This week in stupid 

• During a bizarre town hall, former President Donald Trump danced and bopped for 39 minutes. Jack Posobiec gushed over it, saying, “It was basically a concert. They turned the town hall into a rock hall.”
• CNN contributor Scott Jennings: “Democrats care more about dudes who want to become women than dudes who just want to be dudes.”
• Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro said if women were more “educated” about reproductive rights, they wouldn’t care about Roe v. Wade.

This week in scary

• Donald Trump: Fox News people helped write my jokes for the Al Smith dinner. 
• An Election Integrity Network leader said the group’s activists are “everywhere” trying to “suppress the people who are trying to vote unlawfully.”
• Former OAN personality Christina Bobb said the U.S. needs a “cleansing” to “clean out the filth.”
• Trump ally Mike Davis: “Retribution is a key component of justice.”
• Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk: “This election is literally about are we allowed to fight back against invading armed hordes.”
• Fox’s Greg Gutfeld said Democrats are “planning something” to corrupt the 2024 presidential election results.

Excuse me?

• On Fox & Friends, Donald Trump said he is going to ask Rupert Murdoch to not air negative ads about him.
• Donald Trump: Fox News people helped write my jokes for the Al Smith dinner.
• Fox’s Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters claimed that revised crime statistics are evidence the presidential election has been “rigged.”
• At an Eric Trump event, “prophet” Julie Green claimed that “God said He allowed” the election be stolen “that last time to show the world who these people really were.”
• Trump discussed using the military on “radical left lunatics.” Fox & Friends claimed Kamala Harris sounding an alarm about it was “scare tactics.”
• Fox host Jesse Watters: “Kamala wants to win the Black vote with free money and drugs.”

This week in Project 2025

If you would like to follow all our reporting on Project 2025, please visit this section of our website.

• Project 2025 contributor Monica Crowley said the 2024 election is about “God versus the enemy.”
• Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said governors are asking Heritage for Project 2025’s personnel recommendations.
• The Heritage Foundation’s Hans Von Spakovsky fearmongered about mail-in voting.
• On a Project 2025 partner podcast, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins railed against South Dakota’s reproductive rights ballot initiative.

Fox News had a town hall with Trump. The network didn't disclose that it was filled with Republicans already supporting Trump.

On Wednesday, Fox News’ Harris Faulkner hosted a town hall with Donald Trump in Georgia to address women’s issues in front of an audience of women voters — who turned out to be hand-picked Trump supporters. Fox deceptively edited the town hall to obscure the nature of the audience.

Trump entered the town hall to a standing ovation from the women in the audience. The Independent’s Eric Garcia explained the crowd’s overwhelming support, noting that “many of the attendees in an intimate setting were from Republican groups around the area whom Fox News invited,” including multiple leaders from the Republican Women of Forsyth County. Despite this, Faulkner described the crowd as coming from “every walk of life.”

Faulkner provided Trump a platform to dismiss controversial comments and let him promote an authoritarian agenda with no pushback. She also allowed Trump to spread at least 19 false claims, many of which he has repeatedly promoted on the campaign trail. In one example, Trump claimed that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a popular one. Fox News has long downplayed the impact of Roe’s reversal, virtually ignoring the near-total state-level abortion bans that went into effect after.

Later on Wednesday, Fox aired an interview between Bret Baier and Vice President Kamala Harris. In that interview, Harris received a starkly different reception than Trump received at his town hall. Baier asked hostile questions and frequently interrupted Harris. At one point, he even used a deceptive clip to downplay Trump’s rants about “the enemy from within.” Naturally, Fox personalities were quick to blast Harris’ performance after the interview aired.

It’s hard to expect anything less from Fox — the network is purely a pro-Trump propaganda outlet with little semblance to actual journalism.

Broadcast news shows and print outlets largely ignored Gen. Milley calling Trump “fascist to the core”

National broadcast news networks and print outlets buried recent comments from Donald Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff retired Gen. Mark Milley calling the former president “fascist to the core.” Almost all broadcast news shows and the major newspapers ignored the comments, with only NBC’s Meet the Press and The Washington Post covering Milley’s “fascist” comments.

Reporting surfaced on October 11 that Milley called Trump “fascist to the core” in comments reported in Bob Woodward’s new book. The comments were the latest in a long back and forth between Milley and Trump, with the former president previously suggesting Milley be executed for his comments that Trump was “shameful” and “complicit” in the January 6 attack.

With the election looming, mainstream media is running out of time to adequately inform their readers.

Trump and Project 2025’s goal to attack, defund, and delegitimize the press

Donald Trump and Project 2025 share a pronounced goal of attacking, defunding, and delegitimizing the press.

During his presidency, Trump repeatedly attacked journalists, including referring to them as the “enemy of the people.” During his 2024 candidacy, Trump has stepped up his attacks, calling for broadcast TV licenses to be revoked, promising investigation into media outlets, and painting the media as “so bad for our country.”

Likewise, Trump allies and Project 2025 have also attacked the media, promising investigations and proposing defunding public broadcasting. Project 2025 includes plans to end public funding of NPR, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In another example, Steve Bannon threatened “investigations under the Constitution and by the rule of law.”

A second Trump administration poses a serious threat to a free press in this country, as the former president, his surrogates, and Project 2025 figures have made very clear. It’s in news outlets’ best interest to remind the American people of this fact.

In case you missed it 

• Right-wing media figures are spreading salacious and unsupported accusations against Tim Walz from an account known for creating viral hoaxes.
• Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is set to speak at a conference this weekend with Christiane Northrup, a health misinformer who has repeatedly promoted pro-Nazi and antisemitic material.
• Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bernie Moreno has recently been getting fundraising help from Grant Cardone, a controversial financial influencer who pushed the conspiracy theory that Hurricane Milton was the result of weather manipulation.
• Following Donald Trump’s October 15 interview with Bloomberg in which he repeatedly denied the likely outcome of his ruinous tariff proposals, Fox News personalities followed the example of Trump staffers in sycophantically praising his performance.
• A new report from The Budget Lab at Yale University describes the calamitous macroeconomic effects of implementing various tariff proposals endorsed by Donald Trump, which likely include a net loss of economic growth, a decrease in American household incomes, and a renewed burst of inflation.
• Members of Donald Trump’s “inner circle,” including Lara and Eric Trump, are scheduled to appear at a North Carolina event featuring right-wing commentators who have pushed the conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene was a controlled or manipulated weather event.
• Numerous Trump-aligned media figures have accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its officials of committing treason over its handling of Hurricane Helene.
• Trump’s behavior is raising questions about his age and mental acuity, but top U.S. papers are focusing on that far less than they did with President Joe Biden.
• GOP-backed California Assembly candidate Denise Aguilar Mendez has a history of pushing bizarre far-right conspiracy theories.
• Republican candidates are spending millions claiming they’ll protect women’s sports, but MAGA media won’t stop dunking on female athletes.
• Mikki Willis, the director behind the 2020 COVID-19 conspiracy theory video Plandemic, said that he will be collaborating with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on an upcoming movie “about the border.”
• Hurricane Milton spurred deeper climate change coverage, but national TV news shouldn’t need historic storms to connect weather and warming.