• Republican leaders who fear that furious, bipartisan backlash against AI data centers could cost their party in the midterm elections are getting help from their loyal propagandists at Fox News. On Fox & Friends, the network’s hosts and contributors are attempting to convince viewers to support data centers by telling them that the “far left” is behind the opposition. But there’s a serious split on the right regarding data centers, with several figures of the right-wing commentariat criticizing their construction. 
• Podcaster Tim Dillon said ICE “has done a lot of damage to the cause of actually having a secure border.” 
• Tim Pool: “There is a reason why” Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones “have all inverted their positions and have begun to stab their friends in the back.”

Fox’s Sean Hannity, an avid hawk and sycophant to President Donald Trump, had largely abandoned discussions of the floundering Iran war in recent weeks. But on Wednesday night, he engaged with the conflict on his Fox primetime show for the first time since late July — and lamented that Trump is not getting sufficient “credit” for his purported success there. 

Trump’s administration has spent the past several months in negotiations premised around the U.S. giving Iran sufficient economic benefits to convince them to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with the Iranian nuclear program that was theoretically the crux of Trump’s decisions to launch the war in the first place relegated to nebulous future discussions. With those negotiations apparently going nowhere and Trump himself moving on from them, Hannity has decided to move straight to celebrating Trump’s purported victory. 

Hannity spent the segment on his August 19 show hailing Trump’s “strong leadership” and saying, “By the way, it never gets credit — Iran will never have a nuclear weapon thanks to Donald Trump. Does anyone ever give him credit for that?” 

Hannity’s commentary reportedly helped sway Trump to launch the war in February. The Fox host promised the fight would be quick and easy, predicting on March 30 that “it’s going to be on the verge of wrapping up no later than three weeks from today.” But since July 23, Hannity has pulled back on talking about the Iran war on his Fox program. (Meanwhile, between July 28 and August 19, he devoted 11 segments and 46 minutes to covering the WNBA.) Now, Hannity is coming back to Iran to complain that Trump isn’t getting “credit” for launching a war that looks increasingly disastrous for the U.S.

• Attacks on Islam and bigotry against Muslims have been an ongoing campaign in right-wing media. This week, Trump ally Laura Loomer called for using “military force” to round up Muslims, and podcaster Benny Johnson said “Islam is here to kill us and convert us.” Meanwhile Newsmax host Carl Higbie said, “I am calling on all Christian teachers to just go ahead and baptize Muslim students, see how you like that one, Allah.”
  Media Matters’ John Knefel wrote this great op-ed explaining why MAGA media is going all-in on pushing Islamophobia and fearmongering about the threat of socialism as a way of binding their fracturing coalition together. 
• On Newsmax, Dick Morris falsely claimed “except for a training accident really, nobody’s died” in the Iran war. 
• Steve Bannon is continuing his call for ICE agents to surround polling places during the midterm elections. This week, he called for a national emergency declaration to get “up-armored ICE presence at these polling booths.” 
• Brian Kilmeade: “If all you do is talk about Iran, then people will get obsessed with it, so you want people to talk about other things.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may be contemplating a promotion. His Monday trip to campaign with Republican congressional candidates in Iowa, home of the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus, spurred a Washington Post report that the visit is consistent with the belief among “officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking” that he is “considering a run for president or some other political office after his time in the Trump administration is over.” 

Hegseth is a bombastic former Fox News weekend host who spent years speaking directly to the Republican base through the MAGA propaganda outlet. As a result, he may be uniquely attuned to the right’s attention economy. He could become the presidential candidate of the right-wing media’s id, running a furious culture war campaign fixated on domestic political enemies that checks all the boxes for authoritarian-minded pundits indifferent to traditional policy issues.

The hosts of Fox & Friends, the Fox News morning show that helped launch Donald Trump’s political career and shapes his worldview, have frequently lashed out at Vice President JD Vance over the past few months — and the president appears to be listening. 

On Monday morning, co-host Lawrence Jones accused the vice president of breaking with Trump’s message on Iran, saying Vance was “playing into the Iranians’ hands.” Trump, who was apparently watching the program, quickly provided the clarification that Jones sought — and effectively threw his vice president under the bus. 

This is just the latest example of the program taking aim at Vance. Media Matters’ Matt Gertz provided multiple other examples in this great piece, which you can check out here.