Fox News: Let's Pretend Nothing Happened With Our Racist Glorious Leader
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 2/8/26
Last week Fox News was desperate to talk about anything, but the latest scandals unearthed in the Epstein files, Trump’s falling poll numbers, Democratic wins in deeply red districts, and the president’s virulently racist social media post that depicted former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes.
The network dedicated most of its airtime to the alleged abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Savannah Guthrie, one of the anchors of The Today Show on NBC.
Fox News turned into a true crime channel with a singular focus of covering every tiny detail of Guthrie’s disappearance. Producers played the emotional pleas of the Guthrie family on a loop while a series of guests who were mostly retired FBI agents gave their expert opinion on the case.
For most of the week there were few developments that changed much about the mysterious crime. The network’s excessive coverage felt exploitative of a vulnerable family trapped in a nightmarish situation.
In between long segments about the shocking case Fox News included stories about Trump’s saber-rattling towards Iran and any segment that depicted ICE agents as victims.
Shows I covered on Fox News last week:
Fox & Friends
The Five
Jesse Watters Primetime
Several Trump media appearances
Fox News is in Denial About Trump’s Falling Poll Numbers
On Monday Fox & Friends included a brief segment about a major swing in a Texas state senate race. A Democrat trounced his Republican opponent by 15 percentage points in a special election.
Carley Shimkus spoke to former congressman and Fox News anchor Jason Chaffetz
Shimkus: Donald Trump warning Republicans after a Texas Democrat flips a state Senate district blue for the first time in more than 30 years. Here is what this means for the GOP ahead of the midterms. Fox News contributor and former Congressman Jason Chaffetz. Jason, good morning to you. So this is a Fort Worth area Texas State Senate seat, which is now blue for the first time since 1992. And The Wall Street Journal puts it this way. How does a Republican lose by 14 points in a safe, conservative Texas state Senate seat that President Trump carried by 17 points in 2024? Answer. When there is a voter backlash against the Trump administration, notably its mass deportation debacle. So do you believe the Wall Street Journal is true? And this could be a warning sign for Republicans come midterms?
Chaffetz: No, that’s a garbage analysis. If they go back and look at it, what happened in November is you had two Republicans and then you also had a Democrat. Nobody got the majority. So they did a runoff. And then this runoff happens. There’s super bad weather there. There are 25,000 less people. They get out and vote and the Democrat squeaks by. It had nothing to do with the immigration policy. This is a state Senate race. They don’t even get involved in engaged in that. But Republicans have to get out and vote. And they decided, hey, we’re not going to do that. I’ll be at the weather. Look, the Democrat won. He spent like, $70,000, and the other two Republicans spent, like, $2.7 million. But Republicans still need to show up. But when you have 25,000 less people show up, guess what happens? Democrats squeeze through. So I think the answer.
In this case the Democrat did not ‘squeak by’ he won in a landslide.
Some of what Chaffetz said is correct as there was an election held on November 4, 2025 with two Republican candidates who split the Republican vote.
Totals for November 4, 2025 election
Taylor Rehment (Democrat) - 56,565 votes 47.6%
Leigh Wambasganss (Republican) - 42,739 votes 35.9%
John Huffan (Republican) - 19,608 votes 16.5%
Total voters - 118,912
Totals by Party November 4th election
Democrat - 56,565 votes 47.6%
Republican (both candidates combined) - 62,347 votes 52.4%
Margin for Republicans (both candidates combined) 4.8%
Of course, the November election happened before the ICE and Border Patrol killings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Texas voters might have been influenced by those horrific events.
By the time the runoff election was held on January 31, 2026 things shifted dramatically for the Democrat.
Total for January 31, 2026 run-off election
Taylor Rehment (Democrat) - 54,267 votes 57.2%
Leigh Wambasganss (Republican) - 40,598 votes 42.8%
Margin for Democrat - 14.4%
Total voters - 94,865
The difference in voter turnout between the November 4th election and the January 31st runoff was 24,047 (118,912 first election - 94,865 second election)
No one seems to use math on Fox News so I will.
The November election was won with 4.9% margin for Republicans. If the exact same number of people (118,912) turned out for the January election Wambasganss would have needed to win at least 78.9% of the votes (18,976) from the missing 24,047 people in order to beat Rehment with a slim margin of 50.1%.
If that scenario were true the vote would look like this
Rehment 59,338 votes (54,267 voters who showed up +5071 potential voters)
Wambasganss 59,574 votes (40,598 voters who showed up + 18,976 potential voters)
It’s unlikely given the margin between the two parties in November that 78.9% (18,976) of the missing voters (24,047) between the two elections would have voted Republican.
According to reporting by The Texas Tribune Rehment’s over performed among Latino voters.
Across the entire district, VoteHub estimated that Rehmet captured about 79% of the Hispanic vote, a 26-point improvement on the 53% that went for Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024 — the biggest shift of any racial group in the district.
A Texas Tribune analysis of precinct-level results shows that Rehmet won by an average margin of 59 percentage points in the voting precincts where more than 60% of the population is Hispanic. In 2022, the Democratic nominee, Gwenn Burud, carried those same precincts by a much narrower 26-point average margin.
Source: Texas Tribune
Motivated voters will show up in terrible weather. Obviously Republicans were just not that motivated but Democrats were.
Jesse Watters Has Selective Outrage Over the Sexual Abuse of Children
Although stories surrounding the newly released documents related to the late convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein dominated the news cycle last week the word ‘Epstein’ only appeared five times in the transcripts of the shows I covered on Fox News.
The network did what it always does when it can’t easily spin a story - it ignored it.
While other news outlets reported on the many problematic relationships Epstein had with top cabinet members, international government officials and the president himself, Fox News did not dedicate a single segment to it.
On Monday on Jesse Watters Primetime the Fox News host expressed his outrage about the sexual abuse of children at the hands of undocumented immigrants.
“The left, thinks American men are toxic, but the criminals they’re defending, raping kids, beating up family members. I’d say that’s a high level of toxic masculinity,” said Watters.
His producers cut to a pre-recorded statement by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt outside the White House.
“You didn’t hear this same type of uproar from celebrities in Hollywood when the previous administration allowed an invasion of our nation’s borders and allowed innocent women and girls like Jocelyn Nungaray and Laken Riley to be killed and raped and murdered.”
Leavitt is comparing crime victims to citizens who were killed by federal law enforcement. Both are a tragedy but in the case of Nungaray and Riley there was an investigation into their deaths.
Riley’s killer had a trial and was convicted by a jury of his peers. He was sentenced to life in prison.
In the case of Nungarary law enforcement investigated the case and two men have been arrested and are awaiting trial for her murder. They are facing the death penalty if convicted.
For Pretti and Good the U.S. government tried to cover up any wrongdoing by federal officials. At first the government refused to even investigate the killing of Good.
Both Good and Pretti were smeared as radical domestic terrorists by high ranking government officials. There’s evidence that the government lied to the public about details in both cases.
On Tuesday Watters brought up the sexual harassment and abuse in the entertainment industry.
“Hollywood is an industry that has a nasty reputation for exploiting women. The casting couch Cosby, R Kelly, Harvey Weinstein we all know how women get their roles there. Sometimes it’s an open secret. Isn’t it strange that Hollywood doesn’t want to protect women from rape and save kids from getting molested? That’s weird. What’s that about?”
One of the ways Epstein lured underage girls was by promising them that he would help them get modeling contracts or meetings with talent agents and casting directors. Epstein was exactly the predator that Watters described.
Donald J. Trump ran his own modeling agency and associated with Epstein and another alleged sexual predator John Casablancas, founder of Elite Model Management.
When Casablancas was 42 years old openly had a relationship with model Stephanie Seymour who was only 15 years old at the time. Casablancas third wife was only 17 years old when they married while he was 50.
Another man, Gérald Marie, who worked closely with Casablancas was also accused of rape and sexual assault by at least 15 women.
Of course, Trump is not responsible for the actions of others but it is alarming that he would surround himself with so many men who have been accused of sexual assault.
As I’ve reported on before at least 28 women have publicly accused President Donald J. Trump of some form of sexual assault or misconduct. Brett Ratner the director of the recently released documentary “Melania” is also featured partying with Jeffrey Epstein in the Epstein files and was accused of sexual assault and misconduct by six women.
Jessica Tarlov Breaks Down How Trump Has Weaponized ICE
On Thursday Jessica Tarlov, the liberal voice on The Five, broke down how President Trump has used ICE to terrorize liberal run cities and states.
“I have always said that if ICE shows up and they show you proof that they are trying to pick up someone who has committed a crime in this country, not the crime of crossing the border, but committed a crime here, especially against an American citizen, that you should cooperate and maybe things would have gone differently. But the analysis that I’m hearing of, you know, the protests, the wild protesters versus law and order just does not sync with reality. And Tom Homan admitted as much in his first press conference when he called it at 7:00 in the morning. And he said, I would not be here if mistakes were not made. We will see what happens in the investigations into the two officers who shot Alex Pretti and Officer Ross, who shot, Rene Good. And they might find that there was bad behavior, that they made mistakes and that it wasn’t the protestors fault for, you know, hurling her car into him or whatever Alex Pretti was doing. But you have to let that play out. You also have to be clear eyed about the fact that this is clearly partisan for the president. And you look at what happened in Maine. There were surging ICE agents to Maine, and Susan Collins called up DHS Secretary Noem and said, actually, could you get them to leave? And she said, sure, no problem,” said Tarlov.
She was interrupted by her co-host Jesse Watters.
“Yeah why though? Because she’s running for reelection and she’s a Republican Jessica,” said Watters.
“But that’s partisan. Amy Klobuchar makes a request go away. Tim Walz says go away. Mayor Frey says go away. Tina Smith says go away. That doesn’t matter to the president because they bat for the wrong team, but because he wants to help Susan Collins and he knows what a loser of an issue this is for the administration. He makes sure to protect her.”
Greg Gutfeld - Trans, Trans, Trans
On the same episode Greg Gutfeld found a way to weave Transgender folks into a discussion about ICE.
“That’s my thoughts. Thank you. I think, the polls that you mentioned are the price that you pay for tough decisions. There was a Marist poll that said something like, 65% of the public think Trump went too far with ICE actions, which you have to ask, like, how can you go too far deporting child rapists? How does public opinion end up reflecting that? And, you know, of course, the environment, you know, the media, the Democrat, the extreme left of the Democrats created an environment for conflict and chaos, and the media swallowed it up. The second part. You know, ICE is a lot like tariffs. Trump always takes the toughest position, but he never picks a position that he can’t dial back. And that goes hand in hand.
I would call it extreme flexibility. Dan you’re aware of that. I’ve seen you in ballots. Dems or Dems are always doing irreversible things. You know what I mean? Destroying cities, chopping off. You know, breasts of kids can’t go back from that. But in this case, Trump. If Trump had gone, like, only 50%, you know, intensity on deporting child rapist, they’d still be screaming at him. It would be the same. So instead, he just goes, I will take go as far as I can, and then I will dial back to a position that I’m really happy with, which could be 75%. And the media and the Democrats think that they actually won. It’s and it’s a face saving maneuver for them. Well, he gets what he needs. I still love the fact that the Dems think they won with getting Tom Homan. I mean, can’t ask for a better outcome,” said Gutfeld.
Gutfeld Admits He Could Just Shut Up
Also, on Thursday Greg Gutfeld openly declared that he could chose to not talk about any given story. I wish he would take his own advice and just not comment sometimes.
By this time last week Fox News dedicated entire commercial free hours to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of The Today Show host Savannah Guthrie.
The story dominated the network as it appeared Fox News management was desperate to talk about anything unrelated to Jeffrey Epstein or Trump’s falling poll numbers.
“I think there was actually a big takeaway from that presser that when they said no one is ruled out because they could have ruled out one or two people, but they didn’t. So, I think that’s kind of interesting. I always I, you know, these are terrible. Like we get paid to talk, but we also get paid to shut up. You know, it’s like you don’t want to say stuff because there’s a, there’s a, a poor woman out there who’s missing her mother. And I think you always try to begin with some hope. And, so I’ll bring up, you know, Violet Repp again. Remember her? That was the mother of Cal Ripken Jr. who was kidnaped and then returned.
You know, it was she was gone for 24 hours. And, that was back in 2012. And the weird thing about Violet Ripken is like 15 months later, she was a victim of an attempted carjacking that was totally unrelated. So, you know, the weird things can happen. I always do this thought experience with present day mysteries. I imagine the Dateline episode three years from now, and I let Andrea Canning’s narration unfold in my brain, and it helps you kind of like, direct yourselves to the Occam’s razor, you know, outcome, that it’s probably somebody she knows or somebody she knows who hired somebody. Maybe they assume she had money. She was an easy mark. She put up a fight, could be a vendetta, could have been an argument about money. And the ransom itself is a red herring. Again, the cops said not to rule anyone out. But that’s my take.”
Nothing Gutfeld said was helpful. He ended up just making assumptions that weren’t based on any evidence.
In 2019 shortly after his death in jail Savannah Guthrie conducted a series of interviews for NBC News Dateline with women who claim they were sexually abused and trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. Many of whom were underage when the abuse occurred.
Guthrie spoke to Virginia Giuffre, Jennifer Araoz, Marijke Chartouni and Chauntae Davies. For Anouska De Georgiou and Rachel Benavidez, speaking with Guthrie was their first time publicly speaking out about their experiences.
Guthrie’s name also appears in documents released as part of the Epstein files in relation to the interviews she conducted for NBC.
Some have speculated that Guthrie’s history with Epstein’s victims might play a role in her mother’s disappearance but so far no known link has been proven. Investigators have no known motive for Nancy Guthrie’s alleged abduction or disappearance.
On February 10, a person of interest was detained regarding Guthrie’s disappearance but has since been released.
Fox Completely Ignored Trump’s Racist Social Media Post
Just before midnight on Thursday February 5, 2026 Donald J. Trump posted a short video on Truth Social that contained a depicted of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
On the shows I watched on Fox there was no mention of it. The PBS News Hour dedicated a nearly two minute segment to the story as part of its News Summary on Friday. Geoff Bennett, co-anchor of the PBS News Hour, addressed the controversy.
“The White House defended, then removed, a racist depiction of the Obamas from President Trump’s social media. It was posted shortly before midnight, and it was met with anger from Democrats and some members of the president’s own party. The president’s post, which borrowed imagery from this video, was deleted after backlash on both sides of the aisle. The video on Truth Social, focusing on debunked claims about the 2020 election, included a racist animation of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, their heads superimposed on the bodies of apes. The president’s post sparking widespread condemnation from lawmakers. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said The Obamas are brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country. Donald Trump is a vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder. Republican Senator Roger Wicker. This is totally unacceptable. The president should take it down and apologize in this from Senator Tim Scott praying it was fake, because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. White House press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the actions of her boss.”
Bennett then quoted Karoline Leavitt.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle, and Democrats as characters from The Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” said Leavitt.
Bennett remarked on a huge flaw in Leavitt’s explanation.
“It should be noted there are no ape characters in The Lion King. A few hours after Leavitt’s defense, the post was deleted. A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a staffer erroneously posted the video. Mr. Trump’s political rise included years of attacks on former President Obama that centered on conspiracy theories and racist rhetoric.”
One three-time Trump voter today called into C-SPAN to say the post was a breaking point.
PBS producers then cut to a viral video of a Republican caller on C-SPAN 2.
“I am a registered Republican. What embarrassment to our country. All this man does is tell lies. He is not worthy of the presidency. And I just want to apologize to everybody in the country for supporting this rotten, rotten man,” said the caller.
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. The list has been truncated for space. Source - PBS News Hour transcripts.
In Dilley, Texas, officials at an immigration detention center are working to contain a further spread of measles after two infections were reported. The facility is where 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his father were held until their release. (PBS News Hour)
In Ukraine, a Russian drone hit a bus carrying mine workers in the southeast of the country. Officials say at least 12 people were killed. Earlier in the day, another strike hit a maternity hospital, injuring six people. (PBS News Hour)
A federal court has blocked the Trump administration’s plan to end temporary protected status for Haitians in the U.S. — a move that would have left roughly 350,000 people vulnerable to deportation. As the administration plans to appeal, the uncertainty has one Ohio city bracing as it fears becoming the next focus of immigrant enforcement. (PBS News Hour)
Last Wednesday in Gaza, several Israeli strikes killed at least 21 people including two infants. Health officials say that among the dead was a medic in Khan Yunis who rushed to help two victims when he was hit. In a separate attack, Israeli troops fired at a residential building in North Gaza. Israel says the strikes were in response to a soldier being injured by militant fire, which it sees as a violation of its cease-fire agreement with Hamas. (PBS News Hour)
There’s been more fallout from the recent release of millions of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Gates said he regrets every minute he spent with Epstein after an e-mail alleged that Gates was having an extramarital affair, which he denies. This all comes after lawyers for Epstein’s victims reached a deal with the Justice Department to protect the identities of nearly 100 women who were reportedly affected by the release of the documents. (PBS News Hour)
Last Thursday Britain’s Prime Minister Kherson apologized for appointing Peter Mandelson to be his ambassador to the U.S. Files later showed Mandelson was closer to Epstein than previously thought. The World Economic Forum is investigating its CEO, Borge Brende, over his alleged ties to Epstein. Brende insists he was completely unaware of Epstein’s criminal activities.
And in the U.S., Brad Karp is stepping down as chairman of the influential law firm Paul, Weiss due to his appearance in the Epstein documents, though he will stay on with the firm (PBS News Hour)
President Trump is rejecting an offer from Russia to temporarily extend caps on strategic nuclear weapons. It comes as the treaty that held them in check called New START expired last week. The Kremlin says it regrets the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms pact between the two nations. And a spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general called this a grave moment. (PBS News Hour)
This week, the Trump administration was sued for a sweeping pause of immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries. The freeze, which began last month, comes on top of full or partial travel and visa restrictions on citizens from 39 countries. PBS spoke to some of the people left in limbo by the bans and suspensions along with an expert on immigration from the Cato Institute. (PBS News Hour)
By the Numbers
