Angelo Carusone tells SirusXM’s Dean Obeidallah: “In the case of the Fauci attacks, it really was a right-wing media push”

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Media Matters' Angelo Carusone tells SirusXM’s Dean Obeidallah: “In the case of the Fauci attacks, it really was a right-wing media push”

From the July 16, 2020, edition of Sirius XM’s The Dean Obeidallah Show

DEAN OBEIDALLAH (HOST): In an article on Media Matters, it talks about how the Fauci attacks by Trump have followed the right-wing narrative. And it always makes — that sort of, you've written about this before in your publication, the loop between Trump and Fox and the right-wing media, Where does it begin, and where does one end?

ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT AND CEO, MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA): Yep.

OBEIDALLAH: And I don't know if Trump watching OAN Now and Fox, and the attacks on Fauci, and goes, “OK, yeah, you can smear him, but I'm going to say nice things about him” — or, it starts with Trump hinting to them, “I think this Fauci guy is not good,” and then they start running this stuff. I don't know the answer. But in the article, you document showing that the attacks on Fauci follow right-wing media. So what can you share about what you saw in right-wing media before the attacks by Team Trump?

CARUSONE: Yeah, and that's the big piece about this. I think the answer to your questions is that it actually — it's both, it depends on the narrative. Sometimes, Trump seeds it and then Fox amplifies it, and then he repeats it. And sometimes it's the other way around, sometimes it starts on Fox or the right-wing media, Trump picks it up and amplifies it, and then right, the rest of the echo chamber reinforces it. It's a loop, and it just depends on where in the loop it starts. And each individual narrative tends to have a different, you know, a different starting point.

In the case of the Fauci attacks, it really was a right-wing media push. Which makes sense in a lot of ways, right? Because Fauci, for much of the media conversation, I mean, it's very rare that the right-wing isn't allowed to touch in an aggressive way —

OBEIDALLAH: Right.

CARUSONE: — or a person they're not allowed to attack. I mean, imagine that. Right? I mean, they attack everybody.

OBEIDALLAH: Yes.

CARUSONE: You know, there are very few people that they can't really, truly condemn, without getting massive and significant blowback. And Fauci really represented one of those people.