Fox News isn’t bothering to sell the staggering cost of the ill-conceived war President Donald Trump launched against Iran.
The Trumpist propaganda network provided roughly 11 minutes of coverage through Thursday to the administration’s request for an eye-popping $200 billion in supplementary spending from Congress — and less than 1 minute of discussion on its prime-time block, according to a Media Matters review.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that the Pentagon “has asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion request to Congress to fund the war in Iran,” a figure subsequently confirmed by other news outlets. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not dispute the number at a Thursday morning press conference, though he indicated it “could move.”
The request “is expected to face a rocky path in Congress,” according to The Wall Street Journal, as lawmakers say “they want to see more details of the proposal amid concerns that the U.S. could become embroiled in another costly long-term war,” and even Republicans are expressing skepticism about its odds of passage.
But so far, Trump’s Fox propaganda wing isn’t engaged in trying to make the case for the funds.
The $200 billion figure has not been mentioned on the programs of Fox stars Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, or Greg Gutfeld, or on the panel show The Five.
On Jesse Watters Primetime, guest host Charlie Hurt spent 44 seconds of Thursday’s show accusing Democrats who refuse to support the spending of siding with Iran and against the troops.
“The Pentagon is asking for more money to eliminate the bad guys, and it’s not just for Iran,” Hurt claimed. “Trump says it’s for keeping the whole world safe. And guess whose side the Democrats are on?”
He then aired a video of a reporter telling Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), “They’re asking for $200 billion now for this war,” and Ocasio-Cortez responding that she won’t support the request because “this administration has plunged the American people into a war that we don’t want to be in.”
“Soldiers are risking their lives to do what every president of either party, going back decades, said had to be done,” Hurt responded. “The Democrats don’t want to give them the money to finish the job.”
That was the only discussion of the $200 billion war funding figure on Fox’s 8-11 p.m. prime-time block.
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