Confider #71: Fox News vs. TPUSA, Mark Levin Meltdown, and Megyn Kelly Rises

Welcome to this week’s edition of Confider, the Monday night media newsletter that pulls back the curtain to reveal what’s really going on inside the world’s most powerful navel-gazing industry. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.

EXCLUSIVE — FOX’S MAGA YOUTH BREAK-UP: Months after fully severing ties with CPAC, Fox News appears to have distanced itself from another major conservative powerhouse: Turning Point USA. In years past, the cable network maintained a close, nearly symbiotic relationship with the Charlie Kirk-led MAGA student group, with Fox News stars regularly appearing at TPUSA events and Fox Nation livestreaming the entirety of the org’s Student Action Summit and Americafest events, including an All Access Live broadcast in 2021 hosted by Fox stars Kayleigh McEnany and Pete Hegseth. However, as Kirk unveils his big 2023 confab for this upcoming weekend, Fox News is notably absent from the speakers roster, has done no advance hyping of the event, and will not be live-streaming it. “Fox’s relationship with Turning Point is basically over,” a Fox News insider told Confider. “They don’t want their talent associated with them anymore.” The inaugural Turning Point Action Conference, aka ActCon, which is hosted by TPUSA’s political advocacy arm and begins Saturday in Palm Beach, will feature a bevy of GOP presidential candidates and lawmakers along with right-wing pundits, including former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Dan Bongino, both of whom exited the network in April. But not a single Fox News star is set to appear at this moment. Fox News, like any cable network, could very well cover a moment or two from the event should it warrant their attention, but the network’s absence constitutes a remarkable change for both parties: Over the past two years, Turning Point’s biggest annual events have been Fox-heavy affairs featuring the Hegseth and McEnany broadcasts as well as much-hyped speeches from Carlson, Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Jeanine Pirro, and Laura Ingraham. (Ingraham was the only Fox personality to speak at TPUSA’s women’s summit last month, but the group did not actively promote her speech on its website.) So what’s behind the network apparently ghosting Turning Point? Semafor reported last week that the network is wary about letting its stars appear at conservative events with known election deniers and conspiracy theorists in the wake of Fox’s massive $787.5-million settlement with Dominion. For example, Fox has discouraged Pirro, who was prominently named in the Dominion lawsuit, from speaking at a TPUSA event and a church service to promote her latest book. Further suggesting a link between Dominion and Fox’s break-up with TPUSA is the fact that ActCon 2023’s keynote speaker is Donald Trump, whose election lies directly led to Fox’s Dominion mess. (Trump will appear this weekend on Fox’s air, however, in a more controlled environment, via a sitdown interview with Maria Bartiromo.) Other 2020 deniers and Jan. 6 organizers scheduled for ActCon speeches include Mike Lindell, Patrick Byrne, and Steve Bannon. Furthermore, Kirk himself has been outspoken in his belief that the 2020 vote was “stolen“ from Trump. Neither Fox News nor TPUSA responded to requests for comment.

Tips? We’re all ears: confider@thedailybeast.com or call/text us 551 655 2343.

EXCLUSIVE — ALL OUT AT INSIDER: Insider, the business-focused news site that welcomed staffers back from a strike last month, just lost the last remnant of its doomed attempt at a full-throttle politics bureau. Kimberly Leonard, a politics reporter based in Florida who focused on Trump and DeSantis, has left for Politico, the outlet announced on Friday. She marks the last departure of Insider’s original D.C. bureau, one that over three years saw its staffers either abandon ship (Kayla Epstein to the BBC, Camila DeChalus to The Washington Post), get laid off (congressional reporter Warren Rojas), or, in the case of the editor hired to oversee the team, get fired (Darren Samuelsohn, now a senior politics editor at The Messenger). The team was eventually merged with its New York team last year. While Insider still has some political reporters based in D.C., it admitted its failure venturing further into the space when Confider reported earlier this year on the bureau’s yearslong breakdown, noting it planned to re-focus on the business news it has been more known for under the leadership of self-described “big boy” editor in chief Nich Carlson. A rep for Insider declined to comment.

EXCLUSIVE — MARK LEVIN MELTDOWN: Talk-radio titan Mark Levin juiced pre-sales of his new book, The Democrat Party Hates America, last week by crying “cancel culture” and claiming Target was “censoring” his tome over its inflammatory title, only for the retailer to “reverse course” and carry it. Of course, in reality, his book was never in danger of not hitting Target shelves. On Wednesday evening, Levin blared on Twitter that “Target will not carry THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HATES AMERICA because it might offend Democrats,” imploring fans to order his book directly through Amazon “without going through Democrat-Party corporatists.” The next day, the Fox News weekend host claimed Target “has reversed course and will be taking my new book in its stores upon its release.” This prompted right-wing media outlets to crow that the store—already the subject of reactionary boycotts for selling Pride apparel—had “backtracked” thanks to conservative backlash. A spokesman for the retailer, however, suggested in a statement that this was all much ado about nothing: “We’ve been offering this book for pre-sale since mid-June. As we have with Mark Levin’s past books, many of which are currently available for sale at Target, we’ll offer his newest title for sale when it is available on September 19. The use of the word ‘hate’ in the title caused our team to reach out to the publisher, but as stated, we are continuing to offer this book for pre-sale now and it will be available for sale on its release date. We regret any confusion this situation caused.” In the end, the book was still two full months from publication and was only available for pre-order. Nothing was pulled from the shelves and Target never banned the book, though it appears there was a preliminary convo about making it online-only. In the end, Levin even softened his claims about Target’s stance: After a Daily Beast reporter reached out to him last week, he said on-air that his publisher initially said the book would always be available online and that Target “has elected not to carry” it in stores. Additionally, the gasbag verbally insulted our reporter, calling her a “putz” who works at “The Daily Beastiality.”

MEGYN THE POD GOD: The rise of right-wing podcasting has been dominated by usual suspects like Ben Shapiro, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. But one eyebrow-raising name has seen explosive growth: Megyn Kelly. According to data shared with Confider by TheRighting, a watchdog reporting on and analyzing trends in right-wing media, the former NBC and Fox News host’s daily podcast has grown its subscriptions in Q2 by 41 percent over last year’s second quarter, placing it within the top 10 most-subscribed conservative shows. While falling well short of Kelly’s overall tally, Candace Owens saw similarly massive Q2 growth at 50 percent over last year. “While right wing podcasting is dominated overwhelmingly by white men, the podcasts from Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens have quietly grown their subscriber base,” writes Howard Polskin, president of TheRighting. “They are positioned to become dominant players in this important corner of right wing media for the near future and beyond.”

THE FALL OF HENRY: Disgraced ex-Fox News reporter Ed Henry’s downfall continued last month when he was arrested in Palm Beach County under suspicion of driving under the influence. According to Semafor, which first reported the arrest, Henry, who now hosts for far-right streamer Real America’s Voice, was pulled over when cops spotted him “driving erratically with a flat tire.” The TV host’s lawyer told Semafor that Henry “respectfully” took a breathalyzer test and came in below Florida’s legal limit. No charges have been filed. Confider has obtained Henry’s mugshot from his June 20 arrest via the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

IN PLAIN SIGHT: An Axios story from Alex Thompson about President Joe Biden using cuss words has gotten plenty of attention, especially from GOP lawmakers, but a tipster notes the story is very similar to one Thompson wrote for Politico, his previous employer… Months after announcing her divorce, former CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin hard-launched her new beau on Instagram in a cutesy post… Former NBC correspondent Jo Ling Kent, who as Confider reported left the network amid a contract dispute last year, has landed at CBS News as their senior biz and tech correspondent… Far-right podcaster Elijah Schaffer, whom the Beast reported was fired by Glenn Beck over sex-assault claims, has been reduced to publicly wondering aloud why even Breitbart folk don’t want to associate with him.

WE HEAR WHISPERS: We’re apparently getting another major newspaper profile of White House press gadfly Simon Ateba. While The Washington Post published theirs over the weekend, we hear The New York Times is also apparently working one that involves an extended interview at the habitual briefing-room nuisance’s D.C. home.

MORE FROM THE BEAST MEDIA DESK

—The New York Times’ purchase of The Athletic already portended doom for the paper’s sports reporters, but now the Gray Lady has decided the long-standing sports desk is no longer fit to print. Read more about the shock decision here.

—Ron DeSantis is already prone to appearing uncomfortable in public places, but we never expected Fox News to be where we’d watch him squirm the most in recent weeks. On Thursday night, host Will Cain directly asked the governor why he’s “not connecting” with voters, eliciting an agonized response from DeSantis. And then on Sunday, noted Trump superfan Maria Bartiromo did the same, garnering an awkward snicker from the guv. Watch here.

—Threads seems poised to achieve the impossible: Becoming the Twitter clone that actually sticks, scaring the hell out of “Chief Twit” Elon Musk. But star journalists who built massive followings on Twitter are migrating over to the Mark Zuckerberg-owned platform with caution. Read about their concerns here.

RECENT READS

—Now that Chris Licht has gone, Jake Tapper has spilled on the fired CNN CEO’s brief, tumultuous reign. “I’m bummed that it didn’t work out,” Tapper told Kara Swisher this week. “But I will say that things are really good right now… the focus is back on our journalism… and morale hasn’t been better in years.” More here.

—Columbia Journalism Review’s Jon Allsop tore apart the media coverage of anti-vax chaos agent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Democratic candidacy, concluding: “While no Kennedy coverage would be too little, the current level of coverage is way too much.” More here.

—“Some of the best reporting anywhere over the weekend was published by a college newspaper,” Poynter noted on Monday, sharing the story of how Northwestern’s student-run paper shed light on disturbing hazing allegations on the school’s football team, forcing the university’s president to apologize for his handling of the situation. More here.

***WHAT ARE WE OUTRAGED ABOUT NOW?***

Fox News would like to call the manager on MSNBC. Over the weekend, former GOP congressman David Jolly sparked laughter on the set of MSNBC’s The Saturday Show With Jonathan Capehart when he described Florida’s First Lady Casey DeSantis as “America’s Karen.” While Jolly continued to criticize the wife of GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, fellow anti-MAGA Republican pundit Tara Setmayer called her a “Serena Waterford wannabe,” a reference to The Handmaid’s Tale. Needless to say, the outrage was high among Fox News pundits on Monday. “To say that this is shocking and unacceptable is an understatement, especially with the word ‘Karen,’ which is a pejorative that has racist stereotypes,” Outnumbered co-host Emily Compagno exclaimed, adding that it is “ugly mockery” of a “woman that's been an incredible figure in government.” While former Trump spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany raged about the attacks on the “smart as a whip” governor’s wife, anchor Harris Faulkner doubled down on the supposed bigotry directed Mrs. DeSantis’ way. “I hate that word. It's a racial slur,” she fumed. “It is awful. It lumps everybody together. It is just terrible”

Confider will be back next week with more saucy scooplets. In the meantime, subscribe here and send us questions, complaints, or tips here or call/text us 551 655 2343.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.

Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.