This week in stupid

• Fox’s Sean Hannity claimed voters “detest” Kamala Harris because of her laughter.
• Newsmax’s Greg Kelly criticized Harris’ smile, saying, “Men don’t do that.”
• Fox’s Jesse Watters said Hillary Clinton endorsed Harris “because she is a woman.”

This week in gross

• The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh attacked Harris for having a career, saying, “She’s a woman who has chosen to dedicate her life to her own personal ambition and career advancement. She has lived a very self-serving life. The lack of children is a symptom of that.”
• Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk repeatedly mispronounced Harris’ name while calling her “deeply scary” and “a DEI candidate.”
• On Fox News, Project 2025 contributor Monica Crowley said Michelle Obama will run for president because she “squares the Kamala Harris circle: being a minority and a DEI hire.”

Excuse me? 

• Former Daily Wire host Candace Owens said Harris “is a little uppity.”
• Newsmax guest Chris Kohls said Harris “constantly goes on, like, Black radio shows and pretends to be down with the homies, even though she grew up Indian.”
• Fox Business claimed a quarterly economic report showing strong growth is “fairy-tale numbers.”

The right-wing media’s playbook for attacking Kamala Harris

On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president. Since the announcement, right-wing media have launched sexist and racist attacks against Harris in an effort to diminish her qualifications. They’ve claimed she can’t be president because she doesn’t have biological children, labeled her “the ultimate diversity, equity, and inclusion candidate,” fixated on her laugh, claimed that she promotes “the occult,” and likened her to a “Jezebel.”

The wave of bigoted attacks against Harris got so toxic that some right-wing pundits and House Republican leaders are begging Donald Trump and his supporters to stick to policy critiques rather than racist and misogynistic invective. As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz writes, “They are all right to be worried. Harris is the biracial daughter of two immigrants and would become the first woman president, and the right is chock-full of freaks who garner audience and money through bigotry.” Unfortunately, those attempting to keep the right’s attacks focused on policy may find it difficult — the right-wing propaganda machine has been selling bigotry for a profit for decades, and it doesn’t have an off-switch.

Another pillar in the right-wing attacks on Harris revolves around spreading misinformation about her, such as recycling old attacks related to a cash bail fund in 2020 or falsely claiming she was Biden’s “border czar.” One of the most disgusting flanks in this attack is a resurrected birther smear against her, similar to the conspiracy theory told by right-wing pundits (and Trump) about President Barack Obama. This is a racist lie used by MAGA pundits to signal to their audience that people like Harris and Obama are somehow less American.

Right-wing media were caught flat footed right after Biden’s announcement as they saw their anti-Biden message honed over the past few years replaced by total chaos. They’re now throwing as much hatred and misinformation against the wall as they can, hoping something will stick.

Trump celebrated following policy recommendations from the Heritage Foundation, the group behind Project 2025

In resurfaced audio, Donald Trump celebrated his administration’s efforts to implement the Heritage Foundation’s policy recommendations during his first year in office. During a June 2018 roundtable on tax reform in Las Vegas, Trump bragged about implementing “top agenda items” suggested by Heritage Foundation in his first year in office. Heritage Foundation is the leading think tank behind Project 2025.

The Trump campaign has recently been attempting to distance itself from Heritage and Project 2025. Trump began to distance himself from the initiative after Heritage President Kevin Roberts said that “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Despite Trump’s effort to put distance between himself and Project 2025, there is ample evidence that the former president is closely aligned with the initiative. This resurfaced audio is yet one more example.

TikTok conspiracy theory blames an ancient sea serpent for Hurricane Beryl

As Texas and the Caribbean recover from Hurricane Beryl, conspiracy theorists on TikTok say flooding from the Category 5 storm was actually caused by the movements of an ancient mythological sea serpent called a Leviathan.

Beryl was the earliest recorded Category 5 storm to ever form in the Atlantic Ocean. A recent analysis found that the hurricane was “fueled by exceptionally warm ocean temperatures,” which are directly attributable to climate change.

Between April and July, Media Matters identified several TikTok videos that accrued millions of views suggesting that the movements of a giant sea monster were responsible for the destruction caused by Beryl, earthquakes, and atmospheric disturbances. Other videos claimed that these events were signs of a Leviathan that would ultimately bring the apocalypse.

Right-wing Chrisian media figures and conspiracy theorists have similarly attributed past natural disasters to cosmic or religious events that are beyond human control to discredit or dismiss how human-caused climate change is fueling extreme weather events.

In case you missed it 

• J.D. Vance wrote the forward to the book of Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts, who is the president of the Heritage Foundation. The proceeds from the book will partly benefit The Heritage Foundation, which has frequently bragged in fundraising emails about its influence on Trump. 
• In resurfaced remarks, Vance appeared on Breitbart News and claimed that the left’s “next generation of leaders,” including “the Kamala Harrises, they don’t have kids. And so there’s this weird way where they want to take our kids and brainwash them so that their ideas continue to exist in the next generation.”
• In reaction to Joe Biden’s announcement that he will no longer seek reelection, some of Trump’s supporters posted unhinged conspiracy theories suggesting Biden’s decision was connected to the July 13 failed attempt on Trump’s life.
• Incoherent audio wrongly attributed to Harris was going viral among right-wing accounts on TikTok this week. TikTok has now removed the fake Harris audio.
• National TV news media largely ignored Trump’s mass deportation plan, despite the Republican National Convention’s immigration focus.
• Candace Owens was reportedly set to feature at a fundraiser headlined by Rumble host Donald Trump Jr. Owens had made extremist and antisemitic remarks in the months since she was forced out at The Daily Wire.