This week in stupid 

• Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk: “Kamala Harris is to blame, partially, for Vladimir Putin deciding to invade Ukraine.”
• Daily Wire host Michael Knowles made Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal controversy about race: “Affirmative action is now in the Olympics.”

This week in scary

• Roger Stone used an anti-LGBTQ slur to describe Tim Walz.
• White nationalist Nick Fuentes described his dinner with Donald Trump and said there’s a “war to define” Trump’s administration because he “seems kind of indifferent.”
• Ben Shapiro: “The media are doing their damndest just to help [Kamala Harris] steal this election.”

Excuse me?

• The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan called Kamala Harris a “screaming witch.”
• Fox’s Greg Gutfeld said it was an “adolescent argument” to bring up Donald Trump’s military draft deferments during the Vietnam War.
• Trump ally Laura Loomer: “Kamala Harris is not Black.” … “I have a weave in my hair so maybe I am Blacker than Kamala Harris.”
• Newsmax guest Chris Kohls said Tim Walz has a “Santa Claus-like look to him, except this Santa Claus could potentially be a serial killer.”
• The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said that Tim Walz was on a “jihad as governor of Minnesota to trans the kids.”

This week in Project 2025

For Media Matters’ complete coverage of Project 2025, please visit this section of our website.

• There's a lot going on with this one: during an undercover interview, Project 2025 architect and MAGA ally Russ Vought admitted to the project's strong ties to Donald Trump and provided a clear view into a possible second Trump term. MSNBC's Chris Hayes discussed this and Project 2025's close relationship with the Trump campaign. Check it out here. 
• During a recent interview, Trump National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized the media for talking “about Project 2025, which has nothing to do with our campaign.” Media outlets should be skeptical about denials like that for many reasons, including the fact that Leavitt herself worked on Project 2025.
• In his forthcoming book, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts criticized the Swampoodle Dog Park located in Washington, D.C. The Friends of NoMa Dogs issued a fantastic response.

Trump’s Fox propagandists are begging him to become more disciplined. He isn’t listening.

Donald Trump’s loyal media propagandists, sensing that the election may be slipping away, have been begging the former president to “focus on the issues” and be “disciplined” rather than getting “off on tangents” and making personal attacks. The message may not be getting through. Last weekend, Trump spent his time spinning a conspiracy theory about Vice President Kamala Harris using AI to fake the crowds at her rallies and mocking Sen. Jon Tester’s (D-MT) weight.

Trump’s supporters are reportedly flummoxed by his apparent inability to maintain a disciplined campaign in the face of changing circumstances following Harris’ entrance into the race. His Fox News propagandists are similarly voicing hope that the 78-year-old convicted felon will suddenly adopt a different, more politically adept personality.

• The Five co-host Katie Pavlich said Trump “was very disciplined leading up to the convention, he should go back to that place.”
• Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson said the election “hinges on whether Donald Trump can stay on message.”
• Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones stressed that Trump “has to be disciplined.”

The right, however, is caught in the same trap that has characterized the last eight years — they want Trump to get elected so he can implement their preferred agenda. But, as Media Matters’ Matt Gertz writes, “Trump is, and will always be, a terrible vehicle for their ambitions. He’s a racist, nakedly corrupt would-be autocrat who walks the line between pathological liar and deluded fool. And crucially, as he told the horrified donors at an event chronicled by the Times, he has no interest in changing: ‘I am who I am.’”

Numerous Project 2025 partners have falsely claimed that abortions are never medically necessary

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, news outlets have published numerous stories documenting how restricting abortion access has medically harmed women across the U.S. By contrast, several groups involved with Project 2025, including lead organizer The Heritage Foundation, have falsely claimed over the years that abortions are never medically necessary.

This is part of Project 2025’s general hostility to reproductive rights. Media Matters has documented how Project 2025 seeks to significantly restrict reproductive rights in the country. Multiple Project 2025 partners have also continued to signal that they want to criminalize abortion.

Project 2025 is also closely tied to Donald Trump and his campaign. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio — who has said that he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” and called abortion supporters “sociopathic” — also has connections to multiple Project 2025 partner organizations.

Right-wing media falsely claim that Tim Walz created a protected class for perpetrators of child sexual assault

Following Kamala Harris’ announcement that she had selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, right-wing media falsely tried to paint Walz as an extremist by narrowing in on his support for LGBTQ constituents. In addition to targeting Walz’s policies on gender-affirming care and menstrual equity, right-wing media also recycled old strands of anti-LGBTQ misinformation, falsely accusing Walz of having created a protected class for perpetrators of child sexual assault, even though legal experts and state representatives have debunked such claims.

The smear stems from his support of the Take Pride Act of 2023, which strengthened the Minnesota Human Rights Act. While the bill was under consideration, right-wing media figures falsely accused it of protecting perpetrators of child sexual assault. Co-authors of the bill clarified that “of course pedophilia is not a protected class” and multiple legal scholars have supported this interpretation of the bill.

Now, right-wing media figures are resurrecting this old piece of misinformation:

• Newsmax’s Chris Plante claimed that child molesters are “a protected class” in Minnesota “thanks to Gov. Walz.”
• One America News Network host Dan Ball bizarrely claimed that Walz “signed legislation that allows pedophiles and pedophilia to someday legally be protected under existing state anti-discrimination laws.”
• The Daily Wire published an article claiming that Walz was “stripping anti-pedophile language” from the Minnesota bill.

In case you missed it 

• Broadcast news and several top newspapers ignored reporting on an investigation by the Department of Justice into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign for allegedly receiving $10 million from Egypt.
• Right-wing media are spreading ridiculous narratives about Tim Walz, including by lying about his actions to protect reproductive rights; claiming that Walz is a “tyrant” for defending the right to accurate election information; and attacking him for having the financial portfolio of an average American.
• Right-wing media outlets have been helping Trump’s campaign push the bogus attack that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have never had a “real job” in their lives.
• As Kamala Harris prepares to call out corporate greed, Fox News is going to bat for supermarket price gouging.
• Fox News has not mentioned on air new data that violent crime dropped sharply in major cities over the first half of 2024, even as it devoted more than 4.5 hours of coverage to violent crime during that period.
• Kamala Harris’ campaign isn’t using artificial intelligence to manipulate crowd photos of campaign events, but unchecked TikTok videos repeating the blatantly false conspiracy theory are racking up millions of views.
• Media Matters compiled this fantastic guide to Laura Loomer, the Trump ally and “pro-white nationalism” bigot.
• Fox News undercovered reporting about then-President Donald Trump praising Tim Walz for his response to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Minnesota. The network discussed the leaked audio for a total of just over three minutes.
• A new Media Matters analysis found that right-leaning pages dominated conversations about immigration on Facebook.