Fox News is seemingly following the example set by President Donald Trump, who is attempting to deflect from Epstein questions by “lashing out at his perceived enemies,” as The New York Times put it.

In order to move away from Epstein coverage, Fox has reverted back to a familiar foe, Obama and his administration, eagerly glomming onto Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s inaccurate and misleading attempt to accuse Obama and others in his administration of treason following the declassification and release of new intelligence documents. In making her accusation, Gabbard conflated intelligence findings to wrongly suggest an assessment concluded that Russia hacked into U.S. election systems, took quotes out of context, and ignored newer credible intelligence which ran counter to her claims.

From July 18, the day Gabbard released her report, through noon July 23, Fox News mentioned Obama more than Epstein every single day. In total, Fox has mentioned Obama 445 times, in comparison to the network’s 127 mentions of Epstein. Mentions of Obama on the network have only been increasing as well, going from 54 mentions on July 18 to 121 mentions on July 22.

According to data from Kinetiq, Fox News has mentioned Epstein 127 times since July 18. The number of Epstein mentions is striking when you compare it to that of other cable news networks. Newsmax, a conservative cable news network similar to Fox, has mentioned Epstein over 5 times more than Fox (707 mentions.) CNN’s mentions of Epstein (1,400) are over 11 times Fox’s, and MSNBC’s (1,886) are nearly 15 times Fox’s.

After Trump demanded that his supporters not “waste time” on the Epstein files, Fox seemingly heeded his call. This marked a shift for top Fox hosts — and a launching point for the network’s emerging position that the Epstein story wasn’t deserving of much attention.

Gabbard’s focus on Obama helped the network devote its attention away from Epstein, but Obama wasn’t the only familiar foe that Fox News has put back in the spotlight. The network also renewed its interest in Hillary Clinton’s emails, following the release of a Department of Justice watchdog report from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.

It seems that in Fox’s attempt to move on from Epstein, everything old is new again.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the Kinetiq video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and Newsmax for either of the terms “Epstein” or “Obama” from July 18, 2025, through noon ET July 23, 2025. We counted each instance of each term as a single mention.

Correction (7/24/25): This piece originally misspelled Jeffrey Epstein's first name.