This week in stupid 

• Fox’s Jesse Watters said his wife secretly voting for Kamala Harris would be “the same thing as having an affair.”
• Watters also asked Hulk Hogan what role he would play in a potential Trump administration.
• The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh: “Trump actually has not said anything really all that controversial, or outlandish, or edgy this time around.”
• During a stunt, Trump had difficulty opening a truck door, losing his balance. Newsmax host Rob Finnerty defended him, saying “The handle on those doors - it’s also a little bit different.”

This week in scary

• Trump ally Wayne Allyn Root said Democrats may undertake “a false flag mass shooting or supposed domestic terrorist attack” to stop Trump.
• Steve Bannon: “If you’re not prepared to be sent to a federal prison as a political prisoner, then you’re not worthy to be in this movement.”

Excuse me?

• Matt Walsh said the racist remarks at Trump’s rally “are the kinds of jokes that normal people tell.”
• Rudy Giuliani said Haitian immigrants “shouldn’t have been taken out of the jungle and placed in the middle of a small-town America.”
• The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan: “I don’t care if Donald Trump pinched some model’s backside. I do not care.”
• Jesse Watters said “every politician has an enemies list” like Donald Trump.

This week in election integrity 

• Media Matters’s Matt Gertz compiled this helpful piece describing the playbook Trumpists will use to overturn the election if Trump loses.
• Election denial groups and some right-wing media figures have been discussing their plans to interfere in 2024 voting processes, building on previous efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and interfere with the 2022 midterm election.
• Former national security adviser Mike Flynn suggested destroying Dominion voting machines like the Boston Tea Party.
• Right-wing media, conspiracy theorists, and QAnon supporters amplified a viral video of a postal worker in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, to falsely accuse him of illegally harvesting ballots.
• Right-wing radio hosts in Wisconsin and other swing states — including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — are falsely suggesting election fraud is already taking place in the 2024 election.
• Several right-wing organizations known mostly for opposing abortion, immigration, and trans rights are also involved in supporting or funding election denial groups, a sign of the issue’s centrality to the MAGA movement.
• Project 2025 partner blog: “If Kamala Harris does win, it will, as of today, be because of a stolen election.”
• On War Room, Jack Posobiec told Republicans to “sue over everything, over every little thing that you see going on.”

How MAGA media have dismissed or denigrated “third world country” Puerto Rico

During former President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on October 27, podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe attacked Puerto Rico, calling it “literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.” Although the remarks sparked outrage, numerous right-wing media figures have defended him.

Hinchcliffe didn’t make the remarks in isolation. Trump-aligned media figures have previously dismissed or denigrated Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory whose residents are American citizens. Trump allies have claimed that Puerto Ricans shouldn’t be allowed to serve as federal judges because they’re “not even from this country”; mocked Puerto Rico as a “third world country”; and told a Puerto Rican “who can barely speak English” to “go back” to “your country”; and questioned, “Why don’t the illegals ever want to go to Puerto Rico?”

Meanwhile, the Monday edition of Fox’s new Spanish-language show, Fox Noticias, failed to mention the racist comments.

MAGA media's authoritarian playbook to crush the free press in a second Trump term

If Trump returns to the White House, the fate of the U.S. press may rest on whether corporate executives who control mammoth multimedia conglomerates are willing to prioritize the journalistic credibility of the news outlets they oversee over their own business interests.

Trump will put wealthy media magnates to the test, forcing them to decide whether they are willing to suffer painful consequences for keeping their outlets free of influence, or whether they will either compel their journalists to knuckle under or sell their outlets to someone who will.

Trump spent his presidency demanding that his administration target his perceived political enemies and has said he would be even less restrained in enacting “retribution” in a second term. In recent months, prominent commentators have warned that the press could become such a target of Trump, whose own former top aides describe him as a fascist.

As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz warns: “These fears that Trump would use a second term to crack down on the press are rational. The former president demands sycophantic coverage and describes those who do not provide it as the ‘enemy of the people.’ Trump’s rhetoric and record show that he is keenly aware of the vulnerabilities some news outlets have and is eager to exploit them if he returns to the White House.”

YouTube lets right-wing figures undermine the 2024 election results before any votes are cast

After rolling back its election misinformation policy last year, YouTube allowed right-wing media figures to undermine confidence in the 2024 election results even before any votes were cast, with streamers asserting that “the only way this election can be won from the left is if it’s stolen,” suggesting that “illegal ballots” might be “slipped in” in Pennsylvania, and claiming that Democrats are trying “to rig and steal the election” including with an “illegal alien push.”

In December 2020, YouTube began removing content with false claims that widespread fraud had changed the outcome of the election, but the platform reversed that policy in June 2023. Over the last year, right-wing creators have exploited YouTube's policy rollback, especially in the months leading up to the 2024 election.

In July, Media Matters reported that after becoming co-chair of the Republican National Committee in March, Lara Trump repeatedly engaged in election denial on her show that streams on YouTube. Right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder even acknowledged the policy change in an August stream on the platform, saying, “Here’s another way that they try to steal this election from you. And we’re allowed to say that on YouTube now, which is great.” And it now looks like YouTube is even profiting from conservative streamer and serial plagiarist Benny Johnson’s false claims of election fraud.

In case you missed it 

• Donald Trump has amplified QAnon-promoting accounts nearly 1,000 times during the roughly two and a half years he’s been posting on his social media platform Truth Social.
• Project 2025 seeks to fulfill the right-wing media dream of cutting vital food assistance.
• In reporting on Trump’s outreach to Arab American voters, national and Michigan outlets excluded Trump’s promise to reinstate a Muslim ban.
• Fox News has distorted three key Kamala Harris economic proposals.
• Mainstream cable news and broadcast networks aired only 19 minutes over the past 75 days scrutinizing Trump’s impossible pledge to cut energy prices in half.
• Some mainstream media outlets aided the inevitable right-wing outrage cycle regarding President Joe Biden’s comments about a racist joke made at a Trump rally by adopting right-wing media’s framing.
• Fox News is significantly boosting coverage of trans athletes in the weeks before the election.
• Since WABC canceled Rudy Giuliani’s radio shows for reportedly ignoring warnings to stop spreading 2020 election misinformation, he continued to make baseless allegations about the 2020 election on YouTube.