversy surrounding masked ICE agents. The network dedicated several segments across every program where Fox News hosts criticized Democrats for voicing their concerns about federal law enforcement agents concealing their identities.

“Turn to the masking situation. That guy who's threatening those ICE agents. Throw the book at him. You can't do that. You shouldn't be attacking law enforcement. But you really can't make a cogent argument for why these people need to be wearing masks. Except for the fact that a Trump loves a good show. Which is why, yes, Kristi Noem, wearing her little vest and posing in front of CECOT and wants it to look tough and bad,” said Tarlov.

CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo) is the name of the mega prison in El Salvador the Trump administration has sent several undocumented immigrants.

“You can’t just say it’s a safety issue?” asked her co-host Greg Gutfeld.

“I did about that specific issue there. But when you look at the statistics of who they're actually arresting, you know that they're wearing masks because they're not making good on the promises that they made to the American people of arresting criminals. 70% of the people. . .”

“They are wearing masks because they're embarrassed. So what you're saying, Jessica?” asked Jesse Watters.

“Yeah, I do think that,” said Tarlov.

“How do you know that?” asked Watters.

“That’s my reading and it’s absurd,” said Gutfeld.

“Well, they should be ashamed of what they're doing. If you are the ICE agent that's picking up an 17-year-old kid on the way to volleyball practice who's been here since she was five, in Massachusetts, or there was a Missouri woman who's been here for 20 years, mother of three, going to a routine check, and that's being arrested. And you know what they're doing? They're trying to satisfy Stephen Miller, the conservative Washington Examiner, a conservative paper, has this quote out of a private meeting where Stephen Miller is screaming at agents. ‘What do you mean, you're going after criminals? Why aren't you at Home Depot? Why aren't you at 7-Eleven?’ They want to pick up everybody who is here illegally, which is not what he campaigned on. He said, we're going to get the bad on bridge and the criminals out of here. So yes, I think if you are showing up to detain a 17-year-old that you should be wearing a mask and you should be embarrassed of what you're doing,” said Tarlov.

Tarlov was referring to Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a 18-year-old high school student who was arrested by immigration agents on his way to volleyball practice. Gomes da Silva was brought to the United States from Brazil when he was only seven years old.

He was arrested two weeks ago and released on bond last Thursday. While he held in a detention center he wore a bracelet made from the thin sheet of metallic blanket he was given to sleep on the cement floor according to reporting by CNN.

Gomes da Silva was also held in a cell with 25-35 men most of which were twice his age. None of them were given time outside or privacy to use a shower or toilet.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Gomes da Silva’s father was the intended target.

“While ICE officers never intended to apprehend Gomes da Silva, he was found to be in the United States illegally and subject to removal proceedings, so officers made the arrest,” she said in a statement.

Gomes da Silva told CNN that he didn’t know of his immigration status until he was arrested by ICE.

“I told her, ma’am, I was 7 years old. I don’t know nothing about that stuff,” he recalled. “I don’t understand how it works.”

Jessica Tarlov on The One Big Beautiful Bill

Also, on Thursday Jessica Tarlov pointed out that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) came out with its analysis of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

“I think that Republicans, including my dear colleagues here at the table, would prefer that we were talking about Elon Musk versus the brass tacks of the bill itself. So, the final CBO scoring came out today $2.4 trillion to the deficit. $3.7 trillion in tax cuts $16 million all in total between Medicaid cuts and Obamacare credit tax cuts going off their health insurance. That's what matters. And Steve Bannon, a huge supporter of President Trump, feels the same as Elon Musk does about it. He says you're going to have to raise taxes. And the Republicans have a new talking point. Mike Johnson was joining us on the Sunday shows. Lutnick’s tried it, Bessent’s tried it where they say all the CBO, it's a Democratic organization. It's run by a Bush appointee who's only ever donated once to a candidate. And it was a Republican in 2014. But the CBO was fine in 2018 and 2019, when their projections were 99.5% accurate grading Trump's bill,” said Tarlov.

Dana Perino interrupted her to argue that both parties hate the CBO and have criticized the agency. The rest of the cast openly mocked Tarlov when she said the bill would increase the deficit.

Jonathan Capehart on The Elon Musk - Trump Feud

On Friday, Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and MSNBC commented on the recent feud between the world’s richest man and President Donald J. Trump.

“And the other thing I'll point out is that these are two men who especially with President Trump. Loyalty is a thing, but with President Trump, loyalty is a one-way street. And what we've seen with Elon Musk, well, for him, loyalty is a one-way street as well. And so, you have in Elon Musk what you haven't had in anyone else President Trump has gone to has, has battled or criticized. And that is someone who is willing to fight back with him in the same way that he fights.”

Although the shows I covered on Fox News last week spent 17% of their airtime covering the story absolutely no one at the network made the same observation that Capehart made regarding Musk.

It is indeed one of the only times Trump has been dealt what he likes to dish out - massive public humiliation and derision by a man who has more money than him and his own social media platform with 220 million followers to his personal account.

Stories Fox News Ignored

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

• Updates in the Israel-Hamas War

  • In the Gaza Strip three people were killed and dozens more injured while headed to an aid distribution site in Rafah early Monday morning. Witnesses of both incidents say Israeli troops opened fire on the crowds. Israel says it fired warning shots at what it called suspects who approached its forces. For its part, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says it delivered aid on both days without incident. (PBS News Hour)

  • On Monday, health officials in Gaza say an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the north killed 14 people, mostly women and children. Israel said it struck terror targets in the area, but did not elaborate. (PBS News Hour)

  • On Tuesday, Gazans faced gunfire outside a new humanitarian aid site. It comes as half a million Gazans are extremely food insecure and on the verge of famine. The new sites are run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which funnels Gazans into small areas secured by private American contractors. The sites lie within exclusive military zones, and Israeli soldiers are right outside. (PBS News Hour)

  • On Wednesday in Gaza, an aid group temporarily paused food deliveries at its three distribution sites. The U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says there's been no violence at the sites themselves. Israel's military says it fired near people it described as suspects after firing warning shots and they're looking into reports of injuries. In the meantime, hospital officials say Israeli strikes killed more than two dozen people across Gaza. One of the attacks hit a tent in Gaza City, killing two women and a child. (PBS News Hour)

  • On Thursday Gaza health official say Israeli airstrikes today killed at least 13 people, including three journalists who were struck in the courtyard of a hospital. The Israeli military said it targeted a militant operating there. And in Southern Gaza, aid distribution resumed at two sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. (PBS News Hour)

  • On Friday in Gaza, U.S.- and Israeli-backed aid groups stopped operations after limited distribution earlier in the day, citing overcrowding and unsafe conditions.

  • Meanwhile, Gaza health authorities say Israeli airstrikes killed at least 16 Palestinians, and the Israeli army said four of its soldiers were killed in an explosion in the southern city of Khan Yunis. This comes as residents of Gaza marked the Eid al-Adha holiday in the demolished ruins of their places of worship. Others visited graveyards to offer prayers for relatives killed in Israel's military campaign. (PBS News Hour)

• Funding for science is very much on the chopping block in President Trump's proposed budget. It's a fraught moment for NASA, particularly for those focused on earth science and not human space travel. Over the weekend, Trump announced he was withdrawing the nomination of his original pick to lead NASA, billionaire Jared Isaacman. (PBS News Hour)

• In South Korea, liberal opposition leader Lee Jae-myung won his country's presidential race. Members of his party celebrated after a joint exit poll showed Lee was projected to beat his conservative opponent, who came out later to concede. The snap election follows conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol's removal from office. His short-lived declaration of martial law last year sparked political upheaval that deeply divided South Koreans. (PBS News Hour)

• The Trump administration rescinded federal guidance that required emergency rooms to provide an abortion if the procedure would save a woman's life. That guidance issued by the Biden administration in 2022 after Roe v. Wade was overturned argued a law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, required hospitals to stabilize a patient's health during medical emergencies, even in states with near-total abortion bans. Yesterday, the administration said the guidance did not reflect President Trump's policy. (PBS News Hour)

• On May 3, the National Endowment for the Arts abruptly terminated grants to arts organizations across the country. As of tonight, an informal tally shows nearly 560 grants canceled, spanning performing visual, literary, folk arts, and education, totaling more than $27 million. The sudden loss of federal funding has left organizations scrambling to fill budget gaps and contributed to the resignation of several senior NEA staffers. PBS spoke to different arts organizations who are navigating how to move forward without these grants. (PBS News Hour)

• In New Zealand, the Parliament suspended three Maori lawmakers over a traditional dance they performed to protest a contentious bill. A majority of members voted for the temporary removals, saying the lawmakers acted in a potentially intimidating manner. The suspensions range from seven to 21 days, longer than any prior ban.Last November, the lawmakers performed the dance called the haka as a form of protest to a now defeated bill they said would have reversed indigenous rights. (PBS News Hour)

• Last Friday was the deadline for the estimated 4,200 active-duty transgender military members to accept what the Defense Department calls voluntary separation. Those who volunteer to leave may be eligible for separation pay. Transgender troops who don't leave voluntarily will be kicked out, and whether they get separation pay remains to be seen. PBS spoke to two transgender servicemen - one who had decided to stay and fight the decision in court and another who accepted voluntary separation. (PBS News Hour)

• The groundbreaking gay writer Edmund White has died. Through essays, articles, and dozens of books like the bestselling "A Boy's Own Story," White chronicled gay life in America. He was present at the Stonewall riots in 1969 that sparked the gay rights movement. White also wrote about the AIDS epidemic and in 1985 learned that he himself was HIV-positive. He later survived two major strokes. Edmund White was 85 years old. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers