Fox News: Our Dear Leader is Running for President Again...but we Love DeSantis! Let the Investigations Begin!
A condensed overview of 16 hours of Fox News for the week ending 11/20/22
A typical Fox News viewer might think that the real villains of the midterm elections were an eccentric crypto swindler and an ancient Senator from Kentucky. Fox cheered when Donald J. Trump announced he was running for president again but within 48 hours they switched alliances to Governor Ron DeSantis. Fox anchors were also elated about the upcoming never-ending investigations into every aspect of Hunter Biden’s life.
A consumer of Fox News might not realize that former Vice President Mike Pence has refused to testify to the January 6th Committee or that the Supreme Court is allowing the same committee to subpoena the phone records of the chairwoman of the Republican Party in Arizona.
Anyone who exclusively watched the network wouldn’t know about a blizzard in Buffalo, New York or massive drought on the Mississippi River. They also be uninformed about the heroic anti-government protests in Iran or a bill in the Senate to protect same-sex and interracial marriages.
Last week was not the typical festival of fear mongering and scare tactics that the network normally doles out to its devoted fans. It was a complicated mess of pretending a narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives was the start of a revolution.
For the next House term the GOP will champion the common man by throwing most of its energy into petty investigations in every crevice they can find in the Democrat power structure. Fox News insisted that inflation, gas prices, crime and the Southern border will still be dealt with even though Republicans won’t have the votes to get any meaningful legislation passed.
The Republican majority might be slim, but it’s still a majority, and Fox News anchors were gleeful at the thought of revenge.
Shows I covered last week:
Fox & Friends - the first hour
The Five
The Ingraham Angle
The Red Wave Happened but it’s Mitch McConnell’s Fault it Wasn’t Bigger
Over the course of last week Laura Ingraham sharply criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. As far as Ingraham was concerned it was McConnell’s fault Republicans didn’t take more seats in the House or Senate.
She started by inviting former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on to tear into the Senator.
“I think Mitch McConnell, more than any single person, cost us control of the Senate. Fact is, Mitch McConnell runs a mitch McConnell PAC and then raises the money as though he's going to fight for control of the Senate. He's fighting for Mitch McConnell, not for the Republican Party,” said Gingrich
After Gingrich’s segment Ingraham held her finger up and made a sizzling sound with her voice to mock the Senator.
“Well, of course, Gingrich is correct. And his assessment was confirmed when McConnell shared his theory about why Republicans suffered some disappointing losses in the midterms,” said Ingraham.
She then cut to a clip of McConnell.
“We underperformed among independents and moderates because their impression of many of the people in our party and leadership roles is that they're involved in chaos, negativity, excessive attacks, and it frightened independent and moderate Republican voters,” said McConnell.
She then compared McConnell to Democratic leadership.
“How exactly McConnell's assessment is different from what Pelosi or Schumer would say about the GOP. But let's face it, Chuck does. Oh, Mitch, a heck of a lot. 18 Republicans, led by McConnell, made it possible for the Democrats to claim a bipartisan victory for that idiotic infrastructure bill. Now, let's not forget the 15 Republican senators who helped Democrats pass a gun control bill this past summer,” said Ingraham.
McConnell is one of the most conservative lawmakers in the Senate. Ingraham is really grasping to say he would share any political views with Schumer or Pelosi.
The Republicans lost votes among moderates and Ingraham’s solution was to avoid any bipartisan legislation and to go as far right as possible.
FTX collapse
The world of crypto currency is a mystifying un-regulated universe filled with speculators and promises of great wealth. Most Americans couldn’t begin to explain how block-chains work or how anyone would make a profit off of virtual currency but they probably have a neighbor or friend who keeps telling them to invest in it.
Fox exploited this confusion. This story is complicated but you really don’t need to be an expert to understand how Fox News would take something complex and twist it for their own gain.
Sam Bankman-Fried was the CEO of a crypto exchange called FTX. He allegedly pocketed or misappropriated his clients funds anywhere from the tune of $1 - 10 billion. His company has gone bankrupt and he’s probably going to prison.
What’s important in terms of Fox News is that Bankman-Fried donated a lot of money to Democrat political groups. Fox has exploited this to an extent that they are blaming Bankman-Fried for Republican losses in the midterms.
Jesse Watters was one of the first to start weaving this tale on “The Five.”
“This guy is a mini-Madoff and I want my money back because this guy, through his fraud, stopped my red wave. So I want that money back. I deserve that money back. Because if you take the $40 million out of this, this was to get out the vote. This was to ballot harvest. And that's why we don't have a Republican Senate because of fraudulent cash by this many Madoff.”
“And we just find out about this after he buys the Senate for the Democrats. That's not fair. Sounds familiar. This things keep on happening. It's like, oh, after the election, we find out about the laptop and the Russia hoax was fake. You know, every time this guy, you know, people drag the Democrats over the finish line, it ends up being fraudulent,” said Watters
Fox anchors also brought up the largest Democrat donor George Soros more than once. I found this a bit disturbing as Soros has absolutely nothing to do with the Bankman-Fried scandal. Bankman-Fried and Soros share the same religious and ethnic background - Jewish.
Soros is frequently brought up as a villain on Fox News and in other right-wing media circles. Evoking Soros seemed like an obvious antisemitic dog-whistle.
A Breakdown of the Top Ten Donors to PAC’s and political organizations
As the week dragged on the theories became more elaborate. The following are clips by various personalities on “The Five.”
“Democrats still reeling over the downfall of their top donor and favorite crypto scammer, Sam Bankman-Fried,” said Greg Gutfeld.
Then Jesse Watters chimed in.
“Yeah. And then plowed into the Democrat Senate campaign. So he bought the Senate,” said Watters.
Judge Jeanine Pirro did not hold back.
“By supporting Democrats who say they want to prevent the next pandemic. It's like 80% of the money went to Democrats, isn't not going to Republicans. They gave it to republicans so they could say it was bipartisan,” said Pirro.
I looked up the top ten donors on the website OpenSecrets.org. FTX was a large contributor as the organization was the third largest for the last election.
Of the top ten, six groups mostly gave to Republicans and four mostly gave to Democrats. When I added up all of the amounts for each group Republicans received over $70 million more in donations than Republicans.
FDX employees also donated over $20 million dollars to Republicans.
Of course this was just the 10 largest donors. It was not a large enough group to show the full scope of donations given to both parties. It’s estimated that both parties spent about $17 billion in the last election which would make FTX’s large donation of $70 million seem incredibly insignificant.
“Bigger than Bernie, Bigger than Enron!”
I included this clip because I suspect this will be repeated for months to come. Jesse Watters made this bold pronouncement.
“He bought the Senate for the Democrats and has committed all sorts of atrocious financial crimes bigger than Enron, bigger than Madoff, said Watters.
That is incorrect.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Bankman-Fried may have illegally taken about $10 billion in FTX's customers funds for his trading firm and at least $1-$2 billion in customer funds is reportedly missing.
Most of the wealth lost in FTX's was Bankman-Fried personal fortune.
Bernie Madoff stole $20 billion in principal funds and lied about $65 billion worth of gains that simply did not exist.
Enron investors lost $74 billion. This included pensioners who lost their entire life savings. Enron executives were also close with the George W Bush administration and donated heavily to Republicans.
PBS invited Roben Farzad of NPR and the financial podcast “Full Disclosure.”
Farzad didn’t talk about Soros once or mention the fact that Sam Bankman-Fried had donated to Democrats.
Unlike Fox News the expert actually discussed how the crypto exchange worked and how Bankman-Fried may have misappropriated his client’s funds.
Media Matters For America uncovered an even deeper conspiracy theory regarding FTX that I missed. MMFA has a much larger staff and was able to cover the full spectrum of Fox News programming.
They uncovered a theory that was first promoted by a white supremacist. I don’t have the space to explore it fully. here but the Nazi version of this conspiracy puts Ukraine and FTX at the center of an international money laundering plot. It doesn’t make a ton of sense but Fox went ahead and promoted on multiple programs.
Here is the link to the article. “Right-wing outlets are pushing an unfounded conspiracy theory about collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX that originated from a white supremacist’s website.”
Nancy Pelosi’s Reign is Over
The following is a montage of the cast of “The Five” giving their farewell of sorts to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
“Now, I don't care if it's a red wave, red trickle, Nancy Pelosi is gone. And very happy about that. And she leaves a really. Just vicious legacy from corruption to Obamacare,” said Watters.
Then Greg Gutfeld added his two cents.
“I'm going to miss Nancy Pelosi and her unique eyebrows, which seemed plucked from a dying, praying mantis. But I think I don't think you're going to go away. I think you're going to see her go from the gavel to the Gavin. All right. Are they related? Yeah, they should be related. But also, we're coming up on Christmas. It's time for a female Scrooge, right? Oh, we don't have a female Scrooge. She would be perfect,” said Gutfeld.
Bogus Experts of the Week
This week there were multiple candidates for this distinction but the best example was a doctor Fox News invited on to discuss it’s latest COVID-19 conspiracy theory. There wasn’t much to their latest conspiracy except that the vaccines don’t work. The doctor inquisition was referred to as a “PhD Research Scientist.”
Immediately my interest was piqued as a person can get a PhD in a myriad of subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with infectious disease. Dr. Houman Hemmati is a medical doctor but his speciality is ophthalmology. If Fox News needed an expert on eye diseases he would be the perfect person to discuss it.
His quote about the COVID-19 virus was the second clue that he might not be the best person to discuss the issue.
“If you're a virus, you're thinking, how do I survive in a virus that survives as one? So just like the common cold is one that infects very rapidly. Spreads throughout, however, doesn't kill its host. Lethal viruses like Ebola never last very long because they simply burn off because they kill whoever they infect,” said Hemmati.
The line that made me squint was “If you’re a virus, you’re thinking.” Viruses don’t think. They have no cognitive ability. A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism.
He’s partially correct in that over time as a virus mutates through multiple generations it is more likely to stick around it it does not kill it’s host.
Ultimately most people wouldn’t set up an appointment with an eye doctor if they had an infectious respiratory disease.
The Big Announcement
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare 15 hours of Fox News programming with five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following are stories that PBS reported on that Fox News ignored.
Darrell Brooks was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of extended supervision for driving his SUV into a crowd of Christmas parade attendees in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last year, killing six people and wounding dozens
Cecilia Rouse, the first Black woman to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, will leave the administration in the spring.
Iranian state TV said a gunmen opened fire in a bazaar in the Southwestern Iranian city of Izeh, killing at least five people and wounding civilians and security forces. It’s unclear if the attack was part of the anti-government protests that have gone on now for over two months.
More than 1,000 Starbucks workers at 125 U.S. stores across the country walked off the job last week in a push for unionization they dubbed a "Red Cup Rebellion.” So far negotiations have stalled with the company.
Six dead, dozens wounded in an explosion in Instanbul, Turkey.
A massive blizzard in Buffalo, NY dumped up to six feet of snow in some areas.
North Korean aggression and the war in Ukraine dominated the Asia-Pacific Summit.
Massive drought along the Mississippi River is causing increases in the cost of shipping agricultural products.
A judge overturned Georgia’s ban on abortion at six weeks citing it was unconstitutional.
The State Department issued a legal opinion that stated Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has immunity from U.S. Courts. The prince was facing a lawsuit from the fiancee of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered and dismembered in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate.
Amazon plans to layoff about 10,000 employees. Most of the cuts will be in corporate and technology jobs.
Former Vice Pres. Mike Pence said he will not testify before the U.S, House January 6th Committee
The Supreme Court is allowing the January 6th committee to subpoena the phone records of Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party
Journalist and speech writer for George W. Bush, Michael Gerson, died at the age of 58 of kidney cancer. Gerson was a frequent contributor to the PBS NewsHour and a columnist at the Washington Post.
The United Nations estimated on Nov. 15th, 2022 that the world population hit eight billion with the largest growth coming from developing countries in Africa.
The U.S. Senate cleared a procedural battle to protect same-sex and interracial marriage.
NASA had another successful launch of its Artemis program which should lead to greater human exploration of the moon.
Walmart agreed to pay a $3.1 billion settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits related to the opioid crisis. The money will help pay for drug treatment and education programs.
Google agreed to pay nearly $392 million in a settlement with 40 states over allegations that the company tracked users through their devices even after location tracking had been turned off.
The largest dam removal in the history of the United States has been approved by the federal government. Four dams along the lower Klamath River will be destroyed in the hopes of restoring the Klamath River basin in California and Oregon.
A Dutch court finds two Russians, and one Ukrainian separatist guilty over downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. The convictions were handed down in absentia.
The U.K. will pay France at least $75 million a year in a deal designed to reduce illegal migration across the English Channel
A jailed British-Egyptian activist, Alaa Abdel Fattah, ended his hunger strike. His hunger strike stretched on for over seven months.
By the Numbers
This graph includes the episode of Hannity that aired most of Donald J. Trump’s announcement to run for president in 2024. The Patriot Awards our an annual awards show produced by Fox News. The awards are focused on patriotism and service to the United States. Most of the Fox News staff flew down to Hollywood, Florida where the event was held for at least part of the week last week. The program was promoted heavily on every show I analyzed last week.
Fox did include some coverage on the war in Ukraine last week but it was a tiny fraction of the airtime PBS dedicated to the conflict. PBS NewsHour included pundits and experts with conflicting opinions regarding the outcome of the midterm elections and Trump’s decision to run for president in 2024.
Much like last week the word that topped the list was Republican followed by Democrat and then House (House of Representatives). Crime dropped considerably from previous weeks as did gas and inflation.
Coming up…
Fox News tends to phone it in during the holidays. I will capture my usual 15 hours of Fox News but the next newsletter might also have some “Best of Decoding Fox News” clips since Fox will likely also recycle old interviews and have entire hours dedicated to reading viewer mail. My plan is to catch up on number of projects that I’ve half finished. For this week I’ll be capturing “Fox & Friends,” “The Five” and “Jesse Watters Primetime.”