• Newsmax host Rob Schmitt: “It’s felt like maybe a recession was needed to a lot of people.” 
• Fox’s Greg Gutfeld: “A tariff is not a tax if you don’t buy the goods.”
• Fox’s Sean Hannity attacked the stock market for crashing while Donald Trump is president.

• Fox’s Jesse Watters said Canada “fired the first official shot of the American-Canadian war.” 
• Newsmax’s Greg Kelly said Sen. Joseph McCarthy “was on the right side of history.” 
• On Newsmax, Mercedes Schlapp said, “I’m thinking that maybe they should deport Rashida Tlaib.”

• Podcaster Benny Johnson: “There’s going to be some turmoil, some ups and downs, as we exorcise the demons out of this economy.” 
• Rob Schmitt: “Perhaps stocks need to take a nosedive so the working man can get a little relief from all of this inflation.” 

Right-wing pundits are calling for cuts to Medicaid as the administration searches for ways to offset Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy. Conservative media have set their sights on health care, advocating cuts to Medicaid and work requirements for its beneficiaries, which could knock millions off their health insurance. 

• Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer: “Medicaid needs to be touched.” 
• The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro suggested Medicaid is a waste of money and that having coverage is “no better” than having no coverage. 
• Right-wing podcaster Candace Owens bizarrely claimed getting rid of Medicaid will make healthcare more affordable. 
• War Room host Steve Bannon: “You need to cut Medicaid. You can cut Medicaid with both work requirements and stopping Medicaid for illegal aliens, but it has to be really thought through.” 

As we said last week, right-wing media are laying the foundation for Republicans to cut Medicaid. This push is only becoming more widespread on the right.

President Donald Trump’s propaganda outlets are struggling to articulate a clear message as his sclerotic rollout of tariffs trigger widespread economic turbulence. Here’s how MAGA stalwarts on Fox News and Newsmax responded Monday night after the stock market tumbled. 

On Fox, prime-time host Jesse Watters did not mention the stock market decline outside of a passing comment about “a few rocky days on Wall Street.” Sean Hannity didn’t mention the market decline at all. Instead, he led his show with a “Hannity investigation” of “Biden’s Spending Spree.” And Laura Ingraham walked a tightrope during an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, offering some mild criticism of the impact of Trump’s economic policy, which she carefully caveated by making clear that she supported the president’s goals. 

Meanwhile on Newsmax, host Rob Schmitt made the case that the market collapse was actually a good sign. And later in the night, Greg Kelly said, “Everybody needs to calm down a little bit, and have some faith.” 

Media Matters’ Matt Gertz wrote this great summary of the night’s coverage. I invite you to read it here.

Right-wing media figures have spent years attacking the Internal Revenue Service, including spreading conspiracy theories about armed agents targeting conservatives. Now, Donald Trump is gutting the agency in a move that experts say will benefit the richest of the rich in the United States. 

According to The Washington Post, the IRS’ “burgeoning efforts to more closely inspect the taxes of some of the country’s richest people and most powerful companies are stalling because of layoffs imposed by the Trump administration.” The Post went on to report that the IRS fired 7% of its workforce in February. 

The Trump administration’s hobbling of the agency follows years of attacks on the IRS by right-wing media — most notably by spreading a myth that the Biden administration was planning to hire 87,000 armed agents to investigate and persecute conservatives. 

As of last July, the programs that Trump is eviscerating had collected more than $1 billion in back taxes from wealthy individuals and families. But right-wing media figures have cheered the cuts, which will primarily benefit rich tax cheats, as they simultaneously push for austerity measures for the working class.

• As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Media Matters has found that the most popular content in this ecosystem is overwhelmingly right-leaning. 
• Of the 11 segments Fox News has run about the spending cuts to the National Institutes of Health, only two have mentioned the impact these cuts will have to cancer research. One of those segments came from the left-leaning host of The Five and the other was a flippant comment made by Brian Kilmeade in a segment obfuscating the topic. 
• Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has used his extensive appearances on Fox News and Fox Business to justify freezing environmental programs and slashing climate-related funding. 
• Right-wing media admit that Trump’s “drug war” is really a trade war. 
• MAGA media pundits are shrugging off concerns of a possible recession. 
• Charlie Kirk has a history of violent and bigoted rhetoric. He was the first guest on California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s podcast. 
• Media Matters’ Matt Gertz wrote this great piece on Robert F Kennedy Jr., measles, and the dangerous legacy of Fox’s COVID-19 coverage. 
• Right-wing media are cheering the Trump administration’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. 
• In his first month back in office, Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders targeting transgender rights. Media Matters found that Fox News dominated cable coverage of these anti-trans executive orders, outstripping both CNN and MSNBC.