Welcome back to Media Matters’ weekly newsletter. This week:
Gas and diesel prices are soaring. Right-wing media figures promised that wouldn't happen.
Right-wing media follow Trump’s lead in dismissing calls to slow down AI development as a hoax.
Even some election deniers are starting to question the efficacy of an emergency declaration on elections.
The Fox News silence on a Russian oligarch reportedly paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding celebration.
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This week’s infighting
Ben Shapiro reacted to a report that a Russian oligarch spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Donald Trump Jr.’s lavish Bahamas wedding celebration by saying, “Suspicion of corruption here is not totally unavailing.” He went on to add, “If you change the name Donald Trump Jr. to Hunter Biden, would Republicans be screaming bloody murder about it? If the answer is yes, it is a bad thing.” Meanwhile, Fox News devoted just 1 minute to this report on Monday, and a caller to Megyn Kelly’s show expressed disappointment that Kelly had also ignored the report, saying, “The silence is deafening. If Bill Clinton would have done this, I would have been outraged.”
Another Megyn Kelly caller: “I'm a three-time Trump voter. There's no way in hell that I'm voting for another Republican that supports this guy. It has been an absolute disaster from the tariffs to this Hormuz deal.” The caller continued: “Let's just call it what it is, enough with the mental gymnastics, jumping through hoops trying to justify this insane war that put us in a worse position economically, militarily — I mean, our standing in the world, we are a joke.”
Karl Rove sounded the alarm about a rising tide of racism and antisemitism within the Republican Party in his Tuesday column for The Wall Street Journal. But while CNN and MS NOW have both covered Rove’s warning, Fox News, the network where he has worked since 2008 has not mentioned it.
On the first day of the inaugural Republican midterm convention, Steve Bannonexpressed mock confusion that Department of Homeland Security officials and anti-immigrant activists were not invited to speak.
MAHA advocates are rallying against Republican “traitors” who passed the farm bill.
Gas and diesel prices are soaring. Right-wing media figures promised that wouldn't happen.
Citation
Andrea Austria/Media Matters for America
Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, right-wing media have attempted to downplay, dismiss, and deflect from the resulting pain at the gas pump, including by repeatedly promising that elevated prices would be temporary. Some right-wing media personalities have even gone so far as to promise exactly when prices would fall back down to pre-war levels or to speculate about precisely what deadlines prices would need to drop by in order for the Trump administration and the Republican Party to avoid suffering severe political fallout.
But despite their promises, the national average for a gallon of gas continues to surge past $4, with diesel even higher, as oil executives warn that prices could get even worse as commercial fuel stocks and strategic reserves that previously served as a buffer have been depleted.
Fox News has spent the last three months heavily focused on ICE raids, arrests, or deportations that target criminal immigrants. In reality, though, a majority of immigrants being arrested in Trump’s immigration crackdown have no criminal record. A Media Matters review found that from June 1 through September 13, 69% of Fox segments suggested that Trump’s primary targets were immigrant criminals.
The Trump administration’s disruption of federal sources of climate information has affected how journalists gather information to report on this topic. Media Matters’ Evlondo Cooper has this great piece detailing the information crisis facing climate coverage.
Fox’s Jesse Watters was perhaps the most strident supporter of Trump’s bogus claims about vandalism at the Capitol Reflecting Pool in Washington this summer. Instead of admitting that those claims were debunked, he just dropped the story entirely. Even though prosecutors dropped charges against the alleged vandals and the contractor for the Reflecting Pool admitted fault for the botched installation, Watters still hasn’t corrected his record.
Right-wing media downplay AI safety concerns as a hoax by comparing them to climate change and “COVID hysteria”
Right-wing media are following Trump in dismissing calls to slow down AI development in the wake of multiple hacking incidents as a “hoax,” comparing concerns over AI to “climate change apocalyptic talk” and “COVID hysteria” including support for vaccines.
In recent months, reports have surfaced showing rogue AI agents hacking servers and software services. Some AI CEOs have called for a slowdown in AI development. Trump, however, vehemently rejected the idea of a slowdown in a series of Truth Social posts on September 14, calling the push for caution a “hoax,” “scam,” and a “SICK conspiracy.”
Right-wing media have dutifully followed Trump’s lead, comparing concerns about unregulated AI development with supposedly fabricated climate change warnings and COVID-19 pandemic safety measures like vaccines. (In reality, researchers have repeatedly proven that vaccines limited the spread of COVID-19 and continue to be safe, effective treatment).
You can read more about how right-wing media is handling AI development in this great piece.
Steve Bannon’s guest admits that a national emergency declaration on elections would likely be overturned by the Supreme Court
Brian Kennedy, a guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, acknowledged on September 16 that if Trump is going to declare a national emergency and try to seize power over election systems, the order would definitely be challenged in court and would almost certainly be overturned.
For months, Bannon and others have been openly plotting to subvert the midterm elections by falsely claiming China has interfered in U.S. elections, then using that manufactured evidence as justification to declare a national emergency and seize control of election systems. Kennedy’s remarks are the latest evidence that the election denial movement is faltering and appears to be pivoting to a new tactic: preemptively blaming the courts for any future losses.
After the Supreme Court blocked Trump’s efforts to limit mail-in ballots, election denier Cleta Mitchell acknowledged the headwinds her movement faced. She said, “I don’t see that there’s anything that can be done on a broad scale before this election, unfortunately.” Bannon sounded a similar note this week when he said, “So November is going to be what November is, and we’re going to have to live with it and deal with it after that.”
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