On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses the Caribbean boat strikes and how they stem from of a revisionist “fantasy” created by right-wing media
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From the December 5, 2025, edition of MS NOW's Deadline: White House
LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.) (GUEST): In the future, there's going to be a lot of young officers and NCOs that are looking back on this and saying, wow, how did all this happen?
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): Yeah, because Angelo, I mean, that will happen in the future because what happened in the past resulted in the example in the laws of war manual being this example of how one treats shipwrecked people. That is the line that has been drawn based on the study of history.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS STAFF): Yeah, and I think it's worth noting that -- you know, we talk about that as the study of history. But a big part of what Trump and all the people around him are engaging in, and the right-wing media underneath it, is revisionism. You know, a lot of this started with the revision of what our history is, and that is a big part -- so ignoring it is key. And that's, I think, to me, the biggest piece of all of this, is that the narrative or the story that they're sharing is one in which we've been fundamentally weak and somebody like Hegseth is going to go in there and change the culture, and that is what he promised to do. And that's -- what we're having now is this fantasy, the story that he had been selling for so many months starting to become materialized. And obviously it wasn't well thought out, and you have all these operational issues as a result of it.
And that, to me, then, if you add it all up, if you look at what the coverage is and the right-wing media and Trump supporters, it's either they're ignoring it or they're confused. They don't know whether or not to be upset or to celebrate it, because this is now conflicting with the reality. So, for instance, Hannity wants to give Trump credit for these killings. You know, he's been saying that this is an example --
WALLACE: But Trump doesn't want to take any credit or anything to do with the second strike.
CARUSONE: That's exactly right.
WALLACE: Trump's been asked publicly twice, and once he said if there was a second strike, it wouldn't have approved of that. And when he was told by Jim Himes, when the video released, he said, yeah, I'd release it.
CARUSONE: That should -- and yet, Hannity still wants to give him credit for it, and he still attributes it to him and says, well, this is an example of the kid gloves that Joe Biden put on the military coming off. And, you know, other Fox News hosts like Jesse Watters are giving Hegseth all the credit. The chyrons read, "finish the job," right, so they want to celebrate it. Other parts of the right-wing media are saying, well, we don't like this, this is too far, this is confusing. But the majority are ignoring it. And I think that is, to me, the illustration that they've ignored all the history. They have their own narrative, their own version of it. It's obviously been a fantasy, and now we're seeing that materialize into reality.