Matthew Gertz
Appearances
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
Sure, so our latest report on this, we looked at all the people in the Trump administration and how they are a constant presence on Fox News and its sister network, Fox Business. We tracked over the first hundred days of the Trump administration, something like 536 appearances. of high ranking Trump administration officials on those networks.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
Basically what's happening is the Trump administration and Fox News are effectively, they've merged. They're effectively the same thing. It's very difficult to tell where the administration ends and the network picks up. You've had a whole host of people that Trump hired from Fox News. We've counted 22 individuals who have Fox on their resumes, who have ended up in the administration.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
That includes cabinet officials, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, got promoted from being Fox & Friends' weekend host. Now he is in charge of the U.S. military. Trump has always had a fixation with Fox News. Uh, he watches a huge amount of it, uh, really hours of it every day, according to a lot of reporting.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
Uh, and so the people that he takes advice from, uh, both inside and outside office now, uh, are, uh, people who made their, uh, names, uh, throwing bombs on Fox News, uh, you know, attacking the left, uh, complaining about various things that have annoyed them and annoy people on the right. That's the main job qualification to be an advisor to Donald Trump at this point.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about it. I mean, when you look at someone like Pam Bondi who is currently in charge of the Justice Department, she spent, she made two dozen appearances on different Fox News shows over the course of the first hundred days. of the Trump administration. One day in four, she's going on Fox News to talk about whatever she says the Justice Department is doing.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
That just doesn't really add up. That's wildly disproportionate to what we've seen under previous administrations. And that's because the Trump administration doesn't view itself as attempting to carry out public policy to benefit the people of the United States.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
They see themselves as propagandists who are trying to spin what Trump is doing to the Fox clientele, to the Trump base who are tuning into Fox every day to get their news. They're trying to keep that base intact. Because they know that if that base cracks, they're in a huge amount of trouble. As it is, they've seen the polls steadily decline over the first three months of the administration.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
I would expect that to continue. But if that core base, if the Fox News audience starts to decline, starts to leave Trump, it becomes a huge problem for the broader Republican Party. And that is what the Trump cabinet seems to be focused on.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
Yeah, I mean, what we do at Media Matters is we watch all these people so that everyone else doesn't have to, right? We spend a great deal of time not only focused on Fox News, but in the deepest, darkest places. you know, parts of the internet, the streaming universe, and so on and so forth.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
And what that means is we have a more granular understanding of where these attacks are coming from and where they're going. We can tell well before it becomes a national story that something like critical race theory is going to break through. What I think we need is more people to sort of pick up that ammunition and run with it.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
Because we certainly, you know, it doesn't help to be right all the time if no one else is paying attention to the message and passing it along to the rest of the public. I think you're right that, you know, the mainstream press can be a little too feckless about this stuff. They are worried about the prospect of Donald Trump trying to destroy their businesses and their business models.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
We need independent media to step up and let the public know what's going on when mainstream press can't do it.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
You know, I always want more attention on the Medicaid cuts that the Republicans are brewing up. It's unclear exactly how they're going to try to take health care away from millions of people, but they're going to try to do it. They need to find money from somewhere so they can pass their big tax cuts for the richest Americans. And the well that they always come back to is people's health care.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Media Matters Fellow Matthew Gertz Reveals Fox Study
It's an atrocity, and it doesn't get, I think, nearly enough coverage.