• by Joe Mandese , July 15, 2025

I don't know how accurate Fox News Channel's internal search engine is, but when I queried "Epstein Files" it returned 55,100 stories.

That's the baseline for the attention Fox News has paid to the infamous, conspiracy-ridden, salacious, MAGA-obsessed subject matter.

But after President Trump called on his allies in the media and social influencer world to stop talking about it Monday, Fox News apparently listened to its master's voice, according to a developing news analysis conducted by watchdog group Media Matters for America (see above and link here to following its continuing coverage). But you get the idea.

The data is material proof of just how much control Trump has over MAGA media, which initially exploded in a frenzy following Trump's closure of the Justice Department's Epstein Files investigation, as well as the MAGA-controlled House of Representative's vote not to release the files to the American public.

If you ask me, the files must include some incredibly damning links to Trump if, after years of promoting Jeffrey Epstein conspiracies, he's called on MAGA world to abandon it.

But the immediacy with which his angry MAGA base -- as well as their go-to news and influencer sources -- have heeled illustrates just how much control Trump has over that part of the Fourth Estate. You know, the part he doesn't call -- in Orwellian irony -- "fake news."

Interestingly, right-wing news tracker TheRighting also released an analysis today showing that Trump's MAGA media megaphone is a two-way street, both listening to its master's voice, and then having the master amplify how the MAGA media -- especially Fox News -- cover it in the White House's own communications channels.

"Murdoch-controlled media outlets received the most links from the White House Wire," TheRighting President Howard Polskin wrote in a dispatch to "Red, White & Blog" this morning, noting that the White House Wire is a "Drudge-Report-like mini-aggregation website and newsletter created by the White House to spotlight articles favorable to the Trump administration.  Each day, links to articles from six news outlets are posted with one or two descriptive sentences."

According to TheRighting's analysis, the wire linked to Fox News 22 times, followed by Fox Business Channel (13) times, and Murdoch's New York Post (10 times). See analysis below:

"While the Trump administration often criticizes many mainstream news outlets by calling their reporting 'Fake News,' TheRighting discovered that the administration linked 19 times to mainstream sources," the analysis notes.