Decoding Fox News

Last week on Fox overpaid television personalities tried to fake their way through a war they didn’t understand. As the president changed the reasons he started the military conflict with Iran the folks at Fox struggled to forge a coherent message about it. The propaganda machine sputtered and stumbled. The network kept repeating Trump’s mixed messages: * The war was already over/The war will be over soon/This isn’t a war * High gas prices are a small price to pay for freedom/Gas prices will drop immediately/Americans don’t care about high gas prices * There will be no ground invasion of U.S. troops/There might be a short ground invasion of U.S. troops * We’ve killed their leadership/The new leadership is worse than the old leadership * Trump is the peace president/Trump has started military conflicts with seven different countries * This war will bring long-term peace/Every problem in the world is caused by Iran * Russia is helping Iran/Russia is not a concern/This war is about China * The U.S. is NOT fighting Iran for Israel/Sean Hannity featured a 21 minute interview with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu When Fox News hosts weren’t talking out of both sides of their mouths, they were promoting Trump’s lies. * Americans overwhelmingly approve of Trump’s decision to attack Iran - several polls say otherwise * Iran was capable of a nuclear attack on the U.S. or Israel - despite no evidence supporting this * The people of Iran will rise up and take over their government - so far no such movement has formed. It could be because people don’t want to stage a revolution while being attacked by the U.S. and Israel * Trump’s promises of ‘no new wars’ did not mean he’s an isolationist In the four years I’ve covered Fox News the past week is the weakest I’ve ever seen the network. Instead of a streamlined well thought out strategy to promote the war the network’s messaging is a sloppy mess full of contradictions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Thank you Caroline Henry, Harshi Peiris, Ph.D., Kiwi Rebel, CO, eric, and many others for tuning into my live video with Charlie Sykes and Jim Acosta! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Last week Fox News tried to do three things - venerate the president, trash Democrats and convince its viewers that the Epstein files were somehow all about the network’s favorite arch nemesis Hillary Clinton. By the end of the week Fox got slammed by a news story it couldn’t ignore - the U.S. military attack on Iran. Before Donald J. Trump made the wildly risky move to attack Iran he had hit a bit of a rough patch. An investigation by NPR and other outlets found evidence that the DOJ had withheld interviews by a woman who accused President Trump of sexually abusing her when she was a minor. Fox News completely ignored this bombshell and tried to hype up Bill and Hillary Clinton’s testimony about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Hillary and Bill Clinton’s testimony about the Epstein files proved to be another nothing burger for the propaganda network. The Clintons did not revealed any new information that could link them to a crime or any wrongdoing. Trump’s incredibly long State of the Union address was so dull and lackluster his personal propaganda network (Fox News) spent most of its airtime after the speech attacking Democrats rather than praising Trump. Recent polls have shown any gains Trump made with Hispanic and Black voters have completely evaporated while independent, young and some lower income voters have also soured on the president. Democrats continue to outperform in local and state races while grocery prices remain stubbornly high. Since Friday the network has enthusiastically beaten the drums of war in a conflict few Americans wanted. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Thank you Julie Duffy Dillon, It’s Time, Jackie Taylor Miller, Nick G, A Dude On The Couch, Oddwood, and many others for tuning into my live video with Chris Sampson! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Fox News hosts generally seemed a bit panicked about how Trump would handle the speech. After Trump was finished Laura Ingraham praised him at length while Sean Hannity focused on trashing Democrats. The tone on the network was less than confident. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Trump’s mountain of broken promises, radical foreign policy decisions and unorthodox economic policies are causing deep damage to his MAGA brand. Last week the Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees, ruled against Trump’s use of IEEPA to issue tariffs. The court’s ruling was only one of many failures for Trump last week as newly revised jobs data showed a major contraction in the labor market last year. The trade deficit in 2025 showed little improvement despite Trump’s widespread use of tariffs and the fourth quarter GDP reading was well below expectations. According to multiple polls Americans have tired of Trump’s harsh immigration policies, and military threats to foreign countries. Most voters have no interest in conquering Greenland, crushing Cuba, managing Venezuela or invading Iran. Grocery prices and utility bills remain elevated while Trump gaslights the American public insisting that costs for everything have dropped dramatically. Health insurance premiums for millions of Americans have dramatically increased while SNAP and Medicaid benefits have been cut. Meanwhile the president remains obsessed with his gigantic White House ballroom and plans for an oversized monumental arch built in his honor. The glorious leader has lost support among nearly every demographic except for his cultish base of supporters. There are even signs that diehard MAGA fans are losing faith. Underneath all of the spin more sinister details surrounding Trump’s possible involvement with Jeffrey Epstein’s many heinous crimes and sex trafficking operation remains. Fox News is desperate to keep the Trump myth alive either by ignoring stories that make the president look bad or spending excessive amounts of coverage on segments that aren’t political. One sign of the network’s panicked approach was the fact that Barack Obama’s name appeared 74 times in the transcripts last week. No kidding. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

An overview of how Fox News covered the SCOTUS ruling for Trump’s tariff policies from Friday February 20, 2026 from The Will Cain Show at 4PM to Hannity at 10PM. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Last week on Fox News Greg Gutfeld, Jesse Watters and other overpaid Fox News personalities proved there is no limit to the depravity and hypocrisy on the Murdoch owned media empire. The network seemed desperate to focus on the Nancy Guthrie abduction rather than talk about anything that might make its glorious leader, an increasingly demented cruel sociopath, look bad. Gutfeld made dismissive jokes about Nancy Guthrie, an ailing 85-year-old grandmother who was abducted from her home outside of Tucson, Arizona. Two horrifying pieces of evidence in the case include a video of a masked man approaching her front door in the middle of the night and a trail of the elderly woman’s blood scattered across her entryway. The diminutive perpetually angry Gutfeld! host appeared annoyed that his employer was spending so much time on the story so he lashed out at his own network like a spoiled child. Jesse Watters joked that Jeffrey Epstein was some type of fixer who helped rich and powerful men ‘get a girl.’ He could have easily substituted the word woman for girl but chose to make light of the sexual abuse of children. His co-host Kennedy joked Epstein’s associates might need some penicillin presumably for sexually transmitted diseases. Never mind the abuse of children who were smuggled to Epstein’s island from overseas or led to his compound under false pretenses. Some of Epstein’s victims have committed suicide. A U.N. panel found Epstein could have been running a global criminal enterprise that included crimes against humanity. The hundreds of child sex trafficking victims were reduced to an inconvenience for their older and much more powerful abusers. This is after months when Watters spent more time than anyone else on Fox News condemning Epstein for his crimes. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

As Fox News featured footage of jackbooted masked federal agents terrorizing a Northern Midwestern city the network told its viewers to ignore any reports that showed Americans were unhappy with Trump’s mass deportation efforts. The soccer moms and angel faced five-year-olds fleeing clouds of tear gas in quaint tree-lined residential streets were covert socialist sleeper cells financed by the Chinese communist party and radical Islamists determined to overthrow the U.S. government. The true victims of the chaos in Minnesota were the valiant members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents. They were brave men and women who had to cover their faces to avoid being doxed by crazed capitalist hating agitators. Things got truly surreal as several Fox News hosts showcased the mugshots of various undocumented immigrants convicted of heinous crimes while they downplayed the latest release of documents related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The Epstein files revealed close personal relationships with several high-ranking officials in the Trump administration as well as the president himself. When the network wasn’t promoting outlandish conspiracy theories about nonexistent socialist uprisings and downplaying Trump’s once close relationship to a sadistic sexual predator it was heavily promoting the First Lady’s insipid documentary and making light of Trump’s plan to openly rob the U.S. treasury of $10 billion. It was an especially crazy week at Fox. Meanwhile Fox News polling came out with terrible numbers for Trump across several categories which Fox News personalities mostly ignored. The network also failed to tell its viewers about layoffs at Amazon and UPS or of a huge spike in the trade deficit. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Thank you Dianne Mize, Angie T, Pamela, Theresa Lease, John H, and many others for tuning into my live video with Jim Acosta! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

As Donald J. Trump damaged decades-long international relationships in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, Fox News lauded him as a champion of American strength on the global stage. Trump managed to insult all the former Allied powers in World War II multiple times then also disgraced the sacrifice of hundreds of fallen non-U.S. NATO soldiers who died in Afghanistan after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Trump and his entourage were cartoonishly stereotypical of boorish Americans. His long rambling speech at the event was full of lies and exaggerations that centered on his accomplishments that were based in delusion more than reality. When Trump wasn’t insulting our close long-term allies, he was demanding that Denmark hand over Greenland as if it was part of a real estate deal. The network went all in on Trump’s reckless demands to conquer or purchase the Danish territory even though the U.S. has had a broad sweeping treaty with Denmark that allows the U.S. military to build un-limited bases on the mostly ice-covered island. Fox also dedicated much of its airtime to the then escalating anti-ICE protests erupting across the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The network presented the demonstrations as an assault on beleaguered federal law enforcement. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

This podcast covers four hours of Fox & Friends Sunday through Hannity on Monday 1/26/26. The network desperately tried to make this look like a huge win for Trump. Fox News hosts did not know how to handle demonizing a man who was shot for carrying a legal firearm. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Last week while the streets of Minneapolis filled with angry protesters choking on clouds of tear gas and images of ICE agents terrorizing people flooded social media feeds Fox News set its sights on the real danger - radicalized left-wing women. According to the network suburban soccer moms and urban childless cat ladies were pawns for a sophisticated Democratic Party domestic terrorist plot. Naive women were the foot soldiers to sacrifice at the altar of open border policies and foreign criminal syndicates. ICE agents might have weapons, body armor, face masks, tear gas, pepper spray, and the ability to take away a person’s liberty plus the backing of a corrupt federal government but un-armed, loud women with shaved heads and protest signs are the real threat. The word ‘women’ appeared 194 times in the transcripts last week. The word appeared 72 times in transcripts from Jesse Watters Primetime. Watters was working out his misogynistic baggage as he reduced women to helpless creatures who were tools in a game they didn’t understand. Watters is the same Fox News host who constantly whines about his damaged relationship with his mother, tells embarrassing stories about his second wife and pontificates on what he believes is proper masculine behavior. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Last Wednesday a 37-year-old mother of three, Renee Good, was shot and killed in her car by an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A video captured by a bystander of the incident immediately went viral along with footage taken from other angles. Fox News reacted immediately by blaming Democratic lawmakers and the woman herself. The Trump administration also promptly blamed Good and cleared the agent of any wrongdoing despite the lack of an investigation into the incident. According to the government Good purposefully tried to ram Ross with her car. Many experts, from multiple media outlets, concluded that the Trump administration’s official explanation of the event doesn’t line up with the video evidence. In nearly every case of a fatal shooting by law enforcement state or federal authorities would at least launch some type of investigation into the incident before making any public declarations. In this case an unarmed woman was shot in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses and the Trump administration called her a domestic terrorist before her body was cold. The federal government has taken steps to prevent officials in Minnesota from conducting their own investigation. The folks at Fox News were more than happy to attack Good’s character and repeat the Trump administration’s talking points. Jesse Watters even took things further when he predicted a wave of suicidal leftist activists sacrificing their lives to make a political point. No one disputes that after Good was shot three times in a matter of seconds some of the ICE agents fled the scene, including the shooter, and that it took Emergency Medical Services six minutes to administer aid to a U.S. citizen who was killed by the hand of an immigration and customs enforcement agent. After the shots were fired and Good’s car drove out of control an agent, some have disputed that it was Ross himself, called the young mother a “f*cking b***h.” Government officials have since reported that Ross suffered internal bleeding from the incident. In the video evidence he walks away seemingly unharmed. He showed no signs of injury. It’s not even clear in the video evidence if he was struck by the car. I’m not a criminal forensics expert but The NY Times did do an exhaustive analysis of the first video that was shot by a bystander you can find it here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Last week Fox News started with lighthearted special episodes dedicated to New Year’s celebrations while the network hammered Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for a fraud scandal in his state. By Friday night Fox made an abrupt pivot to focus all its airtime to Trump’s surprise invasion of Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

For this episode Pete and I go through 12 of the craziest and most disturbing clips from Fox from 2025. We both mock and imitate Fox News personalities along with high ranking Trump administration officials. It’s a laughing to keep from crying experience. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

wanted to do a quick update on the newsletter I wrote last month “A Thanksgiving Primer to Help You Deal With your Fox Loving Relatives.” I had to wait until December 18 to get the updated CPI report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agency delayed it eight days due to the government shutdown. It was also based on a partial gathering of data which is problematic for several reasons. This is an updated version of the Thanksgiving primer! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Last week on Fox News it became more apparent that the MAGA Titanic is gliding straight into an iceberg and the only passengers with lifeboats aren’t even on the ship - they are hovering above it in climate-controlled spacecraft fueled by the cuts to U.S. foreign aid meant for starving children. Meanwhile their glorious leader tells them that the impending disaster is a Democratic hoax designed by his enemies to make him and the greatest political movement in the history of this country look bad. By the end of the month nearly 24 million Americans will see sharp rises in their healthcare premiums, while the cost groceries, electricity, insurance, and housing continue to rise. About 7-8 million Americans enrolled in the SAVE student loan income repayment plan will also face higher monthly payments. Credit card balances have increased along with unemployment while the wannabe king promises everything will work out in two weeks, the next quarter or sometime next year. As Trump’s poll numbers plummeted and Democrats won elections all over the country Fox News continued to churn out the propaganda and spin. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe

Last week the microscopic cracks of doubt in the Trump administration evolved into deep fissures on Fox News. Several on-air personalities openly plead with their glorious leader that he needed to change his messaging on the affordability crisis quickly or the country could be headed for a blue wave tsunami. Just a year ago these same overpaid mouthpieces of the Trump propaganda machine celebrated his win and thanked their viewers for voting for him. Now they cannot hide their panic. Trump is trying to lie to the American public by calling the affordability crisis a Democratic hoax. In many ways Fox News created their own monster. By putting all of the blame on Biden for inflation Fox reinforced the idea that a president can guide an economy like a sailboat. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingfoxnews.substack.com/subscribe