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Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group and other Right-Wing Media: Fake News, Lies, Alternative Facts, Propaganda and Conspiracy Theories - Page 4
Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group and other Right-Wing Media use fake news, lies, disinformation, fear, hate, racism, propaganda, alternative facts, conspiracy theories and Russian propaganda to divide America and promote the rabbit right and the Russian agendas.
Lee Moran

Back in 2018, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson was full of indignation after “Saturday Night Live” comedian Pete Davidson poked fun at Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s (R-Texas) eye patch, which the congressman has worn since sustaining an injury on active military service in Afghanistan. Now? Not so much. This week, Carlson called former Navy SEAL Crenshaw “eye patch McCain” after the lawmaker said sending military aid to Ukraine amid the Russia invasion is nothing to do with the U.S. baby formula shortage. Carlson’s dig referenced the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was also long-term injured in combat. “You hurl juvenile insults when you know you’ve lost the debate,” Crenshaw responded to Carlson’s attack. Progressive PAC MeidasTouch cut Carlson’s comments together on Tuesday and the evidence of the blowhard’s hypocrisy is now going viral:
Ron Dicker

Fox News host Mark Levin blatantly supported the “great replacement theory” Tuesday on his radio show, joining colleague Tucker Carlson and top House Republican Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) in pushing a racist conspiracy embraced by the gunman charged in the Buffalo, New York, mass killing. Carlson, denounced by political leaders for promoting the baseless idea hundreds of times on his prime time show, on Tuesday attempted to dance around the controversy by declaring he wasn’t sure what it was. Levin took the direct route. The theory stokes white fear by asserting that elite Democrats and others are scheming to replace white Americans with people of color through immigration or to undermine white influence in other ways. It has gained footing among conservatives, including several mainstream Republican Senate candidates. The accused Buffalo shooter repeatedly cited the white supremacist theory in a 180-page racist screed. “The ‘great replacement’ ideology is indeed a policy of the Democrat policy,” Levin said. “They have celebrated it. They’ve spoken of it. Obama has, Biden has.” Levin, the host of “Life, Liberty and Levin” on Fox News, praised Stefanik for her leadership and for her ad asserting that “illegal immigrants ... will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”
Fox News and Republican lawmakers are up in arms that the Biden administration is caring for babies at the border during a formula shortage
By WILLIAM VAILLANCOURT

There’s a baby formula shortage in the United States. Republican lawmakers and conservative media members are taking frustration out on immigrants. Fox News hosts have spent the past 24 hours raising hell over immigrant babies at the U.S.-Mexico border receiving formula, arguing that it should instead be distributed to Americans first. “[For] American families there’s a shortage, but if you’re a migrant, don’t worry because Uncle Sam has a stash of that,” Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy said Friday morning.
Ryan Bort

Tucker Carlson has long promoted the idea of the “great replacement,” a racist conspiracy theory holding that white people are being systematically replaced by immigrants. The theory was present throughout the 180-page manifesto of the teenager who killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday, leading to renewed scrutiny of the mega-popular Fox News host. Carlson addressed that scrutiny on Monday night, essentially arguing that anyone espousing white supremacist views should be able to do so without fear of criticism. “Because a mentally ill teenager murdered strangers, you cannot be allowed to express your political views out loud,” he said. “That’s what they’re telling you. That’s what they’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but Saturday’s massacre gives them a pretext and a justification.”
Candace McDuffie

The murder of 10 people—who were mostly Black—at a Buffalo grocery store Saturday was a deplorable act of violence against folks who are already incredibly vulnerable. Payton Gendron—the 18-year-old white male terrorist responsible for the gruesome killings—drove over 100 miles to gun down innocent victims in a Black neighborhood. He is not a lone wolf or someone who suffered from mental health issues. Gendron is a self-identified white supremacist who carefully calculated how to slaughter Black people to uphold an organized system of power. The fact is he justified his heinous actions through rhetoric found on right wing media platforms. Through mouthpieces like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. Through people like commentator Ben Shapiro. Through political figures like Congresswoman Elise Stefanik and Governor Ron DeSantis. Through organizations like the Republican party. Through presidents like Donald Trump. Their racist ideologies incite racist violence—which is why they all need to be stopped. Most notably, “white replacement theory,” or the fear that white people are in danger of becoming this country’s minority, is the foundational framework of conservative pundits. And it’s the reason mass shootings—like the ones in Charleston, Pittsburgh and El Paso—are becoming more and more frequent.
by Justin Peters

On Saturday, an 18-year-old man toting a gun with the N-word inscribed on the barrel went to a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., and shot 13 people, 10 of them fatally. In a screed that authorities believe was posted online before the massacre, shooter Payton Gendron allegedly acknowledged that he had sought out the supermarket explicitly in order to kill Black people. “I simply became racist after I learned the truth,” Gendron wrote, and the truth as he understood it was that “the White race is dying out” and that “We are doomed by low birth rates and high rates of immigration.” Gendron stated that his attack was, “beyond all doubt, anti-immigration, anti-ethnic replacement and anti-cultural replacement.” Thesis statements for mass murder rarely come clearer. Gendron wrote that he had developed his ideology after immersing himself in message boards over the past few years, but observers could not help but notice the broad thematic similarities between some of Gendron’s ideas and ones that are routinely voiced by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the apple-cheeked bard of white resentment. Carlson, who in years past was best known as the bow-tied co-host of CNN’s Crossfire, has risen from the ash heap of political punditry by expertly stoking his viewers’ own fears of being culturally replaced by immigrants and other such nogoodniks whose beliefs, backgrounds, and skin tones differ from their own.
Christiaan Hetzner

There is no bigger star in the cable news pantheon than Tucker Carlson — every weeknight over 3.6 million Americans tune in to watch his show aired during the coveted 8 p.m. primetime slot. Yet when it came time for his parent company, Fox Corporation, to make its annual spring pitch to advertisers buying media time, the audience draw was nowhere to be seen on Monday and that may have something to do with this weekend's fatal shooting in Buffalo, New York. The racist rampage that claimed the lives of 10 people, most of whom were Black, has drawn attention to Carlson’s documented advocacy of the “Great Replacement” — a theory by which immigrants and ethnic minorities gain political power to the detriment of caucasians. The theory, which was once a fringe conspiracy embraced by white supremacists, has now become more mainstream and was cited by the suspected Buffalo killer in writings before the incident. According to Variety, Fox’s Monday presentation at Manhattan's Skylight on Vesey during the so-called Upfronts “assiduously sidestepped” any controversies around the cable news operations led by CEO Suzanne Scott.
Colby Hall

Tucker Carlson has been the subject of many cable news segments after a deadly hate crime shooting in Buffalo that left 10 people dead. Turns out the shooter left a document that espoused the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, something Carlson has repeatedly advanced on his show, which happens to be the top-rated program in all of cable news. Consequently, Carlsons’ first segment following the tragedy was the very definition of newsworthy. It is telling that Carlson decided the best use of all this additional attention was to argue for his right to spew — and his viewers’ right to hear — hate speech. No really. That is exactly what he did. Furthermore, his takeaway from this horrible racially-motivated hate crime? His audience is the real victim. Let me state here that I do not believe Tucker Carlson is to blame for this horrible tragedy. The responsibility lies solely with the unhinged individual who pulled the trigger while streaming the horrors on Twitch. That said, Carlson’s “replacement theory” conspiracy theories, and the existential threat he says they pose to “legacy Americans”? That is deeply irresponsible rhetoric that is entirely relevant. Not necessarily causal, but a corollary influence. Carlson opened his show by noting the weekend of violence, eventually pivoting to the Buffalo tragedy and making clear just how opposed he allegedly is to racism, and identity politics broadly.
Daniel Arkin

Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is facing intense scrutiny from extremism experts, media watchdogs and progressive activists who say there is a link between the top-rated host’s “great replacement” rhetoric and the apparent mindset of the suspect in the weekend’s deadly rampage in Buffalo, New York. The white suspect accused of killing 10 people and wounding three others Saturday at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood apparently wrote a “manifesto” espousing the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory — elements of which Carlson has pushed on his weeknight show. The theory baselessly holds that a cabal of Jewish people and Democratic elites are plotting to “replace” white Americans with people of color through immigration policies, higher birth rates and other social transformations. The idea circulated on the far-right fringes before moving to the mainstream of conservative media. “Tucker Carlson has made comments that directly reference this conspiracy theory on his show,” said Michael Edison Hayden, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks white supremacy, hate groups and extremism.
Vivian Kane

This weekend, an 18-year-old white man who self-identifies as a white supremacist drove to a grocery store in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo, New York and shot 13 people, killing 10 of them. The man posted a 180-page manifesto online, in which he wrote at length about a “replacement” theory—a common white supremacist ideology that white people in the U.S. and worldwide are being “replaced” by growing immigrant, Jewish, and POC populations. They refer to this as “white genocide,” and many believe that, in the U.S., changing demographics are the result of a deliberate political ploy to increase Democratic voters. If that sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because what was once a fringe extremist conspiracy theory has become the centerpiece of Tucker Carlson’s nightly narrative. Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times published a three-part story about Tucker Carlson’s rising influence as he’s become one of the most dangerous people in America, working every night to normalize white supremacist ideologies: Last spring, Mr. Carlson caused an uproar when he promoted on air the notion of the “great replacement” — a racist conspiracy theory, once relegated to the far-right fringe, that Western elites are importing “obedient” immigrant voters to disempower the native-born. The Anti-Defamation League called for his firing, noting that such thinking had helped fuel a string of terrorist attacks. But this was hardly something new for Mr. Carlson. In more than 400 episodes, the Times analysis found, he has amplified the idea that a cabal of elites want to force demographic change through immigration.
CNN's Jim Acosta talks to NAACP President Derrick Johnson about Tucker Carlson's dangerous rhetoric around replacement theory after an 18-year-old was charged with killing ten people in a racially-motivated supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York.
Colby Hall

Morning Joe opened Monday’s show with a sad and sober discussion about the racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo this weekend that left 10 dead. Ben Collins covers disinformation, extremism, and the internet for NBC News and mentioned Fox News prime time host Tucker Carlson as someone who is “directly trying to preach” to the sort of racist extremists like the Buffalo mass shooter. The shooter left a 180-page manifesto that reportedly featured the very same “Great Replacement Theory” rhetoric featured on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Carlson has come under heavy criticism for repeatedly promoting White replacement theory. “This policy is called the great replacement, the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far away countries,” Carlson said on his show in the Fall of 2021. “They brag about it all the time, but if you dare to say it’s happening, they will scream at you with maximum hysteria.” Joe Scarborough and Eugene Robinson had just spoken about how this rhetoric has been adopted as a political talking point by many high-ranking Republicans. Robinson named the third-ranking Republican member of Congress, Elise Stefanik, pointing his finger of blame at her for promoting the same conspiracy theory.
Joe DePaolo

CNN’s Abby Phillip called out Tucker Carlson and Fox News in the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo for pushing the “White replacement” conspiracy theory — which alleged shooter Payton Gendron touted in a manifesto. While moderating a panel on Inside Politics Sunday, Phillip invoked Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s (R-IL) callout of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for promoting the far-right conspiracy theory — which espouses the notion that there is a plot to replace White people with immigrants. And Phillip noted that Stefanik is far from the only person or entity peddling the theory. “Over the weekend, Adam Kinzinger highlighted the no. 3 Republican in the house, Elise Stefanik’s use of the White replacement theory,” Phillip said. “In an ad he wrote, ‘Did you know Stefanik pushes white replacement theory? The no. 3 in the House GOP, Liz Cheney, got removed for demanding the truth. The Republican leader should be asked about this.” Phillip added, “It’s not just Elise Stefanik. If you watch Fox News, this is the mainstay of their primetime hours. Tucker Carlson discusses it in sometimes euphemistic form, but not really all that euphemistic.” Carlson has come under heavy criticism for repeatedly promoting White replacement theory.
By Khaleda Rahman

A video that compiles numerous instances of Fox News host Tucker Carlson pushing a racist conspiracy theory is going viral on Twitter. Adherents of "The Great Replacement Theory" believe a conspiracy is afoot to replace white Americans with immigrants and people of color. So-called replacement theory has inspired recent violence, including the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and a 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Ideas from the conspiracy theory reportedly filled a manifesto apparently posted online by Payton Gendron, the white 18-year-old who authorities identified as the gunman who targeted Black people in Saturday's rampage at a supermarket in Buffalo. Once a fringe conspiracy theory pushed by white supremacists, replacement theory has seeped into the mainstream and has been promoted by some conservative politicians and commentators. Among the loudest voices is Carlson, who has been arguing that Democrats are encouraging immigration to increase the number of "obedient" voters since joining the network's prime-time lineup in 2016. On Sunday night, MSBC host Mehdi Hasan shared a video on Twitter that compiled several clips of Carlson promoting replacement theory.
How Tucker Carlson revived and supercharged the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy.
By Cynthia Miller-Idriss, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

Before he was indicted on charges of killing 22 people and injuring 26 others in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart in 2019, the identified gunman had been linked to a document posted online that referred to a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The motivation behind that horrific incident — that there is an intentional, global plan orchestrated by national and global elites to replace white, Christian, European populations with nonwhite, non-Christian ones — gets at the core of a recent three-part New York Times series on the rise and ideology of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. In part one of the series, journalist Nicholas Confessore describes Carlson’s efforts to stoke “white fear” of immigrants and changing U.S. demographics as “recasting American racism to present white Americans as an oppressed caste.” In so doing, Confessore shows, Carlson has drawn repeatedly on the leading far-right conspiracy theory of demographic change, known as the “great replacement.”
Mary Papenfuss

The suspect in the fatal shooting of 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket Saturday was reportedly haunted in his writing by the “great replacement” conspiracy theory — a viciously racist view of the world that has been touted by Fox News host Tucker Carlson and several other far-right personalities. Payton S. Gendron, who is white, repeatedly returned to the conspiracy in his 180-page online manifesto that white Americans are at risk of being replaced by people of color by immigration, interracial marriage and eventually violence, The New York Times reported Saturday. Almost all of the victims in the mass shooting were Black. Gendron, 18, referred to “racial replacement” and “white genocide” in his writings, according to the Times. The first page included a symbol known as the sonnenrad, or black sun, which was once used by German Nazis but has been adopted by white supremacist neo-Nazis, according to the Anti-Defamation League. In an interview on CNN Saturday night, Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), who represents Buffalo, called the mass shooting part of a planned, “organized” effort to attack the minority community within an “element in our society that is blatantly racist, and they’re violent.”
Fox News caught falsely identifying photos again.

Natalie Oganesyan - TheWrap

Fox News' Sean Hannity shared photos that falsely claimed to show "pallets and pallets" of baby formula at the southern border that were reserved for "illegal immigrants," which CNN quickly debunked, calling the "Fox and Friends" segment an "illuminating example" in "outrage creation." Florida Rep. Kat Cammack joined the Fox News host on Friday to talk about the national shortage of baby formula. She's among several Republicans who have decried President Joe Biden over his decision to provide baby formula to migrant infants. Cammack has been on several Fox shows to express outrage over the issue and shared photos she said were given to her by a Customs and Border Patrol agent. "Pallets and pallets of baby formula for illegal immigrants and their families even as hardworking American...families, we are now suffering a massive nationwide shortage," Hannity lamented, showing the photos on-air. Unfortunately for them, the photos are incredibly misleading -- and pretty much downright false. According to CNN Business managing editor Alex Koppelman -- who authored a report on the matter for the Reliable Sources newsletter -- the packages contain powdered milk, not baby formula.
Fox News caught falsely identifying photos again.

Tommy Christopher

CNN called out Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity for falsely identifying photos from a border facility as “pallets and pallets of baby formula for illegal immigrants and their families.” Rep. Kat Cammack is among a group of Republicans who have expressed outrage that President Joe Biden’s administration continues to provide baby formula for migrant infants while Americans deal with dire shortages. Cammack has appeared on several Fox News programs to complain about the issue, and shared photos that she says were given to her by a CBP agent. But CNN’s Alex Koppelman reports, in the Reliable Sources newsletter, that the photos were misidentified on the air. He singled out Hannity and the hosts of Fox & Friends, and pointed out that the products on the pallets in the photos were clearly marked as powdered milk, not formula:
Ed Mazza

The Fox News outrage machine has kicked into overdrive due to the abortion-rights activists’ peaceful protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices ahead of an expected decision that would reportedly overturn Roe v. Wade. But a new “Daily Show” supercut shows how the right-wing network didn’t express the same level of outrage over violence ― and in some cases killings ― carried out by anti-abortion activists:
Tom Porter

The right-wing One America News Network admitted in a Monday legal statement that there was no widespread voter fraud by Georgia election officials in the 2020 presidential election after having extensively pushed the groundless claim. In a 30-second statement that aired Monday night, a voiceover stated: "Georgia officials have concluded that there was no widespread voter fraud by election workers who counted ballots at the State Farm Arena in November 2020." "The results of this investigation indicate that Ruby Freeman and Wandrea 'Shaye' Moss did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct," the statement said, referring to two election workers for Fulton County, Georgia. "A legal matter with this network and the two election workers has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement." The statement was a response to a defamation lawsuit filed against the network by Freeman and Moss, who are mother and daughter.
Ron Dicker

Tucker Carlson proudly wore his prejudice Tuesday in a cheap shot at new White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre is the first Black woman and openly gay person to hold the position being vacated by Jen Psaki this week. Jean-Pierre previously worked as President Joe Biden’s deputy press secretary. The popular Fox News host declared that the administration had found someone as “shallow, nasty and partisan” as Psaki. He then assessed Jean-Pierre’s job qualifications as only someone who hates others on first sight could.
The Fox News host absurdly demanded to see the LSAT scores of the Supreme Court nominee.
By Josephine Harvey

Tucker Carlson on Thursday continued his outrage over President Joe Biden’s commitment to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court, this time questioning the qualifications of his nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and insulting her name. “So is Kentanji Brown Jackson ― a name that even Joe Biden has trouble pronouncing ― one of the top legal minds in the entire country?” the Fox News host said, mispronouncing Ketanji. “We certainly hope so. It’s Biden’s right. Appointing her is one of his gravest constitutional duties.” “So it might be time for Joe Biden to let us know what Kentaji Brown Jackson’s LSAT score was,” he said, mispronouncing her name again. “Wonder how she did on the LSATs? Why won’t he tell us that? That would settle the question conclusively as to whether she is a once-in-a-generational legal talent, the next Learned Hand.” As many legal experts pointed out, the LSAT, the law school admission test, has little to no relevance as a measure of proficiency in the legal field. Carlson was furious about the president’s pledge to nominate a Black woman to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, a move that will bring much-needed diversity to the court. Biden said in January that his pick would be “of extraordinary qualifications, character and integrity,” and that the inclusion of a Black woman on the Supreme Court was “long overdue.”
Ed Mazza

Stephen Colbert returned to “The Late Show” on Monday after a battle with COVID-19 to tear into Fox News host Sean Hannity amid new revelations about how closely he coordinated with Donald Trump’s White House operations. Hannity texted Mark Meadows, then chief of staff under former President Trump, on Election Day in 2020 to ask how he could help. When told to push turnout, Hannity replied, “Yes sir,” and asked where specifically he should encourage voters.
Is Fox News and Tucker Carlson grooming white supremacist, domestic terrorist and insurrectionist?

Tommy Christopher

The New York Times dropped a massive three-part investigative report into Tucker Carlson that declares his Fox News program “the most racist show in the history of cable news.” The deep-dive story by reporter Nick Confessore was published Saturday morning, and details — in the headline’s words — “How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable.” In one section, Confessore — a Times reporter and MSNBC contributor — describes a meeting with Rupert Murdoch after Carlson weathered controversy over his remark that undocumented immigrants are making America “poorer and dirtier and more divided.” Mr. Murdoch, Confessore reports, did not exactly discourage Carlson, and the show’s similar themes and ratings flourished thereafter:
Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

Despite promoting Donald Trump's platform issues on his prime time television show, Fox News host Tucker Carlson privately mocked the former president, according to reporting by The New York Times. Carlson, who has topped ratings charts with his inflammatory rhetoric surrounding immigration, white supremacy and replacement theory, has some connection to Trump, though the nature of their relationship is unknown. Carlson has, on occasion, criticized Trump and his policies, despite generally promoting his presidency on prime time.
Trump phoned into her Sunday morning Fox News show, and Maria’s questions lined up with what she told Meadows via text the hour before.
Justin Baragona

Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo shared her questions for President Donald Trump with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in advance of the ex-president’s first post-2020 election interview, texts obtained by CNN revealed on Friday. In a text exchange with Meadows less than an hour before her Nov. 29, 2020 on-air chat with Trump, Bartiromo shared a series of questions she planned on asking the outgoing president. At the time, Team Trump was attempting to overthrow President Joe Biden’s decisive election victory. Bartiromo was also one of the network’s top boosters of Trump’s election fraud lies. “Hi the public wants to know he will fight this. They want to hear a path to victory. & he’s in control,” she texted at 9:21 a.m. ET. “1Q You’ve said MANY TIMES THIS ELECTION IS RIGGED… And the facts are on your side. Let’s start there. What are the facts? Characterize what took place here.” Bartiromo continued: “Then I will drill down on the fraud including the statistical impossibilities of Biden magic (federalist). Pls make sure he doesn’t go off on tangents. We want to know he is strong he is a fighter & he will win. This is no longer about him. This is about ????. I will ask him about big tech & media influencing ejection as well Toward end I’ll get to GA runoffs & then vaccines.
Bartiromo, unlike Hannity, has always presented herself as an actual, real journalist.
Noah Y. Kim

Fox News star Sean Hannity has a go-to response for when he’s accused of flagrant violations of journalistic ethics: He never claimed to be a journalist in the first place! However unconvincing, that excuse, combined with his vaunted perch at Fox, has allowed the talk show host to survive scandals that would have blacklisted lesser stars at any normal news outlet. Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo, on the other hand, claims that she’s a journalist all the time. Before the Trump years, Bartiromo had developed a reputation as a serious business reporter, who, despite being a bit deferential to Wall Street, made history by becoming the first to broadcast live from the New York Stock Exchange. Punk legend Joey Ramone even wrote a song about her.
The Fox News host leaked what she'd ask the then-president to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to messages obtained by CNN.
By Lee Moran

Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo shared with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the questions she planned to ask Donald Trump ahead of her on-air interview with the president on Nov. 29, 2020, CNN reported on Friday. Trump sycophant Bartiromo, in text messages obtained by the network, told Meadows she would request Trump, in his first post-election interview, to explain why the vote had been rigged against him. (For the record, it wasn’t.) Around an hour before her talk with Trump, she messaged Meadows: “Hi the public wants to know he will fight this. They want to hear a path to victory. & he’s in control. 1Q You’ve said MANY TIMES THIS ELECTION IS RIGGED… And the facts are on your side. Let’s start there. What are the facts? Characterize what took place here.” Bartiromo added:
jlahut@insider.com (Jake Lahut,Brent D. Griffiths)

Fox News scrapped plans for a Bret Baier-hosted documentary on how former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, according to a forthcoming book. The reporting comes from New York Times political reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns in "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future," a copy of which was obtained by Insider. As the network found itself under a siege of its own making from Trump following his loss and failed attempts to prove widespread election fraud, smaller but more extreme right-wing competitors Newsmax and One America News Network (OAN) were much more willing to run with the outgoing president's false statements. Fox News executives reassured their "Trump-skeptical employees to wait until after the election for the overall tone of coverage to change," according to Burns and Martin. "Then Trump began attacking the network, and Fox saw its audience dip as the former president's fans flocked to a pair of rival channels on the far right, Newsmax TV and One America News," they continue. "Fox got the message. There would be no documentary on Trump's defeat."
By CNN

(CNN) CNN has obtained 2,319 text messages that former President Donald Trump's White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent and received between Election Day 2020 and President Joe Biden's January 20, 2021, inauguration. Meadows selectively provided these messages to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Among the trove of texts are more than 80 from Fox's Sean Hannity, which are included below. The communications show Hannity's evolution from a staunch supporter of Trump's election lies to being "fed up" with the "lunatics" hurting Trump's cause in the days before January 6.
cdavis@insider.com (Charles R. Davis)

CHIŞINĂU, Moldova — Moldova is not at war, but it is surrounded by it on three sides: Ukraine lies to the east, north, and south. Nearly 100,000 people have sought refuge from bombings in this small country of 3 million, but the peace here is tenuous. Moldova is not a member of NATO or the European Union, and 10% of the population lives in a breakaway region backed by the Russian government. According to its constitution, Moldova is neutral. Effectively, it has to be, having a tiny and poorly equipped military that even members of parliament admit would be incapable of putting up a fight. But the government here, newly elected in November 2021, is adamant that it stands not with the Kremlin but with its invaded neighbor.
Frank Figliuzzi said the Fox News personality's parroting of Russian propaganda has "gone way beyond free speech."
By Lee Moran

Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI’s former assistant director for counterintelligence, this week torched Tucker Carlson for pushing pro-Russian talking points on his prime time Fox News show. Figliuzzi, during an appearance on the Really American PAC’s “Talking Heads” show, said Carlson’s on-air parroting of Kremlin propaganda before and during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “gone way beyond free speech.”
Jake Lahut and John L. Dorman

Fox News host Sean Hannity asked former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to which states he should highlight on-air for a voter "push" to help then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, according to text messages published by CNN. On the afternoon of November 3, Hannity sent a text message to Meadows inquiring about the level of turnout in North Carolina, a hotly-contested state that Trump eventually won that year by a little over 1% of the vote. Meadows replied to Hannity: "Stress every vote matters. Get out and vote." Hannity replied: "Yes sir. On it. Any place in particular we need a push."
By Christina Prignano

Fox News host Sean Hannity, a longtime ally of former president Donald Trump, texted former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows several times in the run-up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, newly released text messages show. The text messages were released Tuesday by the House committee investigating the violence at the Capitol as part of a request to interview Hannity over his communications with White House officials. In a letter to Hannity, Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, Democratic chairman of the panel, said members want to question the Fox host regarding his communications with Trump, Meadows, and others in Trump’s orbit in the days surrounding the insurrection.
Text messages obtained by the Jan. 6 committee and published by CNN on Monday reveal the extent to which the Fox News host was a tool of the Trump administration
By William Vaillancourt

We all knew Sean Hannity was doing the bidding of the Trump administration. We found out Monday he was doing it literally. CNN on Monday published a slew of text messages between Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and prominent Republican lawmakers and conservative figures — including Hannity. The Jan. 6 committee has already released several texts exchanged between Meadows and Hannity, but the ones released Monday are particularly striking, demonstrating just how firmly the White House had Hannity secured under its thumb. “Hey. NC gonna be ok?” Hannity wrote Meadows last Nov. 3, asking whether Meadows’ home state of North Carolina was going to go to Trump. “Stress every vote matters,” Meadows replied. “Get out and vote. On radio.”
CNN's Jamie Gangel reports that text messages between Fox host Sean Hannity and then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on election day reveal that Hannity seemed to be taking direction from Meadows.
By Jonathan Chait

“I am not told what to say,” Sean Hannity once told his audience. “We have always been independent, follow our own path on this show.” It’s not clear who believes this, but somebody does or, at least, is supposed to. And so it is at least mildly amusing, though hardly a shock, that CNN’s trove of texts to and from Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows include Hannity being told directly what to say: As subject matter goes, this is innocuous stuff. Hannity is simply being told what states he needs to encourage Republicans to turn out to vote and in what format he should do so.
Ken Meyer

Fox News’ Howard Kurtz defended his network’s lack of coverage on Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) newly-revealed comments by suggesting it might not be a “big story” that the House minority leader was caught in a lie. Kurtz was interviewing Glenn Greenwald for MediaBuzz on Sunday when he brought up McCarthy denying that he suggested former President Donald Trump resign after the events of Jan. 6. McCarthy claims he never went through with that suggestion even though he was caught on tape speaking to Republican leadership and saying he wanted to ask Trump to resign. The Fox News host said the media is accusing McCarthy of “telling a falsehood,” Greenwald agreed with the charge, saying McCarthy is “trying to move the goalpost” after denying what he was recorded saying. It is so clear that he got caught lying. If you want to defend him…it’s a very hard job to manage a Republican caucus with 250 very disparate voices with Donald Trump hovering over you. There was a lot of emotions surrounding 1/6, but we should demand from our political leaders the basic obligation not to tell lies to the public, and the fact that he got caught red-handed should be a pretty significant event for him.
The former president “is a full-blown fascist who hates you,” an upset Carlson insisted.
William Vaillancourt

Former President Barack Obama delivered a keynote address at Stanford University on Thursday stressing the importance of combating disinformation due to the harm it inflicts on democratic institutions. The next night, naturally, conspiracy-peddler Tucker Carlson appeared more upset than usual by that speech and the man who gave it. Obama “is a full-blown fascist who hates you,” Carlson insisted at one point. Several times over a period of two minutes, Carlson inaccurately framed what Obama said, only to then play the relevant clips of the speech, in effect making the disconnect quite obvious.
The conservative network has appeared hundreds of times in Russian media.
By Stuart A. Thompson

As Western leaders introduced sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, said seizing personal property from Russian oligarchs went too far. “No American government had ever done anything like that before,” he said. While the segment was aimed at Fox News’s conservative audience, it found another audience in Russia. The argument was parroted beat by beat by RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency, which wrote that “the average U.S. citizen is simply horrified by what is happening.” The narratives advanced by the Kremlin and by parts of conservative American media have converged in recent months, reinforcing and feeding each other. Along the way, Russian media has increasingly seized on Fox News’s prime-time segments, its opinion pieces and even the network’s active online comments section — all of which often find fault with the Biden administration — to paint a critical portrait of the United States and depict America’s foreign policy as a threat to Russia’s interests. Mr. Carlson was a frequent reference for Russian media, but other Fox News personalities — and the occasional news update from the network — were also included.
Imagine if instead of using his platform to push pseudo-science onto impressionable men, Carlson promoted the science that already exists.
By Liz Plank, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

Fox News host Tucker Carlson took a break from praising Russian President Vladimir Putin to tease a trailer for his new season of “Tucker Carlson Originals,” a digital series on Fox News' streaming channel. The trailer dives into an episode of the series called “The End of Men,” which focuses on the pressing topic of dwindling testosterone levels and is filled with a lot of male nudity, wrestling and egg-white chugging. An excerpt features Carlson talking to Andrew McGovern, an Ohio-based “fitness professional” who recommends a questionable type of medicine he calls “bromeopathic” medicine. This school of thought includes something he refers to as “testicle tanning,” depicted in the trailer as a bright red light shining on the body of a naked man standing on some sort of rock. “It’s testicle tanning, but it’s also full-body red-light therapy, which has a massive amount of benefits,” McGovern says in the clip. “And there’s so much data out there that isn’t being picked up on or covered.”
The internet had a wild time mocking his recent segment on masculinity, but the Fox News host’s obsessions come straight from the literary canon of the crypto-fascist right.
Ian Allen

Tucker Carlson wants you to tan your testicles. Or at least to seriously consider it. No, really, he does. Unless, of course, he doesn’t. In fact, he’s probably just using a juvenile joke to draw you into a new kind of conversation—a really far-right one, steeped in misogyny and racism. The Fox News host, whose show boasts nearly four million viewers, broke the internet this week after seeming to advocate for testicle tanning in an interview with quack fitness guru Andrew McGovern. They ran a trailer for an upcoming episode of his Tucker Carlson’s Originals series called “The End of Men,” which centers the false notion that men’s testosterone levels and sperm counts are reaching crisis-level lows. In one ridiculous clip, a naked man—with muscled arms held aloft—heroically straddles a contraption that beams “red light” onto his genitals.
Josephine Harvey

Newsmax host Eric Bolling has urged Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to stop creating fodder for Russian propaganda, telling his former colleague, “You’ve gone too far.” Bolling similarly called out Carlson earlier this month and again criticized the right-wing personality on Tuesday for supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin and his disinformation campaign to justify the invasion of Ukraine. “My compadre continues to push falsehoods that Putin and his propagandists are exploiting to show that, yes, some Americans do indeed side with Russia in this war,” Bolling said in a clip captured by Mediaite. “Is that the side of history ... you want to be on?” he said, addressing Carlson. “There are far too many wars right here in our own country.”
Muri Assunção

Agroup of employees at Fox Corp. has condemned the Fox News Channel over its “hateful” anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, calling it a “step backward in the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community.” Last week, Fox Pride posted a message on the group’s company-wide Slack channel addressing recent comments made by Fox News hosts and guests on some LGBTQ issues. Fox Pride — a resource group for Fox LGBTQ+ employees and their allies across all of its brands, including Fox News and Fox Weather — “denounces statements made regarding sexual orientation and gender identity on Fox News in the past week,” the message reads in part. The message was shared on the group’s Slack channel on April 5, according to the Daily Beast.
“You mean QAnon News?” co-host Joy Behar quipped about a post-Wallace Fox News. “We can now call it Trump News. Just call it Trump News.”
Justin Baragona

Expressing concern on Monday that the departure of veteran anchor Chris Wallace would further radicalize Fox News, the hosts of The View asked if the channel is now just the “Tucker Carlson Fake News Network.” Noting that “many in the news media world were surprised” to see Wallace jump from Fox to CNN’s new streaming service this week, moderator Whoopi Goldberg asked her View colleagues how they thought the consummate newsman’s exit would impact Fox News. “You mean QAnon News?” co-host Joy Behar quipped. “We can now call it Trump News. Just call it Trump News.”After the liberal firebrand said that Wallace’s 18-year tenure at Fox News “almost” gave the channel “some legitimacy,” co-host Sara Haines mentioned that it was a “big win for CNN” to pull Wallace away from Fox.
Despite having a stricter vaccine mandate than the Biden administration, Fox continues to spread misinformation about the coronavirus. A study finding that 59 percent of Fox vaccine segments this summer included claims undercutting immunization. This comes as COVID infections among children are exploding nationwide.
Former Fox News host says ratings quest is to blame for network’s content
Lindsey Ellefson

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson slammed her old employer during a Thursday appearance on CNN. Asked why Tucker Carlson and other star hosts push “the big lie” around the 2020 election, among other things, and why the Murdoch family allows their network to do so, Carlson responded, “Ratings, I think, first and foremost, but this is the result of fake news. You know, we’re seeing not only the fallout from fake news during the Trump era, but what happened with the insurrection on Jan. 6, and now it’s moving into other areas, not just news. Now it’s hitting science with vaccines and now it’s into Cold War politics.”
Katherine Huggins

Dick Morris, a Newsmax host and former adviser to Bill Clinton, unapologetically tore into Fox News host Tucker Carlson‘s rhetoric about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Saturday. “The problem with Tucker Carlson is that he has a hell of a podium there, the number one rated cable news show in the country,” Morris said. “And from the beginning he has been making excuses for Vladimir Putin, defending him, attacking [Volodymyr] Zelensky personally.” The segment began with Newsmax’s Grant Stinchfield ridiculing Carlson’s claim that the war in Ukraine does not benefit Ukrainians, but does benefit all of Washington. Stinchfield noted a few exceptions including lobbyists and the defense industry, but said that overall, “pushing the idea that all of Washington are warmongers are dangerous,” and “Carlson is out front with some of those calls.” Morris called the idea that Washington would want war — particularly a possibility of nuclear war — “insane.”
Now that Trump is out of office, Sean Hannity has been going hard at President Biden, but the truth is, he has been speaking in signals and sending very cleverly coded messages. Narrating the brazen and unchecked hypocrisy we are being bombarded with every day. He’s been saying things that seem to be about Biden but are quite cleverly about someone else.
U.S. officials are calling out Russia for renewing false allegations the U.S. is funding bio-weapons labs in Ukraine. Despite this, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been amplifying Russia’s claims. MSNBC’s Ari Melber is joined by Michael McFaul, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, to discuss.
After a leaked Kremlin war memo reportedly instructed Russian state media to play Tucker Carlson clips and Tulsi Gabbard is being accused of spreading Russian false flag propaganda, "The View" panel reacts.
Asma Khalid, Miles Parks, Odette Yousef

Russia pushed a conspiracy theory that the United States is helping Ukraine develop biological weapons. There's no evidence for that, but the idea did end up on Tucker Carlson Tonight — a Fox News show that reaches, on average, more than 3.5 million viewers with each episode. How did the conspiracy theory find its way from the Kremlin to American conservative media?
Kipp Jones

Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) has seemingly responded to a tongue-lashing from Tucker Carlson, although he took the passive-aggressive approach. He liked a tweet calling the Fox News host a “white nationalist” favored by Vladimir Putin. In a segment Wednesday, Carlson said Utah’s leaders are failing to represent their conservative constituents. He also shredded Cox for using his gender pronouns during a conversation with a teenager. The Fox News host shared a video with his audience, wherein Cox said to a girl, “Well, thank you so much Debbie for that, that question… My preferred pronouns are he him, and his. So thank you for sharing yours with me.” Carlson ripped Cox as a “creepy” liberal, and speculated his brain is owned by special interest groups. “What a creepy guy,” he said. “Spencer Cox identifies as a male, at least to some limited extent. Cox could’ve cleared up that mystery a lot more quickly simply by declaring, ‘I’m a man.’ Instead, he went full hostage video.”
Eric Bolling Pleads With Tucker Carlson to Reject Russia and Support Ukraine: ‘Come Down From the Ivory Tower’
Kipp Jones

Conservative Newsmax TV host Eric Bolling issued an impassioned six-minute plea to Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday regarding his stance on Russia’s war on Ukraine. Bolling has shown solidarity with the people of Ukraine during his recent daily monologues. He asked Carlson to take back old comments and to stop making new ones the Kremlin can use to justify its atrocities. Carlson has long been a skeptic of intervening in Europe’s affairs. In the lead-up to Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion, the Fox News host was apathetic toward the conflict and antagonistic toward Ukraine’s government. In February, after Russian tanks and troops entered Ukraine’s sovereign territory, Carlson dismissed the conflict as a mere “border dispute.” He had previously referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator.” After showing his audience images of dead civilians, Bolling challenged Carlson to use his platform to highlight the horrors of war. He also asked Carlson to cease letting Russia’s state media pimp out his monologues.
Oliver O'Connell, Maroosha Muzaffar, Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Republicans and conservative commentators are being roundly condemned for circulating misleadingly edited clips that purport to show Joe Biden being humiliatingly ignored in favour of Barack Obama at a White House event yesterday. Mr Obama was making his first public speech at the executive mansion since he left office. He participated in a celebration of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, as Mr Biden announced changes to the healthcare programme that could see as many as 200,000 uninsured Americans become eligible for new coverage.
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