The meeting was not on a publicly released schedule for Vance, and his office did not give the press advance notice that the meeting would occur.

The White House hasn’t acknowledged the meeting, let alone revealed what was discussed, such as whether the Trump administration is coordinating messaging and talking points, but history shows that has long been the trend.

Rupert Murdoch founded and launched Fox News in 1996 alongside Republican operative and sexual predator Roger Ailes. For the entirety of its existence Fox has attacked Democrats and the left, regularly promoting racism, homophobia, misogyny, and outright lies and misinformation.

The meeting with Vance occurred while President Donald Trump has deployed military forces to Los Angeles in an attempt to silence protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. The administration ratcheted up those raids after senior officials like Stephen Miller reportedly expressed outrage that mass deportation efforts are failing to find massive quantities of criminal undocumented immigrants that Trump promoted during the 2024 election.

Fox News has for years been at the forefront of right-wing propaganda popularizing false narratives of crimes caused by migrants. In recent days, the network has promoted lies meant to justify Trump’s military action while misleadingly emphasizing the level of violence at protests in LA.

For instance, Fox promoted Trump’s false narrative about the content of his phone call last Friday with California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom made it clear that Trump never brought up deploying the National Guard, but then Fox and Trump both pushed the lie alleging that Newsom said there was never a phone call between the two men.

Fox is also pushing hate and conspiracies about protesters, with hosts describing them as “ungrateful children of immigrants.” When Newsom addressed the nation to call out Trump’s invasion, Fox led the right-wing media response, lambasting the governor.

Trump owes much of his political career to Fox, who transitioned him from reality TV host to political pundit by giving him a slot on “Fox & Friends” during the Obama administration. The network has been at his side all along, providing ideas and personnel for both of his administrations while defending him and attacking his political enemies.

His current leadership is packed to the gills with ex-Fox News staffers, from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and most recently in the guise of interim U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro. Trump administration figures like Attorney General Pam Bondi (a former Fox News employee as well) appears more often on Fox News than in any other setting, constantly pushing pro-administration falsehoods and narratives.

From time to time, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal has offered slight criticisms of Trump, particularly in relation to his destructive tariff policies. In response, he called the paper “rotten” and “China-oriented,” and even called for the editorial staff to be replaced.

But the meeting with Vance shows that there are still close bonds at the highest levels between the two camps. Fox has shown time and time again that it is willing to go to bat for Trump, and Trump rewards the network with his attention and praise—a testimony to how intertwined they both are.

Fox even paid out a settlement of $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems after they pushed pro-Trump lies after the 2020 election, and it hasn’t seriously shaken their unholy alliance. Fox and Trump are in this together for the long haul, and Vance’s conveniently timed junket is a reminder of that.

Since Trump’s criminal convictions were in state court, he can’t make them go away with a self-pardon or by having his Department of Justice work some magic on his behalf. But if he can get it into federal court, if all else fails, he always has his friends on the Supreme Court.

In fact, Trump’s argument here relies almost entirely on the greatest gift his friends on the Supreme Court ever gave him: presidential immunity. Yes, the argument is that since the Supreme Court ruled on July 1, 2024, that Trump was immune from prosecution for “official” acts, that should be applied backward to Trump’s criminal conviction.

Oh, and a brief reminder that Trump is also still appealing his conviction up through the New York state courts while also trying to get it into federal court. It’s good to take a belt-and-suspenders approach, and apparently, Trump has nothing but time these days.

There’s a big obstacle here that would normally stop this dead in its tracks. The Supreme Court cannot review a state court’s case until it is fully litigated to the highest court in the state and has a final ruling.

Trump’s legal team’s argument to the federal appellate court is basically Let us skip the line, bro. Come on. He’s friends with the owners, and he’s gonna call your boss if you don’t let him.

This legal team also unsubtly telegraphed that their goal was to get this in front of the Supreme Court. It should be there because the scope of Trump’s federal constitutional immunity should be decided “by this court and the Supreme Court, not by New York State courts.”

Even if Trump succeeds in getting this to federal court, his conviction occurred in state court. Theoretically, that would mean he can’t pardon himself, but hey, who knows what the Supreme Court would do for Trump on this one. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh seem to appear inclined to give it a whirl.

In something that flew under the radar at the time—because who can keep up?—former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann reported Thursday that the Department of Justice filed a brief on Trump’s behalf. There, they argue that the federal officer removal statute allows this to be sent to federal court. And since there was evidence introduced in the state case that relied on things that occurred while Trump was president, it is improper since his presidential immunity should work backward and make that go away.

Weissmann also noted another fun fact: There’s no evidence that Trump’s two former defense attorneys, Emil Bove and Todd Blanche, recused themselves from the DOJ filing. So Trump’s previous personal criminal defense legal team possibly got to shape the argument made on behalf of the federal government, on Trump’s behalf. This is even scuzzier then when former Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, in his prosecutor role, dismissed a case against a Jan. 6 rioter in which he was still the defense attorney of record.

As with nearly everything right now, it seems depressingly likely that Trump’s fate will somehow end up back at the Supreme Court if that court wants it there bad enough. That’s not meant as an implication that Trump could back-channel the court to take it, though his effusive “Thank you again, I won’t forget it” moment with Roberts sure looked a lot like Trump was thanking the chief justice for doing him a solid. Trump’s story is that he was thanking him for how great a job Roberts did at swearing him into office in January.

And Roberts owns this. This is the obvious and predictable fallout from the immunity decision. Roberts made Trump a king, and kings can’t be touched.