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

Court denies request to immediately block DOJ ‘slush fund’

Published

8 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Court denies request to immediately block DOJ ‘slush fund’

Jun. 10, 2026, 6:14 PM EDT

A federal judge in Washington has denied a bid Wednesday brought by a watchdog group to immediately block the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund, for now choosing to trust the department’s assertions that it is not moving forward with the fund.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled immediately, denying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the Department of Justice from taking steps to create the fund.

Throughout the 30-minute hearing, the DOJ reiterated that the administration was not moving forward with the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ.

Andrew Block, the only lawyer present for the government, repeatedly cited Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s June 2 congressional testimonyin which he said the administration was “not moving forward” with plans to create the fund.

Leon indicated he agreed with the DOJ’s position that the case appeared to be moot, saying he was not persuaded there was an issue for the court to decide regarding the creation of the fund. He issued a stern warning to the DOJ, saying, “Don’t play possum with this court!” — meaning he does not want to be deceived.

The plaintiffs argued Blanche’s testimony did not amount to an official cancellation. Nikhel Sus, CREW’s attorney, said Blanche “refused to memorialize that rescission,” or in other words, put it in writing. Sus said that was “highly unusual.” Leon responded, “This whole case is highly unusual to say the least.”

Leon asked the government twice why they would not just rescind the order that established the fund. Block responded, “I don’t know,” and pointed again to Blanche’s public statements about the fund’s future.

Both Leon and Sus raised the issue of Trump’s continued public defense of the fund. “It can still be an important issue and also not moving forward,” Block said. “That isn’t a direction to move forward with the fund.”

Although Leon rejected CREW’s bid for an immediate block, he indicated he is still considering its request for a longer-term block against the fund.

A block order from a separate federal judge in Virginia remains in effect until at least Friday.

Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Trump is accelerating our Social Security insolvency crisis

Published

8 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Jun. 10, 2026, 5:50 PM EDT

The date when Social Security’s trust fund is expected to run out of money just got bumped up. The fund is now projected to empty in 2032according to a new report released by Social Security’s trustees.

The new depletion date isn’t an earth-shaking change — it’s only a quarter earlier than the estimate in last year’s report. But it illustrates how President Donald Trump’s policies are degrading a program he promised to never jeopardize — and accelerating an approaching crisis in how our government will assist the elderly and disabled.

The report names three factors that contributed to the earlier insolvency date. One is a declining fertility rate, but the other two drivers can be traced back to Trump: a drop in immigration into the country, and the “substantial effect” of the tax policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill he signed last summer.

Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities.

Reduced immigration during Trump’s second term — especially when coupled with a declining fertility rate — strains Social Security because the program is funded through payroll taxes. Those come out of people’s paychecks, and fewer workers supporting an aging population means the program receives less revenue. Indeed, Social Security already has been tapping its trust fund for the better part of the past two decades because the program’s costs have exceeded its cash income. And as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out last yearlast year’s tax cuts were a boon to the rich but a bust for the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.

To be clear, if the fund is depleted, Social Security won’t go belly up. Benefits will continue to be paid out, but there will be a large drop in the amount. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the “average monthly cut would total $500, which is more than what the average retired household spends on groceries each month.”

That would be a huge blow to the budgets of many older Americans. Social Security is a major source of income for most retirees, and roughly 40% of beneficiaries over the age of 65 rely on it for most of their income. And it would mark the destabilization of the sole source of retirement security for most Americans that is supposed to be insulated from ups and downs — unlike 401K plans. As the CBPP has pointed outSocial Security is “most workers’ only source of guaranteed retirement income that is not subject to investment risk or financial market fluctuations.”

Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities. His cuts to the Social Security Administration have left offices understaffedincreased wait timesand reduced quality of customer service.

Ultimately, Trump is exacerbating a colossal social safety net problem that predates him, and the trust fund will hit dire straits after he has left office. Democrats need to have clear plans for shoring up the program and making it robust for the future — which will require not being sheepish about taxes as a tool for renewing the social contract. And when Republicans try to claim that they, too, are champions of Social Security, all Democrats need to do is point to the truth.

Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.

The Dictatorship

Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 6.10.26

Published

8 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The latest from Northern Ireland: “The family of a man who lost an eye in a knife attack appealed for calm on Wednesday after the incident triggered a wave of anti-immigrant violence in Belfast overnight, with masked men burning families out of their homes and torching vehicles. The appeal ‌came as a Sudanese man appeared in court charged with attempted murder and as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and politicians in Northern Ireland condemned the violence by ‘masked thugs’ that had targeted ethnic minorities.”

* In related news: “The British government hit out at X owner Elon Musk Wednesday, accusing him of whipping up tensions online ahead of disorder in Belfast.”

* The tenuous state of a dubious ceasefire: “Trump said the U.S. is going to hit Iran ‘hard’ today when pressed by reporters in the Oval Office about his statement earlier that Tehran will ‘pay the price’ for taking ‘too long’ to reach a peace agreement. ‘Well, we’re going to be attacking them and attacking them very hard, resuming bombing,’ he said.”

* The latest casualty figures from Lebanon: “Israel’s military offensive in Lebanon has killed at least 3,666 people, including 131 healthcare workers, and injured more than 11,300 since the U.S. and Israel began their war with Iran in late February, the Lebanese health ministry reported yesterday.”

* The changing nature of modern warfare: “Ukraine is wreaking havoc on unarmored trucks and trains in the battlefield’s rear, using drones with upgraded engines and batteries, integrated Starlink communication systems and new artificial-intelligence capabilities. The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.”

* This seems like a reasonable request: “Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee demanded Wednesday that Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s controversial pick for acting director of national intelligence, submit to a full security check before assuming the post, including an examination of his financial holdings and foreign contacts.”

* Some market trends can’t be stopped despite the White House’s best efforts: “Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said.”

* A bizarre schedule for a nonemergency vanity project: “Federal officials are laying more groundwork to begin construction on President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, sharing additional documents that detail the project’s scope and an aggressive timetable for potentially completing work before Trump’s term ends. According to National Park Service documents posted this month, the administration envisions 20 hours per day of construction on the arch, year-round, in hopes of completing the project within two to three years.”

See you tomorrow.

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.”