FRIDAY: As heard on Gutfeld! and The Five!

FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2026

Emily Compagno speaks: Has the Southern Poverty Law Center committed some sort of criminal act?  

We have no way of answering that question. But as you may know, the DOJ announced this indictment back on April 21, as NBC News reported:  

Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on charges that it fraudulently paid informants in extremist groups

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday announced an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, alleging the civil rights organization has engaged in financial crimes.    

Blanche said at a news conference that the Justice Department’s investigation found the organization had been “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” and then hiding those payments.

The 11-count indictment from a federal grand jury consists of six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center’s ('SPLC') stated mission included the dismantling of white supremacy and confronting hate across the country. However, unbeknownst to donors, some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance,” the indictment alleges. 

[...]  

Bryan Fair, interim chief executive of the SPLC, said in a statement that the organization is still reviewing the charges but that after witnessing the Justice Department’s news conference they are “outraged by the false allegations.”

And so on from there. For the record, that's what the indictment alleges. 

For ourselves, we have no particular faith in indictments brought by the current DOJ, or in statements by Acting Attorney General Blanche. This is the same DOJ which has recently indicted James Comey again, on a widely ridiculed charge. 

That said, we'll wait to see what comes to light if this case really goes to trial. 

For today, we thought we'd show you what we meant with a recent reference to Emily Compagno, a frequent co-host on The Five, the nation's most watched "cable news" program.   

Reaction to this indictment—to these allegations—was swift within the MAGA realm. As Mediaite reports, the sitting president saw it as the latest way to advance the never-ending claim that the 2020 election had been stolen:   

Trump Demands 2020 Election ‘Be Wiped From the Books’ If New SPLC Case Proves ‘True’   

President Donald Trump called for the 2020 presidential election to “be permanently wiped from books and be of no further force or effect” if new fraud charges brought by the Justice Department against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) prove “true.”

The president unloaded on the prominent civil rights group in the early hours of Friday morning and described the organization as “one of the greatest political scams in American History”  

[...]  

The president then shared two memes and screengrabs of posts from Elon Musk about the SPLC allegations.   

And so on from there.

In fairness, even the president said he's willing to wait to see if the allegations are actually shown to be true. In several appearances on Gutfeld! and The Five, Compagno has shown no such reticence. 

For all we know, Compagno may be the finest person on earth among her family and friends. On cable TV, she is strongly inclined to make absurd statements like the one she made this Monday night, there on the Gutfeld! program.  

The panel was discussing the previous weekend's attempted assassination attempt at the Washington Hilton. Compagno was present at the Correspondents Dinner, like the mainstream journalists whose alleged attacks on President Trump, or so she said, had led to the assassination attempt

Near the end of a somewhat jumbled presentation, she absurdly offered this:

COMPAGNO (4/27/26): [Mainstream journalists] have the nerve to distance themselves from any culpability whatsoever [for the assassination attempt]. And then they say things like, "Well, the right extremists, that's the real danger." When we have learned that the right extremist danger was manufactured this entire time by the left-wing extremist danger, funded by SPLC. 

Based on that recent untested indictment, Compagno seemed to say that any apparent right-wing violence in recent years was really an artefact of the conduct of the Southern Poverty Law Center! A few days later, she made a similar representation when she appeared as a guest on The Five. 

This ludicrous claim is starting to spread within Fox News Channel circles.  When we the people watch these "cable news" shows, we're fed this pitiful gruel.

Compagno may be the nicest person on earth among her family and friends. She belongs on the nation's most-watched "cable news" programs in much the way—well, let's just leave it at that.

These Fox News Channel programs are undisguised imitations of life. So too with the major Blue American news orgs and journalists who refuse to report on these deeply destructive programs.

More tape: To watch that full segment from Monday evening's Gutfeld! show, you can just click here.