Fox News started last week predicting a massive U.S. military campaign that would crush Iran and end Trump’s gamble in the Middle East. Within 24 hours Trump declared another pause in the conflict which forced Fox News to pivot to more mundane topics.

By mid-week the war wasn’t even a major story. The network’s highest rated show The Five didn’t even include a single segment about the war for the entire week.

Fox News still hasn’t found its footing on how to sell or promote this deeply unpopular conflict in the Middle East.

President Trump wasn’t helping as he held extended press conferences at the construction site of his beloved ballroom, rambled on about his reflecting pool project and exaggerated or fabricated his many perceived accomplishments in his second term.

It seems Trump would rather obsess about his building projects and legacy than do much of anything to help the American public.

Desperate for something to rev up its viewers Fox News demonized Democrats all over the country. The network had a field day with the botched DNC autopsy on its many failures surrounding the 2024 presidential election.

Fox News downplayed a court settlement between Trump and the IRS that would dole out nearly $1.8 billion of taxpayer money in an Anti-Weaponization Fund to anyone who felt they were legally victimized by the previous administration. This could include violent rioters who beat law enforcement officers, terrorized lawmakers and damaged property at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Jesse Watters dedicated a lot of airtime on recently released and declassified Pentagon files about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) commonly referred to as UFO’s. The network also ramped up and expanded its coverage of fraud cases in Minnesota to include multiple Democratically run states it called ‘The Fraud Files.’

The network also found creative ways to promote former reality star Spencer Pratt’s campaign for mayor of Los Angeles. During breaking news segments about a wildfire in California Fox would include Pratt’s social media posts about the disaster while leaving out the mayor’s office response.

Fox News also celebrated wins by Trump endorsed candidates in Republican primaries in multiple states.

Anyone tuning into Fox News last week might think the channel had converted to a home shopping network that sold only one product - the glorious leader himself Donald J. Trump.

The president was treated like an overpriced trinket. “Look at how he stands next to Xi Jinping. Observe how his tiny makeup covered hands touch the Chinese leader’s! Such majesty!”

It wouldn’t have surprised me if Fox shifted to a sales pitch while discussing the president, “If you call right now, you too will get our exclusive offer and pay for your own Glorious Leader replicate in four easy to pay installments of $19.99!”

There were no definitive trade deals to crow about, no negotiations with Iran, and no relief in sight for sky-high gas prices.

Trump dined with and stood next to the Chinese president while a small group of billionaire business owners followed them around like dutiful ducklings.

China is known for making promises it doesn’t keep, stealing intellectual property, threatening its neighbors, committing human rights abuses, cheating on trade agreements, suppressing freedom of speech, crushing dissent, and violating international embargoes and sanctions.

None of this seemed to bother Trump. If Xi Jinping promised to buy more U.S. soybeans, then that was good enough for the president even if the country has still not matched its prior commitments to U.S. farmers.

It was a lot of pageantry with very little substance, another distraction for Trump’s disastrous war in the Middle East and failed domestic policies.

Other topics on the network included the ongoing war with Iran, an attack on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the network’s aggressive promotion of Spencer Pratt, a former reality television star, for Los Angeles mayor.

Fox News continues to stumble and bluff its way through an incoherent sales pitch for Trump’s poorly planned war with Iran. Sean Hannity along with some of the last remaining neocons also promoted the worst idea in the world - sending weapons to the Iranian people.

It was 1979 again in the absolute worst way possible.

Normally the network forms a united front about any given topic, narrows in on its target and repeatedly pummels it. Fox News hosts will often use the exact same phrasing, slogans, catch phrases, and battle cries across multiple programs.

Since the war started Fox has been a disorganized mess.

At the start of the week Project Freedom, Trump’s plan to open the Strait of Hormuz, was sold as a brilliant strategic move that would bring a quick end to the war. When it collapsed almost immediately after it was implemented the folks on Fox splintered.

Hosts on Fox & Friends shared their doubts about the war, Jesse Watters made excuses for the president, Sean Hannity sold it as a checkmate move and the folks on The Five stopped talking about the war entirely.

Fox News knows how to whip its audience into a frenzy about urban crime, dangerous migrants, woke blue-haired teenagers, eminent communist revolutions, anti-white DEI schemes and shifty transgender athletes but it can’t seem to figure out how to sell the idea of another protracted war in the Middle East or soften the blow around high gas prices.

Sean Hannity thought it was a good idea to recycle some of the worst foreign policy ideas of decades past. He also got so desperate last week he included extended segments about former president Barack Obama even repeating talking points from 2008.

If he could have found a way to bring up Hillary Clinton’s emails, bleach bit servers, Hunter Biden’s laptop and Bill Clinton’s sock drawer he would have.

The network also shifted its focus to topics it knows well - trashing Democrats and endorsing long-shot Republican candidates in California.

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Fox News started last week dutifully hyping up Trump’s proposed White House ballroom. On Monday on every show, I covered Trump’s favorite vanity project was championed as a life saving measure that would protect the president and top-ranking cabinet officials from the bullets of a would be assassin.

By Tuesday the network had moved on. Fox News executives are known for obsessively tracking audience reaction. I suspect that even the most diehard Fox News fans were just not that excited over an enormous columned building their glorious leader cannot stop talking about.

The network switched its focus to the third attempt on the president’s life along with King Charles’ visit and the White House state dinner.

Blurry surveillance video footage of Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect in the shooting, attempting to rush past a throng of armed security personnel was far more compelling than discussions about giant event spaces and drone-proof roofs.

By mid-week the network made a pivot to scolding ‘Liberal lunatics’ for promoting conspiracy theories about the latest attempt on the president’s life.

Since I started this project in February 2022, I’ve seen Fox News hosts promote conspiracy theories such as cultural Marxism, the great replacement, the great reset, birtherism, various false stories about Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden along with secret plots to promote insects as a main source of protein.

Meanwhile the conflict with Iran was relegated to a minor story. At least twice last week Jesse Watters declared that the war was over only to start cheerleading for a swift victory the next day.

Fox News hosts were also downright gleeful about the recent Supreme Court ruling that severely weakened The Voting Rights Act.

At this point in the second Trump administration Fox News has become the parent of a spoiled child sitting in the principal’s office of an expensive private school insisting their kid did absolutely nothing wrong.

The defiant parent stares back in scorn at an underpaid and overworked school administrator explaining. while sipping instant Maxwell House from a Styrofoam cup, how little Donny set fire to another teacher’s desk then faked an asthma attack to get out of detention. At the emergency room he threatened to fight the triage nurse after she determined his breathing was perfectly normal.

President Donald J. Trump is the bratty monster who was never told no or given a boundary. As prices increase across the country and his poll numbers drop Fox News cannot face reality - the network helped raise this destructive beast.

The pathological narcissist that they propped up and worshipped, and paid hundreds of millions in a defamation lawsuit to cover for has turned out to be a mad wannabe king hellbent on enriching himself and sticking his name and image on everything near him.

As the president repeatedly makes false claims about the war with Iran the network dutifully repeats them only to correct itself hours later. The corporate heads as Fox News don’t seem to care as long as their ratings remain high and the profits keep rolling in.

Little Donny might even burn his family’s McMansion to the ground before he’s finished. Hopefully we won’t all be burned to cinders along with him.

Rupert Murdoch must be happy to have a lower tax rate.

Last week the network also heavily promoted stories surrounding the criminal indictment issued against the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center). While the PBS News Hour dedicated slightly over one minute to the story it was the third most talked about topic on Fox News last week taking up 11% of the airtime on the shows I covered.

Since President Trump decided to attack Iran Fox News has become a buffoonish propagandist for a half-baked military fiasco. Instead of acknowledging that the president is not a trustworthy source of information the network repeats his delusions as if they were Gospel truths.

As Trump manipulates the financial markets and lies about phantom agreements with the Iranian regime Fox News folds and twists itself into complex knots of fabricated nonsense to justify the incredibly unpopular conflict in the Middle East.

The man cost the network $787.5 million in a defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems after Fox News knowingly promoted false stories about the 2020 election. Despite the enormous payout it is still profitable to follow the mad king off a cliff.

Everything Trump says is taken on good faith. Every public relations fiasco he makes is embraced and celebrated.

If Trump attacks, the head of a church that includes at least one in five Americans, Fox will champion the president’s blunder. When the President seemingly invents peace agreements from thin air Fox News never questions it.

The corporate leadership at Fox News knows its job - back the president no matter what he says or does until the network starts losing money.

Last week Fox News returned to its schizophrenic confused coverage of the war in Iran. In the mornings on Fox & Friends the conflict was depicted as a chaotic mess between a stubborn Iranian regime that refused to give an inch and Trump the misunderstood magical deal maker. The morning crew promised its viewers that although the war was a fiasco military success and lower gas prices were just round the corner.

On Jesse Watters Primetime the Iranian regime was defeated and the war was already over. Trump had accomplished what no other American leader had done before - created peace in the Middle East by destroying the number one sponsor of terror.

To many outside of the Fox News MAGA cult it seemed Trump brokered a brief ceasefire with Iran because he had absolutely no idea what to do next.

Fox News, his personal propaganda machine, acknowledged but downplayed the fact that the two-week ceasefire included a 10-point plan that basically gave Iran everything it wanted including enriched uranium.

The network also admitted openly that the Strait of Hormuz was essentially still closed, Israel continued to pummel targets in Lebanon and the Iranian people had not risen up and toppled their brutal theocratic government.

Everything was terrible but the Murdoch owned media empire was determined to make it look like an amazing victory for its glorious leader.

While Fox News put all of its focus on Trump’s possible strategy for ending the war in Iran the PBS News Hour included segments about:

* Problems for farmers - fertilizer prices increase due to the war

* How the war affected Muslim, Jewish and Christian holidays in the Middle East

* Israeli strikes in Lebanon - the effect on civilians

* U.S. service members with traumatic brain injuries

* How the war is increasing inflation in the U.S.