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Fox News covered the Sydney Sweeney ‘good jeans' ad 28 times more than Epstein this week
While the conservative cable giant has devoted much of its energy lately to peddling Tulsi Gabbard's revisionist claims that the Obama administration engaged in a 'treasonous conspiracy' to manufacture intelligence about Russia's 2016 election interference, Fox News has needed other ragebait stories to help distract right-wing viewers away from Epstein.
The network appeared to find its perfect shiny object this week with the supposed 'liberal outrage' over actress Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle commercial, which was released last week and features the star dressed all in denim while emphasizing her 'good jeans,' an obvious play on words.
According to a study by liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America, the network has spent over 85 minutes across at least 20 segments through Thursday afternoon discussing the commercial and the discourse surrounding it.
At the same time, since Monday, Fox News has only talked about the latest developments in the Epstein saga a total of three minutes, despite the fact that Trump recently claimed that Epstein 'stole' the late Virginia Giuffre – one of the deceased sex offender's accusers – from Mar-a-Lago. Trump's remarks raised additional questions about his knowledge of Epstein's crimes and have led to Giuffre's family demanding more answers from the administration.
The president sparked additional headlines when he reiterated this week that he's 'allowed' to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein partner who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking and abuse of minors. Maxwell recently met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal attorney to Trump, to discuss what she knows about the Epstein case.
Media Matters found that since Monday, Fox News has mentioned Sweeney 62 times on air compared to just 14 for Epstein. While MAGA competitor Newsmax has also given ample coverage to the Sweeney ad, the channel has also frequently discussed the Epstein situation – mentioning it four times more than the American Eagle commercial.
MSNBC, which has yet to mention Sweeney on air this week, has brought up Epstein 756 times, while CNN has mentioned the disgraced financier 638 times, compared to just six references to the Sweeney ad.
Meanwhile, much of the focus on the Sweeney commercial centers on the criticism that some on the left have made about the ad, claiming it shows an 'unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness' and for being a 'eugenicist dog whistle.' While the outrage has largely been limited to social media users and some op-eds, Fox News and other right-wing outlets have ascribed the backlash to 'Democrats' or 'the left' in its entirety.
'Democrats should change their pronouns to 'we suck,'' Fox News host Jimmy Failla stated. 'Not to be crass, but she's got big boobs, Laura, and that used to be the business model.'
Primetime star Jesse Watters, meanwhile, flagged some TikTok videos assailing the ad while arguing that 'liberals saw a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes and thought she was ushering in the Fourth Reich.'
Meanwhile, Semafor political reporter Dave Weigel explained how MAGA media was creating a manufactured outrage cycle about Democrats complaining about the Sweeney ad when exactly no prominent party officials had said anything about it.
'I have looked for a single Dem with an opinion on the AE ad and literally can't find one. It's just 'the left' which is a stand-in for 'what Democrats really think.' The ask seems to be that Dems condemn Twitter randos if they say something crazy,' he noted on Thursday.
Still, it hasn't stopped the White House from adding more fuel to the fire by weighing in on the so-called controversy that's supposedly consuming the left as a whole.
'Cancel culture run amok,' White House communications director Steven Cheung declared this week. 'This warped, moronic, and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024. They're tired of this bulls**t.'
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