Fox News Exposed Faking Its Coverage of Portland’s “Riots”

Can Portland, Oregon, sue Fox News for defamation?

A new report from ProPublica Wednesday found that for months preceding President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of Portland, Fox News manufactured raging riots fit for air—and one so convincing that it apparently prompted Trump to send federal forces to the Pacific Northwest.

ProPublica confirmed that Fox News claimed old footage from protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 had just been shot in Portland, while reporting on resistance to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

On September 4, the day before Trump announced that he would send federal forces to Oregon, Fox News aired a segment about a protest outside an ICE detainment facility in June. But the network used multiple clips from July 2020 showing law enforcement clashing with protesters outside a federal courthouse.

The segment also included footage of a protester burning an American flag, which was originally posted to social media in July 2020. At the time of broadcast, none of this footage was labeled with the correct year, implying that it happened this year and in a completely different place. Two weeks later, Fox News added an editor’s note to its website clarifying that the report used footage from 2020 and 2025.

In another segment, a Fox News correspondent suggested that there was a link between the 2020 protests and the recent ones. “The protest chaos, which began with riots aimed at social justice in 2020, has severely damaged Portland’s reputation,” the correspondent said, over footage of fires being set in the streets in 2020.

Besides blatantly misattributing footage, Fox News spent months making mountains out of molehills and violent riots out of peaceful demonstrations, ProPublica reported.

The week of Trump’s announcement, Fox News chyrons warned of “violent demonstrators” and “war-like protests.” During a broadcast on September 2, Fox News showed footage of so-called “riots raging” the day before, but the video provided showed protesters just standing around on the street. An internal Portland police report stated that the protest had “little to no energy.”

Also on September 2, Lawrence B. Jones, a host on Fox & Friends, even claimed that protesters were attacking federal officers. In reality, the opposite was true, as federal officers moved in forcefully on protesters who in most cases have not received any criminal charges.

It seems that this coverage worked its way to Trump.

“What they’ve done to that place, it’s like living in hell,” Trump said on September 5, referring to something he saw on TV.

“I didn’t know that was still going on,” he said. “This has been going on for years.”

Another young face is entering the Democratic arena.

Jack Schlossberg, the son of Caroline Kennedy and grandson of the thirty-fifth president, is running to represent New York’s 12th congressional district. He joins a dozen other Democrats angling to replace outgoing Representative Jerrold Nadler, such as New York state Assemblymembers Alex Bores and Micah Lasher, as well as ABC News legal analyst Jami Floyd.

“I’m not running because I have all the answers to our problems, I’m running because the people of New York 12 do. I want to listen to your struggles, hear your stories, amplify your voice, go to Washington, and execute on your behalf,” Schlossberg said in a campaign video posted to TikTok.

His message echoed the winning campaign rhetoric of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who pulled off a historic victory last week by appealing to a broad coalition of demographics that have not traditionally been represented by the Democratic Party.

The 32-year-old, RipStik-ing Kennedy heir has spent the last several years crafting his own brand as a national political commentator, railing against Donald Trump’s policies while introducing Kennedian politics to droves of young voters via social media.

His online presence has marked him as a decidedly new flavor of Democrat, willing to translate traditional party principles to a generation of Americans that no longer identify with old-world politesse.

That’s made Schlossberg a critical tool in the Democratic arsenal against the far right, which has successfully dominated the internet and new media campaigns for more than a decade. In recent months, Schlossberg’s strategy has been embraced by other major Democratic figures attempting their own quirky approach to online politics, including California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Schlossberg’s platform has also allowed him to go toe-to-toe with some of America’s biggest politicians, including his worm-brained uncle, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Schlossberg ripped as a “rabid dog” and a “dangerous person.”

“I mean, when he’s not making infomercials for Steak ’n Shake and Coca-Cola, he’s spreading misinformation and lies that are leading to deaths around the country,” Schlossberg told MSNBC. “There’s a measles outbreak in America right now, higher than it’s been in 40 years, as a direct result of what he has done.”

Schlossberg was the first member of his large family to publicly condemn his MAGA relative’s involvement in the Trump administration.

It remains to be seen if Schlossberg is the right combination of old and new to win over Manhattan’s affluent voter base. It will, however, be a massive departure for New York District 12, regardless of which candidate it chooses: Nadler will leave Washington at the end of his current term in 2027, after 35 years in office.

Donald Trump welcomed Syrian President Ahmad Al Sharaa to the White House Monday, but couldn’t help making the meeting awkward.

In their meeting, Trump gifted his own Trump-brand fragrances to Al Sharaa, spraying them on the Syrian president and Foreign Minister Asaad Al Shaibani, bragging that they were “the very best,” and saying one was for Al Sharaa and one was for his wife.

“How many wives? One?” Trump asked, chuckling, to which Al Sharaa said yes. “With you guys I never know!”

It’s a weird question to ask of an Arab and Muslim head of state, even with Trump having met polygamous Arab kings and emirs. Al Sharaa turned the question around, though, asking Trump how many wives he has.

“Right now, one,” Trump replied, to laughs.

Sharaa’s White House visit was the first for any Syrian president since 1946. He came bearing gifts of his own for Trump: replicas of ancient artifacts from Syria, including the first alphabet in history, the first seal, a musical note, and even the world’s first customs tariff.

The visit wasn’t just made to exchange presents, though. Al Sharaa announced that Syria had joined the coalition of countries fighting ISIS and is trying to convince Trump and Congress to repeal sanctions against Syria. This doesn’t excuse Trump’s weird attempt at humor, which has a tinge of bigotry attached to it. Someone should tell the president that the first lady is his third wife.

Newly released emails from disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein reveal that his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell flat-out lied to Donald Trump’s Justice Department when she claimed she had never seen Trump at Epstein’s house. 

“I think [Trump and Epstein] were friendly like people are in social settings. I don’t—I don’t think they were close friends or I certainly never witnessed the president in any of—I don’t recall ever seeing him in [Epstein’s] house, for instance,” Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Blanche during their July interview. “I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody.”  

She then goes on to say that she hasn’t seen Trump in person since the early 2000s. However, the emails released by the House Oversight Committee Democrats on Wednesday tell a different story. 

“i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump [sic]. [Redacted] spent hours at my house with him ,, [sic] he has never once been mentioned. police chief etc.,” Epstein wrote to Maxwell in 2011, allegedly referring to one of his sex-trafficking victims. 

“I have been thinking about that …” Maxwell responded. 

One can only suspect that Maxwell—the convicted sex offender—chose to lie for or about Trump to improve her chances of getting a pardon from him. Maxwell’s intimate knowledge of Trump and Epstein’s activities could also explain why she’s been kept in such cushy, low-security conditions. She knows that the president of the United States spent “hours” at Epstein’s house with one of his victims. And he has the power to make her a free woman. Unless she truly has memory issues, that lie to Blanche was absolutely strategic. 

The Trump White House has yet to respond to the Oversight Committee leaks. 

Republicans have stripped health insurance coverage from millions of Americans, with a little help from eight liberal senators who voted to end the government shutdown earlier this week.

Republicans voted against extending the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits late Tuesday night, effectively ensuring that health insurance premiums for more than 20 million Americans will more than double.

“With this simple amendment, Republicans could join us in protecting access to doctors and the ability to afford prescription drugs,” Democratic Representative Jim McGovern told the House Rules Committee prior to the vote.

But the motion was immediately shot down with a resounding “no” from every Republican on the committee, including Representatives Michelle Fischbach, Ralph Norman, Chip Roy, Erin Houchin, Nicholas Langworthy, Austin Scott, H. Morgan Griffith, Brian Jack, and Chairwoman Virginia Foxx.

The result, according to policy experts, will be a mass exodus from Obamacare plans altogether, leaving roughly four million Americans uninsured. The spike in uninsured Americans will spur a public health problem that has historically made premiums more expensive for the insured as hospitals look to recoup the lost cash.

But not one lawmaker who voted against the measure will have to go without their own health insurance, thanks to money coming in from the very electorate that they just stripped of care: U.S. taxpayers pay for 72 percent of Congress’s health insurance premiums.

Seven Senate Democrats and one independent caved on the government shutdown Sunday, leaving the party empty-handed after a grueling 40-day deadlock with Republicans.

Those senators included Dick Durbin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, John Fetterman, and Tim Kaine, as well as independent Angus King. Each and every one of them had little reason to buckle: All eight are either retiring or won’t face another election for several years. Instead, it seems that they became mouthpieces for a contingent of Democratic lawmakers and strategists who mind-bogglingly believed that losing health care access for millions of Americans could be a winning component of their midterm election strategy.

Democratic voters, however, were left remarkably unimpressed by the meaningless conclusion, with some vocal critics flaming the backstabbing centrist cohort as “SPINELESS, MEALY MOUTHED, BLOOD SUCKING, TWO FACED BOTTOM FEEDERS.”