For weeks the folks at Fox kept telling their audience that diehard communist revolutionaries were on a mission to destroy the American way of life. The movement started in deep blue congressional districts in New York City but was quickly spreading across the nation to envelop the heartland.
Thanksgiving celebrations would be canceled; football games would be replaced by Pagan transgender drum circles and air conditioners would be confiscated by the state and smashed by blue-haired women studies majors.
On the night of Wisconsin’s primary when it became clear that the Democratic Socialist gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong would be defeated by a moderate, I could almost hear a primal scream coming from the offices of Fox News headquarters in midtown Manhattan.
Every script for nearly every program was going to have to be rewritten. Even though Hong didn’t win the folks at Fox News kept talking about her for days after the election.
The network also made a slight adjustment in its messaging. Both Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt sang the praises of free market economies and daring bold entrepreneurs. Miranda Devine from the NY Post and folks from Fox Business warned of the dangers of government run healthcare systems.
Fox News also managed to stretch a minor scandal about a statement made by Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham of the WNBA into a four-week story. Cunningham made a statement about excluding transgender athletes in women’s sports and the public reacted both negatively and positively to her opinion.
It was astonishing to watch the network react with such panic and indignation over an incident where no one was fired or sanctioned and no actual transgender athlete existed.
The folks at Fox News also avoided talking about the war with Iran. The network still covered it but segments about the conflict were short and vague.
Shows I covered on Fox News last week:
Fox & Friends
The Five
Hannity
Jesse Watters Primetime - Thursday only
Calling them Communist Doesn’t Work!
On Wednesday morning Fox & Friends host Charlie Hurt suggested Republicans might change their strategy in terms of the Democratic Socialists of America.
“But of course, the real big story today is are these races where you have this ongoing fight between the Democrats, old school Democrats, or not even old school, but regular Democrats, the establishment of the party and these total wacko commies. And one of the problems with that is that conservatives have been just sort of yelling commie at these people. Republicans have been yelling commie at these people, just calling them communists and not actually addressing a lot of the underlying concerns that a lot of voters have, particularly young voters who are struggling, especially with the economy. And they you have to give them more answers than just yelling commie right now.”
Sandra Smith Why Republicans Couldn’t Sell the Affordability Crisis
On Tuesday while a guest host on The Five Sandra Smith said she was confused how voters were turning to Democrats for answers about the affordability crisis.
“How in the world are Republicans letting Democrats? Far left radical socialist Democrats own the affordability thing now,” said Smith.
Inflation did spike globally during the COVID-19 pandemic during the Biden administration. Donald J. Trump also promised his supporters that he would get prices down.
Trump even made wild promises to cut energy prices in half within the first year of his second term. Residential electricity rates have risen in nearly every state since Trump took office. The price of gasoline has been elevated since the start of the war with Iran in late February.
The biggest problem for Republicans is the president’s current messaging on the crisis.
In mid-June during his statement at the G7 Summit Trump claimed Democrats invented the word - affordability.
“The word affordability is a fake word, but made up by the Democrats. Here’s where it’s fake. Because they made it up. Because I inherited these prices. And when I had my first news conference, first day, they started screaming affordability. The Democrats affordability, affordability. They’re screaming. I said, what’s that all about? They gave it to me. They gave it to me. It’s affordability. And they use that word to a fair thee well. Well, they were the ones that created the affordability crisis. I’m the one that got it done. Remember, highest insurance rates in history. Highest rates for everything. Eggs. Remember eggs? There were four times more expensive than they were in my administration. And I got it down Peter, very quickly. Our secretary did a good job of agriculture, Brooke. She did a great job with eggs and everything else. And now that the is coming down, you’re going to see everything follow. Everything follows the cost of energy, and we’re going to end up having the lowest energy anywhere in the world.”
Americans know that prices of groceries, utility bills and gasoline haven’t gone down.
When Trump took office the CPI rate was 3.0%. It is currently 3.4%. According to the BLS the elevated cost of energy is the main reason the inflation rate hasn’t dropped.
Fox News Becomes a Cheerleader for Capitalism
On Tuesday on Fox & Friends Ainsley Earhardt read directly from a Wall Street Journal editorial written by Gerard Baker. The WSJ is owned by the same parent company that owns Fox News - The Murdoch family trust (Lachlan Murdoch).
“He argues that capitalism doesn’t need replacing, it needs reaffirming. Let me read this and then we’ll kind of break that down. What he means by this. There’s the headline socialism is the wrong answer, but the questions are real. He says inequality is a feature of capitalism and a sign of its health. It isn’t only functionally efficient, but morally proper, and rewards for talent, hard work, risk taking and luck are distributed proportionately to those who possess them. But it’s also empirically obvious that the wider the inequality, the more social solidarity diminishes. Socialism has never been the answer, and it isn’t now. Capitalism doesn’t need replacing. It needs reaffirming the real political opportunity and social imperative to defeat socialism is a plausible platform to make capitalism great again and real quickly. He just goes through the principles of a true free market instead of turning to socialism. He talks about promoting true competition, which is breaking up monopolies so that these big corporations allow for growth on the small companies, eliminate corporate wealth or welfare, which means stop the government bailouts. And he addresses legitimate grievances. We need to acknowledge, as you were saying, the public’s economic pain,” said Earhardt.
Trump has boasted about the U.S. government owning large stakes in privately held companies - that is absolutely not capitalism. Government ownership of a company destroys competition and is unfair to similar companies.
The Trump administration is putting its thumb on the scale which is not how free markets are supposed to operate.
Since Trump was sworn in for a second term his administration has also made it easier for media companies to consolidate dominating markets and reducing competition.
The Trump administration has approved the merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery which would combine two of Hollywood’s five major film studios and two of the five major basic cable companies which would also reduce competition.
The president is the worst ambassador for free markets and capitalism as he has personally engaged in what looks like insider trading and self-dealing. His relatives have been awarded lucrative government contracts and the president has awarded contracts to friends and allies without a competitive bidding process.
Donald J. Trump has also directly profited from his image and likeness while president.
The Trump administration also allowed Elon Musk to defund, undermine and weaken government agencies that were investigating his companies.
Let Them Eat Food Stamps!
On Monday on Fox & Friends Charlie Hurt attempted to criticize the concept of government run grocery stores. Government run stores have failed in some cities.
Instead Hurt made the false claim that Democrats were decrying the usefulness of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) commonly known as food stamps.
“We’ve seen it in a couple of cities around the country, all by Democrats, all by this. And it’s getting worse with the Socialist surge within the Democrat Party. We have food stamps in this country. Food stamps have been around a long time, and it is amazing to me that that the party that created food stamps and is the biggest defender of food stamps is now saying food stamps don’t work. Food stamps has been a massive failure. Therefore, we need to take over all the grocery stores and make them public. It’s such an extraordinary admission on their part.”
Democrats who have promoted the idea of government owned grocery stores have not said that food stamps were a massive failure.
The Trump administration has greatly reduced the amount of Americans who qualify for SNAP assistance. According to the Center on Budget analysis Policy Priorities Trump’s signature legislation - One Big Beautiful law greatly reduced the amount of Americans who can qualify for SNAP benefits.
It also shifts some costs from the federal government to the states. SNAP participation has been reduced by approximately 4.5 million people or 11% according to USDA data.
According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
"In 2023, about 39% of SNAP participants were children, 20% were elderly, and 10% were nonelderly individuals with a disability.”
An Australian Scolded Americans about Healthcare
On Monday on Fox & Friends the NY Post’s Miranda Divine went on a bit of a rant about the U.S. healthcare system. Although Divine was born in the U.S. she was raised and educated in Australia.
Fox News producers opened the segment with a clip from NBC News ‘Meet the Press” from Sunday August 9 featuring Kristen Welker interviewing U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
Welker: Just to be very clear, you’re describing this trade off. You are effectively acknowledging that people making less than $1 million could see their taxes go up. I just wouldn’t be very clear. Is that a yes?
El-Sayed: I’m saying that we’d be paying for health care in a different way. Instead of paying a health insurance company whose CEO makes $20 million. I would much rather pay for durable health care into a government, which, of course, we all know provides health care for seniors who need health care the most. So if I’m trading paying a CEO to make more money or paying government to guarantee me health care, I’m picking the latter every time.
Ainsley Earhardt spoke to Miranda Divine about his statement. Divine is not an expert on insurance or healthcare. She is best known for writing a salacious book about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Earhardt: Miranda. How could we afford it?
Divine: Well, obviously we can’t. And you just have to look at countries around the world that have embraced a softer form of socialism. And you can see that once there is a government entitlement program, a massive one like Medicare or disability insurance, etc., you can never get rid of it. And you create this entitlement attitude among people who just don’t think they really need to work for anything. And it just destroys that resilience and that get up and go mentality that’s made America what it is today.
This was especially rich coming from a woman who benefitted from Australia’s universal healthcare system before moving back to the United States.
According to the CDC about 11% of Americans have no form of health insurance.
The amount of uninsured Americans has risen since Trump started his second term.
The United States is the ONLY wealthy country without universal health coverage for its citizens.
U.S. medical debt has increased in Trump’s second term as have bankruptcies caused by medical debt. Bankruptcies across the board have increased in Trump’s second term.
The U.S. spends more money on healthcare per person than any other developed country.
The U.S. spends more than twice per capita as the average country on healthcare costs.
Administrative costs are significantly higher than other developed countries. This is directly related to the private for-profit health insurance industry.
The U.S. also has worse health outcomes than other developed countries. (Peter G. Peterson Foundation)
Life expectancy
Infant mortality
Unmanaged diabetes
Heart attack survival
Keeping Transgender Panic Alive
For the past three weeks Fox News has overhyped a fairly minor scandal at the WNBA involving a statement made by one of its players - Sophie Cunningham.
Cunningham said she supported keeping transgender athletes out of women’s sports. She did not trash the transgender community or use bigoted language. There is also no transgender athlete in the WNBA.
The Indiana Fever guard did not face dislplincary actions for her statement. She has been both criticized and praised for voicing her opinion. Protesters have shown up at WNBA games in solidarity with Cunningham and in opposition of her.
Many large sporting organizations have already banned transgender athletes and a recent ruling by the Supreme Court allowed 27 states to ban transgender women and girls from competing in K-12 and collegiate athletics.
The number of transgender athletes who have competed in college sports is extremely small. According to SF.gov:
“Trans people are estimated to make up 1-2% of the population of the United States; however, trans people make up less than less than 0.002% (10/500,000) of US college athletes, and even fewer of recent Olympians (0.001%) identify as trans.”
According to reporting by The Hill NCAA President Charlie Baker told a senate panel that there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes competing in college sports in 2024. An estimated 230,077 female athletes for the academic year 2023-2024 competed in NCAA sports.
The NCAA has since banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sporting events.
Despite all of this Fox News has still presented transgender athletes as a grave threat to women’s sports.
On Thursday Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Michele Tafoya, a Republican, claimed voters told her it was their number one concern.
“It was just at a at an event and a woman came up to me and she said, I think my number one issue now I’m a single issue voter is this trans stuff. And subjecting these kids to it and allowing men and women’s sports. It is a it is something that is really upsetting a lot of Minnesotans, moms and dads, they want their kids back. Yeah, they do. And they’ve had it with being afraid to speak up. Now people are finally empowered to speak up and logic is back.”
Candidate Endorsements
The network spent 5% of its airtime on the shows I covered endorsing candidates.
Mike Rogers - U.S. Senate, Michigan - Republican
Darline Graham - U.S. Senate, South Carolina - Republican
Bruce Blakeman - Governor, New York - Republican
Tom Tiffany - Governor, Wisconsin - Republican
Michele Tafoya - U.S. Senate, Minnesota - Republican
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. This list has been truncated for space. Source - The PBS News Hour transcripts.
Climate disasters
Last month was officially the hottest month ever recorded for the contiguous U.S., in other words, all the states except Alaska and Hawaii. That's according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last month officially eclipsed July 1936 during the Dust Bowl by an eighth-of-a-degree. Scientists said one of the biggest drivers of the record heat was hotter nighttime temperatures, an indicator of human-caused climate change. (PBS News Hour)
Millions of people in Europe are sweltering in their fifth heat wave of the summer. The U.K., in particular, recorded its hottest day of the year so far. The air in West London exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit, only several degrees short of the country’s all-time record for August. The heat is exacerbating drought conditions across the continent, and crews are racing to contain a number of major wildfires. (PBS News Hour)
The Trump administration said it would stop funding the Arctic Report Card, the longstanding effort to collect research on how the fastest-warming place on Earth is changing. It’s the latest in a series of moves by the administration to curtail scientific research into the impacts of climate change. William Brangham discussed more with glaciologist Twila Moon, the Arctic Report Card’s editor. (PBS News Hour)
Belgium hit its highest temperature this summer, baking fields along the Semois that are normally some of the greenest in the country. Now they are scorched from a brutal drought. The conditions pose a challenge for fire crews who are battling blazes across the continent. Fast-spreading flames engulfed several homes in the U.K. And in Croatia, authorities say one person was killed after an inferno ignited last Friday. (PBS News Hour)
In Japan, record-breaking rainfall triggered flooding across several cities east of Tokyo, killing at least five people and stranding thousands more. Stormwater cascaded through buildings and submerged cars and railway tracks. With travel snarled, many people spent the night sleeping in airports and train stations. Authorities say three months’ worth of rain fell in just 12 hours. (PBS News Hour)
Americans owe more than a trillion dollars in credit card debt, up 60% from just five years ago. Meanwhile, higher interest rates make debt even more difficult to pay off, a downward spiral causing credit card delinquencies to surge. (PBS News Hour)
A federal judge in Boston has dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit against Harvard University that had accused the Ivy League school of turning a blind eye to antisemitism. Siding with Harvard, the judge said the administration failed to show any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI, which is the ban on discrimination in programs that receive federal grants. (PBS News Hour)
Israeli settlers laid siege to the home of a Palestinian American family in the occupied West Bank, sparking condemnation from the U.S. ambassador and an Israeli military response. Nick Schifrin spoke with Qusai and Ahmed Ridi from the house in Qusra, and Qusai’s brother. (PBS News Hour)
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to worsen, with the number of confirmed cases climbing to over 4,600. At least 2,100 people have died, a death toll that was reached almost three times faster than the outbreak over a decade ago. William Brangham discussed the crisis with epidemiologist Dr. Anne Rimoin, director of the Center for Global Health Security at UCLA. (PBS News Hour)
By the Numbers
Please don’t call it Fox “News” any more. More appropriate would be Fox Not News, Fox Lies or Fox Propaganda.
You deserve a Pulitzer for your work!