• Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk said 90% of federal jobs “should not exist.” 
• Fox Business suggested that Trump creating a recession could be a good thing.

• War Room host Steve Bannon said “we’re going to block grant” Medicaid or have “stringent work requirements.” 
• Charlie Kirk said government workers “operate as worthless parasites on the American taxpayer.” 
• Fox contributor Ari Fleischer called on Republicans to cut Medicaid.

• The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh: “There’s a lot of inbreeding in Somalia, which affects IQ.” 
• Fox’s Brian Kilmeade said Trump voters who are “casualties” of federal layoffs are just part of closing the budget gap. 
• Fox’s Sean Hannity said fired government workers “frankly, shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” 
• The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles suggested that women should not be allowed to participate in military combat or fight fires.

Backlash to President Donald Trump’s early actions and statements are starting to erupt at Republican town halls, local and national protests — and on the phone lines of right-wing talk radio shows. 

• Fox host Sean Hannity told a listener who was pleading for the jobs of military veterans in the federal government that “there will be other opportunities.” 
• A caller to Alex Jones’ show accused Trump of “lying” about birthright citizenship: “If they want to pass this, we’re going to get rid of 150 million U.S. citizens.” 
• A caller to Fox host Brian Kilmeade’s radio show accused Trump of trying to “bribe” people with DOGE dividends. 
• A caller to Fox host Mark Levin’s radio show made an impassioned plea concerning the legal status of his fiance. 

Media Matters President Angelo Carusone talked about this trend on MSNBC, saying: “Even those callers are sort of bewildered. In fact, they’re appealing to Hannity, in particular, to say, look, we’re on your side, but please explain to them that it’s too much recklessness.” On The Bulwark’s podcast, Angelo went into more detail on this trend. I invite you to check out what he had to say here.

On Sunday, Donald Trump announced that right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino will serve as deputy director of the FBI. This selection hammers home the fact that Trump is eliminating the guardrails that prevented right-wing conspiracy theories from becoming criminal prosecutions during his first term. It also shovels more dirt on the farcical idea that Trump and his allies want a depoliticized law enforcement. 

Bongino is an inflammatory partisan who has declared that “owning the libs” is “my entire life right now” because they are “pure unadulterated evil” and has fawned over Trump as an “apex predator” and “the lion king.” He gained a large influence during Trump’s first term specifically because of his willingness to issue florid denunciations of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

Bongino is an inveterate conspiracy theorist whose view of law enforcement weaponization seems to be entirely based on who is doing the weaponizing. In 2022, Bongino said the FBI is “irredeemably corrupt at this point.” But he also said there would be “an FBI raid at the White House” to target then-President Joe Biden, whom he described as “the real criminal” based on fictitious right-wing corruption claims.

Bongino’s appointment highlights a new reality in the second Trump administration. As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz writes: “Trump’s second-term selections are intended to eliminate the disruptions caused by appointees with a higher priority than carrying out the president's whims. They are sycophants who are zealously loyal to the president and some either previously worked as his personal lawyers or have long public records of calling for criminal investigations of his foes.”

Donald Trump’s supporters in right-wing media, particularly at Fox News, repeatedly hyped his oft-repeated campaign promise to quickly bring down consumer prices, and especially the cost of groceries, if he was reelected. But after Trump took office, prices not only didn’t come down, they continued to rise for many people and businesses. As Trump’s inflationary policies begin to take effect, both the Trump administration and Fox figures have begun providing excuses for why Trump failed in his promises to “immediately bring prices down.” 

• Fox anchor Dana Perino: “People realize that Joe Biden caused the inflation and then ignored it.” 
• Fox Business anchor David Asman: “What Donald Trump has inherited is much worse than the numbers that we were looking at before. It makes a lot of people wonder whether those numbers were cooked.” 
• Jeanine Pirro: “Don’t you think it’s rather ridiculous for the Democrats to be complaining, ‘It's just four weeks, and the economy isn’t better.’”

• Fox News figures have done a complete 180 on presidential executive orders now that Trump is in office. 
• Right-wing media cheer on Trump’s anti-Christian bias task force after years of laying the groundwork for the initiative. 
• ABC and CBS evening news shows failed to cover how the House GOP budget could cut Medicaid. 
• Some right-wing media figures are angry at the Trump administration for orchestrating Andrew and Tristan Tate’s return to the U.S., with some calling it “grotesque.” 
• Donald Trump is openly courting MAGA media figures and giving them significant access to his administration. 
• Trump “meme team” leader Brenden Dilley: “There’s going to be nobody left doing podcasts soon because the top people are all going to work for the government.” 
• Trump warned of a “bloodbath” in the auto industry if he wasn’t elected. The Wall Street Journal is now pointing out that he’s engineering one.