As they have done in past elections Fox tends to focus on candidates that will get the biggest emotional reaction from its viewers rather than focusing on tight races. The race for the U.S. Senate seat in Iowa could be a nail bitter but the Democratic candidate, Josh Turek, is an incredibly likable Paralympic athlete and former state representative.

Fox has put its focus instead on the U.S. Senate race in Maine between popular incumbent Susan Collins and Graham Platner, a deeply flawed man with no governing experience. Although Platner has a devoted following he also has major liabilities which Fox News is happy to exploit.

Susan Collins has won her seat multiple times even when polls showed she might lose it. If Fox News really wanted to make sure that the Senate stays in Republican control it would shift its focus to races like Iowa instead of Maine.

The network knows segments about Platner, and his troubled past will rev up the base and keep eyes glued the screen.

The network also made an abrupt pivot in California as it became more and more obvious that the former reality star and crystal connoisseur Spencer Pratt wasn’t going to make it to the general election in the Los Angels mayoral race.

Instead of championing Pratt or even tearing down his opponents Mayor Bass or Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman, the network attacked California’s vote counting process.

Pratt, for now, won’t become the second coming of their glorious leader Donald J. Trump.

James Talarico, a U.S. Senate candidate in Texas, was presented as a politically radical girly soy boy who munched on vegan burgers and thought that God was transgender. Graham Platner, a U.S. Senate candidate in Maine, was a Nazi, communist and a trust fund brat all at once.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul was a radical socialist in close cahoots with the ultimate Marxist mastermind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The only Republican candidate who was mentioned far more than his Democratic opponents was Spencer Pratt. Fox News treated his main rival, Karen Bass, the current mayor of the city, as an afterthought.

Pratt was championed as the next MAGA messiah who would galvanize Angelenos to a path out of socialist mismanagement of the second largest city in America. Pratt was Trump 2.0 - an angry aggrieved privileged white man who would solve problems simply by insulting people and attacking the most marginalized.

Fox News also continued its confused and uneven coverage of what President Trump calls his ‘minor excursion’ into the Middle East.

Jesse Watters presented the war like any 12-year-old might discuss his favorite video game. Sean Hannity continued to insist that every hiccup and stalled peace talk was all part of Trump’s master plan.

The folks on The Five largely ignored the war while stuffed shirts on Fox & Friends were the only hosts on the network who continued to show tiny glimmers of doubt. The lone voice on Fox News that appears to approach the war with any sense of gravitas is Trey Yingst the chief foreign correspondent currently stationed in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Fox News also spent a lot of air time criticizing former First Lady Jill Biden for statements she made about her husband in a book about her time in the White House.

Mrs. Biden was lambasted for saying she wondered if Joe Biden was having a stroke during his wretched debate performance against Trump. Jill Biden’s decision to have her husband visit a Waffle House after the event was portrayed as elder abuse and dangerously reckless. The term ‘Waffle House’ showed up 13 times in the transcripts from last week.

Segments that were critical of the Biden family took up 7% of the airtime last week.

By mid-week the war wasn’t even a major story. The network’s highest rated show The Five didn’t even include a single segment about the war for the entire week.

Fox News still hasn’t found its footing on how to sell or promote this deeply unpopular conflict in the Middle East.

President Trump wasn’t helping as he held extended press conferences at the construction site of his beloved ballroom, rambled on about his reflecting pool project and exaggerated or fabricated his many perceived accomplishments in his second term.

It seems Trump would rather obsess about his building projects and legacy than do much of anything to help the American public.

Desperate for something to rev up its viewers Fox News demonized Democrats all over the country. The network had a field day with the botched DNC autopsy on its many failures surrounding the 2024 presidential election.

Fox News downplayed a court settlement between Trump and the IRS that would dole out nearly $1.8 billion of taxpayer money in an Anti-Weaponization Fund to anyone who felt they were legally victimized by the previous administration. This could include violent rioters who beat law enforcement officers, terrorized lawmakers and damaged property at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Jesse Watters dedicated a lot of airtime on recently released and declassified Pentagon files about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) commonly referred to as UFO’s. The network also ramped up and expanded its coverage of fraud cases in Minnesota to include multiple Democratically run states it called ‘The Fraud Files.’

The network also found creative ways to promote former reality star Spencer Pratt’s campaign for mayor of Los Angeles. During breaking news segments about a wildfire in California Fox would include Pratt’s social media posts about the disaster while leaving out the mayor’s office response.

Fox News also celebrated wins by Trump endorsed candidates in Republican primaries in multiple states.

The president was treated like an overpriced trinket. “Look at how he stands next to Xi Jinping. Observe how his tiny makeup covered hands touch the Chinese leader’s! Such majesty!”

It wouldn’t have surprised me if Fox shifted to a sales pitch while discussing the president, “If you call right now, you too will get our exclusive offer and pay for your own Glorious Leader replicate in four easy to pay installments of $19.99!”

There were no definitive trade deals to crow about, no negotiations with Iran, and no relief in sight for sky-high gas prices.

Trump dined with and stood next to the Chinese president while a small group of billionaire business owners followed them around like dutiful ducklings.

China is known for making promises it doesn’t keep, stealing intellectual property, threatening its neighbors, committing human rights abuses, cheating on trade agreements, suppressing freedom of speech, crushing dissent, and violating international embargoes and sanctions.

None of this seemed to bother Trump. If Xi Jinping promised to buy more U.S. soybeans, then that was good enough for the president even if the country has still not matched its prior commitments to U.S. farmers.

It was a lot of pageantry with very little substance, another distraction for Trump’s disastrous war in the Middle East and failed domestic policies.

Other topics on the network included the ongoing war with Iran, an attack on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the network’s aggressive promotion of Spencer Pratt, a former reality television star, for Los Angeles mayor.

It was 1979 again in the absolute worst way possible.

Normally the network forms a united front about any given topic, narrows in on its target and repeatedly pummels it. Fox News hosts will often use the exact same phrasing, slogans, catch phrases, and battle cries across multiple programs.

Since the war started Fox has been a disorganized mess.

At the start of the week Project Freedom, Trump’s plan to open the Strait of Hormuz, was sold as a brilliant strategic move that would bring a quick end to the war. When it collapsed almost immediately after it was implemented the folks on Fox splintered.

Hosts on Fox & Friends shared their doubts about the war, Jesse Watters made excuses for the president, Sean Hannity sold it as a checkmate move and the folks on The Five stopped talking about the war entirely.

Fox News knows how to whip its audience into a frenzy about urban crime, dangerous migrants, woke blue-haired teenagers, eminent communist revolutions, anti-white DEI schemes and shifty transgender athletes but it can’t seem to figure out how to sell the idea of another protracted war in the Middle East or soften the blow around high gas prices.

Sean Hannity thought it was a good idea to recycle some of the worst foreign policy ideas of decades past. He also got so desperate last week he included extended segments about former president Barack Obama even repeating talking points from 2008.

If he could have found a way to bring up Hillary Clinton’s emails, bleach bit servers, Hunter Biden’s laptop and Bill Clinton’s sock drawer he would have.

The network also shifted its focus to topics it knows well - trashing Democrats and endorsing long-shot Republican candidates in California.

By Tuesday the network had moved on. Fox News executives are known for obsessively tracking audience reaction. I suspect that even the most diehard Fox News fans were just not that excited over an enormous columned building their glorious leader cannot stop talking about.

The network switched its focus to the third attempt on the president’s life along with King Charles’ visit and the White House state dinner.

Blurry surveillance video footage of Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect in the shooting, attempting to rush past a throng of armed security personnel was far more compelling than discussions about giant event spaces and drone-proof roofs.

By mid-week the network made a pivot to scolding ‘Liberal lunatics’ for promoting conspiracy theories about the latest attempt on the president’s life.

Since I started this project in February 2022, I’ve seen Fox News hosts promote conspiracy theories such as cultural Marxism, the great replacement, the great reset, birtherism, various false stories about Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden along with secret plots to promote insects as a main source of protein.

Meanwhile the conflict with Iran was relegated to a minor story. At least twice last week Jesse Watters declared that the war was over only to start cheerleading for a swift victory the next day.

Fox News hosts were also downright gleeful about the recent Supreme Court ruling that severely weakened The Voting Rights Act.

The defiant parent stares back in scorn at an underpaid and overworked school administrator explaining. while sipping instant Maxwell House from a Styrofoam cup, how little Donny set fire to another teacher’s desk then faked an asthma attack to get out of detention. At the emergency room he threatened to fight the triage nurse after she determined his breathing was perfectly normal.

President Donald J. Trump is the bratty monster who was never told no or given a boundary. As prices increase across the country and his poll numbers drop Fox News cannot face reality - the network helped raise this destructive beast.

The pathological narcissist that they propped up and worshipped, and paid hundreds of millions in a defamation lawsuit to cover for has turned out to be a mad wannabe king hellbent on enriching himself and sticking his name and image on everything near him.

As the president repeatedly makes false claims about the war with Iran the network dutifully repeats them only to correct itself hours later. The corporate heads as Fox News don’t seem to care as long as their ratings remain high and the profits keep rolling in.

Little Donny might even burn his family’s McMansion to the ground before he’s finished. Hopefully we won’t all be burned to cinders along with him.

Rupert Murdoch must be happy to have a lower tax rate.

Last week the network also heavily promoted stories surrounding the criminal indictment issued against the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center). While the PBS News Hour dedicated slightly over one minute to the story it was the third most talked about topic on Fox News last week taking up 11% of the airtime on the shows I covered.

As Trump manipulates the financial markets and lies about phantom agreements with the Iranian regime Fox News folds and twists itself into complex knots of fabricated nonsense to justify the incredibly unpopular conflict in the Middle East.

The man cost the network $787.5 million in a defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems after Fox News knowingly promoted false stories about the 2020 election. Despite the enormous payout it is still profitable to follow the mad king off a cliff.

Everything Trump says is taken on good faith. Every public relations fiasco he makes is embraced and celebrated.

If Trump attacks, the head of a church that includes at least one in five Americans, Fox will champion the president’s blunder. When the President seemingly invents peace agreements from thin air Fox News never questions it.

The corporate leadership at Fox News knows its job - back the president no matter what he says or does until the network starts losing money.

On Jesse Watters Primetime the Iranian regime was defeated and the war was already over. Trump had accomplished what no other American leader had done before - created peace in the Middle East by destroying the number one sponsor of terror.

To many outside of the Fox News MAGA cult it seemed Trump brokered a brief ceasefire with Iran because he had absolutely no idea what to do next.

Fox News, his personal propaganda machine, acknowledged but downplayed the fact that the two-week ceasefire included a 10-point plan that basically gave Iran everything it wanted including enriched uranium.

The network also admitted openly that the Strait of Hormuz was essentially still closed, Israel continued to pummel targets in Lebanon and the Iranian people had not risen up and toppled their brutal theocratic government.

Everything was terrible but the Murdoch owned media empire was determined to make it look like an amazing victory for its glorious leader.

While Fox News put all of its focus on Trump’s possible strategy for ending the war in Iran the PBS News Hour included segments about:

* Problems for farmers - fertilizer prices increase due to the war

* How the war affected Muslim, Jewish and Christian holidays in the Middle East

* Israeli strikes in Lebanon - the effect on civilians

* U.S. service members with traumatic brain injuries

* How the war is increasing inflation in the U.S.

The network downplayed the massive ‘No Kings’ protests that were organized all over the country reducing the demonstrations to a bunch of old people who were paid agitators wasting their time.

Polls had no meaning on Fox. Even the network’s own Fox News poll showed Trump’s approval ratings plummeting on every aspect of his presidency. It even showed he is starting to lose support among Republicans.

The skyrocketing cost gasoline, diesel and fertilizer caused by the war in Iran weren’t even mentioned. The network chose to focus on radical Democrats and the partial government shutdown.

For this newsletter I’m just going to breakdown the entire mess into a series of delusions. Buckle up and enter the land of Republican make believe.

While the PBS News Hour showed massive damage to residential buildings and energy infrastructure in Lebanon, Israel and other countries in the Middle East, Fox News featured war correspondents talking into cameras.

Anyone watching Fox News would have no idea that civilian targets in Israel, Iran and Lebanon were hit. The violence in Iran was reduced to the same recycled aerial shots from the start of the conflict.

The folks at Fox News appeared delighted that Trump decided to “take a break” from a war he seemed to start on a whim. None of us can truly know Trump’s motives for launching the conflict but suddenly the media stopped talking about the ever-worsening scandals surrounding the president and the Epstein files.

While Trump’s poll numbers plummeted and gasoline prices skyrocketed Fox News was so desperate for distracting content it manufactured a fake outrage campaign against the actress Sydney Sweeney.

Fox News claimed progressives were enraged that Sweeney sent well wishes on social media to her brother in the Air Force along with all troops stationed overseas. Any backlash she did receive didn’t amount to much except for a reason for Fox News to feature scantily clad photos of her.

Most of the negative comments I could find online about Sweeney’s post were directed at President Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu not the actress.

The network also hyped-up various crimes committed by undocumented immigrants while Sean Hannity trashed a YouTube children’s performer and complained about the horrors of spring break.

Another major topic was the government shutdown over DHS funding which Fox presented as a major fiasco caused by Democratic lawmakers even though Republicans control both houses in congress and the White House.

In a sign of true desperation the network featured an extended phone interview with the president on its number one rated show – The Five. In a scene out of a dystopian novel Trump face’s was plastered on a giant screen near the back of the studio as the hosts spoke to a disembodied voice.

Fox is following the lead of its glorious leader, a man who appeared to act impulsively, when he decided to attack a country of 92 million people with one of the largest militaries in the Middle East.

Trump is highly skilled at selling himself, at least to his cultish base of followers, as a powerful leader who can change the world through his force of will. He is a bumbling fool when it comes to getting Americans excited about his flights of fancy - conquering Greenland, seizing the Panama Canal, managing Venezuela, crushing Cuba and destroying the government of Iran.

Trump has also failed to excited the masses about some of his economic policies such as broad sweeping tariffs on imports or the acquisition of Venezuelan oil which the president called ‘garbage tar’ when he was on the campaign trail.

Trump makes no real attempt to sell the need for military conflict to the American public. The average American couldn’t identify Nicolás Maduro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and Ali Khamenei the deceased Iranian supreme leader or his son Mojtaba Khamenei in a line up.

In comparison former president George W. Bush and his administration pitched the Iraq War for nearly a year and a half before the first shots were fired.

Saddam Hussein and his sons Uday and Qusay became household names. Their excessive lifestyle and corruption along with their many crimes against humanity and the people of Iran were drilled into the minds of farmers, teachers and factory workers across the country.

Bush was also exploiting a grief-stricken country as he falsely connected the horrific terrorist attack on 9/11 to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

Trump isn’t helping solidify support for his poorly planned war against Iran as he plays golf on the weekends, holds press conferences with his fawning cabinet members, and accepts meaningless awards meant to stroke his ego.

Many Americans view Trump as a puppet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has longed to attack Iran for decades. The war is already unpopular and will only get more despised if Trump doesn’t change the perception that he is fighting on behalf of a foreign government’s interest.

Fox News doesn’t know which way is up. Grainy aerial shots of trucks and buildings being obliterated aren’t exactly heroic. There are no clear goals or milestones and seemingly no exit strategy to Trump’s latest wild endeavor.

To accomplish the impossible the network’s hosts weaved intricate tapestries of lies filled with invented histories of domestic oil production, gas prices, Trump’s previous attacks on Iran, fairy tales of enriched uranium and a revolution that could start at any moment.

Less than a year ago Fox News celebrated the success of Operation Midnight Hammer a military strike that was supposed to obliterate Iran’s ability to create a nuclear weapon.

Then with very little warning Trump started a war with Iran under the guise that the regime was about to attack the United States or Israel with the same nuclear weapons he claimed to have wiped off the face of the planet.

The zombie nuclear program seems to exist only in Trump’s mind and Fox News is happy to dutifully go along with his delusion. It’s getting more difficult with each passing day for the network to pull this off.

Instead of the usual segments meant to keep Fox viewers terrified of undocumented immigrants, woke blue-haired liberals, transgender folks and urban crime the network has gone headfirst into a fabricated reality based on hunches, feelings and the dreams of a deranged narcissist with imperialist fantasies in the throes of dementia.

The propaganda machine sputtered and stumbled. The network kept repeating Trump’s mixed messages:

* The war was already over/The war will be over soon/This isn’t a war

* High gas prices are a small price to pay for freedom/Gas prices will drop immediately/Americans don’t care about high gas prices

* There will be no ground invasion of U.S. troops/There might be a short ground invasion of U.S. troops

* We’ve killed their leadership/The new leadership is worse than the old leadership

* Trump is the peace president/Trump has started military conflicts with seven different countries

* This war will bring long-term peace/Every problem in the world is caused by Iran

* Russia is helping Iran/Russia is not a concern/This war is about China

* The U.S. is NOT fighting Iran for Israel/Sean Hannity featured a 21 minute interview with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu

When Fox News hosts weren’t talking out of both sides of their mouths, they were promoting Trump’s lies.

* Americans overwhelmingly approve of Trump’s decision to attack Iran - several polls say otherwise

* Iran was capable of a nuclear attack on the U.S. or Israel - despite no evidence supporting this

* The people of Iran will rise up and take over their government - so far no such movement has formed. It could be because people don’t want to stage a revolution while being attacked by the U.S. and Israel

* Trump’s promises of ‘no new wars’ did not mean he’s an isolationist

In the four years I’ve covered Fox News the past week is the weakest I’ve ever seen the network. Instead of a streamlined well thought out strategy to promote the war the network’s messaging is a sloppy mess full of contradictions.

Before Donald J. Trump made the wildly risky move to attack Iran he had hit a bit of a rough patch. An investigation by NPR and other outlets found evidence that the DOJ had withheld interviews by a woman who accused President Trump of sexually abusing her when she was a minor.

Fox News completely ignored this bombshell and tried to hype up Bill and Hillary Clinton’s testimony about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Hillary and Bill Clinton’s testimony about the Epstein files proved to be another nothing burger for the propaganda network. The Clintons did not revealed any new information that could link them to a crime or any wrongdoing.

Trump’s incredibly long State of the Union address was so dull and lackluster his personal propaganda network (Fox News) spent most of its airtime after the speech attacking Democrats rather than praising Trump.

Recent polls have shown any gains Trump made with Hispanic and Black voters have completely evaporated while independent, young and some lower income voters have also soured on the president.

Democrats continue to outperform in local and state races while grocery prices remain stubbornly high. Since Friday the network has enthusiastically beaten the drums of war in a conflict few Americans wanted.

Last week the Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees, ruled against Trump’s use of IEEPA to issue tariffs.

The court’s ruling was only one of many failures for Trump last week as newly revised jobs data showed a major contraction in the labor market last year. The trade deficit in 2025 showed little improvement despite Trump’s widespread use of tariffs and the fourth quarter GDP reading was well below expectations.

According to multiple polls Americans have tired of Trump’s harsh immigration policies, and military threats to foreign countries. Most voters have no interest in conquering Greenland, crushing Cuba, managing Venezuela or invading Iran.

Grocery prices and utility bills remain elevated while Trump gaslights the American public insisting that costs for everything have dropped dramatically. Health insurance premiums for millions of Americans have dramatically increased while SNAP and Medicaid benefits have been cut.

Meanwhile the president remains obsessed with his gigantic White House ballroom and plans for an oversized monumental arch built in his honor.

The glorious leader has lost support among nearly every demographic except for his cultish base of supporters. There are even signs that diehard MAGA fans are losing faith.

Underneath all of the spin more sinister details surrounding Trump’s possible involvement with Jeffrey Epstein’s many heinous crimes and sex trafficking operation remains.

Fox News is desperate to keep the Trump myth alive either by ignoring stories that make the president look bad or spending excessive amounts of coverage on segments that aren’t political.

One sign of the network’s panicked approach was the fact that Barack Obama’s name appeared 74 times in the transcripts last week. No kidding.

Gutfeld made dismissive jokes about Nancy Guthrie, an ailing 85-year-old grandmother who was abducted from her home outside of Tucson, Arizona. Two horrifying pieces of evidence in the case include a video of a masked man approaching her front door in the middle of the night and a trail of the elderly woman’s blood scattered across her entryway.

The diminutive perpetually angry Gutfeld! host appeared annoyed that his employer was spending so much time on the story so he lashed out at his own network like a spoiled child.

Jesse Watters joked that Jeffrey Epstein was some type of fixer who helped rich and powerful men ‘get a girl.’ He could have easily substituted the word woman for girl but chose to make light of the sexual abuse of children.

His co-host Kennedy joked Epstein’s associates might need some penicillin presumably for sexually transmitted diseases. Never mind the abuse of children who were smuggled to Epstein’s island from overseas or led to his compound under false pretenses.

Some of Epstein’s victims have committed suicide. A U.N. panel found Epstein could have been running a global criminal enterprise that included crimes against humanity.

The hundreds of child sex trafficking victims were reduced to an inconvenience for their older and much more powerful abusers. This is after months when Watters spent more time than anyone else on Fox News condemning Epstein for his crimes.

The network dedicated most of its airtime to the alleged abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Savannah Guthrie, one of the anchors of The Today Show on NBC.

Fox News turned into a true crime channel with a singular focus of covering every tiny detail of Guthrie’s disappearance. Producers played the emotional pleas of the Guthrie family on a loop while a series of guests who were mostly retired FBI agents gave their expert opinion on the case.

For most of the week there were few developments that changed much about the mysterious crime. The network’s excessive coverage felt exploitative of a vulnerable family trapped in a nightmarish situation.

In between long segments about the shocking case Fox News included stories about Trump’s saber-rattling towards Iran and any segment that depicted ICE agents as victims.

The soccer moms and angel faced five-year-olds fleeing clouds of tear gas in quaint tree-lined residential streets were covert socialist sleeper cells financed by the Chinese communist party and radical Islamists determined to overthrow the U.S. government.

The true victims of the chaos in Minnesota were the valiant members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents. They were brave men and women who had to cover their faces to avoid being doxed by crazed capitalist hating agitators.

Things got truly surreal as several Fox News hosts showcased the mugshots of various undocumented immigrants convicted of heinous crimes while they downplayed the latest release of documents related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The Epstein files revealed close personal relationships with several high-ranking officials in the Trump administration as well as the president himself.

When the network wasn’t promoting outlandish conspiracy theories about nonexistent socialist uprisings and downplaying Trump’s once close relationship to a sadistic sexual predator it was heavily promoting the First Lady’s insipid documentary and making light of Trump’s plan to openly rob the U.S. treasury of $10 billion.

It was an especially crazy week at Fox.

Meanwhile Fox News polling came out with terrible numbers for Trump across several categories which Fox News personalities mostly ignored. The network also failed to tell its viewers about layoffs at Amazon and UPS or of a huge spike in the trade deficit.

Trump managed to insult all the former Allied powers in World War II multiple times then also disgraced the sacrifice of hundreds of fallen non-U.S. NATO soldiers who died in Afghanistan after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Trump and his entourage were cartoonishly stereotypical of boorish Americans. His long rambling speech at the event was full of lies and exaggerations that centered on his accomplishments that were based in delusion more than reality.

When Trump wasn’t insulting our close long-term allies, he was demanding that Denmark hand over Greenland as if it was part of a real estate deal.

The network went all in on Trump’s reckless demands to conquer or purchase the Danish territory even though the U.S. has had a broad sweeping treaty with Denmark that allows the U.S. military to build un-limited bases on the mostly ice-covered island.

Fox also dedicated much of its airtime to the then escalating anti-ICE protests erupting across the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The network presented the demonstrations as an assault on beleaguered federal law enforcement.

According to the network suburban soccer moms and urban childless cat ladies were pawns for a sophisticated Democratic Party domestic terrorist plot. Naive women were the foot soldiers to sacrifice at the altar of open border policies and foreign criminal syndicates.

ICE agents might have weapons, body armor, face masks, tear gas, pepper spray, and the ability to take away a person’s liberty plus the backing of a corrupt federal government but un-armed, loud women with shaved heads and protest signs are the real threat.

The word ‘women’ appeared 194 times in the transcripts last week. The word appeared 72 times in transcripts from Jesse Watters Primetime.

Watters was working out his misogynistic baggage as he reduced women to helpless creatures who were tools in a game they didn’t understand. Watters is the same Fox News host who constantly whines about his damaged relationship with his mother, tells embarrassing stories about his second wife and pontificates on what he believes is proper masculine behavior.

The Trump administration also promptly blamed Good and cleared the agent of any wrongdoing despite the lack of an investigation into the incident.

According to the government Good purposefully tried to ram Ross with her car. Many experts, from multiple media outlets, concluded that the Trump administration’s official explanation of the event doesn’t line up with the video evidence.

In nearly every case of a fatal shooting by law enforcement state or federal authorities would at least launch some type of investigation into the incident before making any public declarations.

In this case an unarmed woman was shot in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses and the Trump administration called her a domestic terrorist before her body was cold.

The federal government has taken steps to prevent officials in Minnesota from conducting their own investigation.

The folks at Fox News were more than happy to attack Good’s character and repeat the Trump administration’s talking points. Jesse Watters even took things further when he predicted a wave of suicidal leftist activists sacrificing their lives to make a political point.

No one disputes that after Good was shot three times in a matter of seconds some of the ICE agents fled the scene, including the shooter, and that it took Emergency Medical Services six minutes to administer aid to a U.S. citizen who was killed by the hand of an immigration and customs enforcement agent.

After the shots were fired and Good’s car drove out of control an agent, some have disputed that it was Ross himself, called the young mother a “f*cking b***h.”

Government officials have since reported that Ross suffered internal bleeding from the incident. In the video evidence he walks away seemingly unharmed. He showed no signs of injury. It’s not even clear in the video evidence if he was struck by the car.

I’m not a criminal forensics expert but The NY Times did do an exhaustive analysis of the first video that was shot by a bystander you can find it here.

I had to wait until December 18 to get the updated CPI report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agency delayed it eight days due to the government shutdown. It was also based on a partial gathering of data which is problematic for several reasons.

This is an updated version of the Thanksgiving primer!

Meanwhile their glorious leader tells them that the impending disaster is a Democratic hoax designed by his enemies to make him and the greatest political movement in the history of this country look bad.

By the end of the month nearly 24 million Americans will see sharp rises in their healthcare premiums, while the cost groceries, electricity, insurance, and housing continue to rise.

About 7-8 million Americans enrolled in the SAVE student loan income repayment plan will also face higher monthly payments. Credit card balances have increased along with unemployment while the wannabe king promises everything will work out in two weeks, the next quarter or sometime next year.

As Trump’s poll numbers plummeted and Democrats won elections all over the country Fox News continued to churn out the propaganda and spin.

Just a year ago these same overpaid mouthpieces of the Trump propaganda machine celebrated his win and thanked their viewers for voting for him.

Now they cannot hide their panic. Trump is trying to lie to the American public by calling the affordability crisis a Democratic hoax.

In many ways Fox News created their own monster. By putting all of the blame on Biden for inflation Fox reinforced the idea that a president can guide an economy like a sailboat.

By mid-day Wednesday the on-air talent at Fox News immediately pivoted to cover a targeted domestic terrorist attack on National Guard troops in Washington D.C.

Nearly every talking head at the network immediately blamed Democratic lawmakers for the violence even though there was no evidence that the shooter, an Afghan national, was motivated by left of center politics.

Fox News was so lazy in its coverage of the tragedy that the network included a pre-taped episode of The Five for Thanksgiving that made no mention of the attack. That evening it re-aired The Patriot Awards, a Fox Nation special, in place of its regularly scheduled primetime lineup.

I was expecting at least episodes of Fox News Live, the breaking news show for the network but the Fox stuck to its original plan for the holiday and decided to only air episodes that included live news coverage mid-day and late night on Thanksgiving.

No one at the network seemed the least bit concerned that Trump gave the Saudi crown prince a lavish welcome despite his countries relationship with the terrorists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans during the September 11th attacks or the Saudi leader’s personal involvement with the murder and dismemberment of a U.S.- based journalist.

Fox also downplayed the results of its own poll that showed Trump’s approval ratings plummeting with more Americans frustrated with how he is handling the U.S. economy.

Folks at the network know their primary objective is to support the glorious leader and keep loyal viewers tuned into the nonstop outrage fantasy machine that is Fox News. If that means praising a man they have called a dangerous communist for months so be it.

Facts, hyperlinks to solid primary sources and exhaustive investigative reporting won’t help someone who is deeply entrenched in the disinformation pipeline. Trying to correct someone fully committed to the MAGA movement using evidence won’t work.

Using words such as brainwashed, cult, propaganda and even lies won’t help you de-radicalize a friend or relative who is obsessed with the thrills of being constantly outraged and angered by a sophisticated media company that has poisoned minds in this country for nearly three decades.

What you can do is arm yourself with knowledge, facts and sources that will help keep you calm cool and collected. I don’t encourage fighting with relatives who might have emotional outbursts over their devotion to their glorious leader.

A true believer will only free themselves of the MAGA movement when they grow tired of it. It can a long and arduous process before they see the light.

I don’t think this newsletter will convince anyone lost to the MAGA cult but it can prevent others from being dragged into it and at least you know you have solid primary sources so you can show anyone what is actually happening with the U.S. economy.

I can’t get to everything as this newsletter would be hundreds of pages but I will go over some of his more egregious lies and misstatements.

The only thing the network conceded was that Trump could improve his messaging on the economy. The term ‘referendum’ appeared 20 times in the transcripts from last week. Each example was some form of “this election was not a referendum on Trump.”

As Martha MacCallum put it on the night of the election, “It’s the economy, stupid, ends up being the simple story of a lot of elections.”

Jesse Watters responded by lying about inflation while Brian Kilmeade claimed Trump just needed more time to let his policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill work their magic for the U.S. economy.

Laura Ingraham barely kept it together as she predicted the fall of New York City under the Marxist, socialist, communist takeover of the charming millennial Muslim Zorhan Mamdani.

The only topic worth debunking was the network’s misrepresentation of the SNAP program (Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program) that helps feed nearly 42 million Americans.

Since Trump’s political resurrection Fox News has promoted the president and the Republican Party as champions for working class Americans. Trump is portrayed as a warrior for lower income Americans who are struggling with outsourced jobs, shuttered factories, lower wages and ever-increasing costs for just about everything.

During his last campaign for president Trump promised to lower prices on groceries, housing, healthcare, electricity and gasoline. He emotionally whipped up his crowds like a preacher promising that his divine powers would make all their problems go away.

He alone could fix it. So far most of his base still believes that the magic will happen and Fox News is more than happy to feed their delusions.

As usual Trump’s failure to seek permission to radically change historic federal property was seen as a sign of strength not a reckless lack of impulse control.

The East Wing of the White House was just like the list of women who Trump causally sexually assaulted without a second thought. Several women described incidents where Trump, a total stranger to them, walked up and grabbed their body parts or forcibly kissed them without even a hint of consent.

To Trump nearly everything and every person is something he can bully and dominate. The only exception seems to be cruel despots whom he admires.

Fox New is more than happy to fuel his narcissistic abuse. Trump is the center of the universe and the rest of us, including the folks at Fox, are placed on this planet to fuel is pathology.

Other major stories last week included fear mongering about the ‘No Kings’ protests, the impending communist takeover of New York City, roving gangs of Antifa activists and cities destroyed by migrant crime.

The network also dedicated multiple segments over a series of three days to what it felt was George Stephanopoulos’ egregious insult to Vice President J.D. Vance.

There’s no consistency of thought on Fox News except the constant trashing of any Democrat and the minority party. The network will pivot on a dime to mirror the whims of the madman they helped put in the White House.

Fox also spent a lot of time and energy on promoting the Republican candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. The network also repeatedly trashed Zohran Mamdani the leading candidate for New York City mayor.

When their glorious leader did not win the coveted Nobel Peace Prize his servants at Fox News predictably went into a full emotional meltdown meant for an audience of one - the contest was rigged, the judges were woke, it was a meaningless prize, even Norwegians have Trump derangement syndrome, Alfred Nobel was a monster anyway, and people all over the world will demand that Trump get the prize next year.

Of course the Israel-Hamas war was not 3000 years old and Trump is more of a fascist than pacifist.

When reality doesn’t line up with the Fox News agenda the network creates its own dystopian fairy tale complete with menacing masked characters, wildly misleading statistics and tired xenophobic tropes.

Trump’s use of federal law enforcement in three American cities - Memphis, Chicago and Portland, Oregon was seen as something to be celebrated and championed. Never mind that most wealthy industrialized countries would never think to use their military in a law enforcement role.

Greg Gutfeld screamed at Jessica Tarlov like a petulant child after she mentioned that right-wing violence was more prevalent than left-wing violence. Jesse Watters completely forgot statements he made immediately following the murder of Charlie Kirk and Sean Hannity dedicated entire episodes to rehashing old grievances surrounding what he called the political persecution Donald J. Trump.

Fox News personalities downplayed the pending government shutdown and praised President Trump for what they claimed was a brilliant speech at the United Nations.

So far there is no evidence that Robinson worked with an accomplice or coordinated with a larger political organization. According to the series of text messages released by authorities even Robinson’s romantic partner, who happens to be transgender, had no advance notice of his plans to allegedly shoot Charlie Kirk.

Watters could have invited former law enforcement officials, a criminal profiler, or a ballistic expert to talk about the horrific crime. The Fox News host could have spoken with people Charlie Kirk worked with at his foundation Turning Point USA or a student who was inspired by Kirk’s advocacy for his faith or political causes.

Instead, Watters gave a platform to conspiracy theorists who have peddled false stories about sex trafficking, racist immigration schemes and lies about the 2020 presidential election.

While the folks at Fox News called for an end to the violence and heated rhetoric they also demonized and trashed anyone left of center by making them collectively responsible for Kirk’s death as well a slew of other assassination attempts.

The message was clear - liberals, progressives and leftists are evil extremists who hate the country. If they don’t stop criticizing the right the Trump administration would hunt them down, destroy their lives and silence their voices.

Fox News completely ignored it. The network spent most of its focus on Trump’s threats to send National Guard troops into Chicago, RFK Jr.’s Senate hearing and what one Fox contributor described as the Democrat Party’s death spiral.

Women sharing their stories about suffering abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, a high-rolling billionaire with powerful friends and allies including the president was not a story that Fox News wanted to elevate. Fox producers did include a few short segments about Sydney Sweeney’s jeans commercial - no really, they did that.

When President Donald J. Trump declared that he would send National Guard troops into Chicago the network celebrated the idea of U.S. military personnel fighting crime in the third largest city in the country. The word "‘Chicago’ appeared 132 times in the transcripts last week. But according U.S. News & World Report Chicago did not even make its list of the top 25 most dangerous cities in the United States for 2025-2026 .

Other important topics for the Murdoch owned media empire included Cracker Barrel’s decision to go back to its original logo, Gavin Newsom’s social media posts, a recent Democratic National Committee summer meeting and the ICE arrest of Kilmar Abrego Garcia an undocumented immigrant who has been treated like a pawn in Trump’s brutal crackdown on illegal immigration.

Fox News also spent a lot of time and focus on gerrymandering battles in Texas and California, a fatal car accident involving an undocumented immigrant driver and Cracker Barrel’s newly designed logo.

The phrase ‘Cracker Barrel’ appeared in the transcripts 40 times last week while ‘Israel’ only showed up seven times. After two weeks of showing some interest in the Israel-Hamas conflict the network went right back to ignoring it. Fox News spends very little airtime on the plight of nearly two million people in war-torn Gaza or the remaining Israeli hostages who have been held captive for nearly 700 days.

“Fox & Friends,” “The Five,” and “Hannity” boasted to their audiences that a recent poll showed that only 12% of Americans were offended by the Sydney Sweeney jeans ad. Instead of conceding that they spent far too much time, energy and focus on a commercial no one cared about, Fox News personalities portrayed the poll as validation for their excessive coverage.

The jeans ad was a three-week story on the network while the word ‘Epstein’ did not appear once in the transcripts from last week. Fox News is apparently not concerned that its glorious leader might have had sex with minor-aged girls or supported a sex trafficking ring in any way.

Last week the network put most of its focus on a gerrymandering battle that involved Democratic Texas state representatives, the Trump administration, Texas Governor Greg Abbott along with the governors of Illinois, New York and California.

Jesse Watters presented the legislative fight as a war between good and evil for the soul of America. Although he over hyped the drama at least it was an important news story unlike the network’s other distractions from the Epstein files.

The political furor surrounding the Epstein files has reached the rare distinction of being a bipartisan crusade. Americans across the political spectrum have become obsessed with the mysterious circumstances surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s death, his once close relationship with the president of the United States and the secrecy surrounding documents related to his alleged sex trafficking operation.

Trump and his intelligence officials promised they would declassify everything related to Jeffrey Epstein once they had the power to do so. After months of excuses Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel along with Deputy Director Dan Bongino told the American public that there was nothing to reveal.

The new fake Obama Russiagate scandal has a bit of everything - a director of national intelligence who is desperate to keep her job, the deep state, Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, FISA warrants, declassified memos, dirty dossiers, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Jim Comey, election interference, the complicit mainstream Marxist media and a slew of intelligence community officials who were hellbent on stopping Donald J. Trump’s presidency.

The only thing the latest invented scandal lacks is any basis in reality.

The network also produced a barrage of segments trashing the minority party including California Governor Gavin Newsom, and former President Barack Obama. ‘Democrats are terrible’ took up 18% of the airtime on the shows I covered last week.

The network also placed undue focus on a New York City mayoral candidate - Zohran Mamdani. Fox News hosts repeatedly smeared the young New York State assembly member as a dangerous radical communist.

The DOJ also said there was not enough evidence to bring charges “against uncharged third parties,” and that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”

A segment of Trump’s MAGA base was livid as Attorney General Pam Bondi, the FBI Director Kash Patel and his Deputy Director Dan Bongino had made promises that the secrets surrounding the deceased billionaire’s crimes, the so called ‘Epstein client list’ long hidden by the nefarious deep state would finally be revealed under their leadership.

No one at the network spent much energy discussing what was included in the legislation until it was in the final stages of gaining enough votes in the House and Senate. Once it was close to getting over the finish line the folks at Fox knew their job was to champion it at all costs.

Even during the network’s three-hour Independence Day celebration Fox included extended segments about the success of OBBB. Most of what the Fox News audience learned about the legislation was inaccurate, misleading or downright false.

In poll after poll the OBBB remained unpopular with most Americans across the political spectrum. Even several Republican lawmakers in both houses were concerned about the legislation yet all but a handful fell in line to vote for it when pressured by their glorious leader.

The OBBB is a monster designed to inflict most of its damage after the midterm elections. As the poorest Americans lose SNAP benefits and Medicaid the wealthiest will have a few more dollars and the country will come closer to financial ruin.

As a new detention center in Florida nicknamed ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ was announced last week Fox News hosts couldn’t hide their excitement over the prospect of an undocumented immigrant being eaten by a giant reptile or suffocated by a enormous snake.

Folks at Fox News might not have realized they were echoing a dark and sinister past in the American south when Black Americans were once used as actual bait for alligators according to researchers at the Jim Crow Museum.

When Fox News hosts weren’t standing in front of maps of Iran or going over various animated displays of bunker busting bombs, they were downplaying anti-Trump protests, demonizing Democrats and ignoring the fact that their glorious leader’s approval rating was dropping in multiple polls.

Traditionally the American public tends to sour on foreign wars quickly even if they were far more popular when they started. Fox News hosts seemed determined to sell Trump as a president dedicated to peace while pummeling Middle East countries with 30,000-pound bombs.

Iran immediately retaliated striking Israel. As of today 224 Iranians have perished along with 24 Israelis.

Israel’s actions push the world dangerously close to an expanded global conflict. President Trump has made things worse by recklessly tweeting things that imply that the United States is prepared to enter a full scale war with Iran.

Trump posted on social media for Iran’s "unconditional surrender" and said the U.S. knew where Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was located, but would not kill him, "for now.” In social media posts Trump has also used the pronoun ‘we’ when referring to the actions of the Israeli government.

The term ‘autopen’ showed up 69 times in last week’s transcripts. Last week congressional Republicans led by Rep. James Comer launched a pointless investigation into Joe Biden’s use of a signing machine or autopen.

American presidents have used machines to sign documents for decades. The use of an autopen is not illegal or unethical. Republicans, helped by Fox News, are trying to create a narrative that Biden was so mentally incapacitated that he had no idea what he was signing or that someone else in the Biden admin. was signing documents without the president’s knowledge.

The autopen scandal is just the latest bright shiny object to keep the Fox News audience focused on something besides Trump’s attempts to turn the United States into his own private fascist fiefdom.

For months Fox News has aggressively tried to promote Elon Musk as a selfless patriot who loved his adopted country so much that he donated his time and energy to cutting government waste, fraud and abuse to save the United States from the beast of overwhelming debt.

The network portrayed his relationship with Trump as if they were as close as brothers. Musk became a main character on the network who was even compared to the Marvel comic book hero Iron Man.

Despite the feverish PR campaign to make Musk into a beloved figure most Americans, including Republicans, still don’t like him or his non-congressionally approved wannabe government agency DOGE - the Department of Government Efficiency.

Meanwhile Trump continues to show signs of his own cognitive decline along with a severe personality disorder. During a commencement speech at West Point Trump claimed there were ‘no wars and no problems’ during his first administration.

During Trump’s first term in office the U.S. was still at war in Afghanistan, Neo Nazis terrorized Charlottesville, Virginia, a global pandemic caused the death of millions, international supply chains fell apart, Americans faced shortages of food, medical equipment and other necessities, and entire industries were shutdown.

The network also spent an inordinate amount of time trashing the Democratic Party while promoting the idea of a vast conspiracy to cover up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline during his presidency.

Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters staunchly defended the president’s plans to accept a $400 million luxury jet from the Qatari government even while their co-hosts and Republican elected officials expressed their doubts.

Since Trump seemed obsessed with resurrecting the notorious Alcatraz prison while being flippant about the due process rights of millions of Americans and noncitizens I couldn’t help but think that he might be the first longterm guest at the island ruin.

Laura Ingraham claimed she could translate Trump’s incoherent ramblings about negating due process for non-citizens in criminal and immigration courts.

Brian Kilmeade complained that too many people were using Medicaid, the entire cast of “The Five” suddenly became experts in the nation’s air traffic control system while White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller decided he was a structural engineer.

The network buried its recent poll that showed Trump’s approval rating falling with voters on nearly every major issue. Sean Hannity declared with no evidence that every negative poll about Trump was fake news designed to harm his many ambitious plans to make American great again. He also openly thanked his audience for voting for Trump.