On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses right-wing media infighting over Iran and Joe Kent's resignation
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From the March 17, 2026, edition of MSNOW's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): It also, I think, infuses the attacks on the press for their coverage of Iran with an interesting dimension, Angelo. I mean, the most vicious attacks are coming from the most high profile figures in MAGA world.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah. Because as John noted, there's this incredible undercurrent. There is a cauldron of this sort of, you know, this sentiment that they're tapping into to grow their audiences, you know.
Candace Owens is one of the fastest growing online personalities right now. And what she basically does time and again is take the latest news story and somehow connect it back to a thing that she purports to some kind of Jewish conspiracy, you know? And you're seeing that play out with the, as you noted, these talkers. They're, you know, when they're tapping into this cauldron, one of the things they're pointing out, many of them are saying, is that this is what Charlie Kirk died for. This is why Charlie Kirk got killed, for his opposition to war with Iran on behalf of Israel.
By saying that your audience grows, because you're tapping into the same energy that Nick Fuentes taps into when he promotes groyperism. And that you see play out, you know, in that Joe Kent resignation. It's basically just groyperism on fancy letterhead. I mean, he is repeating the very same smears and attacks that you see perpetuated by these figures. And what is actually happening underneath it is that this is where the fault lines are being drawn.
So it has short term political relevance. So it has a lot of schadenfreude, I love watching them fight. Two things can be true. I can enjoy them tearing each other apart, and what that means in the short term, but also cognizant of what that means in the medium and long term.
Yeah. It has some political consequences for Trump and in, you know, between now and the midterms, but this is actually going to shape the landscape well after 2026. This same fault line that blew up back in October between Tucker and Nick Fuentes and the Heritage Foundation that JD Vance weighed in on on the side of not engagement, siding with the groypers saying, sure they can come to be a part of our movement because he recognized where the power not just is currently is, but where it's growing. And that's the key indicator here. That's where the power is growing.
And so the twofer here is that by making these attacks, these figures not just get to grow their own appetite, but they get the simultaneous thing of saying, see, we told you not to trust those journalists, those media figures, because they're working on behalf of something else, some deeper, darker cabal, shadowy network of who owns them or controls them or who they're operating on behalf of. And so that's why not only do you need to come to me to get more truth, but you need to actively reject them. And that's the same narrative that Trump is pushing every single day in his administration to undermine truth, to weaken the First Amendment and free speech in this country, journalism, because we're going to need a lot of that between now and the midterms as he sort of consolidates autocratic control.
And that's the last thing I'll say. A bit of irony here is that they're weakening the one check that will actually be necessary over the next year as Trump continues to get his control and consolidate his power. He doesn't care about their support anymore. Now he's speed running to the other end of that. And that's where it sort of has become sort of a cruel joke. They may be sowing the seeds of their own demise in all of ours.
WALLACE: Well, let me -- that's what I'm going to follow-up with you. I mean, Angelo, Trump's not on that side where all the heat is and where all the energy is and where -- Trump's on the other side. Trump is against Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly on this, and he's standing with Mark Levin, who Megyn Kelly commented on the size of his anatomy. Quote, "Mark Levin, a truly great American patriot, is somewhat under," somewhat, he's totally under siege, "by other people with far less intellect, Capability," capitalized, "and Love," also capitalized, "for our country. Those that speak ill of Mark will quickly fall by the wayside as do the people whose ideas, policies, and footings are not sound. They are not MAGA, I am."
I mean, Donald Trump leaning into making this the throwdown for who is MAGA and who isn't. And Angelo, just, you know, the only thing that complicates what you're saying is that Trump is on the other side of what you just described.
CARUSONE: He is on the other side, and this is going to weaken his power and his influence. We just haven't seen the political consequence of that yet, right? Because the Republicans, the ones that could hold them accountable and be a check, haven't actually responded to that political reality yet.
And, you know, it's still early days here. They're still playing it out. They're still choosing between this future threat that maybe they think they can manage or harness, and the current threat, which is Trump has made it very clear that if you oppose him, he's going to make your life really difficult and miserable. He is on the other side of this, and that's in large part because he is not tapped in to the zeitgeist in the way that he typically is. That's where one of Trump's, you know, people call it a superpower, it's not a superpower, it's just he's media savvy. And when he was connected to the zeitgeist, he could be a feedback loop for it. He can pull from it and respond to it, and he can feed it.
There are parts that he is doing as a backstop, and it's because of where he gets information from. And we we've talked about this in the past. I thought it was very telling that one of the things that he did was push a video on his own account about this is the prophecy come to life. This is the exact thing that Christian Zionists and Christian nationalists are out there excited and engaged about. And, you know, in the media circles that he consumes, they're largely thinking it's okay. Newsmax is beginning to turn on him, and I think we'll have to see how this plays out.
His power is going to be diminished, but that's what happens when you get high on your own supply. But that doesn't necessarily mean he's not more damaging, because he is sort of making this calculus that he can brute force his way through and then it'll all work out. But part of the reason it all worked out for him is because all these storytellers that are turning on him would backfill the wild claim that he made and sort of help make it manifest a reality or prop it up at least for the bastion of supporters that helped continue to keep the vibes at least tolerable, if not good sometimes, for his people.