Fox News: Squatter Caravans, Chaos at the RNC and How to Blame Buttigieg for a Bridge Collapse in Baltimore
A condensed overview of 18 hours of Fox News for the week ending 3/31/24
Last week Fox tried desperately to blame the Biden administration for a disastrous bridge collapse in Baltimore, the RNC continued to struggle to raise money, and the folks at Fox melded stories of squatters taking over suburban homes with invasions of criminal migrants.
Another topic that got a lot of airtime last week was the debacle of NBC’s decision to hire then promptly fire former RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Several Fox News hosts acted as if this one poor decision would tank NBC News programs and its cable news division MSNBC .
The network also promoted the idea that Donald J. Trump was being persecuted by the many civil and criminal trials he faces.
Several Fox News guests implied that the 2024 election might be stolen even as Fox News faces a $2.7 billion lawsuit from Smartmatic for its role in knowingly promoting lies about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Anyone exclusively watching Fox News last week might have missed stories about a recall election involving an elected official in Oklahoma with white nationalist ties. Fox viewers might have also missed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal settlement in a fraud case and the fact that Donald J. Trump was hit with another gag order in one of his criminal trials.
Shows I covered last week:
Fox & Friends - extra hours on Tuesday and Friday
The Five
Hannity
A Bridge Collapsed in Baltimore - Fox Tries to Blame Joe Biden
On Tuesday at 1:28 a.m. the Francis Scott Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland collapsed after a 985-foot cargo ship owned by a Singapore firm Grace Ocean Private Ltd, lost power and rammed into a support structure pillar.
At first the Fox News anchors reported on the accident without any partisan spin but about an hour into “Fox & Friends,” on-air hosts attempted to criticize President Biden for the freak accident.
Because I was up late working on last week’s newsletter I decided to stay up and capture how Fox News reported on the tragic accident.
6:58 a.m.
Brian Kilmeade asked if anyone had contacted President Biden.
“Do you wake the president when something like this happens at 1:30 a.m. in the morning? Is this something you wake the president for?”
Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary for President Trump, was co-hosting that morning. She responded.
“Absolutely. I mean, President Trump would have been awoken in a situation like this. When is the last time this happened? As we've been speaking about, the last time that I can find is is 40 years ago in Tampa, Florida. This is a national tragedy, a state of emergency described as a mass casualty event. So, yes.”
Then Steve Doocy wrapped up the discussion.
“A developing mass casualty event. You wake up the president and as you wake up this morning, as you look, these are images of Baltimore Harbor right there.”
What About Pete Buttigieg?
7:18 a.m.
Fox & Friends producers introduced Kerri Kupec Urbahn, Fox News legal editor and the former director of public affairs and counselor to the attorney general during the Trump admin.
“Well, something like this requires massive law enforcement coordination. You have the FBI, you have the Coast Guard, you have the police, you have the Transportation Department. And so lots of moving parts, lots of moving pieces. And I was thinking about if this had happened when I was at the Department of Justice.
And Kayleigh, I heard what you said about waking the president. It would have been the same on my end, waking up the attorney general. And what he would have done would be a couple of things. First, he'd call the FBI director and ask, ‘what do you know?’ Because and one of the first questions he'd ask, ‘is there any suspicion of terrorist activity?’ which we've heard thus far doesn't seem to be the case to foul play.
What do we think's going on? Then he would have called the president to brief him. At that point, he, the chief and I would get on a call, put together a statement to assure the public that the attorney general is monitoring the situation. And we're working closely with our local law enforcement partners. But something like this requires, like I said, massive coordination.”
McEnany responded.
“So, it seems like the Department of Transportation was on it pretty early. Pete Buttigieg is in contact with the mayor. We heard the mayor talk about his correspondence with the federal government, saying that they were on it.”
I was shocked that McEnany gave Buttigieg credit for his prompt response. The network normally blames the Secretary of Transportation for any random train derailment, airplane mishap or even flight delays and cancellations.
7:50 a.m.
Fox News correspondent Mark Meredith reporting from Washington D.C. weighed in on the White House response to the incident.
“So, we'll let you know again if the president has anything directly to say about this, whether it be online or as he heads out of town. This afternoon.”
Brian Kilmeade brought up the Secretary of Transportation again.
“Another test for Pete Buttigieg between the supply chain, the pilot problem.”
His co-host Lawrence Jones cut him off.
“Is he going to run them as soon? Do we know that, Mark? I mean Baltimore is only about an hour away, it being within arm’s reach. Is there any plan for the secretary to go to the scene?”
Meredith responded.
“That's a great question, Lawrence. And I would have to bet that at some point, whether it's today or tomorrow, we would see the secretary go there. I don't know for a fact that he is in Washington this week or not. The secretary could be out of town, but we will certainly make that inquiry. Obviously, with him putting out one of the first statements on this tragedy, the spotlight they knew was going to be on him. And you're right, it's not far for officials here from Washington to get make their way. Obviously, it can take a little bit longer now with the traffic back up. But I would imagine you'll definitely see some sort of federal administration response, whether it be from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, from D.O.T., maybe somebody with NTSB. We'll wait to see.”
By the third hour of “Fox & Friends,” the network included other news stories and commercial breaks.
They also seemed to drop any criticism of President Biden or Pete Buttigieg as multiple elected officials and first responders on the scene praised the prompt and aggressive federal response.
By the time, “The Five,” was broadcast the story was reduced to a quick segment at the top of the show. There was no mention of Buttigieg or the President.
Lara Trump is Over Her Head at the RNC
On Monday on “Hannity,” the senior Fox News host invited Lara Trump, the new co-chair of the RNC to talk about her plan to increase fundraising at the beleaguered primary committee for the Republican Party.
After about three minutes trashing President Biden Hannity asked her how she was planning on increasing fundraising, early voting, and vote by mail.
“Certainly you at least want to match, if not surpass, their (DNC) efforts. Can you get that done in two to 224 days? That seems like a heavy lift.”
Trump responded.
“It may be a heavy lift, but I'm here at the RNC right now. Look what time it is. We're working overtime. I promise you; we are focused on all of these things. We would love to have one day of voting. We'd love to have voter ID and paper ballots. We can get back to that place, Sean. But we have to do it by electing Donald Trump at the top of the ticket, expanding our lead in the House and taking back the Senate. And then maybe we get back there one day.
We got to play the hand that we're dealt. And that means as soon as you can go vote, go vote out there. And then you spend your time every single day from that day on until Election Day, taking people to vote. We are going to have a legal ballot harvesting operation at the RNC. It's something that has never been done before.
But, yes, 224 days to victory. We are going to get it done because, Sean, we have no other options. If Joe Biden is successful, if the Democrats are successful in November, it means they are able to employ communist tactics, as you're just discussing, against their political opponents. It means that on the other side of this, we do not have the same country left. So, we're focused. We're working hard. And we're going to make sure that on November 5th there are no questions. Donald Trump Well, unanimously be the president of the United States.”
Basically, Trump said she was working late, and she’ll tell people to vote early, the Democrats will use “communist tactics,” and Donald J. Trump would unanimously be the president of the United States.
I would have loved a follow up question regard what she meant by “legal ballot harvesting” and how any candidate would “unanimously” be elected.
Hosts and guests on Fox News have a strange relationship with the term “ballot harvesting.” They’ve used the term to accuse Democrats of stealing elections while they’ve also equated it with benign ‘get out the vote or GOTV’ drives.
What is Ballot Harvesting?
Ballot harvesting is actually legal in some states. It’s a practice that involves third parties collecting and delivering ballots.
According to reporting by CBS News one of the most high profile cases of illegal ballot harvesting involved a Republican operative McCrae Dowless who was indicted for mishandling absentee ballots in an effort to sway an election for a pastor named Mark Harris for a Congressional seat in North Carolina’s 9th District.
The election was overturned, Harris claimed he knew nothing about the scheme and decided not to run in new election.
Dowles was accused of paying workers to collect absentee ballots from voters, to fraudulently sign them and then deliver them to election offices.
In the case of legal ballot harvesting volunteers or campaign workers go to the homes of voters, collect ballots and then drop them off at polling places or election offices. In some states it’s legal to pay workers who deliver ballots an hourly wage.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures 26 states allow a voter to designate someone else to return their ballot for them. It’s normally done for voters who have physical disabilities that might make it difficult for them to wait in line at a polling location.
Gutfled Freaks Out About a Democratic Fundraiser
While the RNC scrambles for money the DNC is breaking fundraising records. On Thursday, on “The Five,” Greg Gutfeld was outraged that Stephen Colbert would host a wildly successful fundraiser for Biden and the Democratic Party.
“You got Colbert who has morphed into a full-on shill. Remember, he was dancing for pharmaceuticals. Now he's dancing for a leader who's on pharmaceuticals. I don't think Fox would allow me to do that. I don't think Fox would say, you know, I don't think you should be holding a fundraiser for the Republican candidate in 10 minutes, I'd be doing a podcast with Don Lemon.”
Gutfeld should realize that Colbert is a comedian and talk show host. Colbert doesn’t work for a news organization. Comedians are not held to the same standard that a journalist would be in terms of working for a fundraising campaign.
Although there is no formal ethics standard for journalists is concerned highly inappropriate and unethical for journalists to actively campaign for any candidate or participate in fundraising for candidates. Some journalists refuse to even vote in elections.
Gutfeld also doesn’t know his own network. Sean Hannity, the highest paid anchor on Fox News, spoke from the stage of President Donald Trump’s midterm election rally in November 2018. Judge Janine Pirro also appeared on stage at the same rally.
In 2010 members of Republican Party ,who identified with the Tea Party movement, advertised that Sean Hannity would appear at a fundraiser. Fox News said it had not approved the arrangement and ordered Hannity to cancel the appearance.
According to reporting by the Associated Press, in 2016, he was part of a Trump political video, which Fox said it had not known about in advance and told Hannity not to do so again.
What made Gutfeld’s reaction to this story even more surprising is that Fox News was comparing the posh DNC fundraiser to Trump’s appearance at the wake of Jonathan Diller a NYPD officer who was killed in the line of duty in Queens, NY.
Roń Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of the Meidas Touch did the legwork and looked up the memorials of other officers who were killed in the line of duty. He compared the dates of these events to the calendar of Donald J. Trump.
Not only did Trump not attend any of the other memorials, funerals, and wakes for fallen officers in some cases he played golf on the same days as these events.
Judge Jeanine Embarrasses Herself About Trump’s Bond in a Civil Trial
On Monday on “The Five,” Judge Jeanine Pirro looked incredibly foolish. She conflated a bond in a criminal case with a cash penalty bond in a civil case.
“His condition, of course, upon his perfecting his appeal by September. That means he's got to have all his appellate work in the appellate division first apartment, which rendered this decision reducing the bond. But I want to just, Dana, because I looked this up when Sam Bankman-Fried, who apparently conned something like $1 million or a million victims, his bond was $250 million. Bernie Madoff had 40,000 victims. His bond was 10 million. Donald Trump, no victims. Half a billion dollars. I mean, I don't know where those people from the other stations are learning the law or what they're talking about. But look, there is no harm, no foul. That's the end of it.”
Comparing a bond in a civil trial to a criminal trial doesn’t make a lot of sense.
A suspect in a criminal case pays a bond set by a judge in order to assure the court that they will show up for their trial. If the person charged with crime cannot make their bond payment they are held in jail until their trial is finished.
In a criminal case the bond is given back to the defendant after the end of their trial. If the defendant is found guilty of a crime, they might at that point serve time in prison.
In New York State for most non-violent offenses no bond is required, and suspects are not held in jail before their trial. In the case of Madoff and Bankman-Fried they were both extremely wealthy men who were considered flight risks so their bonds were set at a high rate to ensure they would show up for court.
Trump has already had a civil trial. The amount he was forced to pay the court was to ensure that the penalty another judge had already assigned to him would be paid if he lost his appeal.
If Trump had not paid the amount set by the court the state of New York could have seized some of his assets. Trump also could have accepted the verdict in the first trial. It’s not surprising that he opted to appeal the ruling, but it was always optional.
Criminal Migrants Will Steal Your Home!
Leonel Moreno, an undocumented immigrant for Venezuela, created a series of videos on TikTok where he would boast about exploiting multiple social welfare programs while also bragging about refusing to work.
In his latest video Moreno claimed he would instruct other migrants how to steal homes through squatting - illegally entering a property then falsely claiming to have a lease or deed for the property.
Fox ran wild with this Spanish language video showing it on multiple programs over more than one day.
On Friday, Stephen Miller, a former advisor to Donald J. Trump and notorious xenophobe, appeared on “Hannity,” where he brought up what he believed was a sinister plot by migrants to steal homes from American citizens.
“This is the ultimate indignity. Not only do you have illegal aliens trespassing in our country, they're now being coached to trespass in our physical homes and steal them from their rightful and legitimate homeowners. This is the dis-possession of the American people. And every Senate Democrat is complicit. Just one week ago and many people may not realize this, there were three votes on the Senate floor.
And they came down to a party line vote. Every Senate Democrat voted to kill the Lincoln Riley Act. They voted to kill an amendment ending sanctuary cities. And they voted to kill an amendment ending Joe Biden's secret migrant flights. Those are the flights for illegal aliens are flown, hopped over the border, and then resettled in towns and cities across America. They are sponsoring the invasion. They are financing the invasion because their objective is to have as much illegal immigration as humanly possible.”
The publicity generated by Moreno’s video got the attention of the Enforcement and Removal Operations office of ICE. He was arrested the day this segment aired and is currently being held in Geauga County Jail in Ohio. TikTok also suspended his account.
Although there have been some high-profile cases of squatting across the United States none of them involved undocumented immigrants.
Fox Guests Continue to Promote Election Denialism
Despite the fact that Fox News paid a $787.5 million settlement to Dominion Voting Systems in a defamation lawsuit, and is also facing and even larger defamation lawsuit by Smartmatic guests and hosts on the network continue to promote false voter fraud narratives.
On Thursday on “Hannity,” Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, hinted that mail-in-votes were legitimate.
“So, it probably makes sense to lock him up and throw the key away and just pray and hope that somewhere along the way they can get enough mail in votes to take him to the finish line.”
Later in the same broadcast Charlie Hurt, of the Washington Times, echoed Huckabee’s statement.
“But I and I do pray that that. I do think that most people see through it all. And I pray that the election that we're heading into, and that Republicans take this very seriously, that we get a hold of this because, you know, the mass mail in ballots is not the way to go.
Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys brought up election integrity.
“But he has also a right as the executive branch to question and provide election integrity. God knows our country needs that right now. Jeanine, I know you know it. I know it. The American people know it.”
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare the hours I’ve analyzed on Fox News to five hours of the PBS NewsHour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not.
Updates in the Israel-Hamas War
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin presented an alternative to Israel's plan to invade Rafah during the ongoing negotiations for a cease-fire.
The top court at the UN ordered Israel to open up more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies for humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to negotiations with Hamas for a cease-fire.
Israeli airstrikes killed 40 in Syria. A UK-based monitoring group said most of the casualties were Syrian soldiers and Hezbollah militants.
Israeli airstrikes killed 16 people in Lebanon. One Israeli was killed by Hezbollah rockets.
Updates to the war in Ukraine
Nine people including a teenage girl in the nation’s capital of Kyiv were injured after a series of Russian missiles were shot down by Ukrainian air defense.
The Russian military has continued to target power plants and the civilian energy grid in Ukraine. Russian bombing damaged at least three energy stations in Ukraine, leaving parts of the country without power.
North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wanted to meet with the North Korean leader.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion to vacate to oust Speaker Mike Johnson. Greene was angered by a House vote on a $1.2 trillion package to keep the government open.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun will step down at the end of the year. The chairman of the board Larry Kellner said he won’t stand for reelection this year, and Stan Deal, CEO of the commercial airplane unit, is out, effective immediately.
The U.S. and U.K. have imposed sanctions on individuals and groups that they say have engaged in a hacking campaign against politicians and critics of Beijing. The cyber espionage campaign is allegedly part of the Chinese ministry of state security.
The High Court of London temporarily blocked an extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States. U.S. authorities want to try Assange on espionage charges saying he put the lives of sources at risk when he published confidential military documents. The U.K. court gave the U.S. three weeks to verify that Assange’s actions would be covered under the first amendment and that he would not receive the death penalty.
Financial aid has been stalled for hundreds of thousands of college bound students due to an application calculation error by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Officials said they have fixed the error and it “will not affect future records.”
A New York judge issued a gag order on former president Donald J. Trump limiting what he can say about potential witnesses in the criminal trial relating to hush money payments scheduled to begin next month.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will pay a fine to settle a case involving first-degree securities fraud and one third-degree charge for failing to register as an investment adviser.
The highest court in Venezuela upheld ban on María Corina Machado, an opposition candidate, in the presidential election. The U.S. eased some of the sanctions on Venezuela’s oil, gas and mining industries in October with an agreement that the Maduro admin would open up elections to opposing parties. President Joe Biden has threatened to reverse some of the sanctions relief if Maduro’s government fails to lift bans preventing Machado and others from running for office.
Three white men who killed Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black man, asked federal appeals court to throw out their hate crime convictions. Arbery was jogging in a Georgia subdivision when the three men chased him down and killed him on the suspicion that he was robbing homes in the area. There was no evidence linking Arbery to any home break-ins.
A 12th suspect was arrested in Russia over a terrorist attack at a concert hall in Moscow. Although an affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack and provided footage showing its gunmen killing 139 people in the Crocus City Hall, Russia still insists Ukraine was involved. Russia has not provided any evidence supporting its claims against Ukraine.
For the first time in 27 years the U.S. government has changed how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity. Officials believe will more accurately count residents who identify as Hispanic and of Middle Eastern and North African heritage.
The Biden administration restored rules to protect species of animals and plants that were rolled back during the Trump administration.
An investigation by the Associated Press found that between 2012 and 2021, more than 1,000 people died after police used physical force that's considered non-lethal. That includes batons, stun guns, physical restraints and chemical agents. Only 28 of the officers involved faced criminal charges.
Georgia Republican legislators passed a series of new voting rules. Among the changes to the state's election laws are making it easier to challenge voter eligibility, expanding access for independent candidates to get on the ballot, expanding use of paper ballots, and restricting who can serve as election workers.
As part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $6 billion for 33 projects across more than 20 states to decarbonize energy-intensive industries, and reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
Judd Blevins, 42, a city commissioner in Enid, Oklahoma faces a recall election after news broke of his ties to white nationalism. His connection to extremism was uncovered by Connie Vickers, an elderly resident of Enid, who found a photo of Blevins at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win an Oscar for best supporting actor has died. He was 87. He appeared in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” and won the Academy Award for his role as a Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Gossett was born in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn where he got his start appearing on Broadway in “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Golden Boy.”
Good read. As usual.