Fox’s focus on Sweeney over Epstein is a notable departure from the stories that other cable news networks have found to be newsworthy this week, after President Donald Trump said that the sex offender “stole” Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers, from his Mar-a-Lago spa. The president also reiterated this week that he is “allowed” to pardon Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for child sex trafficking.

According to a mention count from Kinetiq from Monday through noon ET Thursday, Fox News has mentioned “Sydney Sweeney” more than its cable news counterparts, while mentioning “Epstein” significantly less.

While Newsmax has also covered the Sweeney ad, it has mentioned Epstein over 4 times as much as it has mentioned Sweeney (180 mentions to 42 mentions). Fox News, on the other hand, has mentioned Sweeney over 4 times more than it’s mentioned Epstein (62 mentions to 14 mentions). CNN has mentioned Epstein over 100 times more than Sweeney (638 to 6), and MSNBC hasn’t mentioned Sweeney at all, while mentioning Epstein 756 times. 

The disparity in Fox's attention is even more stark when timing its coverage. The network's 14 mentions of Epstein -- often brought up in passing or short headline reports -- amounted to a total of under 3 minutes of coverage, while Fox's 62 mentions of Sweeney frequently came during full segment discussions, adding up to 85 minutes of coverage since Monday.
 

The American Eagle ad campaign, launched last week, features actor Sweeney dressed in denim and emphasizes her “good genes” or jeans. Some social media users and an MSNBC op-ed criticized the ad for demonstrating “a unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness” and for being a “eugenicist dog whistle.” Several other outlets contributed to the discourse.

As at least one reporter has pointed out, the criticism came largely from “Twitter randos” with no major Democratic politicians weighing in. Yet Fox News went all in, assigning the backlash to “the left,” “liberals,” and “Democrats.” 
 

Discussing the alleged leftist backlash to the ad (by pointing to a random TikTok video), Fox host Jimmy Failla said, “Democrats should change their pronouns to ‘we suck,’” adding, “Not to be crass, but she’s got big boobs, Laura, and that used to be the business model.”

Fox host Jesse Watters pointed to multiple TikTok videos and argued that “liberals saw a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes and thought she was ushering in the Fourth Reich.”

While castigating “the left” for being outraged by the ad, the right has fixated on it to push their own political talking points.

For example, Fox contributor Lisa Boothe claimed that the ad was “about rejecting the Orwellian way of life that was shoved down our throats for four years under Joe Biden.”

Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy crowed that the ad was “a return to hotness” that is “brought to you” by MAGA and celebrated the “cultural vibe shift … away from trans models.”

Fox has been furiously working to follow Trump's dictate to move on from discussions about Epstein as the administration comes under fire from its base for refusing to release promised details about the Epstein case. The Sweeney ad provides another convenient distraction.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for any of the terms “Sydney,” “Sweeney,” “American Eagle,” “jeans,” or “denim” within close proximity of any of the terms “ad,” “advertisement,” “commercial,” “fall,” “campaign,” “genes,” “eugenics,” “boobs,” “blue,” or “Nazi,” as well as searching for any mention of “Epstein” or “Maxwell,” from July 28, 2025, through 12 PM ET on July 31, 2025

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when either the American Eagle 2025 fall ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney or the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein story were the stated topics of discussion or when we found significant discussion of either story. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed either story with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned either story without another speaker engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about either story scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We additionally 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 “Sydney Sweeney” from July 28, 2025, through noon ET July 31, 2025. We counted each instance of each term as a single mention.