Run For Your Lives Title 42 Has Ended and The Hunter Biden Nothing-Burger
A condensed overview of 20 hours of Fox News for the week ending 5/14/23
Since I started this project in February 2022 the demise of Title 42 has loomed large over Fox News. As the public health rule was nearly repealed last year the network included histrionic segments complete with a countdown clock along with dire predictions of a country overrun with teeming masses of criminal gangs, Fentanyl smugglers and future Democratic voters.
Fox also heavily pushed the anti-climatic reveal of bank statements linked to Biden family members displayed by Rep. James Comer as part of the Congressional investigation into Hunter Biden.
Fox News dedicated more than half its airtime last week to the Hunter Biden story or xenophobic fear mongering about the end of Title 42. The programming felt a bit like a broken record playing the same sad tune on repeat.
As usual the network completely ignored stories that didn’t align with its agenda such as climate related disasters in Africa, religiously motivated executions in Iran and possible ethical misconduct by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Shows I covered last week
Fox & Friends (first hour)
The Five
Fox News Tonight
Hannity
Title 42 Explained
Fox News presents Title 42 as a cut and dry law that has made entering the United States more difficult but the reality is far more complicated.
Title 42 actually refers Title 42 of a 1944 public health law allowing limitations on migration for the sake of protecting public health. The term has come to mean a specific rule that made it easier for the U.S. to expel migrants to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The controversial rule, Title 42 was put in place during the Trump administration at the start of COVID-19 pandemic and has been policy for over 38 months. It has been used to expel migrants back to Mexico or their home countries over 2 million times.
Fox News has consistently promoted the idea that every single expulsion involved a new migrant but there’s evidence that some people have been expelled under Title 42 multiple times.
After numerous court battles Title 42 was set to expire last Thursday at 12 midnight due to the end of the COVID-19 health emergency.
A person expelled under Title 42 was not penalized for illegally crossing into the U.S. which gave them incentive to keep trying to re-enter the country. Some officials and advocates have argued that the policy caused some migrants to resort to more dangerous methods of entry.
Although Biden kept the rule in place his administration did offer some exceptions. Under Biden over 1 million people have been exempted from Title 42 and have been allowed to stay in the United States temporarily until their cases are heard in immigration court. Other migrants were detained and then removed under different laws.
These humanitarian exceptions and confusion about how Title 42 was implemented also added to the chaos and rush to illegally cross the border. The changes under the Biden administration also had the unintended consequence of increasing the amount of unaccompanied minors illegally entering the United States.
Under the new rules a migrant caught illegally crossing the border who fails to meet requirements for asylum will have to wait five years before attempting to enter again.
Since Title 42 has expired crossings have actually decreased at the border.
How Fox News Handled the Ending of Title 42
The network basically repeated the same type of segment on every show I surveyed last week. A correspondent at the Southern border would report record breaking numbers of border crossings. The same images of long lines of migrants or migrant camps would be recycled throughout the day.
I reduced the entire week down to one montage as the fear mongering xenophobic messaging was the same throughout the network.
The following terms showed up in the transcript for the entire week:
Title 42 - 94 times
Migrant - 158 times
Invade/Invasion - 3 times
Border - 343 times
Chaos - 30 times
The Hunter Biden Nothingburger
Last Wednesday House Republicans revealed what they promised would be smoking gun evidence of influence peddling by then Vice President Joe Biden through the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden.
The Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) led the charge by making numerous Fox News appearances before the big announcement.
Comer provided a web of LLC’s and payments to various Biden family members but no link to President Biden and no evidence of criminal activity.
It’s not illegal to do business in foreign countries. It’s also not criminal to give money to a family member. Most of the payments included in Comer’s findings were made when Joe Biden was no longer in office.
Jesse Watters Promoted more conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden
Later that night on “The Five,” the overpaid Fox personalities were undeterred. Even if Comer couldn’t prove anything illegal occurred or that President Biden directly profited from some type of scheme Jesse Watters would just stick to the company script that he’s been pushing for over two years.
And now the media is saying they didn't link Joe Biden to the scandal. Really? Joe Biden isn't linked to the Biden family bride scandal at all. Really? He knows nothing about this. And why did he leave a voicemail for his son explaining that he got away with it? You know, why do you fire the prosecutor? You know why,” said Watters.
The voicemail message Joe Biden left his son was about an article in The NY Times. The prosecutor Watters mentioned was Viktor Shokin, a man who was widely seen as corrupt. In addition to then Vice President Biden, diplomats in the European Union, the IMF, foreign investors and anti-corruption advocates inside Ukraine wanted Shokin removed from office.
Shokin didn’t investigate corruption but instead used his office in ways to gain political leverage which is why he was ultimately fired.
The Ukrainian government launched an investigation into Shokin’s office after he was removed and found no links to any investigation into Hunter Biden. Shokin’s office had investigated Burisma from 2010 - 2012. Hunter Biden joined Burisma in 2014.
When he becomes president, he shuts down the FBI China task force and then covers up the lab leak and then lets the balloon fly across the country. Why? Why? Why? You want more? What else do you want? The story is straight. Okay. So all of this money can go into every member of the Biden family bank accounts. But if a single dollar doesn't go into Joe's checking account, then it's clean.
So you can just have foreign nationals bribing politic Russians families, corrupt, wants foreign nationals convicted of bribery, bribing the Biden family. But the media says Joe's clean. You have to be kidding me. The guy is a walking blackmail operation. The Department of Justice knows the dirt. The FBI knows the dirt. China has dirt on them. The whole world has dirt on the Bidens.
The world has the country by the Bidens,” said Watters.
Judge Jeanine Pirro had similar views on the president’s son.
“This is how they do it. What you've got is the hallmarks of corruption. The accounts the allies seize, the evasion and the money laundering. The partners come in, collect the foreign money, and then distribute it to an LLC. To an LLC in incremental amounts. Joe Biden is the front man. Hunter Biden is the bag man. Okay. Joe Biden goes into foreign countries lecturing them about anti-corruption, and he is representing the freest, greatest nation on earth and is wrapping himself in the flag of the United States while his son is collecting the money at the back door.
This happened in Romania and this happened in the Ukraine. Joe Biden uses his position as a vice president of the United States to tell Ukraine to get the prosecutor off the company where Hunter is a member and making $80,000 a month, or he's going to withhold our taxpayer money, one million dollars . All right. This is an point man in energy and a point man on anti-corruption.
Pirro got the amount wrong. Joe Biden actually threatened to withhold 1 billion in military aid.
And his son is right behind him with the bags. Now, let's talk. They got George Santos. And I don't care about him one way or the other. When? A couple of months they got him on 13 charges. Hunter Biden, five and a half years. They can't figure out how to get him on a criminal charge. This is a corrupt family.
It's the Biden crime family,” said Pirro.
Fox Fell in LOVE with CNN’s Trump Town Hall
Fox News loved the CNN Town Hall with Trump so much the network dedicated 5% of its airtime to the story. The network included long segments from the CNN broadcast and relished in the backlash CNN took for giving the former president a platform.
On Thursday, Kayleigh McEnany invited Miranda Devine of the NY Post to celebrate the return of their glorious leader to cable news.
“You can take your pick as to who is your favorite, but that Joe Scarborough won. I mean, come on, said McEnany
Devine responded.
“Hi, Kayleigh. That was just hilarious. And they are so upset. They are so insecure because that was Donald Trump's speaking unfiltered to the CNN audience that has been brainwashed for the last four or five years that Donald Trump is a monster, that he's worse than Hitler.
And and here were 3 million viewers back home watching as he talked without a script as he batted away the tough questions, as he was humorous and as the audience loved him, he got a standing ovation when he came in. They laughed at his jokes. They cheered him. That was that was like a dagger to the heart of the Trump deranged, because they just want to keep their audience. They want to keep half of America in the dark about who Donald Trump really is,” said Devine.
Her last statement doesn’t make a ton of sense since most Americans definitely do know a lot about their last president. It’s also hilarious to see anyone on Fox News refer to another network ‘brainwashing’ its audience.
After showing more clips of other media personalities, including Joy Behar of The View.
“They were all un-American cultists. Miranda,” said McEnany.
Devine continued.
“Just typical from Joy Behar of the hatred that the anti-Trump and NeverTrump crowd go on with because they cannot stand people thinking for themselves. They think that they are superior and that they have pronounced that Donald Trump is beyond the pale and he must be just disappeared.
And they're doing whatever they can with their lawfare and their stupid prosecutions. And it's not working. There he is. He's bounced back. He's as popular as ever. And the audience was cheering. And it's just a sign of their own insecurity because their candidate is Biden and Biden can't compete one on one. They know that. Imagine, as you just said, imagine Joe Biden on that stage next to Donald Trump. He's worse now than he was three years ago.
Neither McEnany or Devine included the fact that the audience at the CNN town hall was made up entirely of New Hampshire Republican primary voters. Trump remains deeply unpopular with the majority of American voters.
Newt Gingrich Lied about Abortion
Now that Roe v Wade has been overturned some folks in the Republican Party are slowly accepting that the majority of Americans, 61% in a recent Pew Research Center Report, support legal abortions the next step is to convince voters that Democrats really want legalized infanticide.
Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich claimed without any specific bills or evidence that the Democratic Party wants the legalization of the murder of babies up to 28 days after their birth.
There are a few highly partisan sources that make this same false claim but I couldn’t find any actual evidence to support it. What I did find is a partisan attempt to misrepresent legalization intended to support pregnant people.
In the case of California a law was changed to prevent parents from being criminally investigated after they had a stillborn child. The new law did not protect anyone suspected of intentionally harming or causing the death on an infant.
Authorities would investigate if there were evidence of foul play leading to an infant's death.
The language of the California bill was amended specifically to address perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause. A pregnancy-related cause would be anything naturally occurring that caused an infant to be deceased at the time of birth.
Anti-abortion activists misrepresented the bill to make it seem the legislation would shield someone who had intentionally murdered a newborn after it was born.
Babies are delivered stillborn for any number of reasons that a parent would have absolutely no control over and to add a criminal investigation on top of that tragedy is extraordinarily cruel.
Even late term abortions are quite rare. From the Kaiser Family Foundation, Women’s Health Policy.
“Reasons individuals seek abortions later in pregnancy include medical concerns such as fetal anomalies or maternal life endangerment, as well as barriers to care that cause delays in obtaining an abortion.
Abortions at or after 21 weeks are uncommon, and represent 1% of all abortions in the U.S. Typically, these procedures cost well over $1,000, excluding the cost of travel and lost wages. They normally require treatment over multiple days, and are only performed by a subset of all abortion providers.”
Newt Gingrich has been an outspoken advocate against legalized abortion for years. He would understand the laws surrounding abortion better than anyone yet he went on “Fox News Tonight,” last week to spread misinformation.
“No, I don't think he'd have any understanding of why you were asking of that. The Democratic Party now is committed to abortion at any time, including the last day of the ninth month. Yes, a large number of them are now committed to infanticide for up to 30 days after the babies are actually born. And there is a significant belief on their part that, in fact, you, the taxpayer, should pay for an abortion on the last day or should pay for infanticide up to 30 days afterwards when,” said Gingrich.
The Hyde Amendment would prevent any federal funds from being used for abortion even in states where abortion is legal. He was purposefully obfuscating the confines of the law to scare moderate and conservative voters who might support abortions in some instances.
There is absolutely no language in the Democratic Party platform that supports Gingrich’s claims.
About those Rumors that Tucker Carlson Got Fired Due to His Christian Faith…
Vanity Fair published an article the purported that Tucker Carlson might have been fired from Fox News due to his overt religious beliefs.
I immediately squinted when I read the headline. Multiple Fox hosts are quite aggressive about promoting their Christian faith on the network. Fox has dedicated several short segments to help Shannon Bream and Harris Faulkner hawk their Christian based books.
Shannon Bream even came out with a special gift box of her “Love Stories of the Bible Speak,” that Fox News enthusiastically endorsed and promoted.
Ainsley Earhardt frequently discusses about her faith on “Fox & Friends.” And Kayleigh McEnany has also been known to speak about her love of Christ.
The source who spoke to Vanity Fair might have have some reason to think that Carlson’s faith played a role in his removal but I doubt that person watches a lot of Fox News. It honestly felt it might have been purposefully leaked to rile up Carlson’s fan base.
Kayleigh McEnany included a short segment last week about a Christian based film or television show at the end of each broadcast of “Fox News Tonight.”
The following is a chart based on the transcripts of “Fox News Tonight,” that show the amount of times words related to Christianity were used.
Having covered Tucker Carlson for over a year I doubt I could have found Jesus uttered even once in all of the transcripts I compiled since February 2022.
Stories Fox News Ignored
I compared the 20 hours of Fox News I watched and analyzed last week with five hours of the PBS NewsHour. The following is a list of stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not.
The National Association of Government Employees filed a lawsuit against the federal government to block enforcement of the law that sets the nation’s debt limit. The argument being the president does not have the right to make decisions on spending without Congress.
Heavy rains caused massive flooding in Eastern Congo which killed over 400 people and left nearly 3000 homeless.
The winners of the Pulitzer Prizes were announced last week. The father and son duo John Archibald and Ramsey Archibald both won a prize for their work exposing local police corruption in Alabama. Their reporting led to the resignation of the police chief, four new laws and some people being freed from prison.
Haiti continues to descend into chaos as criminal gangs take over most parts of the country.
Iran executed two people convicted of blasphemy. The two men ran a Telegram channel called “Critique of Superstition and Religion,” according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Russia celebrated Victory Day, the annual remembrance of The Soviet Union’s defeat of the Nazi regime in World War II. The parade was noticeably scaled down this year as most of Russia’s military equipment is being used in the war in Ukraine.
The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, was arrested last week on corruption charges. His arrest sparked violent protests. The Supreme Court ruled his arrest was unconstitutional and he was released.
New guidelines set by United States Preventive Services Task Force recommend women should get mammograms every other year starting at the age of 40.
Daniel Perry, the man who was convicted of shooting a Black Lives Matter protester and driving his car directly into a crowd was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Perry also had several social media posts where he indicated he wanted to hurt or kill BLM protesters. Texas Governor Gregg Abbott has said he wants to issue a pardon for Perry.
A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focused on the court's ethics and the need for a Supreme Court code of conduct in response to reports of Justice Clarence Thomas not declaring gifts and trips paid for by wealthy Republican donors.
Inflation cooled slightly in April, with consumer prices rising at a 4.9% annual rate. It’s the first time since June 2021 that the rate has dropped below 5%.
PBS produced a segment on the economic crisis in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government defaulted on its debt last year but has since secured a $3 billion loan from the IMF. Fox has reported on this story but falsely tried to claim the economic collapse was due to the adoption of green energy policies. The real reason is a combination of stresses caused by the pandemic, mismanagement and old fashioned corruption.
Gaza militants fired roughly 400 rockets into Israel in retaliation to Israeli airstrikes that killed 21 people, including three Islamic Jihad senior commanders. Rockets fired from Gaza the next day killed a 70-year old Israeli man. On Friday Israel responded by firing rockets into Gaza killing Jihadist leader and his aide. Fox did report on this which is rare for the network but their focus was on the death of the three Islamic Jihad leaders.
On May 11, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced proposed new carbon pollution standards for coal and gas-fired power plants that will protect public health, reduce harmful pollutants and deliver up to $85 billion in climate and public health benefits over the next two decades.
Republican legislators in Ohio are attempting to change laws to make it more difficult for voters to change laws via referendum votes or ballot measures. Similar movements are also happening in the Missouri State legislature. The primary motivator for the changes is the fear that voters might roll back some of the more extreme restrictions on abortion.
Last week Turkey held a presidential election. The incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a runoff election against challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu as neither candidate secured a majority of votes.
Mississippi journalist and civil rights activist, Hodding Carter III died at the age of 88. He also worked in the U.S. State Department during the Carter administration where he informed Americans about the Iran hostage crisis.
Fox News also largely ignored the war in Ukraine. PBS included short segments about the war throughout the week and produced an extended segment about the tanks and armored vehicles the U.S. has given to the Ukraine military.
By the Numbers
The number for the word Biden is the largest I’ve seen for any word since I started this project. It came up often in discussions about the investigations into Hunter Biden.
Coming up…
This week I’ll be covering “Fox & Friends,” “The Five,” “Fox News Tonight,” and “The Ingraham Angle.” I plan to cover “Fox New Tonight” until the network finds a new host for the network. I should also have the entire “Who is Hunter Biden?” series wrapped up for paid subscribers.
Not Newt!