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sean hannity
The Mugshot Worth A Thousand Words?
A defiant photograph isn’t “news.” It’s a symbol, an image. Which is exactly what Donald Trump is.
Aug 25, 2023
I want to talk about symbols, images, and fascism.
Here is Trump’s mugshot from his arraignment yesterday in Georgia. It’s a look of defiance—which I’m sure he practiced repeatedly beforehand—intended for his supporters and his Republican base to feel defiant, too.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this is Trump’s thousand-word response to Wednesday night’s Republican debate that he declined to attend.
He is as close to America has come to a fascist leader, who doesn’t want his followers to think or analyze. He wants them only to feel.
He timed his arraignment in Georgia for yesterday so that it—and this photo—would dominate Thursday’s and Friday’s news, rather than anything or anyone emerging from the debate.
But a defiant photograph isn’t “news.” It’s a symbol, an image. Which is exactly what Donald Trump is. He has no political platform, no specific policy agenda, no new ideas, and no plan for what he’ll do if he gets a second term.
He exists as a symbol for the anger, discontent, bigotry, and vindictiveness he has unleashed in America.
He is as close to America has come to a fascist leader, who doesn’t want his followers to think or analyze. He wants them only to feel.
Trump’s lackeys fell in line, expressing the defiance Trump projected in his mug shot.
On Newsmax, Sarah Palin called for civil war.
Fox’s Laura Ingraham told viewers that Trump’s arrest was proof that government officials are trying to “take them out.”
Fox’s Sean Hannity said the Department of Justice will target Republicans “until there’s nothing left of the party.”
All brainless bile.
Last Thursday, Trump complained that Fox News “purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not. Just like 2016 all over again… And then they want me to debate!”
Of course he’s angry. For the man who’s all symbol and image and without substance, a photo like the following conveys a brainless buffoon. It must drive him crazy.
But Trump is not a brainless buffoon. He’s a cunning marketer, a diabolic manipulator of the public, a sly producer of his own daily reality show. His lead in the GOP’s presidential sweepstakes has grown. He will almost certainly be the Republican candidate for president next year—even if he’s in jail.
How to debate a symbol? How to take on an image? How should Biden and the Democrats, and everyone who cares deeply about this country, respond to a demagogue who obsesses over what he projects rather than what he stands for? How to deal with a fascist who doesn’t want followers to think but only to feel rage?
Expose him for who he is.
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'I Did Not Believe It For One Second,' Hannity Says of Trump's Big Lie While Under Oath
One public policy expert called sworn depositions from Sean Hannity and other Fox personnel the "strongest evidence yet to emerge publicly that some Fox employees knew that what they were broadcasting was false."
Dec 22, 2022
Sean Hannity, the Fox News opinion host and erstwhile purveyor of Donald Trump's "Big Lie," did not believe the disgraced former president's 2020 election fraud claims "for one second," details from a sworn deposition revealed Wednesday.
Hannity, who was deposed as part of Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News, was asked under oath if he believed claims by conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, amplified on his show, that the Colorado-based company was part of a plot to rig its voting machines to switch large numbers of votes from Trump to President Joe Biden.
"I did not believe it for one second," Hannity testified, Dominion attorney Stephen Shackelford Jr. said Wednesday in a Delaware Superior Court hearing, according to NPR.
"And yet he pushed these lies anyway," tweeted Rantt Media co-founder Ahmed Baba. "Fox News hosts knowingly lie to their viewers and admit it. This should be a bigger scandal."
Hannity's admission echoed sworn testimony from other Fox News personnel, including opinion host Tucker Carlson and executive vice president Meade Cooper, who "confirmed under oath she never believed the lies about Dominion," Shackelford said.
"Tucker Carlson, he tried to squirm out of it at his deposition," the lawyer added before the judge cut him off.
Public policy expert Maya Contreras called the depositions the "strongest evidence yet to emerge publicly that some Fox employees knew that what they were broadcasting was false."
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Trump Mulling Streaming Online Channel to Challenge Fox News: Report
"He plans to wreck Fox, no doubt about it," a source familiar with the president's plans told Axios.
Nov 11, 2020
President Donald Trump is considering launching a digital media company to challenge Fox News' supremacy among right-wing viewers, according to a report published at Axios on Thursday.
According to the report, Trump is fuming over Fox's coverage before and during the 2020 election--especially the way the network preempted other corporate media outlets in calling the close race in Arizona for President-elect Joe Biden.
The president's vexation with Fox--whose opinion program hosts including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham have been among his staunchest media allies--was apparent even before the Arizona controversy during an Election Day appearance on "Fox & Friends," another Trump safe space.
"Fox has changed a lot," Trump said. Discussing the different results of the 2016 and 2020 elections, the president remarked: "Somebody said, what's the biggest difference between this and four years ago? And I say Fox."
"I'm not complaining, I'm just telling people," he added. "It's one of the biggest differences this season compared to last."
The president escalated his attacks on Fox on Thursday, tweeting about the network's "completely collapsed" daytime ratings and calling himself the "golden goose" that it has forgotten.
According to a Trump confidant who spoke to Axios on condition of anonymity, the president has been doing more than just complaining about Fox--he is said to be plotting his revenge against the once-favored network he feels spurned him.
"He plans to wreck Fox, no doubt about it," the source said. "He's going to spend a lot of time slamming Fox."
According to the source, rather than try to take on the biggest and most popular right-wing network on its own turf--cable television--Trump is considering online options, chiefly a subscription-based digital media channel with streaming online content that would be a direct competitor to Fox's $5.99 monthly Fox Nation offering.
Fox, while taking the Trump threat seriously, doesn't seem very afraid of it. While there is little doubt that any new Trump channel would steal ratings share from Fox, the network's chief executive said he welcomes the challenge.
"We love competition," Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on a November 3 earnings call. "We have always thrived with competition... Fox News has been the number one network."
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Lindsey Graham Admits That Making Voting More Accessible Renders GOP Victories Impossible
The senator's comment, said one journalist, "is not something that is said by a person who actually wants to represent people in a democracy."
Nov 09, 2020
In a Monday night appearance on Fox News, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the quiet part out loud--twice.
First, he attempted to delegitimize the results of the 2020 election, accusing the Democratic Party of cheating to win--by making voting more accessible through mail-in ballots--and second, he admitted that improving the quality of democracy in the United States would render future GOP victories all but impossible.
" Republicans win because of our ideas and we lose elections because [Democrats] cheat," Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
On social media, reporter Andrew Feinberg noted that "this is not something that is said by a person who actually wants to represent people in a democracy."
"Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee telling an audience of several million hardcore Republicans that any election loss for their party is by definition illegitimate [is] insanely dangerous stuff," said Matthew Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog that monitors conservative misinformation in the U.S.
Later in his remarks, Graham claimed that "if we don't do something about voting by mail, we're going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country."
Jacobin's Luke Savage paraphrased Graham with acerbic wit, tweeting that the implication of Graham's statement is that "if America were actually democratic, we'd never stand a chance in hell."
Savage's comment about how the Republican Party benefits from the anti-democratic nature of the U.S. political system, which progressives have pointed out has generated long-term "minority rule" by an unpopular GOP, builds on his analysis of how the Electoral College, the Supreme Court, and the Senate--described as "arguably the most unrepresentative legislature found anywhere in the democratic world"--together have produced presidents and justices who were not supported by a majority of voters.
This "trifecta," Savage said, "functions as a constitutionally embedded check on popular and majority rule," on top of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other assaults on civil rights.
Just how undemocratic are these "counter-majoritarian" institutions?
Savage noted that, thanks to the Electoral College, President Donald Trump won the White House in 2016 despite receiving 2.8 million fewer votes than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, "a president chosen by a minority of voters place[d] no less than three justices with lifetime appointments and the power to strike down legislation passed by Congress... onto the Supreme Court," he continued.
Furthermore, Savage added, the Senate's "principle of equal representation regardless of population gives wildly different weights to individual votes and effectively empowers a small minority to overrule the rest of the electorate," a situation that, when combined with filibuster rules, means that "lawmakers representing less than 11% of the population can block any bill from coming to a vote on the floor."
David Daley, author of the national bestseller Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count and the forthcoming Unrigged: How Americans Fought Back, Slayed the Gerrymander, and Reinvented Democracy, recently interviewed several GOP operatives for The New Republic, including Bill Kristol, whom he described as "the neoconservative force behind a generation of Republican policy positions, who has turned Never Trumper."
Kristol told Daley that the GOP "lost faith in democracy. We lost faith that we could compete for votes and win elections. Therefore, you've got to start restricting the electorate."
"First we're going to gerrymander. Then we're going to suppress the votes in inner cities. Then we're going to discredit mail-in voting," Kristol said, detailing his party's strategy to win in spite of its lack of popular legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of voters. "It's all of a piece in terms of the unwillingness to value a fair, open, and legitimate intellectual process."
"That's very bad for democratic principles and very bad for a political party," Kristol acknowledged.
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'WTF Please Listen to This': Trump Delivers Rambling, Incoherent Rant in Response to Hannity's Softball Question on Second Term Priorities
"He doesn't understand the presidency very well."
Jun 26, 2020
President Donald Trump on Thursday night stumbled his way through an incoherent, rambling answer to a softball question on his priorities for a second term from Fox News anchor Sean Hannity during a town hall with voters.
"This incoherent babble doesn't even come close to answering a simple question," tweeted journalist Dennis Mersereau.
Hannity, a unflinchingly sycophantic supporter of the president, asked Trump what he planned for his next term and to reflect on his first four years in the White House.
"If you hear in 131 days from now, at some point in the night or early morning: 'We can now project Donald J. Trump has been re-elected the 45th president of the United States'--let's talk," said Hannity. "What's at stake in this election as you compare and contrast, and what are your top priority items for a second term?"
Trump's reply did not address the question but rather devolved into a rambling series of non sequiturs about sleeping in Washington and his distaste for former National Security Advisor John Bolton:
Well, one of the things that will be really great, you know, the word experience is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience. I've always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It's a very important meaning. I never did this before--I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington I think 17 times, all of the sudden, I'm the president of the United States. You know the story, I'm riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our First Lady and I say, 'This is great.' But I didn't know very many people in Washington, it wasn't my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now I know everybody. And I have great people in the administration. You make some mistakes, like you know an idiot like Bolton, all he wanted to do is drop bombs on everybody. You don't have to drop bombs on everybody. You don't have to kill people.
"This isn't a man with a plan or who cares about Americans' wellbeing," tweeted progressive activist Melanie D'Arrigo. "He's a 140 decibel megaphone amplifying the GOP's hateful agenda."
The president's reply did not shake Hannity, who immediately changed the subject as if nothing had happened. But for critics of Trump, the response was another example of how out of touch the president is with his actual electoral prospects and the stakes of the contest--and raises ongoing questions about his mental sharpness.
"Trump can't even hit a softball from Hannity at this point," filmmaker Adam Best said on Twitter.
At Bloomberg, columnist Jonathan Bernstein opined that Trump just doesn't get what his job is, even after nearly four years in office.
"He doesn't understand the presidency very well," wrote Bernstein.
If Trump can't nail an easy question on Fox News, Rolling Stone's Peter Wade wrote, he's in trouble.
"Trump had it all: Home-field advantage, an adoring audience, a pitcher who was determined to make him look good by serving up nothing but softballs, and yet again the president struck out," wrote Wade.
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The Deadly Fox News-Trump Syndicate
Deny, promote quack remedies, attack the experts, blame others, and change the subject to "freedom."
Jun 10, 2020
As the coronavirus crisis rages on, Fox News is contributing almost as much to the deaths and disease as is Trump's White House.
Trump spouts a shocking amount of misinformation during his daily press briefings, but it's Fox News' equally misleading coverage of the crisis that closes the lethal circuit of lies.
It's easy to feel outraged and defeated by Fox News. ("I can't believe they're saying that! How are they getting away with this?") But it's important to understand its formula for misleading Americans, particularly in the crisis we're in.
The formula goes like this:
First, deny there's a problem. Lay the groundwork for later conspiracy theories by calling it "a hoax." Blame political opponents for "using" the issue to make Trump look bad. Mock anyone taking it seriously, and downplay the consequences.
Then, when deaths mount and the coronavirus can no longer be denied, promote the same dangerous miracle cures Trump promotes.
Third, attack the experts. Question what public-health experts recommend, such as social distancing. Question whether the death toll from Covid-19 is even true, and broadcast misleading graphics. Attack the experts themselves, and parade around alternative "experts" to promote an array of conspiracy theories.
Fourth, deflect attention from Trump's botched response by blaming others. Blame China! As the virus hits black and brown communities especially hard, trot out the white supremacists.
If nothing else works, revise history.
Finally, make reopening the economy about "freedom," and attack Democratic governors who are trying to keep people safe.
That's Fox News's tried-and-true formula, folks: Deny, promote quack remedies, attack the experts, blame others, and change the subject to "freedom."
It works for Fox. It keeps Fox viewers. It helps protect Trump.
But it is making a deadly calamity even more deadly.
Polls show that a majority of Republicans think it's perfectly safe to go to establishments like nail salons and dine-in restaurants, and a new study found that Sean Hannity's viewers were less likely to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Meanwhile, a conspiracy theory peddled by Tucker Carlson made it all the way to the White House, where it fell on Trump's receptive ears and led him to yank a multimillion-dollar grant to an organization on the frontlines of coronavirus research.
In theory, the FCC prohibits broadcasting false information about a catastrophe if the broadcaster knows the information is false and will cause substantial "public harm" if aired. But Trump's FCC won't do a thing, and Fox News has no broadcast ethics. It has no journalistic integrity.
If this formula of deceit shows us anything, it's that they know what they're doing, and they don't care who they hurt.
So, what can you do?
First, make a ruckus. Speak out. Write letters to your local paper, and local Fox News outlets. That's precisely what forced Fox to cut ties with Trish Regan, and with 5G Conspiracy peddlers Diamond and Silk.
Second, boycott Fox's major advertisers. That helped get Bill O'Reilly off the air.
Third: leverage your power. Correct Fox's lies when you see them. Share this video with Fox News viewers you care about.
You might just save a life.
Watch:
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How Authoritarianism Short-Circuits the Lizard Brain
The GOP’s slavish groveling overrides – for once – its basic instinct for fear and panic.
Mar 14, 2020
The tendency of Republicans both to respond to and sow fear and panic has been with us for decades. Yet during the coronavirus pandemic, to anyone who bothers to look, we are seeing a new and strangely unremarked twist to their behavior, a development that gives valuable -- and chilling -- insight into Republican psychology.
During the early 1950s, Republicans stampeded themselves and much of the country into a state of hysteria over homegrown Communist subversion. That there were a few Communist spies is undeniable, but Republicans vastly overestimated their number. Senator Joseph McCarthy, the ringleader of the GOP vigilantes, was unable to uncover a single one, settling for ruining the reputations of innocent Americans.
Over the years, conservatives (I use the term interchangeably with Republicans) have swooned over various moral panics, such as the evergreen fear that gays will convert their children into perverts, or the imagined war against Christmas that secular humanists supposedly wage with the implacable ferocity of the Stalingrad campaign. Since 9/11, panic over Muslims has been a hardy perennial: the GOP faithful are forever on guard lest their city council should impose Sharia law on hapless Christians. Never mind that for the last decade, domestic right-wing terrorist incidents have greatly outpaced incidents committed by Muslims.
There is a reason for these inappropriately fearful responses that is related to brain physiology. Strongly conservative individuals literally have different brains than the rest of the population. MRI tests have shown that different centers of the brain light up more robustly in these persons than others, and their amygdala - the so-called "lizard brain" that controls the threat response - is larger than average. To what extent this characteristic is an inherited tendency and to what extent socialization alters the highly adaptable components of the brain is debatable.
This is not to say that there are not powerful evolutionary reasons for a fight-or-flight response: some threats in our pre-history (say, an approaching saber-toothed tiger) were real. So is the instinct not to walk casually amid automobile traffic. But when fear is exaggerated and the response irrational it can impede long-term survival, for the human species needs to confront and intelligently overcome risk in order to progress above the level of feces-throwing primates.
Some aversion instincts are deeply wired in everyone, regardless of ideology: such as the impulse to avoid the sources of suspected infectious disease. This is so heavily ingrained that the mere sight of some disgusting object, such as a rotting animal corpse, will trigger the immune system to produce more antibodies. This even can occur from looking at pictures of sick persons.
All the more surprising, then, is the nonchalant response of most Republicans to the coronavirus pandemic. You'd think it would stimulate their lizard brains to hyper-alertness, but no.
From the president, who once said the virus was a hoax (then predictably denied that he said what he said) to Rush Limbaugh, who claimed it was only a common cold, to Congressman Matt Gaetz (a man who habitually acts like the insufferable smartass all of us encountered in the eighth-grade), who showed up on the House floor wearing a gas mask to mock the Democrats' concern, Republicans have demonstrated derision and indifference. Even the fact that many of them were exposed to, or even contracted, the virus at the annual CPAC convention has not improved their lackadaisical attitude. (That CPAC has transitioned from virally broadcasting noxious ideas to more literal virus spreading is an irony that future historians may note with bemusement.)
This behavior is not confined to GOP politicians and rabble-rousers. It began with anecdotal evidence that some Fox News-addicted elderly were not regarding the threat of the virus seriously and weren't taking personal protective measures. But polls have also found that there is a statistically significant difference between the reaction of ordinary Democrats and Republicans to the outbreak. A whopping 72 percent of Republicans trust the "information" (sic) provided by President Trump, whose performance has been so abysmal, and so full of lies, that a child of eight could see through them.
What accounts for this astonishing behavior? I have written before about American conservatives' authoritarianism, a trait that has starkly accelerated during Trump's period of riotous misrule. This cultish instinct to blindly follow the direction of their leaders, and to conform their opinions to those of their own in-group, has become so strong that even in the face of disease it appears to have overridden even deep-rooted human aversion instincts, as well as their own habitual, hypertrophied sense of social fear.
The transcendent power of authoritarianism over immature minds can explain otherwise baffling incidents in history. Why did members of the Charlemagne assault battalion, Frenchmen who had no rational stake in Nazism or Germany, die suicidally in the rubble of Berlin, perishing to defend a Fuhrer who considered France the hereditary enemy of Germany? Why do Republicans seem to think they have to scoff at a global pandemic in order to "own the libs?"
The GOP has not yet gone quite as far as the Charlemagne unit, but make no mistake: the core tenets of American conservatism in the age of Trump are genuinely crazy. If Republicans, goaded and cheered on by dangerous imbeciles like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, continue to maintain their grip of governmental power, the results will not be pretty.
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Politicon Lineup Exposes Event as 'Circus': Critics
"Why should the average voter invest in US politics if those running it think it's all a sport?"
Sep 10, 2019
Progressives beomaned the fact that the nation's premiere political convention, Politicon, is once again placing hard-right figures like Jordan Peterson and Ann Coulter onstage with mainstream political commentators in a now-familiar move by the nation's media and government elite that uses the event's lineup to launder the extreme right.
"Politicon is a circus for godless political grifters and it's shocking that so many decent people still participate," tweeted Vox's Carlos Maza.
It's not just Coulter and Peterson--the duo will be joined at the event by former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Fox News host Sean Hannity, Iraq War booster David Frum, and others. Former Sen. Al Franken, former Democratic operative Donna Brazile, and CNN's Chris Cillizza are among the mainstream politicos at the event.
"Al Franken coming to you live with my good friend Ann Coulter, with whom I may have some collegial disagreements but at the end of the day we're both Americans god dammit," Twitter user @zlingman said sardonically.
Some of the attendees with history could run into one another, creating the potential for stick situations, The Week explained:
Politicon, now in its fifth year, brands itself as an "unconventional political convention," though unconventional is perhaps too soft a term. Sure, former FBI Director James Comey has made the morning (and evening, and late night) show rounds, but now he'll appear on the same stage as Sanders, who spread misinformation about his firing. And Jordan Peterson, a men's rights advocate who, as far as we know, only eats beef, will for some reason give an uncontested keynote.
But it appears unlikely that there will be any conflict as the event is billed as a tony celebration of politics where everyone sets aside their partisanship in order to take part in "endless humor and exhilarating conversation."
The event is the kind of thing that leads people to take a jaundiced view of politics, media critic Adam Johnson said in a tweet.
"This ethos is the single biggest driver of cynicism," said Johnson. "Why should the average voter invest in US politics if those running it think it's all a sport?"
Maybe it's time to start over, opined Willamette University professor Seth Cotlar.
"Is it possible to hit the reset button on a nation's political culture," Cotlar wondered, "and start over from scratch?"
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Hannity Mercilessly Mocked for Proposing Armed Guards in US Schools, Shopping Malls After Shootings
"Welcome to Sean Hannity's America. You head to the mall to buy overpriced garbage at Best Buy, and spend the next 30 to 40 minutes wondering if the jumpy retired cop will hear a balloon pop and start mag dumping into the crowd."
Aug 06, 2019
Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday proposed flooding the nation's schools and malls with armed guards to prevent more mass shootings, a response to two shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio that drew ridicule from his critics.
Hannity, who is one of President Donald Trump's closest unofficial advisers, suggested the policy during a segment discussing the shootings.
Media Matters for America transcribed the comments:
I'd like to see the perimeter of every school in America surrounded, secured by retired police--which you are--retired Secret Service--which you are--military, and I want guys to donate 15 hours. I think we could cover every school, every hour, every day.
Add a metal detector, and I think we're going to have safer schools. Have one armed guard on every floor of every school, all over every mall, the perimeter, and inside every hall of every mall. Now, that gives us an instant response opportunity that we normally wouldn't have.
"The most Fox element of all this is that Hannity's calling for retired police to man the front lines in this important effort," said Deadspin editor David Roth. "He knows his audience."
The proposal, which conveniently avoided any mention of the Texas shooter's right-wing, racist motivations for his attack, was met with mockery.
"He thinks more guns will solve the gun violence problem," said activist Holly Figueroa O'Reilly.
The Intercept's Ryan Grim mused that Hannity might not be in touch with retail reality.
"Does Sean know the malls are all closing?" wondered Grim.
The plan just doesn't work on the merits, said sportswriter Dave Hogg.
"Does Hannity also want to put armed guards outside every bar? Every place of worship? Every food festival? Every block party? Every civic building?" Hogg said. "How many armed guards would it have taken to cover Virginia Tech's campus?"
Even if the malls were filled with armed retired police officers, said Media Matters reporter Brendan Karet, that's no guarantee of safety.
"Welcome to Sean Hannity's America," Karet tweeted. "You head to the mall to buy overpriced garbage at Best Buy, and spend the next 30 to 40 minutes wondering if the jumpy retired cop will hear a balloon pop and start mag dumping into the crowd."
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Here's What Trump's Fox News Cabinet Wants Him to do About Iran
Most of Trump's Fox advisers support some sort of military strike
Jun 21, 2019
President Donald Trump is getting divergent views from the trusted members of his Fox News cabinet about how to respond to rising tensions between the United States and Iran -- but almost all of them support some sort of military strike on Iranian targets.
In recent months, an escalating pattern of tit-for-tat maneuvers has drawn the two nations closer to direct military confrontation. On Thursday night, in response to what the U.S. says was Iran downing an unmanned American surveillance drone in international waters, Trump reportedly ordered a retaliatory military strike on Iranian targets. He then reversed his decision while the operation was underway.
Several senior administration officials, including national security adviser and former Fox News contributor John Bolton, a longtime Iran hawk, reportedly favored a military response. But top Pentagon officials (echoing many external national security experts) reportedly warned that even a limited U.S. military strike could trigger an Iranian escalation, leading to a wider conflagration that might spiral out of control.
This reported divide among the president's official advisers is being mirrored in the advice he is receiving through his television set. Fox's hosts and guests are an important source of information for Trump, who watches hours of coverage each day and often tweets about segments that catch his eye, and their opinions can shape his worldview and actions.
With one key exception, pro-Trump commentators at the network have mostly been recklessly arguing that the president should strike Iran and can do so without risking an escalation.
Friday morning on Fox & Friends, the hosts differed on the wisdom of Trump calling off the strike the night before but broadly agreed that a military response was inevitable and could be achieved without risk.
Co-host Brian Kilmeade was harshly critical of Trump throughout the broadcast, slamming what he depicted as the president's lack of action in the face of one-sided Iranian aggression.
"They blow up four tankers and we do nothing," he argued. "When they blow up our drone that costs $130 million and we do nothing, we know it's not going to end there. So at some point, in the Middle East, no action looks like weakness, and weakness begets more attacks."
Kilmeade scoffed at the notion of engaging in additional diplomacy with Iran, saying it "makes us look so weak" to do so at this point.
Kilmeade scoffed at the notion of engaging in additional diplomacy with Iran, saying it "makes us look so weak" to do so at this point. He also claimed, "If it was President Obama, ... every Republican would be losing their mind. So I think people have to be consistent here and be concerned about America's image and our strength."
His co-hosts, Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt, offered a much more charitable view of Trump's reaction, effectively saying that they have faith that Trump knows what he's doing and will respond in due time. "The president appears measured and reasonable in saying, 'OK, you know what, before we do anything, we're going to try to talk to them one last time,'" Doocy said.
Pete Hegseth, a co-host of the program's weekend edition who also privately advises Trump, staked out a middle ground during a guest appearance on the show. He argued that a military response was necessary and inevitable, saying, "The reason we have international waters and international air space in the world today is the United States Navy and the United States Air Force. If we allow our drones, manned or unmanned, to be shot down and we don't respond, that's going to create a world where those spaces are contested. You cannot allow this to happen. This is -- you got to strike back."
While Hegseth, unlike Kilmeade, avoided directly criticizing Trump's response, he suggested that it would be a problem if Iran did not quickly improve its behavior and the president continued to avoid military action.
While these Fox hosts and sometime Trump advisers were divided over how the president responded, they largely downplayed the possibility that a military strike could lead to a dangerous escalation.
Meanwhile, Joey Jones, a retired Marine and guest on the program, told the hosts, "Listen, I deployed to Afghanistan, I deployed to Iraq. I don't want to see anyone deployed. I think if Iran provoked us to that point, it would be a pretty quick and easy war. I really do believe that."
Trump apparently tuned in to the network's morning show Fox & Friends at least at some point on Friday morning, as he tweeted about a segment that ran in its 7 a.m. hour. He did not mention the program's response to him calling off the Iran strike.
On Thursday night, before the news broke that Trump had ordered and then called off a military response, Fox's three prime-time hosts were similarly split over what the president should do.
Sean Hannity, the network star who is also reportedly one of the president's most influential advisers, was the most bellicose of the three, stressing that Trump "does not want war" and that a military strike would not risk one. "In coming days, we will know if the mullahs are smart enough to take the opportunity, which is a small window -- it may not even exist within five minutes," he said. "Because if they don't, the president will have no choice. He will bomb the hell out of them."
"If they do not end this hostility, if they do not stop, the mullahs of Iran will feel pain, I predict, like never before," he added. "And it will -- they will earn it. They will make it happen."
Like Hannity, Ingraham argued that Iran has engaged in "blatant provocation" and said she would support "a targeted show of force" if Trump believes it "can produce the intended deterrence." But she was more forthright in warning against any wider war, saying Trump was elected in part because of his repudiation of the Bush administration's hawkish foreign policy and so the U.S. "must be wary of doing anything that will draw us into another long-term conflict in the region."
Notably, Ingraham couched her opposition to a broader war in explicitly political terms, saying, "The only real obstacles that I see to Trump's winning in 2020 are one, an economic collapse and two, a new American war. That risks Trump throwing in with the Bush war hawks and a repudiation of his own doctrine of principled realism in foreign policy."
By contrast, Tucker Carlson, who has reportedly counseled Trump directly on Iran, warned on Thursday's program that any military strike could spiral out of control. "The same people who lured us into the Iraq quagmire 16 years ago are demanding a new war, this one with Iran," he said, adding that Trump, "to his great credit, appears to be skeptical of this--very skeptical."
Carlson slammed the "permanent foreign policy establishment in Washington" for criticizing Trump for not responding militarily to Iran. "None of these people will admit their actual intentions," he said. "They'll tell you they don't really want to war with Iran. That's a crock. They want a war badly, badly enough to lie about it. That's why they're putting American troops into situations where conflict is inevitable in order to start a war."
So far, Carlson's view seems to be carrying the day. But by its nature, the Fox-Trump feedback loop creates instability as the president is famously impulsive and can quickly change his mind based on input from the television. It's unclear what the next few days will bring.
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