• Fox’s Jesse Watters: “When you wear a Bulls hat, it means you’re MS-13.” 
• Fox host Brian Kilmeade dismissed small businesses struggling with tariffs, saying, “It’s projected pain.”
• In response to Trump saying he doesn’t know what the Congo is, Newsmax’s Greg Kelly said “nobody knows what all these countries are.”

• Newsmax host Bob Brooks: “The Trump administration needs to purge immigration judges.” 
• Article III Project founder Mike Davis on courts: “If they want to keep fighting … the president is just gonna ignore these lawless and dangerous orders.”

• Fox’s Jeanine Pirro dismissed the need for due process for people in America being sent to an El Salvador prison.
• Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said that Heritage has started planning Project 2029. 
• The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh: “The fight moves now, in my opinion, to take on feminism once and for all, and that’s the next great battle.”

In a new study of top pro-Trump online shows in the days after President Donald Trump launched his formal tariff plan, Media Matters has found some dissension as his economic policy disrupts the global economy — even as his ecosystem still overwhelmingly supports him. 

In March we published a study showing that the most popular content in online and streaming shows are overwhelmingly right-leaning. In this new study, we tracked what those shows are saying about Trump’s tariff policy. 

Media Matters analyzed top right-leaning online shows and found that a majority of them had mostly positive coverage of the tariffs between April 2 (so-called “Liberation Day”) and April 8. Additionally, Media Matters found that among right-leaning online shows that self-categorize as nonpolitical, a full quarter of discussions also embraced the president’s deeply unpopular tariff policy. 

Despite this overwhelmingly positive coverage, however, we did find some notable dissent against Trump’s tariff policy. Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan provided mostly negative coverage of the tariffs during that time frame. But none of the shows — including those with critical tariff coverage — have abandoned Trump over his economic malfeasance.

Meanwhile, callers to conservative radio shows have been vocal about their displeasure with Trump’s tariff policy. Some listeners have called in to pronounce the policy as “reckless,” “sloppy,” and “the single biggest, dumbest move in political history.”

Numerous right-wing media figures are placing blame for the chaos and confusion over Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on two of his top economic appointees — senior trade adviser Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — rather than on Trump himself. 

Since Trump’s April “Liberation Day” tariff announcements — which amounted to one of the largest tax hikes in American history — there has been widespread market volatility and increasing risks of a recession. A week after announcing the tariffs, the White House has pulled back on some of the tariffs, leading to confusion. Pro-Trump media figures on Fox and elsewhere have been blaming Lutknick and Navarro for this confusion. 

• War Room host Steve Bannon: “Let me blunt. Lutnick, who was Elon’s pick for secretary treasury, I think he’s close to being an unmitigated disaster. We should see a lot less of Lutnick on TV. 
• Fox Business host Charles Payne: “Mixed and confusing messaging” from Navarro and Lutnick “has the same gut-wrenching impact as an unnecessary holding penalty that negates a touchdown.” 
• The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro: “If you wanna see a real bull market, the president should fire Peter Navarro today.”

On March 25, federal immigration agents arrested Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk over supposed “activities in support of Hamas.” According to new reporting, however, the State Department has determined ahead of her arrest that “the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization,” despite the Department of Homeland Security’s claims that Öztürk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” 

Right-wing media figures parroted the Trump administration, frequently characterizing Öztürk as “pro-Hamas” and defended her arrest. Fox host Brian Kilmeade, for example, praised the arrest, saying, “I love the message it’s sending to other students causing unrest.”

This is part of a larger trend in conservative media. Since March 8, Fox News’ guests and personalities have made at least 77 claims advocating against the constitutional right of due process for noncitizens, regardless of legal status.

• Fox pundits are claiming that Trump’s tariffs will restore American manufacturing. Experts, however, say that the tariffs are hurting business. 
• Right-wing media jumped to defend four recent executive orders signed by Trump to bolster the dying coal industry. 
• In 2024, corporate broadcast TV news mentioned climate solutions in 23% of climate segments — slightly more than in 2023 but well below the peak of 35% in 2022.
• Fox News quietly corrected a “wrong” story claiming that 50,000 noncitizens were on Arizona’s voting rolls. 
• Fox News’s latest anti-trans campaign relates to a fencing tournament from late March. Media Matters has this great piece detailing three things you may have missed about this story. 
• Media Matters President Angelo Carusone explained how right-wing media’s reaction to Abrego Garcia shows cracks in Trump’s narrative dominance.