News
‘Feels Like’: Fox Host Spins Conspiracy Theory of Government Network ‘Trying to Stop Trump’
Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo is spinning a baseless conspiracy theory, saying that to her, “it just feels like” there is a network attached to U.S. government law enforcement agencies, along with the media, “trying to stop” Donald Trump, before she asked a sitting U.S. Senator to “stop the free press.”
Bartiromo in her Wednesday interview with U.S. Senator Rand Paul went as far as to suggest top tech firms including Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, had intentionally censored a photo of Donald Trump taken just after the assassination attempt earlier this month. Her remarks led the Kentucky Republican lawmaker to explain the First Amendment to the veteran journalist after she asked that Congress “do something” to prevent tech platforms from censoring certain posts or information.
“It just feels like there is a network in place in all these corners, whether it be government, FBI, Secret Service or media, that is trying to stop Trump,” declared Bartiromo, a staunch supporter of the ex-president.
Bartiromo, who has been called a “conspiracy theorist,” was named in Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox Corp. A Washington Post 2020 profile noted she had employed “the parlance of election conspiracy theorists,” and noted that Bartiromo “was one of the few to offer her solid approval of Trump’s disastrous August 2017 news conference in which he insisted there were ‘some very fine people on both sides’ of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.”
READ MORE: ‘Love, Support, Golf Memberships’: Eric Trump Outraged Over Cousin’s Kamala Harris Endorsement
“I mean,” Baritromo continued Tuesday, “look at, look at what Trump said about Meta and Google and, you know, go try to Google ‘Trump assassination attempt.’ President Trump said that Meta and Google are censoring information about the assassination attempt on his life, saying that they made it virtually impossible to find pictures or anything about the heinous act. Google responded to the allegations and claimed that its auto complete search tool was not showing results for the Trump assassination attempt.”
“It says there was no manual action taken and that its systems have protections against auto complete predictions associated with political violence. It also says that its chatbot Gemini refusing to answer questions about the assassination attempt because of a previous policy which restricted questions on election related issues.”
Bartiromo then sounded stunned that Google could deem the attempted assassination of an ex-president running for re-election, speaking to supporters at a campaign rally, “election-related.”
“Are you serious?” she asked. “This is election related? Now, an assassination attempt on a former president is election-related? Meanwhile, Meta says it’s working to update its AI assistant after it was telling users that the assassination attempt was fictional. Facebook also says that it was an error to censor the iconic photo of Trump pumping his fist in the air after getting shot. We have that photo. There it is. Why were they censoring this photo? Senator?”
Senator Paul responded, declaring, “well, well, all I can say is, thank God for Elon Musk, who exposed how terribly biased these people were. And by taking over Twitter. Twitter now is an objective platform where you can post things now.”
Maria Bartiromo, interviewing Rand Paul, claims of the Trump assassination attempt, “it just feels like there’s a network in place, in all these corners – whether it be govt, FBI, Secret Service, or media – that is trying to stop Trump.” (The shooter was a registered Republican) pic.twitter.com/lXkznkb9lX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2024
Last year The Atlantic declared Twitter “is now a right-wing social network,” while Foreign Policy warned, “Elon Musk’s Twitter Is Becoming a Sewer of Disinformation.”
READ MORE: What Project 2025 Shutting Down ‘Policy’ Operations Actually Means: Expert
As the interview continued, Bartiromo appeared increasingly agitated.
“You’re an elected official. Can’t you stop the so-called free press from censoring information and do something to ensure that these companies are in fact, you know, living up to the letter of free press?”
“The First Amendment’s very clear,” Senator Paul replied, “that Congress, government shall make no law restricting freedom of press or freedom of speech. It doesn’t say that private entities, so for example, The New York Times doesn’t have to print my op-eds. Neither does The Washington Post. In fact, they really don’t ever print my opinion. And they have a right to, it’s a privately-owned newspaper. It’s the same way with social media.”
“But you can leave, and you can force them to expand their horizons if they you vote with your dollars and go somewhere else. And so this is the way the marketplace works. But if we set up a government entity to say to Google and to Facebook, ‘you have to publish this,’ my fear is that people who will populate that government entity making these speech decisions will be people who end up being people who don’t like my opinion either. I don’t want the government involved or any kind of committee involved from government with choosing and enforcing free speech, because I think they’ll just enforce it another rule on speech that I’m not particularly in favor of,” Paul explained.
“OK, well,” Bartiromo asked, “what about taking away their freedom of liability, for anything? What about that? Is there nothing you can do as an elected official to try to make sure these companies are reporting truth?”
“If you let people sue Facebook because someone said they don’t like someone else on their Facebook post, it’s going to destroy the internet. So liability protection is important for the internet to work. Look, I don’t like their left-wing politics and I oppose them, I speak out, I boycott these people, and I’ll do it to my last breath. But I don’t want the government involved with breaking up big tech. If you break up our big tech, guess who takes over” China’s big tech. So I’m not for breaking up American big tech.”
Rand Paul has to explain the 1st Amendment to Maria Bartiromo after she suggests Congress should “stop the free press from censoring information.” pic.twitter.com/BUC67Zzt0b
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2024
Watch the videos above or at this link.
READ MORE: Trump Flails as Fox News Forces Him to Defend Picking Vance: ‘He’s Not Against Anything’
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
