This week, similar suspicious packages were mailed to frequent targets of right-wing criticism, including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and former CIA Director John Brennan.
The first one, however, was discovered on Monday outside the New York residential compound of billionaire George Soros. Authorities later determined it contained a pipe bomb.
It’s not yet known who delivered the pipe bomb. What’s not in doubt is that Soros has become the right wing’s main boogeymen over the last decade.
His most vicious critics tend to be members of the Nazi frog set, employing longtime anti-Semitic tropes to depict Soros as a Jewish puppet master. But other critics make their money at Fox News, where Soros is treated as the Moriarty of liberal America, the spider at the center of a vast web.
In the eyes of his most unwavering detractors, Soros is a Nazi-sympathizing, left-wing “globalist” hellbent on using his billions to destroy the conservative movement.
Soros is not a Nazi sympathizer ― the conservative Weekly Standard will tell you that, even if Infowars won’t ― but he is an enormously generous benefactor of liberal causes. In the past, he has given millions to support Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But the real Soros money ― at least $18 billion of it ― has gone to Open Society Foundations, an organization he founded decades ago to promote democracy and human rights around the world.
Conservatives don’t actually have a problem with rich men donating money to political causes, as the Koch brothers demonstrate. At issue is the fact that Open Society Foundations hands large wads of cash to left-leaning U.S. organizations like New America and the Center for American Progress, which some see as proof of an enormous Soros-funded left-wing conspiracy in which brainwashed liberals do Soros’ bidding ― paid protesters and all that.
Since news of the pipe bomb outside Soros’ home broke on Monday, Fox News has described Soros as a “billionaire liberal activist” and a “very, very influential person in the Democratic Party,” according to the media monitoring website TVEyes.
But before that, pundits’ depictions were much more vivid. Since April, people on Fox News have depicted Soros as a “dirty word” and a “radical” who “hates the United States.”
Here are other comments about Soros that have been broadcast on Fox News since April, based on TVEyes’ rough transcripts. We have corrected the punctuation and grammar where it’s unclear in the transcripts. We’ve also noted which shows the comments aired on, although hosts and guests can and do rotate.
Oct. 20, “Justice With Judge Jeanine”: “You can tell the Democrat George Soros and the angry mob coming here, you either come the right way like everyone else or be ready to face the military and a one-way ticket back to where you came from.”
Oct. 18, “The Ingraham Angle”: “George Soros, we cannot underestimate the power of his billions of dollars funneling through these David Brock groups and run by David Brock, whether it’s the Media Matters group or this American Bridge group. At some point, is it time to investigate their 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status? Is this really ― is this a type of legitimate speech or is this just targeted harassment?”
Oct. 18, “The Ingraham Angle”: “A hostile Democratic operative with ties to George Soros and a long history of harassing Republicans has been arrested for battery against a female campaign manager of a GOP candidate.”
Oct. 17, “Tucker Carlson Tonight”: “He was also a big fan of radical, genuinely radical billionaire George Soros.”
Oct. 12, “Hannity”: “The mob rule that you’re seeing on the Democratic side is really just the tip of the iceberg. It’s indicative of a Democratic Party that’s been bought and paid for by the George Soroses of the world who really don’t care about the American system. Who don’t like the way we live and our values and our principles. Those riots or mob actions are coordinated by groups that Soros has funded. They have full-paid staff making sure these things happen. They pay for people to go there. They [distribute] the scripts. They print the signs. They [distribute] the shirts. It goes beyond that. Soros has got leverage now in the Democratic primaries, and that’s why you are getting candidates like [Kyrsten Sinema] in Arizona that has a horrible history that nobody noticed before … Soros supports them and puts them out there. This Democratic Party is becoming a disgrace.”
Oct. 8, “America’s Newsroom”: “The whole democratic process now has been taken over by Soros and company, who are funding groups on the edge of politics. The demonstrators in Washington were paid by these groups, were funded by these groups, were coached by these groups and were told what to say, and the Democratic Party is letting this socialism and destabilizing the presidency, legislative process and the Supreme Court be the policy of the Democratic Party. I think they are going to rue the day that the ― the Democrats will rue the day they let themselves get taken over like this.”
Oct. 7, “America’s News Headquarters”: “The challenge is it is funded by [Tom Steyer] and George Soros, who are funding progressive groups to go out and get in Republican spaces and scream and yell at them.”
Oct. 5, “The Ingraham Angle”: “Yes, the Center for Popular Democracy is aligned with George Soros’ network. He is the sun in the center of a galaxy of these left-wing resistance groups that have morphed over time.”
Oct. 6, “Fox & Friends”: “These protesters are paid by George Soros. It is a manufactured protest intended to demonize any [male] in this country.”
Oct. 6, “Fox Report With Jon Scott”: “The rallying cry now for progressives is impeachment, not just President Trump, but also now Brett Kavanaugh. This is [Tom Steyer] and George Soros’ worst nightmare. They are spending their life’s fortune to stop a conservative agenda.”
Oct. 5, “The Ingraham Angle”: “No secret at this point the protesters at the Capitol are often funded directly or indirectly by some George Soros-affiliated groups. For daring to raise this possibility, Sen. Chuck Grassley was called an anti-Semite.”
Oct. 4, “Fox & Friends First”: “These are not genuine people who care about Doctor Ford or anything else. These are paid activists. This is a George Soros conspiracy, and [it’s time] we wake up and expose them and stand up and fight for our country because that is what is at stake here.”
Oct. 3, “America’s Newsroom”: “Anna Maria [Archila, the woman who confronted Sen. Jeff Flake in an elevator] is the group’s co-executive director. Soros donated $1.5 million dollars to that organization in 2016 and 2017. How can you say this isn’t political?”
Oct. 3, “Fox & Friends First”: “George Soros is the one slipping anti-Kavanaugh protesters cash to harass. When will the left stop these tactics?”
Oct. 2, “Hannity”: “According now tonight to FoxNews.com, many protests like the one you saw are being organized, funded, shockingly, by George Soros and a group he is backing. He’s the extremely wealthy liberal billionaire who wants to take away your Second Amendment rights, and he has a different version of what America should be, obviously.”
Oct. 2, “Fox & Friends”: “George Soros is such a dirty word to me.”
Sept. 25, “The Ingraham Angle”: “George Soros, it’s not surprising. George Soros paid for the fake dossier.”
Sept. 22, “Cavuto Live”: “I think there’s a tell in these prolonged negotiations by Dr. [Christine] Blasey [Ford]’s legal team, which by the way is … funded effectively by George Soros and his organization.”
Sept. 1, “The Ingraham Angle”: “The greater principle on the left here is we have to protect our own team … They’re very powerful people on the left, George Soros and Harvey Weinstein. It’s an unwritten rule in a sense of progressive journalism these people are untouchable and you have to run defense for them and run protection for them.”
Aug. 29, “The Ingraham Angle”: “Barack Obama was called a disappointment by George Soros [in The] New York Times magazine piece. He said Obama disappointed him. “He didn’t consult him enough.” He wasn’t socialist enough for Soros. Soros wants to ― Open Society is really about open borders. That is what it is. No borders, no restriction on movement. Sovereignty is out the window ― all these principles we hold dear as Americans.”
Aug. 3, “Tucker Carlson Tonight”: “George Soros invested $3 million into The New York Times Company. [What] happened a couple months later? The New York Times published a glittering profile of him. I used to freelance at The New York Times, and I am very familiar with their ethics policy. I used to live in fear of their ethics policy, which is very intense and dramatic, especially their conflicts of interest. There are sections [on] public neutrality when it came to political issues. This is clearly not the paper I knew. I was so shocked when I heard about the George Soros injection into the company, and maybe that is what we are seeing here. They just want to be either a George Soros operation, globalist operation, or they’ve decided to make a business decision to just be a left-wing tabloid like Huffington Post.”
June 20, “Fox News @ Night With Shannon Bream”: “We underestimate who George Soros is. The Open Society organization has already spent $15 billion in campaigning ... This is an organized attempt to undermine nation-states, to undermine democracy and fundamentally change the makeup demographically of the European continent … but if you criticize George Soros, his media friends accuse you of being an anti-Semite, quite extraordinary.”
May 20, “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace”: “We know what George Soros has funded. His creations have gone after you and me.”
May 4, “Fox & Friends”: “Billionaire investor George Soros is funding a smartphone app to help illegals avoid the fed, the federal government, according to Judicial Watch, which says the app, Notifica, allows them to alert their attorney when officials are nearby.”
April 5, “Tucker Carlson Tonight”: “George Soros is a billionaire, but somehow his own money isn’t enough to fund the totality of his anti-American agenda. So U.S. taxpayers had to step into the breach and help as well ... George Soros hates the United States, and I’m judging that by the projects that he funds, all of which are designed to change the country as it is now or to thwart U.S. interests.”
On Thursday, President Donald Trump blamed a “very big part of the anger we see today in our society” on the media. Presumably, he wasn’t talking about Fox News.