What happened: On Friday, ABC News reported that Trump was “expected to fire” U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert because Siebert had refused White House demands to bring mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously prosecuted Trump, because investigators did not find incriminating evidence against her. After Siebert left office, Trump publicly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to “act fast” on prosecutions against James, former FBI Director James Comey, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in what The New York Times called “an extraordinary breach of prosecutorial protocols that reach back to the days following the Watergate scandal.” The president subsequently appointed Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide and longtime Trump legal adviser with no experience as a prosecutor, to replace Siebert; she took office as acting U.S. attorney on Monday.

Fox’s response: Fox’s stars spent the years of Trump’s first term and Joe Biden's presidency complaining of a two-tiered system of justice in which federal law enforcement agencies were persecuting the right while letting the left off the hook. In reality, Republican and Trump-appointed officials kept finding sufficient evidence to prosecute Trump and his allies and didn’t find enough to do the same against his foes. But now that Trump is loudly and publicly demanding politicized prosecutions — and pushing out his own appointed prosecutor when he refused to play along — the same voices have gone silent: The story was not mentioned Monday on The Five or the programs of Ingraham, Watters, and Hannity.

Many such cases: Fox hosts have similarly ignored stories about Trump’s relationship with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. killing research into next-generation vaccines; statements by an immigrant the Trump administration sent in error to a notorious foreign prison who says he was beaten and sexually assaulted by guards; reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information derived from a classified email over an unsecured group chat; and an exodus of top Defense Department staffers over concerns with Hegseth’s management style.

What happened: Two days after ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel inaccurately suggested that the alleged killer of Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk was part of “the MAGA gang,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr publicly threatened ABC’s affiliates and its corporate parent, Disney, with regulatory retribution. Nexstar, a large affiliate network which needs Carr’s approval for a corporate merger, subsequently said its affiliates would immediately preempt Kimmel’s show; soon after, ABC announced that the program was suspended indefinitely. On Monday, after widespread criticism of the administration’s effort to curtail speech and ABC’s capitulation, Disney said Kimmel would return to the air on Tuesday.

Fox’s response: Several Fox hosts used the news that Kimmel was returning to the air to claim that his initial removal had been a business decision unrelated to administration pressure. Hannity claimed that while those “on the left” had been “melting down” and falsely blaming Trump for Kimmel’s suspension, it was now proven to have been “a decision by ABC Disney, not the government.” Watters called it a “show-biz decision” and aired a chyron stating “ABC benched Kimmel, not Trump.” Ingraham agreed with guest Raymond Arroyo’s claim that “ABC deciding to put Kimmel back on, it does lay to rest this narrative that somehow the government was orchestrating his removal from the air.” Fox host and former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on The Five, “The government didn't decide it because he’s back tomorrow, so quite clearly the government didn’t force this.” Their talking point aligned with arguments that Republican politicians and Carr himself had offered about the case as they backpedaled away from its free-speech implications.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly made excuses when Trump tried to fire Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook over a pretext; when Trump failed to release Epstein documents as he promised; when a Democratic senator was violently removed from a Department of Homeland Security press conference; when a foreign government gifted Trump a plane valued at $400 million; when the administration sent people in error to a notorious foreign prison; and when top Trump aides discussed plans for military strikes in an unsecured text chain — and inadvertently included a journalist in the group.

What happened: MSNBC and other news outlets reported over the weekend that the FBI had recorded White House border czar Tom Homan accepting a bag of cash from undercover agents in September 2024 as part of a corruption investigation, and that the probe was subsequently scuttled by Trump law enforcement appointees. Homan, at the time a Fox contributor and a close Trump adviser pegged for a key administration role on immigration if Trump were elected, had reportedly indicated to the agents that he could help them win government contracts. In statements, top officials from the FBI, DOJ, and White House claimed the probe had not uncovered evidence of illegal activity — but notably did not deny that Homan had been recorded taking a bag of cash from undercover agents.

Fox’s response: Fox hosts regularly provide administration officials and other appointees an opportunity to field friendly questions that help them spin damaging stories. Ingraham gave Homan that treatment on Monday. After offering him softball questions about a new California law banning ICE agents from wearing masks and how the administration can “speed up” mass deportations, she asked him to respond to the story from “our always reliable MSNBC” that “you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump's second term.” In his minute-long response, Homan denounced the “hit piece,” claimed that “nothing illegal happened,” and touted his own “sacrifices” and work for the president — but notably did not deny taking the bag of money. For her part, Ingraham let Homan ramble and ended the interview rather than asking a follow-up question to clarify that point.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly aided Kennedy after he purged top leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Hegseth after he shared attack plans over an unsecured text chain.

What happened: Researchers have found that autism is largely a heritable condition and that the increase in cases over the years is due primarily to a broadening of the diagnostic criteria. But at a Monday event at the White House, Trump, Kennedy, and other top health aides “launched a broad offensive against the mainstream understanding of autism, claiming without new evidence that acetaminophen — the active ingredient in the common pain reliever Tylenol — was a cause of the disorder,” as The New York Times put it. Health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, previously called such evidence inconclusive, and the drug is “considered one of the few safe options to treat pain or fever during pregnancy.”

Fox’s response: Ingraham on Monday touted the administration for “sounding the alarm” over a link between Tylenol and autism in response to how “the number of children with autism has spiked unbelievably over the last number of years.” She then hosted Trump health officials Mehmet Oz and Marty Makary to tout the “growing body of evidence” in support of the administration’s position and to denounce contrary findings as “false.” Watters likewise highlighted the White House’s “major medical bombshell” before turning to another Trump health official, Jay Bhattacharya, to praise the administration for supporting “prudent medicine” and providing a “judicious evaluation” of the evidence.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly cheered after Bondi reportedly ordered federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury probe into various Obama administration figures on spurious grounds; Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear targets; the president enacted various unilateral tariff shifts; and the Trump administration implemented a mass purge of FBI agents.