Charlie Kirk, who bashed Murdoch media ‘hit job, tapped to host Fox & Friends Weekend
This will be the Turning Point USA founder's first time hosting a show on Fox News. As Axios first reported, Kirk is set to join regular Fox & Friends Weekend co-hosts Rachel Campos-Duffy and Charlie Hurt on the curvy couch this coming Saturday and Sunday.
With the dog days of summer upon us, cable news networks are reaching deep into their benches to fill out hosting slots, as this is prime vacation time for anchors and reporters. Therefore, it isn't surprising to see Fox News turn to outside personalities for one-off hosting gigs during this time of year, especially someone with a well-established audience like Kirk, who hosts a radio show and a top-rated podcast.
What does make this stand out, though, is that Kirk was one of the MAGA influencers who was highly critical of the Wall Street Journal's bombshell story on the 'bawdy' birthday card Donald Trump allegedly sent deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. According to the WSJ , the card included a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, with Trump's signature mimicking pubic hair.
The report, which Trump immediately described as 'fake,' led to the president suing the Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News. Meanwhile, the story appeared to dissipate the MAGA uproar over the Epstein files, as prominent conservatives who had grown increasingly frustrated with the administration's handling of the saga quickly rallied around the president over their shared disdain of the mainstream media.
MAGA podcaster and TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk is set to serve as a guest co-host on Fox & Friends Weekend this coming Saturday and Sunday. (Getty Images)
'This is not how Trump talks at all. I don't believe it,' Kirk tweeted in response to the Wall Street Journal story shortly after it was published. He would go on and share other social media posts from Vice President JD Vance, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and Donald Trump Jr. blasting the report as defamatory.
Kirk would be even more outspoken about the story on his radio show this week, where he fumed that the WSJ 'attempted a terrible drive-by… of our phenomenal president' while applauding Trump for his $10 billion lawsuit against Murdoch.
'As soon as I read this story, I said this is the dumbest, obviously fakest thing. I don't believe it,' he declared. 'Now I quickly, and we quickly, came to the president's defense because this thing was obviously a hit job. Obviously, a drive-by shooting trying to go after President Trump and trying to tie some of the Epstein news to President Trump to try to bring down his approval rating.'
Meanwhile, the MAGA backlash against the WSJ as Trump comes for Murdoch has put Fox News in something of a bind, especially considering that the conservative cable giant shares a symbiotic relationship with the president and has helped staff up his administration.
Left without the option of doing what is the network's standard modus operandi, which is parroting Trump's attacks on the mainstream media, Fox News has also decided against defending its sister publication and its owner. This has resulted in the network largely ignoring both the WSJ's blockbuster article and the president's lawsuit, mentioning both only a handful of times since last week.
Additionally, the network has also devoted significantly less airtime to the Epstein controversy than its cable news rivals and even other right-wing outlets. After the president began ordering his supporters to 'stop talking about' Epstein, Fox News has pulled way back on its coverage of the drama surrounding the administration's handling of the flies, prompting MAGA media competitors to outright mock the 'terrified' network for not wanting to 'p*ss off' Trump.
Sharing common ground with Fox News on the issue, Kirk has also sought to heed the president's demand that the MAGA base move on from Epstein and instead concentrated on the various seeming distractions he's tossed out into the ether, such as changing sports teams' names back to racist caricatures or reigniting the 'Russia Witch Hunt' conspiracy and demanding 'Barack Hussein Obama' be charged with treason.
After hosting a TPUSA student event that featured young activists railing against Trump over the DOJ memo that concluded Epstein died by suicide and didn't keep a 'client list,' Kirk returned to his podcast that Monday and said he was 'done talking about Epstein' and would instead 'trust my friends in the government.'
That announcement came shortly after it was reported that Trump personally called Kirk to ask him to ease up on the criticism of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had come under intense fire from MAGA loyalists over the memo, particularly because she had previously said she had the so-called 'client list' on her desk for review.
Kirk would later backtrack from his proclamation that he was moving on from Epstein, declaring the following day that he had merely meant 'yesterday' when he said 'for the time being,' grousing that the 'fake news' had taken him out of context.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
32 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Piers Morgan mocks Stephen Colbert after show is axed
By Piers Morgan mocked Steven Colbert over the cancelation of his show, asking why the comic needed 200 employees for him to parrot the same tired Trump gags every night. Morgan took aim at Colbert during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday, saying the now-cancelled The Late Show was boring and unoriginal. 'I've never read so much, or heard so much guff about a reason for a guy getting canceled. His ratings were tanking, he was costing them $40 million a year, he had 200 staff... 200 people! And all they do all day is prepare anti-Trump jokes,' Morgan said. He went on to also discuss other late night hosts he said focus on President Trump too much, including Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver. 'It's a one-trick pony. Trump-bashing, Trump-bashing, Trump-bashing,' Morgan added. 'And what happened is, in the election, America went, 'You know what? We quite like Trump. So we're gonna vote him back in because we're sick of you whiny liberals.'' Morgan, who described himself as a former liberal sickened by woke excesses, then predicted that Colbert 'won't be the only one that goes.' 'People want to see uncensored, unfiltered comment — the kind of get here around the sofa,' he explained. 'They don't want to see a one-trick, whiny pony telling everyone all the time the guy they voted for is terrible. They don't agree!' It comes after Colbert was further humiliated after fewer than two dozen people showed up to protest Paramount's decision to cancel his show. The group staged the 'We're with Colbert' protest outside of the CBS Broadcast Center on Sunday. CBS announced the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this month, just days after the host blasted the network's $16 million settlement with President Trump as a 'big fat bribe.' Executives said the decision was made after the show, which costs $100 million a year to make, ended up plunging $40 million into the red. Colbert earns between $15 million and $20 million a year, with his enormous staff likely making up most of the rest of the cost. Colbert's show, which began in 2015, will now come to an end in May 2026, executives with the network and Paramount, its new parent company, announced. 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season,' they said in a statement. 'We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire the Late Show franchise at that time,' the executives continued. 'We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and his broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television.' The network explained that the decision to cancel the show is 'purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.' 'It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,' it added.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Piers Morgan asks why Steven Colbert needed 200 staff for show filled with same old Trump bashing every night
Piers Morgan mocked Steven Colbert over the cancelation of his show, asking why the comic needed 200 employees for him to parrot the same tired Trump gags every night. Morgan took aim at Colbert during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday, saying the now-cancelled The Late Show was boring and unoriginal. 'I've never read so much, or heard so much guff about a reason for a guy getting canceled. His ratings were tanking, he was costing them $40million a year, he had 200 staff.... 200 people! And all they do all day is prepare anti-Trump jokes,' Morgan said. Morgan is well-placed to condemn Colbert, as the former host of Pier's Morgan Live, CNN 's replacement for Larry King Live. The show began in 2011 and was canceled in 2014 amid poor ratings, but Morgan has always been humble and honest about the reasons for its failure. He went on to also discuss other late night hosts he said focus on president Trump too much, including Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver. 'It's a one-trick pony. Trump-bashing, Trump-bashing, Trump-bashing,' Morgan added. 'And what happened is, in the election, America went, 'You know what? We quite like Trump. So we're gonna vote him back in because we're sick of you whiny liberals."' Morgan, who described himself as a former liberal sickened by woke excesses, then predicted that Colbert 'won't be the only one that goes.' 'People want to see uncensored, unfiltered comment — the kind of get here around the sofa,' he explained. 'They don't want to see a one-trick, whiny pony telling everyone all the time the guy they voted for is terrible. They don't agree!' It comes after Colbert was further humiliated after fewer than two dozen people showed up to protest Paramount's decision to cancel his show. The group staged the 'We're with Colbert' protest outside of the CBS Broadcast Center in on Sunday. CBS announced the cancellation of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this month, just days after the host blasted the network's $16 million settlement with President Trump as a 'big fat bribe.' Executives said the decision was made after the show, which costs $100 million a year to make, ended up plunging $40 million into the red. Colbert earns between $15 million and $20 million a year, with his enormous staff likely making up most of the rest of the cost. Colbert's show, which began in 2015, will now come to an end in May 2026, executives with the network and Paramount, its new parent company, announced. 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season,' they said in a statement. 'We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire the Late Show franchise at that time,' the executives continued. 'We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and his broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television.' The network explained that the decision to cancel the show is 'purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.' 'It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,' it added.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Trump's attempts at damage control on Epstein are just making things worse
Donald Trump's evident panic over his intimate relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is a case study in damage control gone haywire. If he is trying to keep a scandal clandestine, Trump has instead shined a klieg light on it. His changeable diversions constantly call attention to what he wishes to remain hidden. His prevarications, projections and protests have scrambled his allies and set them against each other. His inability to remain silent on the subject makes him appear as twitchy as a suspect in the glare of a third-degree police interrogation. The supine Republican Congress abruptly adjourned for the summer to flee the incessant demands for the release of files in the possession of the Department of Justice. But three Republicans broke to vote with Democrats on the House oversight committee to demand the Epstein files. The speaker, Mike Johnson, abandoning his assigned role as a Trump echo chamber, blurted, 'This is not a hoax,' directly contradicting Trump. Johnson's plain statement prompted widespread jaw dropping. With every rattled excuse, Trump throws his administration into further chaos. His cabinet members are pitted against each other – the attorney general, Pam Bondi, versus the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, a pair of scorpions in a bottle. Trump has succeeded in driving Bondi from her regular perch on Fox News, as his reliable apologist, into virtual seclusion. She has reportedly engaged in a screaming match with the deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, a former far-right talkshow jock who made his bones parroting that the Epstein files held the secrets of a vast conspiracy to blackmail deep state actors. After she issued a statement that there was no such 'client list', he apparently sulked at home, declining to come into the office, upset that his reputation was being sullied with his former Maga listeners. Bondi accused him of leaking unfavorable stories to the media that blamed her for the Maga backlash against her announcement. The manosphere bigmouth, sensitive about his hurt feelings, was in a tizzy, oh dear. 'No, no, she's given us just a very quick briefing,' Trump said on 15 July about whether Bondi had told him his name was in the files. 'I would say that, you know, these files were made up by [the former FBI director James] Comey, they were made up by [Barack] Obama, they were made up by the Biden administration.' The next day he posted on Truth Social that 'Radical Left Democrats' and 'the Fake News' were behind 'the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax'. A week later, on 23 July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bondi had briefed Trump in May that his name appeared in the Epstein files. Which also raised the question: what did Elon Musk know and from whom did he know it when he tweeted in June that Trump's name was in the files, a tweet he quickly deleted after he had played arsonist? Did Bondi and the FBI director, Kash Patel, inform him about Trump's presence in the Epstein documents? Where else would he have gotten the idea? Into the death valley of parched alibis stepped Tulsi Gabbard to win Trump's affection with a press conference orchestrated at the White House on the same day the Journal punctured Trump's lie about Bondi briefing him on the Epstein files. Gabbard was there to expose a 'treasonous conspiracy' of Obama administration officials who supposedly plotted to manufacture the 'Russiagate' scandal that Putin sought to help Trump in the 2016 election, which was a fact. Her presentation was a farrago of falsehoods. She conflated Russian interference with false claims that Obama fabricated information about Russian hacking of voting machines and other fairytales. Gabbard also triumphantly unveiled a report that Hillary Clinton was on a 'daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers', which was sheer propaganda concocted by Russian intelligence long debunked as 'objectively false' by the FBI. Gabbard's performance unselfconsciously portrayed herself as a useful idiot for Russian spies. Trump was ecstatic. 'She's, like, hotter than everybody. She's the hottest one in the room right now,' he said. He posted that the Democrats 'are playing another Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax but, this time, under the guise of what we will call the Jeffrey Epstein SCAM'. Bondi was reportedly frustrated with Gabbard. Bondi had been given little warning that Gabbard's work would be dumped in her lap 'for criminal referral', apparently in order to satisfy Trump's appetite for revenge. Bondi had been the catalyst of the 'client list' pseudo-scandal, claiming it was sitting on her desk. Always ready to gratify Trump's whims, she was not prepared to be sideswiped by Gabbard. In the pursuit of Trump's favor, one lackey lapped another. Bondi finessed the situation by appointing a special 'strike force' to examine and undoubtedly dismiss yet again Trump's attempt to blot out the conclusive official reports, from the Mueller report to the report by the Senate intelligence committee, chaired by then senator Marco Rubio, that had documented his campaign's involvement with Russian agents in 2016. Bondi appeared to be seething in announcing the 'strike force', going out of her way to describe Gabbard as 'my friend'. The grueling Trump cabinet dance marathon goes round and round until they drop. To demonstrate Obama's supposed guilt, Trump posted an AI-generated video showing Obama forced to his knees and shackled in chains by federal agents before a seated and smiling Trump in the Oval Office to the soundtrack of the song YMCA. Trump apparently thinks that depicting himself as an enslaver, President Simon Legree, is a positive image that can deflect questions about his sexually predatory behavior and Epstein relationship. 'He's done criminal acts,' said Trump about Obama, and he mused, 'There's no question about it, but he has immunity. He owes me big.' Trump was referring to the supreme court's ruling granting him 'absolute' immunity for 'official acts' that wound up relieving him of prosecution for the January 6 insurrection. As Trump explained it, he was responsible for the decision, at least through justices he had appointed, and Obama was indebted to him over 'crimes' that Trump himself had made up to make the Epstein shadow disappear. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Then, after Trump tried the certain loser of a gambit of requesting the release of the Epstein grand jury material, which would almost certainly contain nothing new and was inevitably denied by the judge, he turned to another tactic. Suddenly, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, who had been Trump's personal attorney in the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial, in which Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, was sent racing to Tallahassee to interview Epstein's imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. No mere professional prosecutor would do for this high-level mission. Instead, in an unprecedented move, the deputy attorney general would conduct the interrogation. The case, in fact, was closed after Maxwell's indictment for perjury, conviction for sex-trafficking minors and 20-year sentence. Yet Blanche stated, sloppily misspelling her first name in his haste, 'If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.' He said that Maxwell can 'finally say what really happened', as if she would perhaps prove the existence of the fictional 'client list' or some version of it to incriminate the enemies it contained, or clear Trump as a gentleman beyond reproach. Blanche's remark seemed to dangle a pardon or clemency. Asked about the possibility, Trump said, 'I'm allowed to do it.' Curiously, on 14 July, the solicitor general, D John Sauer, who was Trump's lawyer in the presidential immunity case before the US court of appeals, had filed a brief to the supreme court opposing relief that Maxwell had requested. 'From about 1994 to 2004, petitioner 'coordinated, facilitated, and contributed to' the multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of numerous young women and underage girls,' Sauer wrote. She could not be exempt from her conviction on the basis of Epstein's first trial agreement as she claimed; she had been fairly tried, convicted and the matter was closed. But the acceleration of the Epstein backlash apparently flipped the administration's position. Now, Blanche gave Maxwell a grant of limited immunity. Her attorney, David O Markus, was a good friend of Blanche's. In the Stormy Daniels hush-money case, he had offered Blanche the advice that he should impeach Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, as a witness against him, by characterizing him as 'GLOAT' –the 'Greatest Liar of All Time'. In 2024, Blanche appeared twice on Markus's little-watched podcast. 'I consider you a friend,' said Blanche. Blanche asked Maxwell over two days about 100 people, according to Markus. Who those people might be, what she was asked and what she said remain unknown. One wonders, for example, if Blanche inquired about her knowledge of Trump's adventures in the dressing rooms of underaged models and beyond. One prominent model agent, quoted in a 2023 story in Variety, 'Inside the Fashion World's Dark Underbelly of Sexual and Financial Exploitation: 'Modeling Agencies Are Like Pimps for Rich People,'' said that Trump was 'certainly' a 'fixture'. 'I would see Donald Trump backstage at [Fashion Week home] Bryant Park, and I'm like, 'Why is he standing there when there's a 13-year-old changing?' In 1992, Trump got George Houraney, a Florida businessman, to sponsor a 'calendar girl' competition with 28 young models who were flown to Mar-a-Lago. But there were reportedly only two guests. 'It was him and Epstein,' Houraney said to the New York Times. 'I said, 'Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs. You're telling me it's you and Epstein?'' One of those models, Karen Mulder, who had appeared on the cover of Vogue the year before and was considered among the most elite supermodels, described her experience with Trump and Epstein as 'disgusting', according to the Miami Herald. A year later, in 1993, Epstein brought a Sport Illustrated swimsuit model, Stacey Williams, to Trump Tower. She had met the future president at a Christmas party in 1992. 'It became very clear then that he and Donald were really, really good friends and spent a lot of time together,' Williams told the Guardian. 'The second he was in front of me,' she recounted to CNN in 2024, 'he pulled me into him, and his hands were just on me and didn't come off. And then the hands started moving, and they were on the, you know, on the side of my breasts, on my hips, back down to my butt, back up, sort of then, you know – they were just on me the whole time. And I froze. I couldn't understand what was going on.' While Trump groped her, he kept talking to Epstein, and they were 'looking at each other and smiling'. Markus said: 'We haven't spoken to the president or anybody about a pardon just yet.' Still, he added: 'The president this morning said he had the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power in the right and just way.' The House oversight committee has subpoenaed Maxwell for a deposition on 11 August, but she has not decided yet whether to cooperate, her lawyer said. While Blanche hurried back to Washington, Trump appeared to have depleted his armory of conspiracy theories, at least for the moment. He tried a novel tack, his most audacious projection yet. 'I'm not focused on conspiracy theories that you are,' he admonished the White House press corps. Then he made a remark that he had never made before, something contrary to his entire character, which underscored the depth of his anxiety. 'Don't,' he said, 'talk about Trump.' But Trump quickly recovered from the tension of his momentary reticence, and on the evening of 26 July, from Scotland, where he was touring his golf courses, he posted that Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Al Sharpton should be prosecuted for their endorsement of Kamala Harris in exchange for payments of millions of dollars. 'They should all be prosecuted!' he demanded. Though a bogus accusation, it accurately reflected Trump's crudely transactional worldview. A few hours later, in the early morning of Sunday 27 July, he posted a Fox News clip of the rightwing talker Mark Levin, writing in capital letters: 'THIS IS A MASSIVE OBAMA SCANDAL!' Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast
