The Dictatorship

The looming MAGA media melee over Trump’s attention span

Published

2 years ago

November 14, 2024

The looming MAGA media melee over Trump’s attention span

That didn’t take long. Just a week after his presidential election victory, Donald Trump is already raiding Fox News’ stable of talking heads to fill out his administration.

Tom Homan, the reported “intellectual ‘father’” of family separation as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump’s first administration, is leaving the network where he has served as a contributor to oversee mass deportations as the incoming president’s “Border Czar.” Mike Huckabee, the former Fox host and frequent network commentator, is Trump’s pick as U.S. ambassador to Israel. And if Trump has his way, the Defense Department’s nearly 3 million employees will be overseen by “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host Pete Hegseth.

Fox’s employees affected wildly important policy decisions on matters of war and peace.

The Fox-fueled hiring spree represents a return to form for the former president. The network dominated wide swaths of federal decision-making during Trump’s first presidency, as his administration effectively merged with the right-wing propaganda network that had propelled him to power. But as Trump returns to the White House, Fox is not as dominant within the right-wing media ecosystem as it was during the last Trump administration. The battle for the president’s attention within a larger and more fractured MAGA media will shape the contours of governance.

Trump owed his 2016 political ascent to that right-wing media ecosystem. A longtime Fox regularhe was obsessed with the network’s programming and channeled its demagoguery on the campaign trail, winning over its audience, as well as upstart alt-right organs like Steve Bannon’s Breitbart.com. He d ominated Fox’s airtime on the way to his primary campaign win, bending the network and the GOP to his will before garnering a narrow Electoral College majority.

Once Trump was in office, Fox News became a state TV outlet that lavished him with praise and denounced his foes, and in doing so it gained unprecedented influence over the U.S. government. The hours Trump spent each day consuming the network’s content and speaking privately with its stars shaped his worldview and dictated his reaction to various events. His hyperaggressive, seemingly stream-of-consciousness tweets often came in response to what he was seeing on his television. I dubbed this phenomenon the “Trump-Fox feedback loop” and tracked it for years, ultimately tracing nearly 1,300 Trump tweets back to Fox News and its sister channel, Fox Business.

Fox’s employees affected wildly important policy decisions on matters of war and peace, and they turned right-wing tantrums into matters of national importance because the president of the United States happened to be tuning in.

It’s impossible to overstate how ridiculous — or dangerous — this Fox-Trump pipeline could be. Here are five things that really happened during Trump’s first term:

After a Fox contributor turned to the camera and urged Trump to renounce his support for a bill, the president appeared to do so on Twitter, causing chaos on Capitol Hill.
At the urging of Fox News personalities, Trump triggered the longest-ever partial government shutdown.
Trump’s homeland security secretary resigned after losing a power struggle with a Fox Business host.
Trump put the full force of government behind a purported coronavirus “miracle cure” he had seen touted on Fox News. The drug was ineffective against the virus.
Trump led an administration-wide turn against diversity training after watching a negative Fox News segment on the subject.

Since Trump left office on the heels of a failed coup, the right-wing media ecosystem has become simultaneously more splintered — and even more pro-Trump.

The ranks of Fox competitors have swelled, as well.

Fox responded to a brief viewer exodus after Trump’s defeat by desperately renewing its support for him. Its evening lineup of Laura Ingraham Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld is all in for the once and future president. MAGA stars like Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro maintained or increased their roles at Fox, while the network devastated its “straight news” ranks. Fox’s work shielding viewers from damaging revelations about the former president or explaining them away played a crucial role in Trump’s return to power.

But the ranks of Fox competitors have swelled, as well. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast is at the center of a sprawling field of MAGA media influencers, with other notables including Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec. Podcasters like Joe Roganwhose show is Trump-friendly but not wholly focused on politics, have huge audiences. And a diaspora of former Fox stars like Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro and Megyn Kelly now compete with their former employer at their own pro-Trump outlets (all three campaigned for him in 2024).

Carlson in particular has both his own blood-and-soil political agenda and Trump’s ear. The former Fox prime-time host reportedly played a key role in both Trump’s decision to name Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of the former president.

Trump himself maintains a frequent presence on Fox’s airwaves and regularly promotes its content on his social media platform. It’s likely that he’ll pluck others from the network to staff his administration. But he wields a stick alongside the carrot, slamming the network any time he perceives its coverage as insufficiently hagiographic. And the fractured right-wing media environment gives him plenty of options if he seeks other voices to raise up and ask for advice.

A doom loop may be the result, as Fox hosts tack further and further right to hold on to their audiences — and pull a watching Trump along with them.

Matt Gertz

Matt Gertz is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive research center that monitors the U.S. media. His work focuses on the relationship between Fox News and the Republican Party, media ethics and news coverage of politics and elections.

The Dictatorship

Trump wants a Supreme Court do-over on birthright citizenship, but he won’t get one

Published

20 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump wants a Supreme Court do-over on birthright citizenship, but he won’t get one

For months, Donald Trump made clear that he expected the Supreme Court to rule against him on birthright citizenship, and his expectations were correct: Last week, a narrow majority of the high court ruled that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment means what it says.

Hours after the decision came down, the president downplayed the importance of his defeat, saying that he would pursue a legislative solution through Congress, but eight days later, the Republican published a very different kind of message to his social media platform that approached the issue in a more hysterical way. The missive read, in its entirety:

Signs and Billboards are being put up all over our Southern Border, and Mexico, advertising BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, with “Deliveries starting at $4000.” Likewise, similar signs going up all over our Country. Billions of Dollars will be illegally made by this SCAM, with Citizenship going to anyone willing to pay. It will be, by far, the number one way of becoming a citizen, and then the entire family will be allowed to follow. Not sustainable.

NOBODY SAW THIS COMING!!! AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE! In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court’s ruling is wrong. I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Even by Trump standards, this one’s a doozy.

The New York Times reported“The president appeared to be referring to a Fox News report that identified a hospital in Texas that had advertised paying for ‘Birth Packages in South Texas’ on billboards in Mexico. The outlet reported that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, had ordered an investigation into the hospital, which told Fox News that “marketing materials regarding maternity services are no longer in use due to any unintended misunderstanding.”

Trump apparently took this report and ran with it, inventing various other details, including the amusing idea that cross-border birth tourism will somehow become “the number one way of becoming a citizen” (“by far,” the president added), as opposed to simply being born on U.S. soil to American parents.

But even if such an advertising campaign existed, it wouldn’t generate a rehearing from the Supreme Court. There is no scenario in which justices would say, “Sure, we ruled last week that the unambiguous language of the 14th Amendment means what it says, but if there are billboards going up, that changes everything.”

For good measure, let’s not forget that, according to Trump, his administration has effectively ended illegal border crossings, so as a practical matter, he really shouldn’t be that concerned.

The president’s online rant said he intends to ask for an immediate rehearing. If he orders administration lawyers to go through with such a pointless exercise and they bother to do the paperwork, they should keep their collective expectations low.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

Democrats’ scramble to replace Graham Platner ramps up in Maine

Published

20 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats’ scramble to replace Graham Platner ramps up in Maine

Christmas. 9, 2026, 9:46 AM EDT

Maine Democrats are scrambling to replace Graham Platner a day after their nominee for U.S. Senate ended his bid following an allegation of sexual assault.

There’s a July 27 deadline set by state law for the party faithful to pick a new standard bearer in a race that is expected to be instrumental when it comes to whether Republicans can keep control of the Senate in this fall’s midterms.

Incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins may be vulnerable, but she has won five straight races for the seat dating back to 1996, and trying to defeat her was likely to carry challenges for Democrats even in the best case scenario.

Their new candidate will have to essentially start from nothing in the race, mend the divisions sown by Platner, introduce (or reintroduce) themselves to the broader electorate and corral support from the ex-candidate’s outsider-minded current and former followers, all in less than four months.

That amounts to a daunting task with massive implications not only for Maine Democrats, but potentially for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s time in the White House. Democrats need to flip at least four GOP-held Senate seats, and maintain all their current ones from several competitive states, to vault themselves into the majority in the midterms. A loss in Maine would be a significant setback.

Maine Democratic Party leaders announced plans “to hold a nominating convention to choose a new nominee,” while stating that “transparency is of the utmost importance.”

Already, several major voices are in the race, including unsuccessful candidate for governor and past Platner supporter Troy Jackson. The former state senate president made his bid clear less than an hour after Platner left the race. One major Bernie Sanders-aligned group, Our Revolution, has quickly rallied around Jackson.

Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company,”https://x.com/mainebeerbrewer/status/2075028234962677872?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet”>is also in the fray, along with former governor candidate Nirav Shah, who worked as Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows who also ran for governor this summer is among other potential contenders.

Platner’s exit also brings difficulty for Collins and Republicans as well, however. Instead of facing a Democratic rival with a string of alarming controversies even before the sexual assault allegationan accustation Platner has denied, Collins instead will have to try to keep her seat in a blue state against someone far less defined, and potentially with far fewer vulnerabilities, in November.

Across the country this year, Democrats have navigated a political environment rife with divisions over how to sway voters in these strange times, with tension between more entrenched party leaders and an energetic and angered left wing often spilling out into the open.

What happens in Maine over the coming weeks may prove to be no different.

Hunter Woodall covers politics for MS NOW. He’s reported on politics and presidential campaigns for The Associated Press and CBS News and reported on Congress for The Minnesota Star Tribune.

The Dictatorship

Platner’s exit amplifies a key difference between Democrats and Republicans

Published

20 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Platner’s exit amplifies a key difference between Democrats and Republicans

It’s been almost three years since Kevin McCarthy became the first sitting House speaker to be ousted in the middle of a congressional sessionbut the California Republican has nevertheless tried to maintain a public profile and has routinely appeared on conservative media to push partisan talking points.

So it wasn’t too surprising to see McCarthy on Fox News on Monday night, responding to the latest sexual assault allegations against Graham Platner, still a candidate for Senate at the time.

As part of an apparent effort to contextualize the scandals surrounding the Maine Democrat, the former GOP leader said, “One thing I know about Republicans is when we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn’t vote for that person. We walked away.”

Moments later, McCarthy added, “When Matt Gaetz came forward, we got rid of him.”

As is too often the case, the failed former House speaker not only had it backward, but his mistake also offered a timely reminder of details that made him and his party look worse, not better.

Indeed, Gaetz offers a rather extraordinary example. The Justice Department investigated the Florida Republican over allegations of alleged sex trafficking, and while Gaetz repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and the prosecutors’ probe ended without charges, his House GOP colleagues made no effort to “get rid of him” as the scandal intensified.

What’s more, the House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz “regularly” paid women for sex, had sex with a 17-year-old during his tenure on Capitol Hill and possessed illegal drugs. Nevertheless, as that evidence came together, he remained a GOP member in good standing; he won re-election in 2024 with the Republican Party’s backing; and President Donald Trump thought it would be a good idea to nominate Gaetz to serve as the U.S. attorney general — a nomination endorsed by Republican senators such as South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Alabama’s Tommy Tubervilleeven after they had seen the House Ethics Committee’s findings.

This is what McCarthy cited as an example of the GOP maintaining the highest standards and throwing “very bad candidates” to the curb. That’s ridiculous.

But there’s no reason to stop with Gaetz. Indeed, the list of scandal-plagued Republicans who continued to enjoy the party’s backing long after ugly allegations had reached the public is not short. Trump is obviously the most glaring example, but the list includes other contemporary figures, including Rep. Cory Mills of Florida and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

There’s no reason to limit the list to electoral candidates, either: Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth faced an avalanche of scandals during his confirmation fight early last year, but Senate Republicans decided to ignore the allegations and make him defense secretary anyway.

As the Hegseth fight unfolded, political scientist Jonathan Bernstein published a smart piece that remains relevant: “I do not believe that Republicans or conservatives are any more prone to [scandals] than Democrats. What has changed, however, is the incentive structure. Once upon a time both parties were equally likely to rid themselves of bad actors; now Republicans are far more likely to tolerate, and in some cases even celebrate, behavior they once would have shunned.”

When Democrats learned of serious allegations against then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the party abandoned him. When then-New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez faced serious criminal charges for which he was later convicted, the party abandoned him, too.

In Maine, the Platner example followed the same path, as evidenced by his decision to withdraw from the Maine race after Democratic officials left him with no other choice.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, an MS NOW legal analyst, explained this week“The contrast here is hard to ignore. Democrats have shown that when credible allegations of sexual misconduct emerge against one of their own, the conversation turns quickly to accountability. Republicans have made a different choice. That’s not a partisan talking point, it’s a difference in how the two parties have approached questions of character and fitness for office over the last 10 years.”

That’s true, whether McCarthy wants to acknowledge it or not.