On Thursday, special counsel Robert Hur released his report regarding President Joe Biden’s handling of classified materials. Hur declined to prosecute Biden but the report raised questions about his memory. Former Justice Department officials criticized how Hur had put a “thumb on the scale” with his comments against Biden.
We’ll have more on the media coverage of this story next week. In the meantime, there are a few points I wanted to share with you:
- Hur’s report noted that there are “several material distinctions” between Biden’s and Donald Trump’s classified documents cases. Propagandists like Sean Hannity are arguing that the two cases are the same. They are not. Read this fantastic piece to learn more about how different these cases truly are.
- Mainstream media outlets have long been obsessed with Biden’s age. They have not, however, given the same attention to Trump’s age or the gaffes and incoherent comments he makes.
- There have been several recent examples of Trump demonstrating poor memory recall. Last night on Fox News, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley brought up a recent example in which Trump confused her with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Hannity cut to commercial as Haley drew this point home.
Last weekend, bipartisan congressional negotiations unveiled a border control bill that would toughen asylum standards, hire thousands of new officers to fast-track the case process, and likely impose an emergency shutdown of the U.S. border. The bill read like a right-wing policymakers’ wish list. Nonetheless, Fox News spread a false claim that one of the bill’s provisions would allow 5,000 migrants to cross the border each day. In reality, the provision in question would have forced federal authorities to automatically reject asylum applicants when border encounters reach certain levels.
Even after the bill’s sponsors actually went on Fox to explain this misconception, the network continued to repeat the falsehood and attacked them across its programming.
Fox and the rest of conservative media railed against Republican supporters of the bill, suggesting that such lawmakers are betraying their party and constituents.
- Fox’s Mark Levin said “anybody who was involved in this must be defeated.”
- Serial plagiarist Benny Johnson said any Republican involved in the immigration deal “needs to be criminally prosecuted.”
- Conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec wrote that Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), one of the bill’s key GOP negotiators, “should be locked up in Joe Exotic’s road zoo in Oklahoma City.”
- Fox’s Laura Ingraham accused Republican Senate leadership of betraying their party to “help Biden and hurt Trump, which is a shared goal of 90% of the uniparty.”
With the full weight of this media assault leading up to a floor vote, Senate Republicans successfully blocked the bill’s passage.
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed that disgraced former President Donald Trump is not immune from criminal prosecution. It was an important affirmation of our nation’s separation of powers and our republican government. Trump, however, responded to the ruling by claiming absolute executive immunity was vital to the country’s survival because without it, future presidents (perhaps like himself) would attempt to prosecute past presidents of the other party. MAGA media, predictably, followed their Dear Leader’s spin.
- Donald Trump Jr. asked, “If this becomes a norm would a Trump DOJ prosecute Obama for droning an American?”
- Jack Posobiec posted, “This presidential immunity ruling means Biden can be indicted right now for treason by aiding an invasion.”
- Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said “Obama must be prosecuted” if Trump is prosecuted.
- Newsmax guest and former Trump press secretary Hogan Gidley warned that “Democrats will reap the whirlwind” of the presidential immunity case.
As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz explains:
“The Trumpists’ thinly veiled threat of retribution, with its ‘look what you made us do’ insinuation, is preposterous given the longstanding, loud calls from Trump and his supporters to prosecute his political enemies, including former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden.”
During a live interview with “Guardian Angels” founder Curtis Sliwa on February 6, Fox News host Sean Hannity directed his cameraperson to film Sliwa’s group engaged in a physical altercation with an unidentified individual in New York City’s Times Square. Sliwa claimed, without evidence, that the man being attacked was a migrant who had recently shopflited. With zero pushback from Hannity, Sliwa bragged that the individual was “sucking concrete” and that “cops scraped him off the asphalt.” He further complained that “these illegals think they own this street” but promised that his group, unlike the police, was not going to be “hands off” with migrants and would “liberate Times Square from them.”
After the incident, New York Police Department officials contradicted Sliwa’s claims that the individual was a migrant and shoplifting. Instead, the man was a 23-year-old from the Bronx who moved to the U.S. when he was 10 years old. He was merely attempting to get Sliwa’s attention while he was on air when the group confronted him.
Fox completely failed to update its viewers on the reality of what took place. Dana Perino perpetuated Sliwa’s unsubstantiated narrative the next day during her so-called “straight news” program.
On Thursday, Hannity finally issued a correction.
Fox’s rush to elevate Sliwa’s shaky claims in order to demonize migrants is unsurprising. Still, it’s disturbing to watch a network livestream a brutal physical attack by a vigilante group.
