Media Matters weekly newsletter, August 15

Welcome back to Media Matters’ weekly newsletter. This week: 

  • Fox News championed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Now he’s killing research into the next generation of vaccines. 
  • Fox asked, “Where is the tariff inflation?” It’s in the coffee Americans are drinking. 
  • Right-wing media cheered on migrant detention camps amid reports of horrific conditions. 

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  • This week in gross

    Newsmax: "The Left hates when Trump jokes"
    • The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles: “Ladies, you owe your husband sex. You owe it to him. It’s called the marital debt.” Knowles previously said it’s one’s “patriotic duty” to have children.
    • The Trump administration’s “critical review” of climate science is authored by some of Fox News’ favorite climate deniers.
  • This week in scary

    • Right-wing media are cheering for Trump to deploy the National Guard to other American cities after his administration’s takeover of Washington, D.C. In one example, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk called to deploy the military against Americans: “Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco. We got a big military. We should be willing to use it.” 
    • Benny Johnson on Washington, D.C.: “Entire neighborhoods, probably, need to be emptied, need to be bulldozed.” 
    • Fox co-host: “Jim Crow 2.0 is kind of great.”
  • Excuse me?

    • Trump’s Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner nominee E.J. Antoni called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.” Antoni was also reportedly among the crowd during the January 6 Capitol riot. 
    • The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh said to Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL): “You’re an anchor baby. You became an American thanks to a paperwork loophole.” 
    • Fox’s Brian Kilmeade on the Trump administration’s Nvidia deal: “I don’t think it’s great for our national security.”
  • Fox News championed anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. Now he’s killing research into next-generation vaccines.

    RFK Jr.'s face next to the Fox News logo and a vaccine needle

    Citation

    Molly Butler / Media Matters

    Fox News hosts elevated Robert F. Kennedy Jr to help return President Donald Trump to the White House. Then they greased the skids for Kennedy’s confirmation as secretary of health and human services. But as he works to demolish American health care research, they are nowhere to be found. 

    Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic who once described COVID-19 shots as “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” announced last week that he is terminating nearly $500 million in federal contracts supporting the development of next-generation vaccines and other treatments based on mRNA technology. This announcement drew harsh criticism from infection disease experts and other scientists. 

    While Kennedy’s announcement was widely discussed on MSNBC and CNN, as well as by national broadcast, print and digital outlets, Fox News has almost entirely ignored it. And while Fox may not want to claim credit for Kennedy as he stifles crucial medical research, it certainly deserves it. 

    Media Matters’ Matt Gertz wrote this great piece for MSNBC.

  • Fox asks, “Where is the tariff inflation?” It’s in the coffee Americans are drinking.

    Fox Business host Jackie DeAngelis

    Citation

    Fox News

    Fox Business host Jackie DeAngelis reacted to Tuesday morning’s release of the July CPI inflation report by denying that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are contributing to inflation, asking, “Where’s the tariff inflation?” But the answer can most easily be found in the cup of coffee countless other Americans likely drank that morning. 

    As shown by Bloomberg’s financial products chief economist Michael McDonough, the three-month annualized percent change for the price of coffee is a sky-high 25.9%. Over the past year, the average price of coffee has climbed by 14.5%. 

    After Trump paused his disastrous global “Liberation Day” tariff reveal just days after announcing them in April, they went into effect with lower but still quite high rates on August 7. This includes a 50% tariff on coffee beans from Brazil, the world’s largest producer of coffee. And with the tariffs on Brazilian coffee now in effect, the price of coffee will only get higher.

  • Right-wing media champion migrant detention camps amid reports of horrific conditions

    migrants suffering horrific conditions.png

    Citation

    Andrea Austria / Media Matters

    Since taking office, the Trump administration has held thousands of undocumented immigrants — including many without a criminal record — in a network of domestic and international detention centers. Two of these, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) and the newly opened “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, have already been criticized for appalling conditions and human rights abuses. 

    As firsthand accounts of these detention centers began to be widely reported, right-wing media have justified the conditions by claiming that people being sent there are “the worst of the worst”; arguing that the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” is meant as “a deterrent more than punishment”; and suggesting that “you got to break a couple eggs in order to make an omelet.” 

    Media Matters compiled this piece showing how right-wing media hosts are defending the appalling conditions at migrant detention centres. I invite you to read it here.