Tag: Fox News

Fox News host is quickly back-peddling after spreading dangerous QAnon nonsense on air

AlterNet logoFox News host Jesse Watters has walked back comments he made praising the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory during a Saturday interview with Eric Trump.

Watters called QAnon a “fringe group” — which he does not “support or believe in” — in a statement to Mediaite one day after he praised it for uncovering “a lot of great stuff.”

QAnon is a conspiracy theory that started on the imageboard 4chan in which a would-be secret operative with classified information posts clues to followers about the “deep state” and a baseless plot by President Donald Trump to destroy a global sex trafficking ring allegedly involving high-profile Democrats and their celebrity supporters. Continue reading.

Here are all the times Fox News hosts went on ‘vacation’: An investigation

AlterNet logoNews personality and frozen food heir-apparent Tucker McNear Swanson Carlson drew eye-rolls Monday when he told viewers that he was embarking on a “pre-planned vacation,” widely understood to be a euphemism for a network timeout.His respite, however, was uncannily timed to an onslaught of criticism after CNN revealed that the show’s longtime top writer had been secretly posting vile and hateful comments on the internet for years. It also comes on the heels of a marked escalation in Carlson’s own race-baiting rhetoric, which Carlson pushed far enough to draw accusations of hate speech.

Although Carlson has also been in some senses riding high, turning in the highest cable news ratings in history and drawing speculation about his possible political ambitions, he’s also currently the subject of an IRS criminal complaint and an ongoing high-profile defamation lawsuit against his network.

Following the announcement, Salon took up an intrepid investigation into other Fox News personalities who have taken conspicuously timed “vacations” over the years. Here’s what we found.  Continue reading.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson abruptly announces a vacation — right after explaining why his top writer resigned in disgrace

AlterNet logoFox News host Tucker Carlson announced Monday night that he’s going on a vacation — “trout fishing” — for the rest of the week, shortly after addressing the latest inflammatory controversy that has dogged his show.

His top writer, Blake Neff, resigned last week after CNN uncovered that he has been posting online in a forum filled with bigotry. The report found he had engaged with rank racism and sexism on the platform. Many argue that Carlson’s program itself is deeply racist — and it carries overt white supremacist themes — but the language on the forums was even more explicit and unequivocally bigoted.

Carlson addressed the reasons Neff left only obliquely. Continue reading.

Conservative flounders when a Fox News guest details Trump’s spectacular coronavirus failure

AlterNet logoWith the presidential election less than four months away, pundits are hotly debating President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis. One such debate came on Friday, when Chris Hahn (a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer) appeared in a Fox News segment with far-right talk radio host Tony Katz. Hahn slammed Trump’s coronavirus response, while Katz tried to defend it — and wasn’t the least bit convincing.

“Look, America would be open had Donald Trump done what Europe did and really clamped down and encouraged people to social distance and wear a mask,” Hahn asserted. “Instead, he wanted to open in April. We weren’t ready, and now, we’re seeing the effects of that.”

Hahn noted how much COVID-19 infection rates have been surging in Sun Belt states like Texas and Florida, lamenting that those states reopened non-essential businesses prematurely and are now suffering because of it. Continue reading.

Trump Campaign, Fox News Fabricate Lie To Smear Biden

President Donald Trump’s media allies are distorting a quote from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in order to falsely claim that Biden called police “the enemy.” The lie followed a now well-trod path from Trump’s campaign to his propagandists in Fox News prime time.

Biden has called for police reform following the brutal killing of George Floyd by officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While describing some of his campaign’s proposals during an interview with progressive activist Ady Barkan published by NowThis News on Wednesday morning, Biden highlighted the problem of police militarization and how it impacts public perceptions of law enforcement.

The Defense Department has provided more than $5 billion in free surplus military equipment to local law enforcement since 1996, including at least $760 million after the Trump administration lifted restrictions implemented by President Barack Obama, according to a CNN analysis. Public outcry in response to police usage of military-style equipment against protesters has led to a bipartisan push in Congress to reform or end that program. Continue reading.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson horrifies viewers with a message disturbingly similar to a white supremacist slogan

AlterNet logoPresumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign accused Fox News host Tucker Carlson of “hate speech” as he came under fire for appearing to echo a white supremacist slogan on Tuesday’s broadcast.

Twitter users widely circulated a screenshot of a chyron which aired on Carlson’s show below images for Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who is of Asian descent, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.

“We have to fight to preserve our nation & heritage,” the chyron read. Continue reading.

Tucker Carlson suggests Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs in Iraq, hates America

Washington Post logoBefore launching a broadside against Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Fox News host Tucker Carlson acknowledged that it’s not easy to go after a Purple Heart recipient who lost both her legs while serving her country in Iraq.

“You’re not supposed to criticize Tammy Duckworth in any way because she once served in the military,” Carlson said Monday night.

That didn’t stop him from calling Duckworth, a contender to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, “a deeply silly and unimpressive person” and suggesting that she and other Democratic leaders “actually hate America.” Continue reading.

Here’s Trump’s one last line of defense before his approval ratings ‘collapse into the teens’: reporter

AlterNet logoAppearing on MSNBC’s “AM JOY” with guest host Tiffany Cross, Vanity Fair journalist Gabriel Sherman said Donald Trump’s chances of staying in office hinge on working with Fox News personalities and should the network turn on him — specifically as the coronavirus pandemic grows worse — he stands no chance of being re-elected.

Asked by host Cross if there is “any way to penetrate that layer of ignorance of the Fox News viewer or the Fox News anchor,” Sherman said that is the only thing that is keeping the president’s re-election hopes afloat.

“You know, what you pointed out is that Fox News is really the last line of defense that Donald Trump has,” Sherman explained. “Consistently Donald Trump’s approval ratings have been in the low 40s to low 30s. That is largely because that 30 percent core of supporters that are unmovable are the diehard Fox News viewer.” Continue reading.

Fox News Pushes Trump’s ‘Cognitive Test’ Taunt At Biden Presser

At the very end of former Vice President Joe Biden’s press conference largely focusing on the Trump administration’s botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fox News reporter Doug McKelway pressed Biden about being tested for his mental capacity — a constant theme of Fox News and the Trump campaign since Biden became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

From the June 30, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Outnumbered Overtime

DOUG MCKELWAY (FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT): Some have speculated that you are subject to some degree of cognitive decline. I’m 65, I don’t have the word recollection that I used to have, I forget my train of thought from time to time. You’ve got 12 years on me, sir. Have you been tested for some degree of cognitive decline?

McKelway, who has sent emails with white nationalist talking points and tweets attacking Democrats as “racial identity politics hucksters” while working at Fox News, seemingly ripped his question about a test about cognitive ability from the Trump campaign itself. Continue reading.

The data is in: Fox News may have kept millions from taking the coronavirus threat seriously

Washington Post logoIt’s another one of those Trump Era realities best described as unsurprising but nevertheless shocking.

Three serious research efforts have put numerical weight — yes, data-driven evidence — behind what many suspected all along: Americans who relied on Fox News, or similar right-wing sources, were duped as the coronavirus began its deadly spread.

Dangerously duped. Continue reading.