Post Debate Meltdown - Fox News Blames the Refs

A condensed overview of 19 hours of Fox News for the week ending 9/15/24

Last week the folks on Fox treated the moderators of the last presidential debate as if they were beleaguered soccer referees at a sprawling suburban athletic park calling plays on a bratty spoiled child and a gifted scholarship student who came prepared to win.

How dare anyone fact check their glorious leader as he rambled on about concepts of a nonexistent plan to replace Obamacare while making false claims about IVF and abortion laws.

In last week’s transcripts the word ‘moderator’ appeared 106 times, ‘fact check’ showed up 81 times along with 136 instances of ‘ABC.’ Meanwhile the words ‘Israel’ only appeared 28 times with only 16 mentions of the word ‘Ukraine.’

As Fox News hosts ranted about what they thought was ABC’s unfair treatment of the former president no one had a hint of self-awareness that they essentially work for the communications arm of the Republican Party and a division of Trump’s 2024 campaign staff.

The network transitioned from denial to anger regarding Trump’s poor debate performance over the course of 72 hours. By Friday evening Sean Hannity implied his audience would boycott Disney theme parks and that ABC was part of a deep state plot to take down Donald J. Trump.

Anyone watching Fox News exclusively last might not have known that the 13 service members killed during the Afghanistan withdrawal received the Congressional Gold Medal or that a judge in South Dakota overruled the state’s abortion ban.

Shows I covered last week:

• Fox & Friends - All three hours on Wed. to catch Trump’s phone call

• The Five

• Hannity

• Debate coverage

Trump Called in to “Fox & Friends” the Morning After the Debate

The morning after the presidential debate Donald J. Trump called into “Fox & Friends,” only to declare he won the debate while complaining about the moderators.

He threatened to revoke the broadcast licensing of the network.

“I think ABC took a big hit last night. I mean, to be honest, at their news organization, they have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that. Bloodbath was referring to the economy. Everybody loved the term because as soon as they heard the word, it was sort of a vicious word. But referring to the economy,” said Trump.

He then made the false claim that he was somehow a champion of IVF (in vitro fertilization). The first successful IVF birth happened in 1978. Trump only began to champion IVF treatments in the past couple of months.

“We have the IVF, which is fertilization. I was a total leader on that. When I first heard about it, like right from the beginning, I was one of the leaders on it. And the Republican Party has been a leader on it . . . She tried to say it was just the opposite.”

Steve Doocy asked Trump if he would be willing to do another debate on Fox News. Trump insisted on ditching the legitimate news team in favor of one of the opinion-based hosts.

“Well, I wouldn't want Martha and Bret. I'd love to have somebody else other than Martha and Bret. I'd love to have, frankly, Sean or Jesse or Laura, you know somebody else. Let's give let's give other people a shot. But I didn't think Martha and Bret were so good last night. Jesse was fantastic last night. What he said Jesse really got it. Jesse said Trump won that debate. We won that debate by a lot,” said Trump.

Jesse Watters didn’t actually say that Trump won the debate. Watters said the “I don’t think the American people are watching thinking any of these people won.”

Doocy then asked Trump about the pop star Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. Trump mentioned the wife of a football player who is on the same team as Swift’s boyfriend.

“Well, I actually like, Mrs. I actually like Mrs. Mahomes much better, if you want to know the truth,” said Trump.

The producers also cut to a diner where Lawrence Jones was interview folks in Washington, Pennsylvania. One diner patron asked Trump how he would combat what he called fake news.

“It's a great question, because you really do it by doing a show like this with Lawrence and the group. you have to get your word out, and you don't have a fair media. You have a very liberal bias media,” said Trump.

“The Five,” Tried Hard to Cope

The Fox News hosts who took Trump’s disastrous performance in the debate the hardest were the folks on “The Five.”

Greg Gutfeld echoed Jesse Watters’ statement from the network’s post-debate coverage.

“Well, I don't know who won, but I know who lost. It was the American people. . .I honestly don't know how anyone can decide who won the debate. That's like trying to guess the price of a painting that you suspect is a forgery. . .This is truly the first DEI debate. . .Congratulating Kamala for the debate is stolen valor.”

Dana Perino drew an odd parallel between feminism and Donald Trump.

“I was talking to a friend today who reminded me of the phrase of, Fred Astaire. ‘Ginger Rogers had to do everything backwards and in heels’ that’s Republicans.”

Judge Jeanine Pirro went all over the place with her critique of the debate.

“When I came away with that note, and I agree with Greg, the voters lost last night. The voters lost for several reasons. And the questions were like a push poll, like, you call someone up allegedly trying to get, you know, find out what people are thinking. But, you know, isn't it true that the rooster killed the duck or whatever? And, you know, the person said, yeah, yeah, of course it's true.”

She then made an unsubstantiated claim about CNN.

“Last night was the end of the legacy media. CNN just kind of sat there. But you know why? You know why it was level with CNN because CNN was complicit with the Dems. They wanted Joe Biden out.”

Pirro also said that no police officer died due to the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

“What police officer died on January 6th? Who the hell do they think they are? Fact checking. . . So they've pushed lies. They defame the president to push Kamala, who answered no question. And was the queen of theatrics.”

Judge Jeanine Pirro calling anyone the ‘queen of theatrics,’ was rich to say the least.

The Capitol Police released a report the day after the riot that included the death of USCP Officer Brian Sicknick who “passed away due to injuries sustained while on-duty.” The report stated that Sicknick “was injured while physically engaging with protesters. He returned to his division office and collapsed.”

The Washington Post reported on April 19 that District of Columbia Chief Medical Examiner Francisco J. Diaz found that Sicknick suffered two strokes nearly eight hours after being sprayed with a chemical irritant during the riot. Diaz told the Post that Sicknick died of natural causes, but “all that transpired played a role in his condition.”

“Signature moments that you see on the internet. After this? She didn't have any, didn't have any. Trump had them all,” said Watters.

Arguably the most viral clip from the debate was Trump promoting the false story about Haitian migrants eating their neighbor’s pets. Trump’s outburst wasn’t exactly flattering to the former president.

The Five - Two Days After the Debate

The hosts on “The Five,” appeared to change their focus two days after the debate.

Jesse Watters had a new confidence in the former president.

“I am pretty confident that Donald Trump is going to win this election. And when I lose my confidence, I will tell you. I will say it's official. I'm nervous and I'm not anywhere close to that. And you can believe I will tell you I'm nervous because I've been nervous before and I've shared those nerves. But I feel great about this election. The last debate was a knockout, so I think people thought Trump could just knock this woman out again and be like, okay, off to the races. He didn't. There was no knockout. So now everyone's like, okay, it's going to be competitive. We're going to have to work for it. But the fundamentals are still in our favor. I'm a little annoyed now that they have more offices in Wisconsin. This is new information.”

“It's not new information of people paying attention,” said Jessica Tarlov, the lone liberal on the program.

“Okay, well, I'm not in the battlegrounds, Jessica,” said Watters.

Greg Gutfeld made an odd comment about Trump’s debate performance.

“All the same. It's not really about Trump at all. It's about that she was not Joe. So he perhaps should have adjusted to her. But the benefit and flaw of Trump is that he treats everybody the same. He doesn't see Kamala as, you know, an African American woman or Trump as an old white male. He just sees him as the competition, and he doesn't modulate.”

I’m not sure how Trump views himself as the competition but that’s what Gutfeld said.

Jessica Tarlov Gives Her Co-Host a Dose or Reality

On Thursday, two days after the debate, Jessica Tarlov, schooled her co-hosts on the state of the race. .

“So, the Fox News Power rankings came out, headlined ‘Trump Loses his Edge.’ So, North Carolina and Georgia are shifting from lean Republican to a toss up. Ipsos Morning Consult has her up five. And Dana, to your point about the cash advantage, that's obviously huge. But you know what we're doing with our cash? We're actually running an election. We have a ground game. There have been a number of articles citing people like Ronna McDaniel. People have run campaigns before saying that Donald Trump is prepared for a midterm, not a general election. If you look at Wisconsin alone, a must win state. Democrats have 48 field offices in 43 counties. They have 350 staffers in Pennsylvania alone. We're taking it much more seriously. We know the get out the vote effort is actually what wins elections, especially in a race that's a dead heat,” said Tarlov.

Later on, during the same program Tarlov doubled down.

“If she thought that this was a slam dunk situation, she'd be going absolutely everywhere and laughing in everyone's face and saying, oh, you're going to you think people are going to vote for that buffoon, that guy who says, I have concepts of plans, that guy who it gets so mad because she mentioned people leaving his rallies that he spent the next hour and 15 minute with smoke coming out of his head. That's what she would be doing if we were arrogant about this. Nothing is being taken for granted. And to the point about the Michigan undecided voters or the lack of undecided voters. There were a number of focus groups after the debate. Washington Post had 24 people - 22 of them said Kamala Harris was the one who won the debate. CNN had similar margins and we had a snap poll from CNN, snap poll from here at Fox with huge margins for her winning. Does that translate to Kamala Harris is going to be the next president? I don't know, but it means she had a very good night.”

Sean Hannity Twisted Good Economic Data

On Wednesday Sean Hannity cherry-picked newly released economic data to make it appear to his audience that the U.S. economy was in bad shape.

“More bad economic news today, the federal government reported the core CPI, which includes excludes rather energy and food prices rose 3.2% year over year, which means that things are still getting more expensive even after three long years of crushing inflation from Harris and Biden,” said Hannity.

Hannity left out that the core CPI had dropped for several months in a row and had remained stable from the month prior.

United States Core Inflation Rate

It would be difficult to glance at this chart from Trading Economics and come up with the conclusion that inflation was getting worse as the core CPI has dropped nearly every month for the past year.

The PBS News Hour also included a short segment about the exact same economic data.

“Inflation reached a three- year low last month, thanks largely to cooling gas prices. Today's report showed consumer prices rising just 2.5% in August compared to the same month last year. That's down from July's reading of 2.9%, and a far cry from the 9.1% inflation we saw back in 2022. Today's report comes as Federal Reserve officials prepare to cut interest rates next week for the first time since early 2020,” said Amna Nawaz, co-anchor of the PBS News Hour.

Hannity Falls Back to Fear Mongering

On Thursday, Sean Hannity whipped up his base a heaping serving of fear mongering regarding the 2024 presidential election.

“We are in the home stretch of a race that will impact the course of our country for decades to come. It is an inflection point for this country and as most of you know, Donald Trump isn't just facing off against Kamala Harris. He is running against what are vicious, powerful institutions and a political machine that spans the Democratic Party. They're running against the state run corrupt, Pravda media mob, a powerful deep state with bureaucrats in every department of your federal government, a weaponized Department of Justice. Oh, and to add insult to injury, he's running against Big Tech, too. They're all putting cinder blocks on the scale of an election. Now, the same political machine that booted Joe Biden from the ballot after he won millions of votes. Well, that same political machine has been trying to destroy Donald Trump for the better part of an entire decade. And yet, the polls tonight are close.”

Bernie Sanders - Reduce This to three quotes

Fox News got a lot of mileage out of a media clip of Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) speaking about Vice President Kamala Harris on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

On Monday during the first hour of “Fox & Friends,” Brian Kilmeade was brought up the senator’s statement.

“Bernie Sanders says the quiet part out loud,” said Kilmeade.

The producers then cut to Sanders on “Meet the Press,”

“I don't think she's abandoning her ideals. I think she's trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election,” said Sanders.

This one remark was repeated during multiple segments on every show I covered last week. Sen. Bernie Sanders name showed up 62 times in the transcripts.

Later on “The Five,” Judge Jeanine Pirro opened an a pre-debate segment about Kamala Harris with Sanders’ comment.

“Bernie Sanders dropping a bombshell on Comrade Kamala right before the debate. Socialist Bernie Sanders just blew her cover.”

The same night on “Hannity,” Sean Hannity also replayed the clip.

“Pragmatic to win. Lie to win. Bernie Sanders stumbled on the truth there,” said Hannity.

Fox hosts continued to bring up Sanders’ statement through the rest of the week. On Friday on “Hannity,” Judge Pirro held nothing back.

“Kamala Harris is lying to you when she says she wants you to think she's a moderate. Even Bernie Sanders says she's saying what she's got to say to win an election.”

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News with five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not.

• Climate disasters

  • Typhoon Yagi, the most powerful Asian storm of the year, has killed at least 200 people in Vietnam. The storm also caused extensive damage, flooding and power outages throughout Southeast Asia.

• Updates in the Israel-Hamas war

  • In Turkey hundreds attended the funeral of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish American citizen who was killed by the IDF during a protest against extremist Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. The IDF has said her killing was unintentional and has expressed the deepest regret for her death. The White House has called for an investigation into her killing.

  • An Israeli airstrike killed at least 19 and injured 60 in a tent camp Israel had designated an humanitarian zone. The Israeli military said it struck Hamas militants who had set up a command center in the area.

  • Israel released footage of a tunnel in Gaza where it says six hostages were killed by Hamas. The tunnel was deep underground with no bathroom and poor ventilation.

  • An Israeli intelligence commander has resigned after critics claim he did not do enough to prevent the October 7th attack.

• Updates to the war in Ukraine

  • The United States committed to sending $700 million in humanitarian aid to help Ukraine rebuild its energy grid which has been badly damaged by repeated Russian shelling.

  • Russian airstrikes killed three members of the Red Cross who were unloading an aid truck

  • Russia said it has recaptured 10 settlements that were seized by Ukrainian forces. Ukraine has managed to hold onto most of the territory it claimed during a surprise incursion.

  • The U.S. State Department has added more sanctions on Russia state media Russia Today (RT) on top of existing ones. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, RT is a key part of Russia's war machine and its efforts to undermine its democratic adversaries.

• House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday posthumously presented Congress’ highest honor — the Congressional Gold Medal — to 13 U.S. service members who were killed during the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, even as the politics of a presidential election swirled around the event.

• The trial for three of the officers charged in the death of Tyre Nichols started last week. Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was beaten to death by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop. The officers are also Black. They are being tried as codefendants and have plead not-guilty.

• According to the U.S. Census U.S. median household income rebounded since pandemic - poverty fell, men saw larger increase in income than women.

• Voters in Missouri will be able to vote on amendment 3 in November which could restore reproductive rights and the right to abortion in the state. Missouri has been an extremely anti-choice state since Roe v Wade passed in 1973.

• PBS produced a segment about the key differences between how Trump and Vice President Harris would implement tariffs if they were elected. Trump’s plan for broad sweeping tariffs would most likely increase prices for consumers hitting the lowest income Americans the hardest.

• A state judge struck down North Dakota’s abortion ban, declaring that broad guarantees of personal liberty in the state’s constitution create a fundamental right to abortion before a fetus is viable. The state’s GOP attorney general promised to appeal the decision.

• The U.S. imposed sanctions on 16 Venezuelan officials aligned with President Nicolas Maduro for what the Biden administration claims is their role in obstructing a free and fair election in the country.

• Attorney General Merrick Garland said he will not allow the Justice Department “to be used as a political weapon,” as he denounced “conspiracy theories and “dangerous falsehoods” targeting federal law enforcement.

• The CEO of the nation’s largest private for-profit hospital chain is under fire for ignoring a subpoena to testify before the Senate. The hearing examined the financial collapse of Steward Health Care, a group created by a private equity firm that generated huge fortunes for investors and its CEO, but left patients in dangerous conditions.

• North Korea released photos of Kim Jong Un in a uranium enrichment facility. Although the North Korean government did not reveal the exact location analysts were able to identify, from details in the photographs, a particular site near Pyongyang.

• Three U.S. citizens have been sentenced to death by a military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo for their role in a coup attempt against the president. The lawyer who represented the defendants said they would file an appeal.

• The WHO (World Health Organization) has announced the MVA-BN vaccine as the first vaccine against mpox to be added to its pre-qualification list.

• PBS produced a segment about how universities are adjusting their policies regarding protests and demonstrations on campus after a surge of pro-Palestine protests last semester.

• Frankie Beverly, singer, musician and founder of the R&B band Maze has died at the age of 77. Although the band never achieved mainstream pop success it was incredibly successful in the R&B charts. Beverly was still performing until earlier this year when he announced his retirement. In July he received a special award from the Essence festival in New Orleans.

By the Numbers

The segment that PBS produced about the Haitian immigrants in Ohio debunked the negative conspiracy theories Donald J. Trump and Senator J.D. Vance have promoted about the community. PBS spoke to local officials, business owners as well as longterm residents and new immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.