Fox News’ star hosts have totally ignored the fallout over former President Donald Trump’s Monday appearance at Arlington National Cemetery. The reports that Trump’s campaign apparently knowingly violated federal law barring partisan political activity at the cemetery and “shoved past” and “berat[ed]” an employee who tried to prevent them from doing so have not been mentioned on top-rated shows that initially celebrated Trump’s visit.

NPR reported on Tuesday that while Trump attended a wreath-laying ceremony on the anniversary of the 2021 Abbey Gate attack in Afghanistan the day before, two members of Trump’s campaign staff “had a verbal and physical altercation” with a cemetery official who had “tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried” in violation of federal law. Trump’s campaign subsequently posted video from the event featuring images taken in that section.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung claimed without evidence that the Arlington staffer who tried to interfere with the campaign’s politicking was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode,” and asserted that the campaign had video that would disprove “defamatory” claims of a physical altercation. (That video has not emerged.) Top adviser Chris LaCivita meanwhile suggested that the “despicable” person should be fired. 

But the U.S. Army, which oversees Arlington National Ceremony, has supported its employee and rebuked the Trump campaign. The Army confirmed in a Thursday statement that members of Trump’s campaign “were made aware of federal laws” restricting photography on its grounds before the event but “abruptly pushed aside” the official when she tried to enforce those restrictions. The Army further stated that the employee’s “professionalism has been unfairly attacked.”

But Trump’s dispute with the Army over Arlington National Cemetery has not been mentioned on Fox’s The Five, The Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime, or Hannity, according to a Media Matters review. Indeed, the only coverage any of those shows have provided since Monday came when former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) touted Trump’s “so presidential” visit to Arlington — but not the reported altercation — on Wednesday’s edition of The Ingraham Angle.

Trump’s visit was previously described on those same programs as a political masterstroke that revealed the former president cares more about the nation’s war dead than President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris do. 

On Monday’s edition of The Five, co-host Dana Perino claimed Trump won the day’s news cycle by “being there with the families” while “Kamala Harris ceded the field to him.”

Jeanine Pirro, guest-hosting The Ingraham Angle, claimed that “Trump was the one who showed up” for Gold Star families that day, “not Kamala nor Joe.”

Jesse Watters said on his eponymous show that Trump’s Arlington visit “has stolen Harris’ convention momentum.” 

And Sean Hannity told his viewers that “today Trump — not Kamala, not Joe — they went to Arlington National Cemetery, President Trump did, to honor the service members who were murdered during that terror attack at Kabul’s airport.”

It’s telling that Fox’s Trump propagandists are unwilling to report the obviously newsworthy reports of Trump’s fight with Arlington National Cemetery — but also that they are not willing to carry the campaign’s water by supporting its unhinged attack on the staffer and its claim that unreleased video will vindicate its claims. 

As with the scandal earlier this month in which Trump denigrated recipients of the Medal of Honor, they are apparently hoping they can keep their heads down until the discourse moves on.