• Tucker Carlson said Fox News is “irrelevant” and “controlled by people who hate Trump.” 
• TheBlaze’s Allie Beth Stuckey on Tucker Carlson: “I don’t know what’s going on in his head.”

It turns out that America is more than its blood and soil, even on President Donald Trump’s favorite show. All three Fox & Friends co-hosts delivered monologues on Monday detailing why they are proud to be Americans — and in each case, they highlighted core civic values that bind us together as a nation rather than embracing European-style nationalism. 

Values of equality, liberty, and democracy went largely unaddressed by the Fox hosts, beyond the invocation of the First Amendment protections. Nevertheless, their monologues effectively reject the work of right-wing media figures like Tucker Carlson, who have tried to replace the foundations of American greatness — its existence as a creedal nation defined by shared principles — with the blood-and-soil nationalism of poor European countries like Viktor Orban’s Hungary. 

Media Matters’ Matt Gertz wrote this great reflection on the divide between these two senses of American identity in right-wing media spaces.

• MAHA proponents decried the Supreme Court’s recent Monsanto Co. v Durnell decision while Fox networks completely ignored the ruling and Newsmax barely touched it.

Over the last several weeks, the outlines of a plot have begun to emerge that could signal how President Donald Trump, along with MAGA media figures and activists, could attempt to severely curtail voting rights under the pretext of declaring a national emergency posed by China.

The main players here come not only from the fever swamp backwaters of MAGA media, but also from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the White House. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is a central node, attempting to advance the operation on his War Room podcast.

Read more from John Knefel here.

• After the Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration has power to revoke temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the U.S., local media in Ohio emphasized the humanity of Haitian immigrants. Meanwhile, right-wing media cheered the court ruling, suggesting “dogs and cats in Ohio are celebrating” the decision and telling immigrants to “go back to fucking Haiti.”
• Megyn Kelly complained about the new Supreme Court ruling on counting mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day: “We’re talking about whether we can ever trust election results."

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled to reject Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, which attempted to deny U.S. citizenship to babies born in the country to noncitizens parents. The decision was surprisingly close - as The New York Times puts it, four justices wrote that “they did not see see birthright citizenship as a constitutional right for certain groups.”

Despite the fact that the Supreme Court handed the Trump administration several massive victories, including a broad expansion of executive power, Trump’s media cronies have reacted to the birthright citizenship ruling with a complete meltdown. Podcaster Tim Pool said, “Republicans should pack the court right now,” and Article III Project Founder Mike Davis said to Benny Johnson, “I just want dumb justices who will fall in line."

A newly installed top intelligence official in the Trump administration appeared on a so-called election integrity call with leading figures in the election denial movement in 2024 and has been repeatedly praised by the MAGA activist who coordinated the meeting. Christina Norton, a former Republican National Committee official, will serve as chief of staff in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under Bill Pulte, as reported by The New York Times on June 26. 

In Norton’s capacity overseeing the RNC’s so-called election integrity initiative, she attended an April 4, 2024, call coordinated by Steve Stern, a right-wing podcaster who regularly convenes such meetings. Stern has been a central figure in what Steve Bannon refers to as the “precinct strategy,” a way for grassroots MAGA activists to participate directly in election administration — and potentially undermine the results. During Norton’s presentation on the 2024 call, she cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. 

Trump has staffed the government with prominent election deniers, and some on the right are seemingly celebrating. Norton’s appointment is yet another example of this trend. On June 30, Bannon praised Pulte’s hiring of Norton as “signaling where he's going on this,” adding that “my understanding is that there is going to be real revelations about the stealing of the 2020 election.”

Read John Knefel’s piece here.