• Last week we told you how right-wing media were obsessed by a non-troversy involving Sydney Sweeney and an American Eagle ad. Well, they tried to keep the momentum going this week (Fox has spent 4 hours and 50 minutes discussing the ad since July 28 - in contrast to just one minute on rising grocery prices). During a Newsmax segment on Monday, a co-host said, “With all due respect to our producers, this is not a four day story.” 
• Fox’s Sean Hannity lashed out at “super MAGA people” who “think they’re more MAGA than anybody else out there.” Also this week, Hannity attacked “people that claim to be Trump supporters” who dare to criticize Trump on anything.

• Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk accused Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) of representing an “attempt to eliminate the white population in this country.” 
• Fox Noticias host Rachel Campos-Duffy argued that “foreign-born” citizens shouldn’t be allowed to serve in Congress.

• As experts warn of a famine unfolding in Gaza, right-wing media are mainly denying its existence or blaming Hamas and the UN. 
• Podcaster Tim Dillon, who hosts a right-leaning online show, said the Trump administration “has basically been an auction” where “everybody is submitting a bid on our country.”
• Fox’s Jesse Watters demanded that Republicans “destroy Democrat representation where we can.”
• Fox’s Will Cain asked, “How much is race a part of the problem in juvenile crime?”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claim that former President Barack Obama directed a “treasonous conspiracy” against President Donald Trump took a hit on Tuesday night when she was asked the most straightforward question possible about her allegations during a Fox News interview. Her response demonstrated how painfully little she’s actually found — and how far over their skis the MAGAverse and Trump administration have gotten in response to her absurd charges. 

During an exchange between Gabbard and Fox’s Laura Ingraham on Tuesday, it came out that what Gabbard considers the most damning revelations of Obama’s alleged malfeasance were actually reviewed years ago by the GOP-led Senate Select Intelligence Committee, whose membership at the time included current Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

Gabbard’s discoveries, to make a long story short, aren’t sinister — they aren’t even new. 

Fox has spent years promising viewers that investigations into the Russia probe were about to finally send all their political enemies to prison, only for those efforts to come up short or fall apart. Unfortunately, Trump’s second-term appointees to top law enforcement and intelligence leadership are people like Gabbard — conspiracy theorists who are in positions of power because they’ve demonstrated to the president, through myriad Fox News appearances, their willingness to put his desires above all else.

The Constitution guarantees due process rights for everyone in the United States, regardless of their citizenship status, but as part of their ongoing effort to defend Donald Trump’s mass deportations, right-wing media have repeatedly and wrongly insisted that immigrants are excluded from this constitutional protection. 

Some right-wing media figures have alleged only “nut jobs” believe undocumented immigrants deserve due process, and some have claimed that even legal immigrants “have no rights at all.” Others on the right acknowledged that migrants have rights but cheered at the prospect of taking them away, lamenting that constitutionally enshrined rights like due process and habeas corpus were slowing down mass deportations. 

Media Matters’ Torri Lonegan wrote this great piece analyzing this issue. I invite you to read it here.

More than any other figure in President Donald Trump’s inner circle save perhaps his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, “border czar” Tom Homan is the person conservative outlets turn to when they need someone in Trump-world to champion the administration’s increasingly unpopular immigration policies. By sheer numbers alone, Homan has appeared on Fox News 78 times this year and an additional 20 times on Fox Business, making him the most frequent Trump administration guest on the Fox networks since Trump’s inauguration. But his reach in conservative media extends far beyond those appearances. 

Over the month of July, right-wing media fawned over Homan in interviews, aided him in manufacturing false narratives about widespread migrant crime and encouraged him to threaten so-called sanctuary cities with increased raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The dynamic illustrates the symbiotic relationship between Homan, who had his own lucrative career as a conservative pundit and consultant, and the right-wing media ecosystem — each party has an incentive to demonize immigrants, ignore critical reporting, and create narratives about social disorder that they attribute to immigrant communities, all in service of Trump’s mass deportation agenda. 

By giving softball interviews, failing to discuss any actual issues, and helping Homan to spread false talking points, conservative media is directly serving as propaganda apparatus for the Trump White House as the administration pursues its draconian immigration agenda.