Zeldin's Fox-heavy strategy has allowed him to avoid tough questioning and push misleading talking points without rebuttal. Zeldin's Fox appearances have been largely friendly and laudatory, with hosts rarely probing the consequences of cutting climate and environmental programs or challenging his characterization of climate initiatives as wasteful.

• Zeldin made at least 21 appearances on Fox News and Fox Business since his confirmation on January 29, including 2 appearances each on Varney & Co., The Story with Martha MacCallum, Mornings with Maria, and Sunday Morning Futures. He has appeared on The Ingraham Angle at least 3 times. This approach directly echoes former Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who in 2017 appeared on Fox News twice as often as he did on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC combined. [Media Matters, 8/15/17]
• During his sole CNN appearance during the studied period, Zeldin faced direct questioning about specific EPA actions and workforce reductions — a stark contrast to his numerous Fox appearances, where such scrutiny was consistently absent. This emerging pattern resembles the approach of Pruitt, who overwhelmingly favored conservative media outlets during his tenure at the EPA. [CNN, CNN Newsroom, 2/4/25; Mother Jones, 7/14/17; Media Matters, 8/15/17]
• On March 12, Zeldin announced the most aggressive environmental rollbacks in EPA history, including rescinding pollution regulations and eliminating environmental justice programs, framing these actions as essential to lowering energy costs despite the widespread environmental and public health risks. Under his leadership, the agency has also moved to repeal the endangerment finding which underpins federal climate regulations, proposed slashing EPA staff by 65%, and paused the implementation of key pollution rules limiting “forever chemicals” in Americans’ drinking water. Fox has largely failed to ask Zeldin about these major actions. [The New York Times, 3/12/25; The New York Times, 2/20/25; Inside Climate News, 2/16/25; Reuters, 2/27/25; Union of Concerned Scientists, 1/21/25; The Associated Press, 2/27/25; Inside Climate News, 3/2/25; Bloomberg Law, 3/10/25] 

Zeldin and Fox hosts repeatedly framed environmental deregulation as a purely economic decision, shifting the conversation away from environmental protection to discussions of government efficiency and business growth.

• During Zeldin’s appearance on the February 25 episode of Varney & Co., host Stuart Varney pivoted the conversation toward the administration’s efforts to “speed up the permitting process for companies investing in America” over a chyron reading “EPA prioritizes deregulation, promotes investments.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 2/25/25]
• During Zeldin's February 27 interview on The Evening Edit, host Elizabeth MacDonald characterized his EPA cuts as focusing exclusively on eliminating “this shocking amount” of wasteful government spending, saying: “You are working to cut EPA spending by about two-thirds because you're finding waste.” [Fox Business, The Evening Edit, 2/27/25]

Fox hosts and Zeldin reframed climate and environmental initiatives as corrupt political projects, feeding into Fox’s larger misinformation loop.

• During his February 18 interview on Mornings With Maria, Zeldin bragged about canceling environmental justice funding, claiming federal grants were directed toward “left-wing ideologues” instead of addressing legitimate environmental concerns for communities in need. “It’s absolutely incredible,” Bartiromo said, demanding, “What were the Biden officials doing other than being asleep at the wheel?” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 2/18/25]
• Speaking with host Maria Bartiromo during the February 23 episode of Sunday Morning Futures, Zeldin suggested that grant recipients were selected based on political connections rather than merit and stated, “It’s a clear-cut case of waste and abuse. The entire scheme is criminal, in my opinion.” [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 2/23/25]

Zeldin used his Fox appearances to create a feedback loop in which these talking points were introduced, echoed by hosts, and then repeated in later segments — laundering false claims and misleading narratives into conventional wisdom spread across Fox networks.

A key example is Zeldin's misleading claim that $2 billion in climate funds were improperly awarded to an organization linked to Democratic politician Stacey Abrams, implying she personally received EPA funds. (Abrams was senior counsel for Rewiring America, a member of the Power Forward Communities coalition; there is no evidence she personally received EPA grant funds.) This specific accusation targeting Abrams later evolved into broader claims characterizing all climate funding as corrupt political payoffs to Democratic allies and donors, demonstrating how targeted accusations expanded into wholesale attacks on climate and environmental programs.

• February 18: Zeldin planted the seed for his attack on Abrams on America Reports, claiming that Biden's EPA structured the grants around “drastically reducing accountability and oversight” and alleging that it included "$20 billion going out the door up front." He framed protests against federal spending cuts as proof that “a lot of left-wing organizations … are beneficiaries of the money.” [Fox News, America Reports, 2/18/25]
• February 20: On The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham explicitly suggested that Abrams criticized cuts to federal agencies because she personally received government funds, stating, “She’s worried about them getting DOGE’d — maybe it's because she was profiting from the EPA,” over a chyron reading “Stacey Abram’s Slush Fund.” Zeldin reinforced the claim, emphasizing that Power Forward Communities received $2 billion in grants after Abrams' affiliated group had only received $100 the previous year. He framed the funding as corrupt and implied mismanagement, further fueling the broader narrative that climate funding was being funneled to Democratic allies. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/20/25]
• February 21: Fox News’ Special Report repeated this framing of the EPA’s climate funding, with correspondent Steve Harrigan reporting, “Lee Zeldin claims the money was basically a slush fund to reward left-wing political groups, including one where Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams worked as senior counsel.” [Fox News, Special Report, 2/21/25]
• February 23: Zeldin sharpened the claim on Sunday Morning Futures, suggesting that the organization receiving the funds had no track record of handling large budgets. “This group in 2023 only received $100,” he claimed. “This isn't even like it’s a longtime group that has some reputation of handling large budgets. They received $2 billion in 2024.” [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 2/23/25]
• February 26: Fox & Friends enabled Trump administration officials to amplify the claim, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling viewers: “You look at what Lee Zeldin has found at the EPA — $20 billion that the Democrats pushed out the door in the final weeks of Joe Biden’s presidency, $2 billion of that went to an NGO that was run by Stacey Abrams. So there is real fraud taking place in our federal government.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/26/25]
• March 6: Zeldin reiterated the claim on Jesse Watters Primetime, broadening it further: “It's going to people who are in the Obama and Biden administrations, it’s going to donors.” He added, “It's not going directly to remediate that environmental issue, to deliver clear air, land, and water. It's billions — tens of billions of dollars — going through their friends.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 3/6/25]
• March 12: On The Ingraham Angle, the host escalated the framing of climate funding as Democratic fraud, amplifying Zeldin’s earlier claim that “$20 billion of your tax dollars were parked in an outside financial institution in a deliberate effort to limit government oversight.” She also explicitly called for criminal prosecutions, asserting that Democrats used the EPA to funnel money to political allies. Zeldin reinforced this narrative, tying his regulatory cuts — including the repeal of the Clean Power Plan 2.0 — to ending government waste, claiming that “you have self-dealing, conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients,” and alleging that a Stacey Abrams-linked group had signed agreements that “tied EPA's hands behind their back.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/12/25]

Fox News has played a pivotal role in manufacturing legitimacy for the Trump administration’s climate and environmental rollbacks. By allowing Zeldin to spread questionable claims about climate funding, amplifying his misleading narratives, and repeating unverified accusations as established facts, Fox has functioned not just as a shield but as an active participant in the Trump administration’s attempts to reframe climate funding as corruption and environmental deregulation as necessary reform.

At the same time, Fox hosts consistently failed to challenge Zeldin on policy rollbacks targeting key environmental protections. Despite appearing on Fox twice after the Supreme Court’s March 4 ruling weakening the Clean Water Act, Zeldin was never asked about how the decision could impact the EPA’s ability to regulate pollution. Similarly, Fox did not press Zeldin on reports that he urged the Trump administration to reconsider the endangerment finding, the EPA’s determination that “planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare,” which forms the legal basis for regulating emissions.

This strategy doesn’t just obscure policy impacts — it actively misleads the public. By laundering misinformation through repetition and friendly framing, Fox creates an echo chamber in which attacks on climate programs are treated as fact while the real-world consequences of slashing climate funding are ignored, effectively shielding Zeldin from accountability for the full scope of his EPA agenda. 

As the Trump administration advances its fossil fuel agenda, from gutting the Clean Water Act to dismantling the legal foundation for climate regulation, Fox's selective coverage ensures that the consequences of these policies remain hidden from public scrutiny — allowing the real impacts of these destructive environmental rollbacks to remain largely unexamined.

Media Matters searched our internal database of all original, weekday programming on Fox News Channel (shows airing from 6 a.m. through midnight) for segments that analysts determined to include EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin from January 29, when he was confirmed as administrator to the EPA, through March 13, 2025, at 8 AM ET.

Media Matters also searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for either of the terms “Zeldin” or “EPA administrator” over the same period.

We included guest segments, which we defined as instances when CNN, Fox Business, Fox News, or MSNBC hosted Zeldin on one of their shows. Appearances could be as solo interviews or as a part of panels.