This week in stupid

• The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh: “Taking a sick day as an adult should be pretty embarrassing for you.”
• Alex Jones warned of an “alien invasion” by “satanic interdimensional forces.”
• Fox’s Maria Bartiromo claimed “the timing of the P. Diddy’ arrest” was part of a strategy to “change the conversation” away from Trump.
• Newsmax host Chris Plante said the new Marvel series Agatha All Along is a “recruiting video” for gay people.
• Fox’s Sean Hannity said mass deportation “doesn’t have to be mean.”
• OutKick’s Clay Travis: “The history of science, if you study it, is actually of scientists being incredibly wrong about almost everything.”

This week in scary

• Donald Trump Jr. launched a disgusting racist attack on immigrants, saying, “They never learn the language, they may be incredibly low IQ, they may come with no skills.”
• Fox’s Jesse Watters said “Biden has his fingerprints all over” apparent Trump assassination attempt.

Excuse me?

• Newsmax's Greg Kelly defended Mark Robinson after bombshell reporting: “Sir, remain strong.”
• On Fox News, Matt Walsh said Kamala Harris sounds like “a plantation owner in the Antebellum South.”
• Fox contributor Miranda Devine said January 6 “was really just an inconvenience for some members of Congress for a few hours at their workplace.”
• Project 2025 co-author Stephen Moore smeared the Federal Reserve rate cut as “political interference” in the 2024 election.
• The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles: “If you want women to receive basic medical care, you should be calling for a full abortion pill ban.”

Right-wing media have lavished praise on embattled Mark Robinson during his NC gubernatorial campaign

Yesterday, CNN published a bombshell story detailing disturbing comments North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson. The story tells how Robinson referred to himself as a “Black Nazi” and made other explicit comments. Now, Robinson is facing calls to drop out of the race. Some of Robinson’s biggest supporters have been prominent right-wing media figures, including Donald Trump Jr., Dan Bongino, and Charlie Kirk.

Robinson is a right-wing commentator who became lieutenant governor of North Carolina in January 2021. He has a history of toxic remarks, including about women and LGBTQ people. Media Matters has reported that Robinson said mass shootings are “karma” for allowing abortion, and that he claimed in 2018 that Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby were victims of a left-wing “plot” to destroy them for their “so-called sexual crimes.”

Despite his well-known history of extremist remarks, Robinson has gotten support from numerous Republicans, including Donald Trump, who endorsed him by claiming he’s “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Media Matters compiled a list of right-wing media figures endorsing Robinson with strong praise.

False claims about Haitian migrants have had real world consequences

Right-wing media’s penchant for xenophobic fearmongering has once again contributed to threats of real-world violence, this time after outlets helped spread a racist claim about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, which was pushed by Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). Since then, Springfield has fielded dozens of bomb threats, schools have been forced to close or evacuate, and at least one Haitian resident reported vandalism.

On September 9, Vance amplified implausible internet rumors that made their way up the right-wing media food chain, claiming “that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” The racist smears were quickly debunked by local and state officials in Ohio.

After days of right-wing media amplifying this smear, Vance defended pushing false claims on CNN, stating he is willing to “create stories” to push narratives that will help drive media attention to right-wing talking points. Naturally, Fox News largely ignored Vance’s stunning confession.

As of September 16, Springfield, Ohio has received at least 33 bomb threats, with numerous city buildings and schools closing as a result. This kind of terror campaign is not uncommon following right-wing media’s racist and xenophobic misinformation. Earlier this year, a Brooklyn high school received a bomb threat after right-wing media fixated on the school’s decision to house migrants during a winter storm. In 2019, a 21-year-old gunman opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, writing that it was a “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” a narrative that had been routinely pushed by right-wing media. And residents in Aurora, Colorado, have seen threats and armed groups loitering outside local properties after right-wing media pushed unverified rumors that a Venezuelan gang had taken over buildings there.

The lies from conservative media and Republican politicians have real-world consequences. The residents of Springfield, Ohio are now being treated as collateral damage in the right’s culture war.

More than a dozen GOP nominees, elected officials, and Trump advisers have appeared on Laura Loomer’s show (including JD Vance)

While some Republicans have tried to distance their party from Laura Loomer, her show’s guest list indicates how closely linked the GOP is to the far-right extremist. More than a dozen GOP nominees, elected officials, and Trump advisers have appeared on her show, including Trump running mate JD Vance, senior Trump campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and Jason Miller, and members of Congress.

Loomer has a long history of making horrific remarks. She has described herself as “pro-white nationalism” and a “proud Islamophobe.” Last year, she posted a video claiming that “9/11 was an inside job.”

Trump and his campaign are heavily connected to Loomer, who flew on Trump’s plane to Pennsylvania and New York last week. Loomer has also donated thousands of dollars to Trump-affiliated campaign organizations.

Just this week, Loomer said “Donald Trump likes me. Donald Trump trusts me.”

In case you missed it

• This week, Fox News’s chief political anchor Bret Baier hosted Heritage Foundation president and architect of Project 2025 Kevin Roberts for a seven-minute softball interview. Media Matters compiled some details on Project 2025 that Baier failed to address.
• Fox News and broadcast news programs all neglected to cover the death of two women in Georgia resulting from the state’s six week abortion ban, failing to inform their viewers of the deadly consequences of the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.
• The Federal Reserve cut interest rates because inflation is now under control. Fox News and Fox Business, however, smell a conspiracy.
• Kamala Harris wants to expand the child tax credit. A primary reason it hasn’t already been expanded is because the GOP voted against it — but MAGA trolls won’t tell that to their audiences.
• With right-wing media’s help, JD Vance repeatedly attacked Pennsylvania’s election integrity.
• A pro-Trump X poster launched a wildly flimsy rumor alleging an “ABC whistleblower” exists who purportedly claims that the network rigged the September 10 presidential debate. The claim went viral in MAGA spaces, with Trump and his allies floating congressional investigations and potential regulatory retribution against ABC News.
• Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to appear at an Oklahoma church led by an extremist right-wing pastor and media figure who has referred to Kamala Harris as a “lying whore,” claimed that “Democrats have a demonic obsession with murdering babies,” and called Islam “the GREATEST threat to the Western civilization.”
• Conservative activist Christopher Rufo posted a video allegedly showing a cat on a barbeque grill in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton police have issued a statement saying “there is no evidence to even remotely suggest” that any community is eating pets.
• Mirroring how ABC’s debate moderators treated climate change, cable news networks aired 31 hours of post-debate coverage without a single mention of climate change.
• Right-wing commentator and U.S. House nominee Lily Tang Williams repeatedly shared a false meme criticizing Jewish people for supposedly giving “up their firearms to Hitler” and suggesting that led to their deaths in the Holocaust.
• Speaking of which, audio clips of Adolf Hitler giving speeches in English, which appear to be AI-generated, have been proliferating on TikTok and earning millions of views. Some users have been promoting and praising the audios in an apparent violation of TikTok’s community guidelines.
• Major newspapers and newswires failed to report that at a September 17 campaign event in Michigan, Donald Trump proposed reducing food imports in response to a question about how he’d reduce food costs, claiming that “our farmers are being decimated.”