What Does Fox News Host Harris Faulkner Know About Integrity?

Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner on Thursday seemingly defended the censorship of anti-Trump talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel: “We want an open market for speech,” she said. “But speech comes with more than responsibility, more than accountability. It comes with the expectation that we’ll have integrity when we use our speech.”

A glaring issue with Faulkner’s statement is that her standard, “integrity,” is in the eye of the beholder. And it’s particularly rich given that the Fox host’s own statements—and those of guests on her shows—don’t exactly use speech in such righteous ways, as Media Matters has thoroughly documented.

Earlier this month, for example, Faulkner suggested that people rightly questioning the legality of President Trump’s September 2 attack on a Venezuelan boat (which the president claims was “drug-carrying”) are “working against America and for the drug cartels.” In April, she asked a guest whether former President Barack Obama and “others in his political camp” are antisemitic for supporting Harvard University amid the Trump administration’s incursions. In February, she defended deporting pregnant women and children.

In November 2024, Faulkner proposed that Representative Rashida Tlaib is a “terrorist.” (“If you support terrorists, aren’t you a terrorist?” she asked rhetorically, equating the Palestinian American congresswoman’s pro-Palestinian advocacy with support for Hamas.) In January 2024, she accused Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden’s homeland security secretary, of treason.

Guests on Faulkner’s shows—to say nothing of other Fox hosts and guests—also say plenty of noxious things, such as that drag queens reading to children normalize pedophilia, that Biden’s border policies “poison[ed] the bloodline in this country,” and that the woman at the center of Trump’s hush-money trial (and ultimately, felony conviction) was a “liar” and a “whore.”

Our math whiz commander in chief is once again promising to lower drug prices by 1,000 percent in the next year and a half—something that is virtually impossible.

“Now the drug companies agree that I’m right, and the countries … if they don’t agree, I’ll use tariffs to get them to agree. You understand?” Trump said in an interview on Fox News.

“We’re gonna be reducing drug costs over the next year, year and a half, by—not fifty or sixty percent—by a thousand percent. Because if you think, a $10 pill going so.… It’ll be raised up from $10 to $20 because it’s the world versus us,” Trump rambled. “So it’ll go from $10 to $20, from $10 to $50 or $60 for them. Which is bearable. And it’ll go from $10 to $20 for us.”

Incredibly, the interviewer did not request any immediate clarification.

This is not the first time Trump has tried to sell this particular strain of snake oil. Last month, Trump also claimed to have already cut drug costs by 1,000 percent. In reality, he hasn’t moved prices at all and has only sent a slurry of strongly worded letters to pharmaceutical companies demanding that they just lower their costs for Americans. And his tariff option, like most recklessly levied tariffs, might just raise the costs of prescription drugs even more.

“I find it really difficult to translate those numbers into some actual estimates that patients would see at the pharmacy counter,” Johns Hopkins University health policy professor Mariana Socal told the Associated Press last month, adding that Trump’s numbers were “really hard to follow.”

A month later, and they still aren’t making any sense.

Donald Trump is apparently intent on punishing media figures deemed guilty of lèse-majesté against him. The day after Jimmy Kimmel was censored at the behest of the Federal Communications Commission, the president told reporters that networks are “not allowed” to excessively bash him.

“When you have a network, and you have evening shows, and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do—if you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative one in years, or something.… When you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that,” Trump said Thursday aboard Air Force One.

On Wednesday, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! after Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group dropped the show. The affair was set in motion by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who threatened media companies that platform Kimmel after the comedian displayed the “sickest conduct possible,” Carr said. (In reality, Kimmel delivered a monologue in which he mocked Trump’s and MAGA’s ridiculous behavior in the wake of the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.)

Trump warned of the move against Kimmel back in July. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next,” he wrote on Truth Social after CBS announced the cancellation of anti-Trump comedian Stephen Colbert’s late-night show (which many saw as a capitulation to the president). After Kimmel’s ouster Wednesday, Trump similarly called his next shots, urging NBC to suspend the shows of Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.

A coalition of states is planning to release its own vaccine recommendations following Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine takeover of the nation’s health institutions.

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island have formed the Northeast Public Health Collaborative. New York City, which has the country’s largest municipal health department that is independent from the state, has also joined the group.

The group released its first round of Covid-19 vaccine recommendations Monday, advising that infants and toddlers between the ages of 6 months and 23 months, as well as adults over 19 years old, “should be vaccinated.” Healthy children between the ages of 2 and 18 do not need to be vaccinated but may receive the vaccine, according to the group.

While the group’s recommendations are in line with guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the American Academy of Family Physicians, they vary vastly from those of the federal government.

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration approved updated Covid-19 shots for people aged 65 or above only, requiring younger adults and children to prove one high-risk health condition, such as asthma or obesity, in order to qualify for the jab.

“The Trump Administration walked away from its responsibility to protect public health,” wrote New York Governor Kathy Hochul on X Thursday. “Through the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, we’re making sure New Yorkers get the facts and access they need to stay protected.”

New York, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island have all expanded access to Covid-19 vaccines, ordering that pharmacies must administer the shot in alignment with recommendations from trusted national medical societies.

California, Oregon, and Washington state have also formed their own West Coast Health Alliance to deliver independent vaccine recommendations.

Kennedy, who has spent much of his time in office promoting unproven medicine and fearmongering about vaccine side effects, has overseen a total upheaval of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Just days before an upcoming meeting to discuss Covid-19 vaccinations for the fall, Kennedy added five new members to the panel, including some vaccine skeptics who had criticized vaccine mandates or downplayed the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic. Kennedy had previously added eight new members in June, after dismissing the original 17.

Susan Monarez, the former CDC director, testified before Congress Wednesday that Kennedy had asked her “to commit, in advance, to approving every” recommendation by the CDC’s ACIP, “regardless of scientific evidence.”

Top U.S. military leaders are considering a new recruitment strategy that would leverage Charlie Kirk’s legacy and memory to draw more of America’s youth into the armed services.

The Pentagon would frame the drive as a “national call to service,” according to U.S. officials who spoke with NBC News. Possible slogans for the recruitment effort include “Charlie has awakened a generation of warriors.”

The enlistment strategy could potentially involve Turning Point USA, Kirk’s political organization, morphing it into recruitment centers. “That could include inviting recruiters to be present at events or advertising for the military at the chapters,” NBC reported that two defense officials explained.

There are some 900 official college chapters and around 1,200 high school chapters of Turning Point USA across the nation, but the conservative advocacy nonprofit received more than 54,000 inquiries for new campus chapters in the 48 hours after Kirk’s assassination, according to TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet.

The undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Anthony Tata, is the brains behind the initiative, sources told NBC News.

It was not immediately clear what the timeline for the drive would be, or if it will even come to fruition. Some dissent has already permeated among some Pentagon leaders, who are reportedly concerned about the P.R. nightmare that could ensue if it’s perceived the U.S. military is attempting to “capitalize on Kirk’s death,” officials told the news network.

Kirk was shot dead last week during an event at Utah Valley University. He was immediately martyred by the ideological right, which has since celebrated the 31-year-old firebrand as a pivotal figure in the MAGA movement.

A college dropout, Kirk had become one of the most prominent conservative activists in the country, attracting droves of young people to the Republican cause by meeting and debating them on college campuses. He was one of the few conservative personalities outside the Trump administration to maintain regular contact with the president, and was credited with playing a critical role in reelecting Donald Trump in 2024.