This week in stupid 

• Daily Wire host Matt Walsh: “I will fight to the death for plastic utensils.”
• Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk said parents should refuse to pay college tuition if their kids are voting for Kamala Harris.
• Trump ally Laura Loomer: “If Kamala Harris gets elected as president of the United States, we are, we are going to have an Islamic caliphate in this country.”

This week in weird

• Fox’s Greg Gutfeld called Tim Walz a “male Karen with a pot belly.”
• Stephen Miller: “Tim Walz’s job is to be the Jack Kevorkian for America.”
• Charlie Kirk: Kamala Harris “is more ambitious than Lucifer.”
• Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles complained about a marriage proposal at the Olympics: “We all have an intuition that it’s wrong for a woman to propose to a man.”
• Matt Walsh whined about Simone Biles honoring Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade: “Simone Biles is a horrendous bigot. She is a racist, and she owes America an apology.”

Excuse me?

• Fox’s Jesse Watters called on the FBI to wiretap “everyone involved” in the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.
• Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan: Kamala Harris “has the womanish traits of being a cackling, irrational, and venomous serpent.”
• Charlie Kirk: “Kamala Harris wants to see the elimination of the United States of America.”
• Newsmax host Rob Schmitt: “Tim Walz is the white guy with a white wife and white kids who hates white people.”

This week in Project 2025

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

• Media Matters wrote this definitive guide to Project 2025. Anyone interested in this extreme right-wing initiative for the next Republican presidential administration should check it out.
• Project 2025 architect and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts compared abortion access to slave auctions, lynchings, and the Holocaust.
• Media Matters received a galley copy of a now-delayed book written by Kevin Roberts. In the book, Roberts outlines the MAGA plans to remake American education and echoes Project 2025’s attacks on unions.

MAGA figures launch desperate — and weird — attacks on Tim Walz

This week, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Right-wing media responded by launching desperate, weird, and bigoted attacks against him.

• Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller highlighted a pro-immigrant and pro-refugee program in Minnesota, commenting: “Together, Walz and Harris will turn the Midwest into the Middle East.”
• Self-identified “proud Islamophobe” and Trump ally Laura Loomer absurdly asserted “Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is tied to ISIS.”
• Charlie Kirk claimed “Minneapolis is a war zone because” of Walz.

Right-wing figures and conservative cable news outlets are branding Walz as “Tampon Tim” for signing a bill to provide menstrual products in public school bathrooms. Fox’s Laura Ingraham, for example, claimed that “Tampon Tim” “believes kids who are too young to get a drink at a bar are mature enough to have their genitals mutilated by a twisted surgeon.”

Naturally, no right-wing smear campaign would be complete without a conspiracy theory. In this case, right-wing media are accusing Walz of “stolen valor” related to his 24-year service record with the National Guard. Specifically, right-wing media are claiming that Walz resigned and “abandoned” his National Guard unit and resigned after the unit received deployment orders to go to Iraq. In reality, Walz resigned two months before the unit received orders, and Walz likely submitted his retirement papers even earlier.

Already right-wing media are flailing to smear the presumptive Democratic nominee for vice president. These attacks only highlight their own desperation.

Top newspapers fail to cover Trump’s antisemitic attacks

During a July 30 radio interview with host Sid Rosenberg, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared to agree with Rosenberg’s comments that second gentlemen Doug Emhoff is a “crappy Jew” and a “horrible Jew.” Trump went on to say that “Any Jewish person that voted for her [Harris], or him [Biden], or whoever it’s going to be, I assume it’s going to be her; anybody that did that should have their head examined.” Trump further added that “If you’re Jewish, if you vote Democrat, you’re a fool. An absolute fool.”

Media Matters reviewed five of the top U.S. newspapers by circulation and found that only two print articles and six online articles referenced these antisemitic attacks. Meanwhile on Fox, hosts Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld laughed about the exchange, calling it “funny.”

Trump’s comments during the Rosenberg interview weren’t his only recent antisemitic attacks. In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu on July 26, Trump said he doesn’t “know how a person who’s Jewish can vote for” Harris, echoing a previous comment from March, when Trump said that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion, they hate everything about Israel.”

On August 5, Trump was interviewed by streamer Adin Ross. The streamer is linked to white nationalist Nick Fuentes (who dined with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022) and has hosted other neo-Nazis on his stream.

Mainstream press outlets have a responsibility to adequately report on Trump’s history of pushing antisemitic attacks and friendly relations with white nationalists.

Project 2025 contributor: Kamala Harris “resembles in attitude the slave owners of the Old South” for supporting access to abortion

Hans von Spakovsky, a Heritage Foundation official who has played a key role in Project 2025, previously attacked Kamala Harris as someone who “resembles in attitude the slave owners of the old South” because she supports access to abortion.

Von Spakvsky is a significant figure in Heritage’s push for Project 2025. He authored a chapter of Project 2025 about the Federal Election Commission and has frequently appeared in media to promote the project.

Media Matters has documented Project 2025’s extreme agenda for reproductive rights and other key issues, like immigration and civil liberties. Von Spakovsky’s rhetoric on reproductive rights is hardly unique among Project 2025 partners. Last December, Young America’s Foundation, a right-wing group involved with Project 2025, hosted an event featuring anti-surrogacy and anti-IVF commentator Michael Knowles. During his speech, Knowles called surrogacy and IVF a “crime,” a “growing evil,” “ghastly,” “absolutely horrific,” and “just about the most rotten thing a society can possibly do to children.”

In case you missed it 

• GOP congressional nominee and right-wing commentator David Winkler used a fringe stream program to push conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks.
• Trump and his MAGA media boosters tried to blame Kamala Harris for a drop in the stock market this week.
• Right-wing media have falsely claimed that Kamala Harris wants to ban red meat.
• Election denial organization True the Vote said it “is reaching out to sheriffs across the country” to monitor ballot drop boxes.
• Republican state officials are investigating ActBlue after right-wing media used inaccurate information to claim the fundraising platform was laundering money.
• Trump invoked a far-right conspiracy theory claiming Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro are related.