Fox News - A Breakdown of All Five Hours of The Primetime Coverage of The Paul Pelosi Attack

A condensed breakdown of five hours of Fox News from 10/31/22

Within hours of the politically motivated assault on Paul Pelosi, the spouse of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the right wing echo chamber created a false narrative to distance themselves from the incident.

The opportunistic trolls decided the mentally ill drug addict who wrote angry right wing screeds on the internet was really a gay prostitute who somehow ended up in a lover’s quarrel with his much older client.

This theory was based on a confusing 911 call and inaccurate information released to the press about the attack. One reporter from a local Fox affiliate mistakenly said Pelosi’s attacker was arrested in his underwear and the gay tryst story was born.

The theory was blasted into overdrive when the richest man in the world and new owner of Twitter decided to tweet a version of the story to Hillary Clinton.

Within a few hours it was trending on the platform.

Seemingly instantly everyone who might attend a Trump rally was an expert on glass doors, the gay nightclub scene in San Francisco, home security systems, Capitol Police protocol and the personal life of the husband of the Speaker of the House.

Ben Collins, a NBC reporter specializing in extremism and misinformation, put it perfectly on a recent appearance on MSNBC,

“Lies on the internet spread faster than the truth,” said Collins.

I wondered how Fox News, the largest right-wing media voice in America would spin the story.

I knew the day time shows would probably avoid running with a theory this outrageous but one of the primetime hosts might run with it.

I decided to capture and analyze every show on Monday starting with a straight news program “Special Report with Bret Baier” and along with primetime lineup.

If any of the Fox anchors decided to amplify this story it would basically be adding kerosene to a newly lit campfire. No other media company or platform can reach as many Americans as Fox.

What I found was a mixed bag. Some anchors went right up to the edge of calling Pelosi a closeted homosexual, while others seemingly didn’t even want to talk about the story.

The Breakdown.

Special Report with Bret Baier - 6:00 PM EST

• Amount of coverage: 20 minutes 30 seconds (Press conference - 15 minutes)

• Included - Press conference with District Attorney and Chief of Police

Information revealed in segment

Bret Baier, Christia Coleman (Fox News correspondent in San Francisco)

• The alleged attacker, David DePape, is facing federal charges

  • One count of assault of an immediate family member of a U.S. official

  • One count of attempted kidnapping of a U.S. official.

• DePape’s confessed to police that he broke into the home and his target was Speaker Nancy Pelosi

• DePape is a Canadian citizen who had overstayed his visa

• Paul Pelsoi called 911 from his bathroom

• Police officers witnessed the attack

• There was NOT a third person in the home at the time of the attack

• The two men did NOT know each other.

• He also said he viewed her as the leader of the pack of lies told by the Democratic Party. He told police that by breaking her kneecaps, she would have to be wheeled into Congress to face the consequences of her actions.

• DePape had a backpack which contained a rope, a roll of tape, a hammer and rubber gloves.

• DePape living in a garage in Richmond, California.

  

  Press Conference

• Brooke Jenkins, D.A. San Francisco

• William Scott, Chief of Police, San Francisco

D.A. Jenkins reiterated the same facts that were mentioned in the short segment featured on “Special Report,” then she and the Chief of Police took questions from the press. D.A. Jenkins also clarified that the SFPD, Capitol Police and the FBI were working together on the investigation.

D.A. Jenkins also stated repeatedly that the attack was politically motivated.

Primetime with Jesse Watters - 7:00 PM EST

• Amount of coverage: 20 minutes

Watters acted as if every single detail in the charging document was somehow suspect. He almost got comical at times as he questioned the smallest details that were confirmed by both the Chief of Police and the District Attorney.

He seemed oddly obsessed with knowing the identity of the person who opened the door for the SFPD. I’m not sure how that would have changed the story much. The cops confirmed there was no third person in the home as previously thought.

Watters also made some assumptions about DePape that were based on faulty evidence. Watters described DePape as a progressive based on statements of DePape’s ex-girlfriend Oxane “Gyspy” Taub. Their relationship ended seven years ago.

The only statements she had about his politics were when they first met which was 20 years ago as a local ABC affiliate reported,

"Well when I met him, he was only 20 years old ,and he didn't have any experience in politics, and he was very much in alignment with my views and I've always been very progressive. I absolutely admire Nancy Pelosi."

The blogs attributed to DePape that contained conspiracy theories and right-wing political rants were verified by his daughter Inti Gonzalez, 21.

For evidence of DePape’s political views Watters included a short segment by Michael Shellenberger where he interviewed a couple random alleged neighbors in Berkley, California at the address of DePape’s ex-girlfriend.

“I'm not sure. I would imagine that they're more left leaning,” said the neighbor.

That’s not exactly a strong opinion based in any evidence.

Shellenberger was also at the wrong address.

This is from the charging document.

On October 29, 2022, law enforcement determined that DePape lived in the garage of a residence on Shasta Street in Richmond, California, by interviewing the owner of the premisses who confirmed that DePape has resided in the garage for approximately two years.

Richmond is North of Berkley. DePape’s ex-girlfriend, Oxane “Gyspy” Taub, had broken off their relationship seven years ago. She’s currently incarcerated for stalking and trying to kidnap a 14-year-old boy.

DePape may have known people at the old address and visited from time to time but he didn’t live at the Berkley address at the time of the attack.

Watters continually asked questions that had already been answered.

“How did this homeless drug addict even get inside the house? No one has been able to give us a straight answer about that,” said Watters

If Watters or anyone from his staff had watched the press conference that was part of the program that preceded his they would have had the answer directly from the District Attorney. The same information was confirmed in the criminal complaint that was publicly accessible to anyone.

Watters also tried to make a lot out of the 911 dispatcher’s comment that Pelosi called DePape a friend during his 911 call.

RP, stated that there's a male in the home and that he's going to wait for his wife or that he doesn't know who the male is, but that his name is David and that he is a friend of his RP sounded somewhat confused.

In the statement the dispatcher even says that Pelosi ‘doesn’t know who the male is,’ and that he was confused.

Pelosi was most likely panicked and scared for his life and spoke in code so as to not further upset DePape. It’s hard to know exactly what happened or why he would make that reference but the dispatcher’s statement is hardly declarative.

Then Watters demanded to have video evidence.

“We haven't seen any footage from any of them. Neighbors have cameras. We haven't seen any footage. We haven't seen body cam footage. We haven't seen anything. The only person on the record has been a witness to what happened before the break in was a private security worker, said Watters

This was also addressed in the press conference. The D.A. basically said the footage would be released once it was used in a court proceeding. The footage is part of an active criminal investigation. The prosecutor is not going to release the footage to the public as it could hinder their case against DePape.

Watters also tried to imply that San Francisco officials had changed their story. Details are commonly confused or misreported immediately after a crime.

A local Fox affiliate, KTVU-TV was the source of the false claim that DePape was arrested while only wearing underwear. The story was corrected almost immediately after it was published.

In the criminal complaint DePape is described as clothed.

Watters also played a clip of California Governor Gavin Newsom saying that Watters had harshly criticized Paul Pelosi for months. Watters was outraged over the governor’s comments.

Watters did run several week-long segments on not just Paul Pelosi and his DUI case but Paul Pelosi Jr. Watter’s case against Pelosi Jr. was especially weak as he offered up no solid evidence of wrong doing.

“The governor who didn't deport the deranged drug addict felon who thinks he's Jesus or the news guy who fairly covered Paul's DUI case,” said Watters

Governor’s don’t deport anyone. Fox purposefully obfuscates what the definition of a sanctuary city or State. ICE can still track down anyone who is in the U.S. illegally regardless of where they reside.

Tucker Carlson Tonight - 8:00 PM EST

• Amount of coverage: 25 minutes

I knew this story would be red meat for Tucker Carlson. It had enough cracks and fissures that he could try to drive freight trains of doubt through it. Carlson didn’t fully commit to the worst of the gay lover’s quarrel theory but hinted at it.

What he created was classic misinformation. There was enough truth in his version of events to give him some plausibility but he relied on old and inaccurate information and cherry picked the rest.

How Carlson twisted this story.

A nod to the gay lover’s theory.

“Inside the home, they found Pelosi's 82-year-old husband, Paul, and another man 40 years younger, called David DePape,” said Carlson.

Why were the men’s ages so important? He also framed it as if they were a couple, ‘another man 40 years younger.’

“How, for example, did the DePape get inside the Pelosi's home? That's the first question,” said Carlson.

This was answered in the press conference that aired on Fox News just two hours prior. Carlson then paraphrases D.A. Jenkins.

“And yet, in this case, San Francisco D.A. Brooke Jenkins says that there was no security present at the Pelosi home on Friday night,” said Carlson.

This was something else that Carlson could have verified easily. Family members only get security detail when they are with the government official. Speaker Pelosi was not at the home at the time of the attack.

He pivoted back to an old press conference.

“At the first press conference on Friday, San Francisco police suggested there was a third person in the home when police arrived. Was there a third person at the home? We don't know. But it's not crazy to assume there was,” said Carlson.

This had been corrected since Friday. Carlson is most likely counting on the fact that most of his viewers don’t know this.

Just like Watters Carlson also brought up the 911 phone call and mentioned details he knew were incorrect. He then mentioned a false detail that was immediately corrected after it was published.

“Local KTVU investigative reporter Evan Semoffsky asking for example, initially reported that the DePape was, quote, found in underwear when police arrived. Today, Evan Semoffsky made a specific point of retracting that claim,” said Carlson.

Semoffsky actually retracted that statement almost immediately. Carlson could have easily phrased it as false information but he acted as if the underwear was relevant. He continued,

“But you can't blame. And this is the point. You can't blame people watching all of this at home for thinking that maybe there's something weird going on here,” said Carlson.

There really isn’t that much confusion. DePape confessed under oath. There were witnesses to the attack. The Chief of Police and the District Attorney corrected some misconceptions and the reporter who falsely claimed DePape was arrested in his underwear corrected his mistake.

So the solution, obviously, is to release the police bodycam footage from last Friday, said Carlson.

Carlson is not exactly a novice. He’s been in the news industry for his entire adult life. He would know that the body cam footage is not going to be available to him or anyone else. D.A. Jenkins specifically addressed this in her press conference. Carlson is most likely using this as a device to act as if there is some grand cover up.

DePape is entitled to due process just as any other suspect would be regardless of circumstances. Releasing evidence to the general public before there is a trial could ultimately result in a mistrial or hurt the state and federal government’s chance at a conviction.

“On the other hand, if you want people to fall headfirst into crazed conspiracy theories, then you would keep lying and hiding things.”

Carlson uses the term lying and hiding as if the SFPD and the FBI are purposefully obscuring evidence as part of a coverup. He neglects to tell his audience that the D.A. said in the press conference that was broadcast on Fox News just two hours prior that the footage would be released once it was revealed in court which could be several months from now.

Then Carlson shifted to DePape himself.

Now the details get really blurry. Like Watters Carlson uses the old address for DePape instead of the address in the charging documents.

“Lives in a hippie school bus in Berkeley with a BLM banner and a pride flag out front,” said Carlson.

Again there is documentation that the address in Berkley is not his current address.

Then Carlson brought up that DePape was an illegal alien from Canada then showed a slew of clips from other news programs where they mentioned his online extremist right wing content.

Carlson then made a strange pivot that internet archiving services hadn’t registered anything from one of DePape’s websites until the day he was criminally charged. That’s incredibly misleading as internet archiving sites are unlikely to scrape anything from a website that gets very little traffic.

What most likely happened is the traffic for the site skyrocketed on the day DePape’s name was plastered all over the news. The websites in question were filled with right-wing conspiracy theories including QAnon ideology and antisemitic screeds.

Carlson also claimed there was no way that this homeless man could have possibly created a website. DePape wasn’t homeless he lived in a garage, not a bus, and could have easily used a friend or family member’s computer or home to create an inexpensive WordPress blog.

The Fox News host finally went full tin foil hat when he tried to connect a bunch of outdated and inaccurate information back to a vast conspiracy. This is exactly what Tucker Carlson does.

“So keep in mind, as you shake your head in bewilderment at all of this, that the midterm elections are next Tuesday and Democrats are in trouble and they believe the attack on Paul Pelosi might help them,” said Carlson.

Tucker wants his audience to believe that the Chief of Police along with the District Attorney of San Francisco, multiple FBI agents, the family members of DePape, a mentally ill drug addict who is in the U.S. illegally, the police who arrived at the Pelosi home, and possibly Paul Pelosi himself are all part of this plan to help the Democrats in the midterm elections.

Carlson went back to showing clips from other news organizations discussing the attack while going into one of his classic self-righteous diatribes about all this led back to some sort of plot against free speech and open discourse. He even claimed there was no such thing as hate speech.

The New York Times has just come out with a piece that says, and we're quoting Elon Musk in a tweet, shares a link from a site known to publish fake news. Really? What have you learned must do? Well, he linked to an article about how Paul Pelosi called the guy in his home a friend. Well, that's what the name on one tape says. You can draw your own conclusions or not.

Carlson left out that the source Musk posted included a completely fabricated story about the entire attack being part of a lover’s quarrel between two gay men.

He shifted his focus to the incident simply being part of a rising wave of mentally ill people violently attacking random people.

“When Democrats get crushed in next week's midterms, it'll be in part because people who live in cities and states run by liberals understand that what happened to Pelosi could very well happen to them and no one would care. Morning Joe would pretend it never happened,” said Carlson.

Carlson’s entire rant could be summed up with just this phrase,

“When you question, say, COVID protocols or drag queen story our or the war against Russia, you are effectively smashing an 82-year-old man in the head with a hammer,” said Carlson.

Hannity - 9:00 PM EST

• Amount of coverage: Four minutes thirty seconds

Hannity didn’t seem to care much about this story. He treated it more like a speed bump that slowed him down from driving full throttle into his nonstop demonization of Democratic candidates running for various offices all over the country.

Instead of obscuring facts and using old information Hannity framed it as a random attack that had nothing to do with politics. He did not misrepresent any of the basic basic information in the charging documents or the press conference. The only detail he got wrong is he said DePape lived in a storage shed instead of garage.

Hannity also implied that when Senator Rand Paul was assaulted by his neighbor that it was politically motivated. Paul’s neighbor attacked him over a long-standing dispute over lawn waste.

Hannity was also the only Fox News host to bring up former President Donald J. Trump.

He reduced the attack as simply the result of Democrat policies leading to an increase and crime and then transitioned into an attack on Democratic gubnertorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

The Ingraham Angle - 10:00 PM EST

Amount of coverage - Eight minutes thirty seconds

It honestly felt like Laura Ingraham had a monologue already written and decided to tack on a brief statement about the Pelosi attack at the beginning. It was so awkward she didn’t even try to call back to it at the end.

She couched the entire incident that was being manipulated by Democrats and the media as a political event. To Ingraham this was just a random mentally ill man who happened to attack the spouse of the Speaker of the House.

To her credit Ingraham she did not imply that there was any coverup or conspiracy involved.

She used the assault as a means to criticize Democrats and other media companies. She played several clips of various journalists and pundits using language she felt was heightened and vitriolic. About half of her segment was clips from other news programs that she criticized.

Ingram barely even mentioned the attack she just tore into President Biden and the Democratic Party.