Deconstructing the anatomy of a mainstream media Trump hoax

President Trump speaking a rally in Nebraska.

The mainstream media colluding with leftist politicians attempted to fabricate another Trump hoax on Tuesday in what seemed to be a clear attempt to whip up manufactured anger toward the president exactly four weeks out from the midterm elections. 

The attempted hoax involved comments President Trump made during a speech at a rally in Nebraska. Numerous mainstream media outlets -- from The New York Times to CBS News to ABC News -- regaled their readers with stories of fury over Trump suggesting Iran should attack Los Angeles or San Diego. It all started with leftist video clippers on social media posting a 12-second clip of Trump's remarks, which removed all the context from the larger point he was making and attempted to make it seem like he was calling for Iran to bomb two U.S. cities, when, in fact, he was saying high gas prices were a small price to endure to make sure Iran didn't have the nuclear capacity to do so. 

The fury, not surprisingly, came from Democrat politicians. California Gov. Gavin Newsom pounced on the opportunity to not only take Trump's remarks out of context, but misrepresent them altogether. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass did the same. Ditto for Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris. Others piled on. Even some Republicans took the bait and criticized Trump. The whole thing had "Very Fine People" hoax vibes about it. The media were happy to amplify the politicians' outrage, passing up the opportunity to instead provide full context -- an abdication of their duties. 

A headline on Yahoo News spreading a lie about what Trump said during the rally.

Ultimately, the hoax didn't gain much momentum because, for one thing, it was quickly called out online by sharp-eyed media observers. Another factor could be that many Americans in 2026 are now more aware of the tricks the mainstream media like to pull in an attempt to disparage Trump, and are able to recognize them more quickly than they could a decade ago. Plus, White House communications director Steven Cheung responded quickly, blasting the "media freakout" on X, and pointing out that Trump "was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped."

One trick, that perhaps many TV news viewers have caught on to is the technique of showing only a very brief clip of Trump speaking and then following that clip up with still images of Trump while the reporter narrates to viewers what that particular media outlet wants viewers to believe Trump said -- like what Good Morning America did in this report on Tuesday.

A prominent online media observer who quickly called out the attempted hoax and exposed how these types of hoaxes are perpetrated was a media observer and critic who goes by the pseudonym Maze, or @mazemoore.

"Anyone who has watched a recent Trump speech knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not saying that he wants to allow Iran to take out American cities," Maze wrote in a post on X that included five video clips of Trump, showing his remarks about Iran have been a recurring theme in recent speeches. In one speech, Trump used Mobile, Alabama, as an example of a city Iran could've targeted had it had nuclear weapons capabilities. 

"The current Democrat hoax claiming that Trump wants Iran to bomb California is every bit as dumb as the Fine People Hoax," Maze said in a separate post on X in which he broke down how the "Very Fine People" hoax was constructed by the media and how Joe Biden's 2020 campaign was built on that very hoax. Below, watch Maze's video on the attempted California hoax and watch Trump's full speech, beginning with the passage the media tried to misrepresent, here.