Fox News: Blame Pete! Santos is a Liar but Republican Liars are OK! The Commies are Coming!
A condensed overview of 30 hours of Fox News for the week ending 1/2/23
A typical Fox News viewer might think that the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, was solely responsible for a record breaking blizzard and Southwest Airlines’s complete meltdown. If a Fox fan watched “Tucker Carlson Tonight” they might think Representative elect George Santos was a pathetic liar. On Jesse Watters Primetime Santos was depicted as a victim of a hypocritical Democrat party.
Anyone who exclusively watched Fox News last week may not know that there was a massive blizzard in Northern Japan or that two men received long prison sentences for their roles in the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. A Fox viewer might have also missed that New York Governor Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard to help keep the peace in Buffalo after an extreme storm.
Last week on Fox News the network seemed to be run by a skeleton crew of interns and d-list talent. At least a half a dozen times during the thirty hours of Fox News I consumed I’d clearly hear a technician give instruction to a guest to move to a certain direction that was better for the camera.
The day after Christmas was filled with clip shows of recycled segments. Tucker Carlson showed interviews from his streaming show “Tucker Carlson Today.” Jesse Watters had a full hour of old man on the street segments. “Hannity” featured the host’s favorite monologues of the year and “The Ingraham Angle” was a string of previous aired segments about the Twitter Files.
I wanted to give you something this week so I decided to capture all four of the prime time shows instead of my usual one.
Even though I doubled my workload I was still struggling to get much of anything as half the segments were Fox’s spin on the border crisis or tips on how to return Christmas gifts.
The strangest substitution was Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarret for Sean Hannity. Jarret is fine in short clips but he has a small fraction of Hannity’s charisma. I found myself feeling bad for Fox News contributor Joe Concha. Concha might be bland but Garrett was downright dull.
There were some highlights as Rachel Campos-Duffy subbing for Jesse Watters brought her signature tin foil hat conspiracy theories mixed with enthusiasm and dread while Tulsi Gabbard, subbing for Tucker Carlson, managed to conduct a hard-hitting interview with a pathological liar.
Shows covered last week
Fox & Friends - first hour
The Five
Jesse Watters Primetime
Tucker Carlson Tonight
Hannity
The Ingraham Angle
Rachel Campos-Duffy and Tomi Lahren Kicked Things Up a Notch
While sub-hosting for Jesse Watters, Rachel Campos-Duffy and her guest, right-wing media personality Tomi Lahren both cranked up the histrionics when discussing Southwest airline’s recent blizzard induced meltdown.
“Is absolutely in over his head. I'm actually surprised he's not on paternity leave right now as we have more chaos . . .So you know what I wish, Rachel? I wish that the Biden administration would be as excited about holding these airlines accountable for flight delays and cancelations as they were imposing a face diaper mandate, making sure everybody messed up between bites,” said Lahren.
Then Campos-Duffy took things to a dark place.
“I wish they cared about heating costs for people on fixed incomes who now are freezing to death as well. I think really at the heart of it, Tomi, is that the Biden administration is so focused on equity and affirmative action. If they weren't, we wouldn't have a people to judge. We wouldn't have a Kamala Harris. We wouldn't have a Karin Jean-Pierre,” said Campos-Duffy.
Campos-Duffy has made the baseless claim before that Americans are actually freezing to death due to high heating costs.
“Well, then let's also keep in mind that there are other religion is climate change. And so they do everything they can to strap these airlines with regulations and to make fuel more expensive. And let's not forget, it doesn't impact them because they fly private on our dime. Pete Buttigieg has done that himself,” said Lahren.
She then blamed the global pandemic.
“Well, again, what Pete has often said is that the airlines need to take accountability for this, and they do. But if the government is not imposing any consequences, we're going to continue to see this now. And you're also seeing the ramifications of what you impose a vaccine mandate on the airlines. Let's not forget how we got into this mess. Southwest is also saying that they're having a problem getting workers to show up. Well, I wonder why that happened. It all goes back to their precious COVID lockdowns and everything they did thereafter with their COVID policy. And we are still in the aftermath of that,” said Lahren.
As of late 2021 Southwest stated that 93% of its employees had taken the COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine mandate was blamed for a smaller series of cancellations in October 2021 but those claims were debunked by the company and the pilot’s union. The flights were canceled due to extreme weather.
Campos-Duffy pushed it over the edge.
“It feels like we're in a third world country every time we go to the airport now, as we have to deal with all of these things,” said Campos-Duffy.
Blame Pete! - The Government Can’t Solve Any Problem
In a strange twisting of logic the cast of “The Five” continually blame Buttigieg for not doing more to solve the Southwest Airlines crisis while also lambasting all government agencies.
Basically they were saying they wanted more government but that government intervention made everything worse.
Rachel Campos-Duffy started the segment.
“But have no fear. Mayor Pete from South Bend is on the case. Transportation Secretary, but a judge says he'll come down hard on Southwest. Tough guy. But why didn't Mayor Pete prevent this from happening in the first place? Joe Biden doesn't care. I mean, he's flying Air Force One. All his rich climate friends are flying private. What can the government do anyway,” said Campos-Duffy.
Campos-Duffy repeated the same claim Lahren had made that somehow COVID-19 mandates and other government regulations had caused Southwest and Southwest alone to completely fail to keep planes in the air during severe weather.
“Katie, you know, the government put some really awful mandates on the airline industry and a lot of people left the industry because they were forced out because of mandates and created shortages. So the government creates these problems and then gets mad and postures when things aren't going right,” said Campos-Duffy.
She offered no specifics about any government regulations that would have uniquely affected Southwest and not the other airlines.
Katie Pavlich picked up the anti-government sentiment and amplified it further.
“However, these calls for the government to come in and do something to change this problem, especially with someone like you to judge, you couldn't even fill potholes in his town where he was mayor. I think that he will make it worse. It was President Reagan who said some of the most terrifying words in the English language. I'm here from the government and I'm I'm here to help.
I think that that will make it worse, that the government over regulates a number of these industries. And when Congress takes a look at this, especially House Republicans in January with the new Congress, I hope that they ask the question about are there regulations that are causing more problems for the industry rather than only looking at putting on more regulations to prevent this from happening in the future,” said Pavlich.
On Thursday Pavilch repeated the idea that the government wouldn’t help the situation.
“On the question of Congress, do you think they can make it better? Because I'm not sure government makes these things improved. I think they passed laws for more regulation that actually makes it harder to manage these these issues,” said Pavlich
Kennedy chimed in.
“I think they always make it worse. And I think they compound the problem. And when you have people running around flapping their gums, like the secretary of transportation saying, no, no, everything's fine, it's all going to be better because then they don't have to do any real work,” said Kennedy.
Basically the cast of “The Five” along with other Fox News personalities thought Buttigieg wasn’t doing enough in his role as the Secretary of Transportation but that government intervention always made problems worse.
You’d think with that logic then Buttigieg should do even less and let the market and Southwest Airlines figure it out.
A Liberal Manages to Point out The Other Airlines Kept Planes in the Sky
Richard Fowler, an infrequent guest in the liberal chair on “The Five” briefly stated some counterpoint to the confusing “Government is bad, we need more government” message his co-workers were advocating for.
“No, hold on. 90% of the flights have been canceled in the United States is from one airline. A majority of the flights canceled around the world is from one airline. So to sit here to blame this on the transportation secretary, when you have one airline and one irresponsible, not even the employees of this airline.
90% of the airline, 90% of flights canceled United States today are from Southwest Airlines because you have a bad management, you have a they have bad software. You can't blame the flight attendants. You can't blame the pilots. You can't blame the ramp agents. You have to blame the people who sit in the corporate suites of Southwest Airlines for canceling flight period end of story.
To blame Pete Buttigieg for the fact that Southwest can't manage their planes is ridiculous,” said Fowler.
Even though his co-hosts talked over most of his statement none of them had a decent rebuttal to what he’d said.
George Santos is a Liar - Tulsi Gabbard Let Him Have It
George Santos is a newly elected congressperson from New York State who was caught lying about major parts of his background, work experience and education.
He lied about so many aspects of his life that if I listed all of them I would run out of space on Substack for this newsletter. The Independent has complied a detailed list of his many false claims.
One of his most insensitive and outrageous proclamations is that his family is Jewish and fled Europe during the Holocaust. Both sets of his grandparents were born in Brazil and there is no proof that any of them were Jewish, much less Holocaust survivors.
Fox News had had a mixed reaction towards Santos. During “Fox & Friends” the hosts reaction towards his lying scandal was lukewarm.
Tulsi Gabbard, while subbing for Tucker Carlson, decided she would confront Santos.
“The questions that that really probably hits home to a lot of people is is are you Jewish? We've got a letter that your campaign sent out earlier this year which reads as follows. As a proud American Jew, I've been to Israel numerous times for educational business and leisurely trips. You said in a letter that you are, quote, a proud American Jew. How do you explain that,” said Gabbard.
Santos’s response was basically a filibuster. He just kept talking without saying anything of substance.
“My heritage is Jewish. I've always identify as Jewish. I was raised a practicing Catholic. I think I've gone through this. Even not not being raised a practicing Jew. I've always joked with friends and circles, even with in the campaign, I'd say, guys, I'm Jewish. Remember, I was raised Catholic. So look, I understand everybody wants to nitpick at me.
I am going to reassure this once and for all. I'm not a facade. I am not a persona. I have an extensive career that I worked really hard to achieve, and I'm going to deliver from my experience because I remain committed in delivering results for the American people. I campaigned on inflation, I campaigned on crime. I campaigned on education.
I campaigned on delivering results for the American people. That's what the people of the third congressional district heard me on and on as I campaigned. Now it's going to be incumbent upon me to deliver on those results. And I look forward to serving,” said Santos.
Gabbard didn’t let him off the hook.
“For the results that people are looking for are called into question when you tell blatant lies, not embellishments. And this is this is, I think one of the biggest concerns, Congressman elect, is that you don't really seem to be taking this seriously. You've apologized. You said you've made mistakes, but you've outright lie. A lie is not an embellishment on a resume.
You said you worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, but they've said we've got no record of this guy working for us. You've said you've gone to and graduated from these universities, but they've said, well, we've got no record of that. These are blatant lies. And it calls into question how your constituents and the American people can believe anything that you may say when you are standing on the floor of the House of Representatives,” said Gabbard.
In the past ten months that I’ve covered Fox News I’ve never witnessed a hostile interview before this one. I will give Gabbard credit for confronting Santos. I have no idea how an interview like this might be viewed by Fox News management but Gabbard was back on Fox News later that week.
Who Cares if Santos Lied He’s a Republican
Sean Duffy, sub-hosting for Jesse Watters and his guest Ned Ryun, founder and CEO of American Majority, a conservative organization that trains candidates and activists, both felt the real victim in the George Santos lying scandal was George Santos.
“And how rich if they have no shame to go. George Santos is a liar. He should resign. They don't look in the mirror at themselves to go. Hey, listen, we've got a problem with lying ourselves. We should make this claim,” said Duffy.
Duffy’s reasoning is that because some Democrats had lied in the past Santos shouldn’t be called out.
Of course neither party is without examples of politicians who lie frequently. Former President Donald J. Trump commonly bent the truth. Fact checkers at the Washington Post counted a total of 30,573 false or misleading claims during his four year term.
“Well, all they're trying to do in this situation is really put us on the defensive and not really have the equals. They're not interested in equal standards. They're trying to put everybody else on the defensive to try and get them to try and defend this and maybe even get Santos to resign. They are past that point of shame and past that ability to actually look at themselves and go, Yeah, we are pretty much a bunch of liars and dishonest hacks.
We should resign as well. No, it's just a weapon. They're just trying to get us to shut up and we won't. And this is the new right. We are not going to shut up. We'll punch right back at them. And you were right in the opening. Sure. Santos can resign once they resign and not until then,” said Ryun.
Sean Duffy continued with the same theme.
“I'll tell you this. George Santos lied before he was sworn in. He doesn't get sworn in until January 3rd. Liz Warren actually lied while she was a Senator. That's a big difference. George Santo do not resign. Stay in Congress. That's right. And work for your district. Matt Ryan, thanks for joining me. I was smart. Happy New Year,” said Duffy.
The New Red Scare
While sub-hosting on “Fox & Friends” Katie Pavlich made some dramatic statements about the state of Capitalism in the U.S.
“The woke don't work. Why the co-founder of Home Depot is blaming progressives for destroying capitalism. The student loan bailout, right? Absolutely. This has been a slow march since the sixties with this push for socialism. And the fact is that their socialism capitalism are very different models for government. Socialism is socialism has failed at every turn that it has been used.
And when you're in a society where there are more people working than not working, that turns it upside down,” said Pavlich.
I’m not sure what Pavlich meant there as I don’t think she meant to say a society with more people working than not working. An economy with more workers than retirees and unemployed people would be a sign of a healthy and productive society.
“And I think that after the COVID pandemic, where the government forced everybody to shut down and then mailed checks out, fundamentally changed the way people think about what the role of government is in this country and the power they have over private industry,” said Pavlich.
Fox News anchors evoke the fear of an impending communist revolution often. It’s complete nonsense.
The United States is hyper capitalist. There are 32.5 million small businesses. Roughly 58% of Americans own at least one share of stock. Home ownership is at around 65.5%.
In actual Soviet style communism. No one but the state owned property citizens could not own shares in a publicly traded company, and all businesses were owned and operated by the government.
There's also no viable socialist or communist political party in the United States and even the most radical left wing members of Congress do not support policies that would lead to a communist takeover of the U.S. government.
In terms of the student loan forgiveness plan. The U.S. has had farm subsidies since the 1930s, as well as subsidies for the oil and gas industry. In addition to any number of other industries that are heavily subsidized by the U.S. government, despite these subsidies, the U.S. still has a free market that is deeply rooted in the fundamentals of capitalism.
Bogus Experts of The Week
Alex Epstein - a writer with degrees in philosophy and computer science. Epstein has no scientific training or experience in the energy industry. He is the founder and president of the Center for Industrial Progress, a for-profit organization in San Diego, California. Fox described him as an “energy expert.” Epstein has been active in both the Cato Institute and the Ayn Rand Institute, two libertarian think tanks. Epstein was asked to speak about green energy scams.
While on “Jesse Watters Primetime” Epstein made a puzzling statement.
“The issue is all forms of energy impact, nature, and the basic idea of green is that you shouldn't impact nature. So actually, the green movement is hostile toward every form of energy,” said Epstein.
It’s a great example of saying absolutely nothing while appearing to make a profound statement
The second bogus expert of the week.
Christopher Horner - a lawyer who has built a career as a climate change denialist. Horner has no scientific training of any kind. It was revealed during a bankruptcy proceeding in 2015 that Horner was being bankrolled by Alpha Natural Resource, a coal company. From “Exposed: Shameless climate denial, brought to you by Big Coal,” by Lindsay Abrams for Salon.com
Horner has also often cast scientists as villains. He claimed on Alex Jones’ program “Infowars” that climate science is a backdoor strategy for enacting “global governance.” On Fox News, Horner mysteriously claimed that White House science adviser John Holdren is “if not borderline communist — communist.”
Horner was a guest on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” with guest host Tulsi Gabbard. The segment he appeared on started off about the polar bear population but quickly went right off the rails. Horner spoke in tapestries of word salad.
“So Enron set about to work with their friends. Ken Lay was very good at this to add value by buy through wealth transfers from making the public buy their stuff or guarantee either coercing you to buy it, mandating you buy it, kneecapping the opposition. And that continues and it has produced this this many, many billions of dollars every year,” said Horner.
His full remark was much longer but it was barely coherent. He included no specifics. What were these products? How much were they subsidized? What companies was he talking about?
Like a lot of propagandists Horner simply kept talking using heated language and vague platitudes. If an audience member already agreed with his overall point they wouldn’t question much of what Horner said.
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare 15 hours of Fox News to five hours of the PBS NewsHour. This past week I doubled my workload as I wasn’t get much. Despite this I still found countless stories that PBS reported on that Fox News did not.
Japan suffered from multiple blizzards in the Northern part of the country causing multiple fatalities.
A Congressional report faulted both a drug maker and FDA for an approval process “rife with irregularities” for the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm. Two Congressional committees also faulted the manufacturer Biogen for “an unjustifiably high price” of $56,000 a year.
PBS produced an extended segment on the many legislative successes in the last Congress including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act.
Applications for unemployment insurance rose only slightly last month, indicating strength in the U.S. economy.
Rapper Tory Lanez was found guilty on three felony charges, including assault with a semiautomatic handgun for shooting his then girlfriend rapper Megan Thee Stallion. Stallion was shot in the foot and initially tried to cover for her then boyfriend. PBS included information about the trial but also produced an extended segment about how Black women often face backlash when they are abuse victims.
Residents in Jackson, Mississippi continued to have water problems due to crumbling infrastructure and extreme weather.
A court in Myanmar again finds ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, guilty of corruption. She faces a total of 33 years in prison after a series of politically charged prosecutions meant to legitimize the military seizure of power from a freely elected government in February 2021.
A recount confirmed Democrat Kris Mayes won the race for Attorney General in Arizona. Mayes beat Republican Abraham Hamadeh by a 280-vote margin.
Last week the Taliban ordered that women can no longer work for non-governmental organizations, including relief agencies. In response, four of the largest international NGOs decided to suspend operations in the country.
Chinese President Xi promised to strengthen ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the war in Ukraine wages on.
The new far-right wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank, restrict rights for LGBTQ people, and limit judicial power.
Advocacy groups in Thailand pushed for the decriminalization of sex work and increased rights and protections for sex workers.
South Korea fired warning shots as North Korean drones entered its airspace. South Korea also began anti-drone training drills after the incident.
China sent 71 warplanes and seven ships toward Taiwan. The move was a reaction to appropriations for Taiwan in the U.S. annual defense spending bill.
Adam Fox was sentenced to 16 years while his co-conspirator Barry Croft Jr. received a 19 1/2 year sentence for their roles in the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
PBS produced a segment about the struggle to memorialize the site of ‘The Weeping Time’ the largest slave auction in U.S. history. Activists are battling the city of Savannah, Georgia that plans to build a homeless shelter in the same area. The exact spot of the auction is in dispute.
By the Numbers
The border crisis dominated Fox News coverage last week. I didn’t include any media clips about the subject as it’s the exact same message Fox has peddled for months. An anchor will show clips of migrants crossing the border then tell tales of rapes, child trafficking, drug smuggling and death. A suspect was captured in the University of Idaho murders and Fox dedicated most of its Friday coverage to that story.
The Twitter Files material was all previously aired segments.
PBS took a very different view of last week’s news. The network’s segment on Israel’s new hard right government was extremely comprehensive and included Israeli counter protesters who were not happy with the new extremist leadership.
Friday included Judy Woodruff’s last broadcast of the program. The network featured an extended series of video segments where colleagues and peers expressed their love., gratitude and respect for Woodruff.
No real surprises on the word count for the week. Since I covered 30 hours all of the numbers are about twice as high as they normally would be. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) only made the list three times. There was really no reason to mention her at all but Fox anchors always seem to find a way.
Coming up…
If I have time this week I’ll include a second podcast/newsletter of the best media clips form 2022. Otherwise I’ll be covering “Fox & Friends,” “The Five,” and “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
I also will appear on a podcast produced by The Lincoln Project on Wednesday. I don’t have the full details yet but I will keep you posted.