• Last week, Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about Melania and Donald Trump that later came under heavy criticism in right-wing media following the security breach at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Megyn Kelly lashed out at Kimmel, wondering why he still had a job at ABC. But it seems clear that even many in her own audience weren't having it. Following her comments, multiple people called into her show and pushed back against her statements. One caller said, “it was a really funny joke.”
• After the Department of Justice announced former FBI Director James Comey had been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly making threats against Donald Trump’s life, several right-wing media figures voiced skepticism about the strength of the indictment. Ben Shapiro, for example, said, “I would hope that there is more to this case than he put out a dumb Instagram post."
• Right-wing media figures are largely divided over Trump’s push to renew the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows for warrantless surveillance of electronic communications of foreign nationals located outside of the United States.
• Referring to Trump’s diplomacy, Tucker Carlson: “It almost seems like this is an intentional effort to destroy the United States by our own government."
• A MAHA influencer said Trump’s executive order on glyphosate was a “slap in the face to MAHA” that “might cost the midterms for the Republican Party.”

As recently as last week, figures on Fox News and Fox Business pushed the Trump administration’s narrative that gas prices have already peaked, could start to decline in time for the summer driving season, or have stabilized. Now, the price at the pump has once again spiked to its highest level since the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran began. Experts are continuing to warn that Americans will see elevated energy prices well beyond the summer months.

On April 30, The New York Times reported that “oil prices hit a fresh wartime peak on Thursday, surging to a four-year high above $120 a barrel, before pulling back in volatile trading on concerns that the war in Iran could escalate, leading to a longer disruption of fuel supplies from the Middle East.” The paper also reported the average price of regular gasoline in the U.S. hit $4.30 a gallon on Thursday.

Media Matters’ Allison Fisher wrote this great piece detailing how Fox’s promises on gas prices are combusting.

• Throughout Trump’s war with Iran, right-wing media figures have struggled to articulate a coherent response to the possibility of regime change in Iran (mirroring the Trump’s administration's own murkiness on the issue as a possible objective of the war). Some figures have encouraged regime change while others have said it’s not a goal of the war. There have even been conflicting opinions about whether the regime has already changed.
• Fox personalities spent the first quarter of 2026 repeatedly telling viewers that the economy was growing robustly or predicting growth at up to a 5% annualized rate thanks to Trump’s policies. However, the real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2026 came in at just 2%.
• While discussing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones said, “I wish the talking point of that the strait was open before the conflict, people got to stop doing it. It was a beautiful day the morning of 9/11.”

Since virtually the moment Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched their war on Iran on February 28, their allies in conservative media have scapegoated mainstream news organizations as enemy sympathizers. In this telling, journalists, often artlessly clumped with Democratic politicians, are “rooting” against the United States and for Iran. This (often baseless) move by right-wing media falls in a long tradition of conservative media figures blaming the press when an American war is not going well, as was evidenced during the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

These attacks are especially egregious given that there is no shortage of legitimate critiques of top newspapers’ coverage of the war, which often adopts the U.S. government’s preferred framing. Yet in right-wing media, animosity toward the press is reflexive, ready to be instantly deployed at any moment.

Media Matters’ John Knefel provided a fantastic breakdown of this phenomenon. I invite you to read it here.

• Fox News figures are urging Trump to start bombing Iran again as a tenuous ceasefire shows potential signs of collapse.
• Some Fox Business personalities are pointing out that the gains Americans have received through Trump’s tax cuts are being offset by the higher energy costs caused by Trump’s war with Iran.
• After the Supreme Court gutted part of the Voting Rights of Act this week, Benny Johnson cheered the court’s decision and said, “Maybe we should just kick Ketanji Brown Jackson off the court.
• A recent slate of legally dubious indictments from the Justice Department demonstrate an increasing alignment of the Trump DOJ’s activities with narratives from the MAGA media echo chamber. Media Matters’ Matt Gertz has this piece detailing the convergence of DOJ activities with right-wing media narratives.
• Fox’s Sean Hannity: “The NATO alliance is headed for, you know, a collapse.”

The Trump administration is trying to punish ABC for broadcasting speech that the president doesn’t like. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is poised “to order an early review of Disney’s eight ABC station licences,” per CNN reporting. The move would ensnarl Disney, ABC’s parent company, in a lengthy and expensive legal process, though CNN’s Brian Stelter reports that the licenses “are likely not in any real jeopardy."

This is clear government retaliation against a media company over speech. Last Thursday, Jimmy Kimmel delivered a mock roast of Trump and made a joke about Melania Trump. Following the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Trump demanded that Disney and ABC “immediately fire” Kimmel over that joke. After Trump said that, news broke that the FCC had opened the review of Disney.

This will not be the first time the Trump administration has wielded state power against media outlets over speech in a manner that seems clearly violative of the First Amendment. It is not even the first time Carr has come after Kimmel. By making a push for ABC’s station licenses, however, Carr is drastically escalating the Trump administration's fight against free speech.