This week in stupid 

• Fox’s Sean Hannity suggested that “half the country” will boycott Disney’s “theme parks” if ABC’s debate moderators are “biased against” Donald Trump. (And now, many in right-wing media are indeed yelling about ABC and Disney.)
• Fox’s Greg Gutfeld had a complete meltdown over the presidential debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, calling it “the first DEI debate.”

This week in scary

• Newsmax’s Greg Kelly demanded information on Trump’s jurors: “They’re afraid for their lives. Give me a break. I think that’s all part of the scheme here.”
• Fox’s Newt Gingrich said Kamala Harris represents “the replacement of America.”

Excuse me?

• Fox’s Jesse Watters: “I don’t like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I need to know if someone is gay. I have to know.”
• A Newsmax guest said white men “will be at the back of the line” under a Kamala Harris presidency.
• The Daily Wire’s CEO: “Kamala Harris has a good Black woman” impression.
• The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh responded to NFL player Tyreek Hill’s arrest, saying “white people” aren’t “crying about it” when they get pulled over.

This week in Project 2025

For Media Matters’ complete coverage of Project 2025, please visit this section of our website.

• The former head of Project 2025, Paul Dans, bragged about the initiative’s extreme policies and criticized both the Trump campaign and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts in interviews with CNN and The New York Times.
• Kevin Roberts appeared with Tucker Carlson, who recently pushed Nazi apologias and Holocaust denial.
• Project 2025 partners are lining up behind the SAVE Act, a piece of legislation that would ban noncitizens from voting (something which is already illegal and exceedingly rare).

Trump’s debate debacle put the GOP’s dangerous obsession with MAGA media nonsense on display

Donald Trump’s flailing debate performance encapsulated one of the Republican Party’s key vulnerabilities: Its message is dictated by the deranged fixations of conspiracy-minded propagandists.

During Tuesday’s debate, Trump promoted a viral and racist lie about Haitian immigrants, falsely claimed Democrats like Kamala Harris support “execution after birth,” baselessly accused the FBI of “defrauding” data showing that violent crime has fallen, and much more. Trump used the debate to repeatedly parrot talking points coherent only to viewers familiar with the deep lore of the Fox News Cinematic Universe and the right-wing online fever swamps. The misinformation and extreme rhetoric he pushed during the debate were fueled by right-wing media.

As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz explains: “Republican leaders spent decades telling their supporters that mainstream journalists could not be trusted and urging them to get their information from the parallel network of right-wing propagandists they propped up instead. Over time, that information bubble became ever-more-seamless, even as the weirdos it empowered pushed the party in bizarre directions that normal people find deeply off-putting.”

Trump has only retreated deeper into his media bubble following the debate. On Wednesday morning, he said on Fox & Friends that ABC should have its broadcast license revoked because of the presidential debate. He also said he wanted to have Fox’s Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, or Jesse Watters moderate a future presidential debate on Fox News.

Some MAGA personalities are following their Dear Leader deeper into the fever swamp. After Trump’s debate debacle, some of these figures began circulating the false claim that Harris was wearing a secret earpiece during the debate.

Trump and right-wing media have created an alternative reality that excludes normal Americans. But alternative realities can be difficult to maintain — eventually they have a way of shattering against actual reality.

Matt Walsh’s Am I Racist? is an exercise in how boring a film can really be

Alfred Hitchcock once said that drama is life but with the dull parts cut out. The Daily Wire’s first theatrical release, Am I Racist? demonstrates what a movie composed of dull parts without life looks like.

During an excessively padded run time, we watch a podcaster act the role of a DEI consultant. Matt Walsh, our star, dons the costume like a superhero, including the corny music and training montage (yes, there is actually a training montage). From there he spends most of the movie conducting interviews and even an anti-racist workshop using his concocted persona.

With manufactured awkwardness and a deadpan face (which bears the distinct resemblance to a Labrador retriever waiting to fetch), Walsh pushes proponents of anti-racism to absurd limits, hoping they will bring the DEI industry down with them. To this end, Am I Racist? is merely another entry in the remarkably tired genre of “owning the libs,” something that’s always been a central part of The Daily Wire’s brand. Since the film is billed as a comedy, I was waiting for the funny moments to come up. I kept waiting until the end credits rolled.

Am I Racist? spends an hour and forty minutes moving in a long circle, with Walsh starting and ending in the same place. Lacking conflict, growth, transition, or even humor, this film goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing. Instead, the audience is dragged through mind numbingly boring exchanges and a torturous soundtrack watching a man ask a question he already knew the answer to. The only question I could think about over and over again is, why am I watching this?

Right-wing media are gleefully promoting a false, racist rumor that Haitians are eating pets

During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Donald Trump blurted out “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats.” He went on to add “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.” For anyone understandably confused by this absurd statement, Trump was pushing a debunked conspiracy theory regarding Haitian migrants.

On September 9, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance claimed that Haitian migrants had “abducted and eaten” pets in Springfield, Ohio, seemingly referencing debunked social media rumors. Though local officials explained that there was no truth to the claim, right-wing media immediately jumped on the bandwagon, amplifying Vance’s allegations and pushing racist narratives about Haitian immigrants. Some right-wing figures accused Haitian migrants of consuming “cats and ducks” and comparing them to “zombies” and “locusts.”

I invite you to read Media Matters timeline of events here — it’s really elucidating.

In case you missed it

• MAGA extremist Laura Loomer apparently traveled on Donald Trump’s plane to the debate in Philadelphia. To make matters worse, Trump also attended a 9/11 anniversary with Loomer — who last year shared a video claiming that “9/11 was an Inside Job!” Media Matters wrote this fantastic guide to the relationship between Trump and Loomer.
• Fox News’ “crime crisis” narrative completely imploded at the debate. The network is furious.
• Right-wing media figures responded to Trump’s poor debate performance by spreading falsehoods about Minnesota’s abortion law.
• Conservative economic commentators have been “sanewashing” Trump’s incoherent tariff proposals.
• Fox News and Fox Business have falsely linked Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz, their campaign, or their policies to socialism, communism, or Marxism at least 466 times since July 23.
• Fox News claimed that Trump made his position on abortion “crystal clear” despite his nonanswers during the debate.
• All three major broadcast nightly news shows ignored Trump’s assertion last weekend that his mass deportation plan to remove millions of undocumented migrants would be a “bloody story.”
• Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin, a major figure in the election denial movement, said that her group is partnering with Turning Point Action, a conservative youth organization founded by Charlie Kirk, in campaigning on behalf of Donald Trump.
• Rumble has promoted multiple videos in its “editor picks” section from Tenet Media, a right-wing media operation reportedly funded by the Russian government to spread propaganda.
• Richard Mack, a former Arizona county sheriff and leader of a far-right “constitutional sheriffs” organization, appeared on a podcast alongside a QAnon figure and asked for advice on what to “tell sheriffs to do to be ready.”
• The Apalachee High School shooter reportedly complained that trans people are accepted in society. Right-wing media claimed the shooter was trans.
• Media Matters compiled this fantastic profile on Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy. I highly recommend reading it.
• Donald Trump has been pushing a false claim that schools are providing gender-affirming surgeries. Similar lies have been spread by right-wing media figures in the past.
• The Biden administration is cutting car pollution and incentivizing automakers to produce electric vehicles. Right-wing media repeatedly misconstrued these efforts, falsely claiming they were attempting to take away voters’ gas-powered cars or forcing them to buy electric vehicles. Now the Trump-Vance campaign has adopted the false claim of an EV mandate.
• The Daily Wire’s hosts falsely claimed there have been “no hurricanes” this season, as Hurricane Francine barreled toward the Gulf Coast.