Over the weekend, on orders from President Donald Trump, the U.S. attacked three Iranian nuclear sites, inserting itself into Israel’s conflict with that nation.
Leaders like Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York quickly noted that the military action was done without the authorization of Congress, called it a “grave violation of the Constitution,” and said it was grounds for his impeachment. (Trump has already been impeached twice, more than any president in history.)
The incident is the latest in a long line of Republican leaders pushing bombing campaigns on shaky legal and moral ground.
A B-2 bomber arrives at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on June 22.
Now new reporting indicates that what appears to have pushed Trump into attacking Iran was his most influential adviser: Fox News.
The New York Times reports from sources close to Trump that in the days leading up the action he was glued to Fox. “The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved,” the outlet noted.
Since Israel’s latest attacks on Iran, Fox News has gone into pro-war overdrive. For instance, on last Tuesday’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” which is known to be Trump’s favorite show on the network, co-host Lawrence Jones baselessly claimed, “If we ever even got into a conflict with Iran, it would be over within two days, if that.”
Similarly, a delegation of hawkish activists pushing for U.S. military intervention in Iran visited Trump at the White House on June 4. They were led by conspiracy theorist Mark Levin, host of the Fox News weekend show “Life, Liberty & Levin.”
Fox News was one of the major sources of propaganda in favor of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The network hyped then-President George W. Bush’s administration’s falsehoods about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction and links to the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath, the war killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of American military service members. There were no weapons of mass destruction.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, shown on June 22.
Trump is obsessed with Fox News and has hired at least 23 former Fox staffers to be in his administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has been out in front on the Iranian bombing campaign, is the most prominent former Fox host in the Trump Cabinet. Other figures, like Attorney General Pam Bondi and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, were also Fox News talking heads.
Fox was also instrumental in Trump becoming a major political figure. When President Barack Obama was in office, Fox frequently hosted Trump to promote the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that falsely claimed Obama was not a native-born American citizen.
The feedback loop between Fox and Trump is consistent. The network even had to pay out a $787 million legal settlement to Dominion Voting Systems after Fox pushed Trump’s lies that he had won the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.
Now Trump has pushed America into military strikes, seemingly based on the skewed coverage and baiting of Fox News, with more death and destruction likely to follow.
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