Fox News’ most zealous MAGA stars have completely ignored President Donald Trump’s July 16 election security speech in the days since he delivered it. 

Trump had previewed the primetime White House address by promising it would contain “really, really big news.” While some in the election denial community were ecstatic about the speech, news outlets and analysts quickly pointed out that Trump’s melange of slipshod claims about Chinese interference in the 2020 election purportedly concealed by the “deep state” did not cohere. Even right-wing journalist John Solomon, who masterminded the declassification of documents upon which the address was based, conceded afterwards that he had found “zero evidence” that any votes in 2020, 2022, or 2024 had been altered by a foreign power. 

I noted on Friday morning that Fox, which traditionally carries water for Trump’s message, was instead burying the address — perhaps fearing legal liability or that an obsessive focus on the 2020 election would damage Republican standing in the 2026 midterms. 

Since then, the network’s reticence has only become more obvious. 

• Sean Hannity is the Fox host closest to the president, his show has been ground zero for “deep state” conspiracy theories for nearly a decade, and he’s hosted Solomon at least 275 times since August 2017. But after promising right after Trump’s speech to provide “a deep dive into all this documentation in the days ahead,” he took Friday night off and then did not mention it on Monday’s broadcast (he did find time for a segment promoting his forthcoming podcast interview with looksmaxxing influencer Clavicular).

• Hannity’s evening show colleagues Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters are both hardcore Trumpists who nonetheless did not promote Trump’s speech in the two hours before it aired on Thursday. Ingraham also did not mention the address on her Friday or Monday night broadcasts, while Watters’ sole reference was a Friday mention of a Democrat who he said “went on CNN and bashed them live on air for refusing to air Trump's speech” during a quiz-show-style segment.

• Fox & Friends — the weekday morning show that Trump loves and that helped to first elevate him as a GOP political figure — did not mention the speech on Friday, Monday, or Tuesday. The Five, the weekday afternoon panel show that boasts the highest ratings at Fox, didn’t discuss it on Friday or Monday either. 

• Mark Levin helped develop the Trumpist plot to overturn the 2020 election and keep Trump in office by pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to illegally reject electors from key states that supported Joe Biden, and continued to publicly defend the president’s efforts for years afterward. But Levin did not mention Trump’s speech on his Saturday or Sunday night Fox programs.

• Even Maria Bartiromo — who in 2020 trumpeted election fraud conspiracy theories that came from a source who claimed that “The Wind tells me I'm a ghost, but I don't believe it,” and in 2024 was rebuked by Texas state law enforcement for a “kind of racist” election fraud conspiracy theory she had attributed to the wife of a friend of a friend in that state — shied away. She didn’t discuss Trump’s speech on her Friday, Monday, or Tuesday Fox Business shows or her Sunday Fox News broadcast.

Were all of these hacks instructed by Fox executives to keep their mouths shut? Or did they all independently come to the conclusion that it was a fool’s errand to provide support for Trump’s election denial insanity?

Either way, the network’s competitors are starting to smell blood. On Monday night, Newsmax host Greg Kelly called its hosts “fair weather friends” for “avoiding this issue entirely,” asking, “What is up with Fox News?” 

Kelly’s remark points to the tightrope Fox will try to walk if Trump takes another shot at election subversion in November: Its hosts and executives will attempt to give their viewers enough conspiracy theories to avoid backlash, but without tipping over into making potentially ruinous defamation claims.