Trump's Web of Lies is Already Starting to Fall Apart

 

Even on Fox - Trump's Web of Lies is Already Starting to Fall Apart

A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 11/24/24

Decoding Fox News

Nov 26, 2024

 

Last week on Fox the network tried to sugarcoat Trump’s many alarming picks for various cabinet positions while Steve Doocy and others openly admitted some of Trump’s plans for mass deportation, shutting down the Department of Education and paying off the national debt with crude oil revenue were unattainable.

We are still nearly two months away from Trump’s inauguration and the Murdoch owned media empire is already lowering its viewers expectations for the next Trump administration.

The network also neglected to inform its viewers about an illegal campaign contribution the Trump Foundation made to a political action committee associated with Pam Bondi the President-elect’s latest pick for attorney general.

Judge Jeanine Pirro, Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld completely demonized and trashed transgender Americans - portraying them as sexual predators lingering in women’s bathrooms. At the same time, they ignored a lawsuit filed against the company formerly run by Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Education that involved the sexual abuse of minor aged boys.

Anyone watching Fox News last week might have missed out on stories about dangerous air pollution in India, a news study that shows climate change is increasing the strength of hurricanes and Biden’s push to get congress to allocate more disaster relief for hurricane victims in multiple states.

Trump Share of the Popular Vote Fell Below 50%

Although the folks at Fox continue to crow about Trump’s landslide victory and resounding mandate the data shows a much closer race.

In the transcripts in the show I covered last week the term ‘mandate’ appeared 24 times while ‘landslide’ showed up seven times.

As more votes have been counted Trump dropped below a 50% majority. He also narrowly won in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If slightly more than 115,000 voters had chosen Harris over Trump in those three states she would have won the election.

According to the Cook Political Report the latest count:

• 49.86% Trump 77,034,326
• 48.26% Harris 74,564,077

In terms of percentages Trump’s popular vote margin was the fourth smallest for a winning president since 1960. In 2016 Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1% but lost to Trump in the electoral college by slim margins in a handful of states.

Trump did see gains in multiple demographics and improve his margins in deeply blue states but he ultimately won with only a 1.6% margin in the popular vote and thin margins in the Northern swing states.

Jessica Tarlov, the liberal voice on “The Five,” was the only Fox News host that brought up how Trump had fallen below a majority in the popular vote.

“One thing, though, that I. And I'm not saying that there isn't a lot of work to do, because there absolutely is for people who are talking about this as if we got completely decimated. The numbers don't bear that out. So Trump didn't cross 50% of the popular vote, so a majority of Americans didn't vote for him. And Senate Democrats performed really well. So people like Ruben Gallego, Tammy Baldwin, Jackie Rosen in Nevada, they ran 7 or 8 points ahead of Kamala Harris, which is what was predicted. And that does show that this normie coalition can exist. It was that Trump had a special source at the top of the ticket for a lot of people,” said Tarlov.

Anti-Trans Bigotry Was on Full Display on The Five

Last week Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) went on a rampage of sorts when she introduced a bill to ban transgender women from using women’s bathrooms and locker rooms on federal property.

Mace admitted that she was trying to prevent Sarah McBride (D-DE), the first openly transgender woman to serve in the House, from having access to women’s spaces. Speaker Johnson had already barred McBride from using women’s bathrooms in the Capitol and McBride said she would abide by his ruling.

According to reporting by The Hill Mace went so far as to sell merchandise related to her legislation hawking $35 t-shirts emblazoned with “come and take it” below a picture of a women’s bathroom sign with “Mace For Congress,” on the back.

On Wednesday multiple hosts on “The Five,” were equally enraged that a transperson might use a restroom for the gender they weren’t assigned at birth.

Greg Gutfeld, well known for his deep-seated hatred of trans people, started the discussion.

“Hence the infiltration of men in women's safe spaces. Unhealthy, somehow mentally unstable men and they claim it only affects a small percentage of trans. Then why are we forced to change entire systems if it's a small percentage? Including Title IX, buildings and bathrooms. It's about actually compelling society to adhere to a tiny percentage. And within that tiny percentage are a lot of men who are basically cosplaying as women as a form of perversion. Sexual perversion. The media as false compassion, while denying real compassion to the families who are losing relationships to their children and losing children entirely to an activist driven cult,” said Gutfeld.

Judge Jeanine Pirro also trashed Trans people.

“When will you learn that the American people don't want this, that the majority of people don't want to be kowtowing to a .01% of people who want to enter into my bathroom. I don't want a guy who's dressed as a woman who thinks she's a woman, whether he has his thing or not. I don't want him in my bathroom. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to wash my hands near him. I don't want him in there. You know what? Get your own friggin bathroom,” said Pirro.

“She has her own bathroom,” said Tarlov interrupting her.

“Go in your own unisex bathroom,” said Pirro.

“What she has her own bathroom?” asked Jesse Watters.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. All members of Congress have their own bathroom, but you know what? Good for Nancy Mace now that they lost you better learn why you lost. You claim to be so tolerant. You're not tolerant at all. You've got to be tolerant of the majority, and they've got to work their way around the majority. They're not equal to everybody else in terms of Title IX. They're not a specific category. So, fight in your own category and go to the bathroom in your own category,” said Pirro.

Then Jesse Watters gleefully mis-gendered McBride. He even referred to her as it.

“His name is Tim. Because I did a deep dive. It was Tim McBride. Before it was Sarah. Art major at American University. Married a man. Four days later, he died of oral cancer. That's cancer of the mouth. Worked for Human Rights Watch, which is probably the one organization that wants to tear Western civilization down - pillar by pillar. You know who's Congress? Woman. Man. She is Joe Biden. Congrats, Delaware,” said Watters.

Steve Doocy Went Rogue on Trump’s Mass Deportation Plans

Last week the word ‘deportation’ showed up 29 times in the transcripts from the shows I covered. On Tuesday Steve Doocy mentioned that Trump’s plan to deport at least one million undocumented immigrants might not be as easy as he claimed it would be on the campaign trail.

“They are going to prioritize people with criminal convictions and final removal orders. Last year, there were over a million of those ordered to leave, and it could take years just to remove that million people who have been told to leave. And so that's one of the problems. Also, the other problem for the current, future president is the fact that with the Department of Border Patrol, they currently have 7000 ICE officers. They deport 250,000 a year. Trump has said he wants to quadruple that number. So they're going to have to recruit a lot more. And the training academies are not equipped for that number. So, something's got to get,” said Doocy.

His co-hosts largely ignored his remarks. Everything Doocy said was correct, but Trump has much grander ambitions for his plan to expel 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Last week Trump confirmed that he intends to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to help with his deportation efforts. During his many campaign rallies also made said he would use local law enforcement to help round up immigrants.

The President-elect has also said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to help work around existing laws that would impede his efforts to deport 11 million people.

According to the Brennan Center:

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is a wartime authority that allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation. The law permits the president to target these immigrants without a hearing and based only on their country of birth or citizenship. Although the law was enacted to prevent foreign espionage and sabotage in wartime, it can be — and has been — wielded against immigrants who have done nothing wrong, have evinced no signs of disloyalty, and are lawfully present in the United States. It is an overbroad authority that may violate constitutional rights in wartime and is subject to abuse in peacetime.

The act was evoked three times, each during a major conflict - War of 1812, World War One, and World War Two when it became the basis behind Japanese internment camps where approx. 120,000 Japanese Americans and Americans of Japanese descent were forced to relocate and kept under surveillance for the duration of the war.

A much smaller group of German, and Italian Americans were also interned some of whom had known ties to fascist governments in Europe. The U.S. government never found any evidence of disloyalty among the Japanese Americans and Americans of Japanese descent.

The United States is not at war and we are not being invaded by a hostile foreign power. Most of what Trump has proposed would trigger an onslaught of legal challenges by human rights groups and immigration advocate organizations.

The ACLU has already filed a lawsuit against ICE seeking more information on Trump’s plans to expel migrants.

The Cast of “Fox & Friends” Has No Idea What The Dept. of Education Does

On Wednesday while discussing Trump’s plan to appoint Linda McMahon as Department of Education Secretary to help shut down the agency, Steve Doocy was the voice of reason again when he pointed out that the President-elect would need congressional approval which he is unlikely to get.

“The problem is, shuttering the Department of Education would require congressional approval. And there are a bunch of Republican congressmen, whose districts rely on federal money to keep the schools open. That's what the Department of Education looks like. Look at that budget. A quarter of $1 trillion. And we've heard Vivek Ramaswamy say a couple of days ago, shutting down the Department of Education would be a great idea. And Trump has said it as well. But she also has recently been the chairwoman of the American First Policy Institute. And they have put out some suggestions what they would like to see happen to the Department of Education. So I think this really is the roadmap to what she's going to do. They have suggested in the past stopping schools from promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts from history and expanding voucher programs for parents. So knowing Trump, if he was able to get those two things, he'd probably say that's a win,” said Doocy.

Brian Kilmeade brought up specific curriculum programs.

“Steve, don't you want to also get rid of the 1619 project curriculum and be able to put maybe a year or 250?” said Kilmeade.

“Well, that would be part of it. One of the two things that they did,” said Doocy.

“The 250th birthday of America is extremely important, I think. And this president's going to salute it. Why not put it in the curriculum from Washington,” said Kilmeade.

Ainsley Earhardt then weighed in.

“And go through the curriculum and make sure it's not so woke focused on reading and math and, and the subjects that our kids need to learn instead of teaching them too early about sex and transitioning and all of this,” said Earhardt.

None of the highly paid hosts on “Fox & Friends” seemed to know that the Department of Education does not set curriculum standards for public schools. It’s actually illegal for the Dept. of Education to mandate curriculum.

Curriculum standards are set by local school boards and state lawmakers. Most public schools only receive about 10% of their total funding from the Department of Education.

The two largest programs that the Dept. of Education pays for are:

• Title I, an $18.4 billion program that sends extra money to schools with high populations of low-income students.
• IDEA, a $14.2 billion program that helps schools pay for special education services for students with disabilities

The Department of education is also in charge of federal Pell Grants, work study programs and federal student loans.

The PBS News Hour - Pam Bondi Ignored Trump University’s Fraud

On Friday PBS White House correspondent Laura Barrón-López and Eric Lipton of The New York Times explored potential problems with Pam Bondi, Trump’s latest pick for Attorney General.

According to reporting by The New York Times in 2013 the New York State Attorney filed a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump and his for-profit trade school Trump University accusing him of “engaging in persistent fraudulent, illegal and deceptive conduct.” At the time of the litigation the school was already out of business.

That same year Bondi was looking into complaints surrounding the school but declined to start a formal investigation. Her decision came soon after the Trump Foundation, made a $25,000 donation to a PAC associated with Bondi.

The News Hour included a pre-recorded interview with Lipton.

“Pam Bondi was being asked, are you going to investigate Trump University as well? And it turns out that just about that same time, she, solicited a donation from Donald Trump for her reelection effort in Florida, and she ended up receiving a $25,000 donation from the Trump Foundation to a political action committee associated with her. And then ultimately, her office decided not to investigate Trump University. So, Pam Bondi, you know, it was a sequence of events that drew a lot of scrutiny,” said Lipton.

Barrón-López added more context to the story as she discussed it with PBS co-anchor Amna Nawaz.

“That donation that was made by Donald Trump's charity to Pam Bondi, political action committee, was illegal Amna. And it was one as well as a number of other similar donations that Trump's charity made that he ultimately ended up being fined for by the IRS and having to pay a penalty on,” said Barrón-López

Of course, no one at Fox News mentioned Trump University or any donations by the Trump Foundation when Bondi’s appointment was brought up.

Jessica Tarlov Managed to Get in a Child Sex Scandal Surrounding Linda McMahon

Donald J. Trump has a knack for selecting alleged sexual predators to lead the highest positions in the U.S. government. Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. between them have been accused of sexual harassment, sex trafficking, rape and statutory rape.

I guess it’s not that surprising since a jury found Donald J. Trump liable of sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll. To date 27 women have accused Trump of some form of sexual misconduct including rape.

Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon should have been a safe bet. McMahon is a 76-year-old grandmother who was the administrator of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term in office.

McMahon was the co-founder and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) which she managed for 29 years. During this time it has been alleged in a recent lawsuit she and her husband, the fellow co-founder of WWE Vince McMahon, knew that a high ranking employee was sexually abusing underage boys who were hired to help prepare wrestling matches.

Last week Jessica Tarlov was the only person on Fox News that mentioned the allegations against McMahon. On Wednesday on “The Five,” Tarlov mentioned the controversy while her co-hosts cut her off and transitioned to a commercial break.

“There is a pretty big abuse scandal going on with the WWE and it involves children, so people should check. . .”

Tarlov was cut off by Judge Jeanine Pirro.

“Oh, Okay everyone is involved with a scandal that involves children,” Pirro said sarcastically.

Greg Gutfeld bellowed over both of them as he announced the next segment then producers cut to a commercial break.

Trump Appoints an Author of Project 2025

For months Fox News hosts emphatically claimed that Donald J. Trump had absolutely nothing to do with the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise: Project 2025.”

Last week Trump picked Brendan Carr to lead the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). Carr is the author of Chapter 28 of “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise: Project 2025,” which focuses on the FCC.

On Monday Steve Doocy announced Trump’s decision to hire Carr to run the FCC. The Fox host made no mention of his ties to Project 2025.

“First up, 45-year-old Brendan Carr. He's the senior Republican right now in the FCC. He was nominated first by President Trump in 2017. And what's curious is he sent letters out to the heads of Meta and Google and Apple on Wednesday. And that just follows up on his vow to take on censorship. Also, he made national headlines after ripping the Saturday Night Live show for putting Harris on before the election without Trump, which violated, FCC rules. And that's why, NBC then gave Mr. Trump a little time after a NASCAR race. What's interesting is this guy, and Trump, for the most part, on exactly the same page. He's a disruptor of the status quo. He's going to go after social media. He's also a regulator, which, of course, Trump likes the one spot that they are not on the same page is TikTok. He has said essentially that it's a danger to national security and would like to see it banned. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has said he will save it from a ban and have it live a long life, essentially.”

Even Charles Payne Couldn’t Lie About Drill Baby Drill

On Wednesday Sean Hannity repeated Trump’s lies and exaggerations about increasing crude oil production in the United States.

“If Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can really cut $2 trillion in terms of federal spending, really cut it. If America, as Donald Trump is promising, becomes the most energy dominant, rich country on the face of the earth, we provide all of the energy needs for Western Europe. If we do those two things, would we pay off the nearly what, $40 trillion in debt would we be able to save Social Security, Medicare from insolvency? Would we be able to lower taxes and also allow extra money to catch up on on defense technology like hypersonic technology that China has, Russia has, we don't have. Would we be able to do that in four years?”

Fox News Business host Charles Payne responded.

“Not in four years, but we'd be on the road to doing it. The subsequent administration is going to have to do this, you know,” said Payne.

The oil and gas industry is a bit of a confusing mess which is why Trump was able to easily mislead U.S. voters about how it works.

For months Trump implied that U.S. taxpayers directly benefit when oil is extracted from U.S. soil and sold on the global market.

This is not how petroleum companies operate in the United States. The U.S. government does not own or operate oil companies. All oil and gas is extracted by private corporations, sometimes multi-national corporations, who sell it for whatever price they can get in the global marketplace.

Most crude oil and other fossil fuels are extracted in the U.S. is produced from privately held land. On private property petroleum companies work out a price for leases, bonds and royalties on the sales from oil and gas with each landowner.

The rate to drill on federal land (government owned) is generally much lower than what companies will pay to extract oil on state and privately owned land.

The only time the U.S. government gets a significant cut from the sale of crude oil is when it’s extracted from federally owned public land. Although the amount varies from year to year only about 10-20% crude oil is produced from land owned by the government.

Oil companies pay for leases to use the land and have to put up a bond that helps cover the costs of cleaning up and capping unused wells. For over 100 years oil and gas companies paid the federal government a royalty of 12.5% for crude oil extracted or drilled from public land.

President Joe Biden was the first president since 1920 to raise the royalty rate from 12.5% to 16.67%. Biden also raised the amount of money petroleum companies paid for bonds before they started drilling or fracking for oil.

For decades U.S. taxpayers were often on the hook for cleaning up abandoned wells after petroleum companies went bankrupt. The oil and gas industry is also heavily subsidized by every day taxpayers in a variety of different ways.

To further complicate things the oil and gas industry receives federal subsides. Estimates on the exact amount of these government handouts varies wildly as it’s a complex system of tax breaks, research and development grants and loan guarantees.

According to a recent report by U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), by some estimates U.S. taxpayers shell out about $20 billion every year to the fossil fuel industry.

Now back to Hannity’s statement regarding using revenue from the oil and gas industry to pay off the national debt.

Some Basic Math.

• $36 trillion - gross national debt
• $18.24 billion - 2023 total revenue from federal energy production on federal and tribal land (this includes renewable energy sources as well as fossil fuels)
• $1.43 billion was distributed to Tribes and Indian mineral owners
• $3.46 billion was distributed to the Reclamation Fund
• $1 billion was distributed to the Land and Water Conservation Fund
• $150 million was distributed to the Historic Preservation Fund
• $379 million was distributed to federal agencies
• After the other resources were allocated $7.09 billion went to the U.S. Treasury
• $244.4 billion - total revenue (not profits) of the U.S. oil and gas industry

How Much of the National Debt Could Be Paid Off From Oil and Gas?

0.67% - All revenue from oil and gas extracted in the U.S.

• If the U.S. government seized all the revenue generated by petroleum companies in the U.S. in 2023 it would pay off 0.67% of the national debt. This is a complete fantasy of course as it would be illegal for the U.S. government to blatantly steal revenue from private corporations.

0.05% - All revenue from federal energy production (including renewable sources)

• Let’s say the Trump administration seized every dime of revenue from federal energy production including from tribal lands and various government programs as broken down in the bullet list above. This would also be illegal and the $18.24 billion of total revenue would only account to 0.05% of the national debt.

0.019% - The actual amount from federal energy production that is allocated for the U.S. treasury. (this also includes revenue from renewable sources)

• This number is based on the $7.09 billion that went to the U.S. treasury from federal energy production in 2023 according to a report issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior. For context 2023 was a record breaking year for oil extraction in the U.S.

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. Due to space this week this list has been truncated to include the most important stories.

• Climate disasters
• The Indian capital was blanked in toxic smog as air pollution hit record levels. The poor air quality is caused by farmers illegally burning off farm waste in addition to car exhaust and other industrial emissions.
• A new study published in Environmental Research: Climate found that climate change is increasing the wind strength of hurricanes by an average of 18 miles per hour. Thirty out of 38 hurricanes researched in the study reached intensities roughly one category higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale compared to their expected strength in an environment without influence of human-caused climate change. 
• At the COP29 Climate Summit wealthy nations pledged $300 billion a year by 2035 to help poorer countries adapt to severe weather conditions caused by climate change. Leaders of developing countries were upset by the amount as they said they will need much more.
• The Biden Administration pushed Congress to pass the president’s emergency request to approve nearly $100 billion in additional FEMA emergency disaster aid to help areas devastated by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
• After Trump won the presidential election the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a letter urging the next administration and decision makers across government to recognize the free press. “The fundamental right to a free press, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, must not be impaired. Legal persecution, imprisonment, physical violence, and even killings have sadly become familiar threats for journalists across the world. They must not now also become commonplace in the United States, where threats of violence and online harassment have in recent years become routine.”
• According to a confidential report by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency Iran has increased its levels of weapons-grade enriched uranium despite international pressure to rein in its nuclear program.
• In Hong Kong 45 pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers received 4-10 year prison sentences under a 2020 national security law issued by the Chinese government meant to crack down on dissent.
• PBS produced several extended segments on the brutality of gang warfare in Haiti. Despite a U.N.-approved security mission that deployed in June large swaths of the country remain under gang control. Over 700,000 people have been displaced as a result of the violence.
• In Brazil federal police formally accused former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others of attempting a coup to keep him in office after his defeat in the 2022 elections. Brazil’s Supreme Courtwill refer them to Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, who decides either to formally charge Bolsonaro and put him on trial, or toss the investigation.
• The Danish government admitted it was monitoring a Chinese bulk carrier off its coast after two undersea cables were ruptured in the Baltic Sea. Fox News also reported on the story but implicated Russia while giving few details on the incident.
• The Department of Justice asked a judge to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser as part of an ongoing antitrust case. The DOJ has argued that Google has made it nearly impossible for any other company to get a foothold in the marketplace.
• In Minnesota two men were found guilty for their role in a human smuggling scheme that caused the death of Indian immigrants who froze to death while trying to cross in the northern U.S. border from Canada.
• According to a new U.N. report 281 aid workers were killed last year - the most in any given year. The war in Gaza has driven the surge in casualties. Most were staff members of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
• The Texas Supreme Court voted to keep new state-written curriculum infused with Bible stories on a list of K-5 reading and English language arts materials for potential use in the 2025-26 school year. Many legal experts say the material violates the "establishment clause" of the First Amendment, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

By the Numbers