If you needed any more evidence that Americans have lost any semblance of a shared reality, just take a peek at the average Fox News broadcast.

During an appearance on Fox to discuss the US-Iran war, retired US Central Command (Centcom) deputy commander Robert Harward insisted that Donald Trump holds all the cards as the two sides negotiate for an end to hostilities. Outlandish as that idea might be — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps currently has the world oil economy in a stranglehold — it was Harward’s peculiar appearance that caught everybody’s attention.

Down near where the top of Harward’s undershirt meets his collarbone was a bizarre flap of skin that appeared to move along with his head, but separately from the bottom of his neck.

It isn’t abundantly clear whether it was excess skin or a weird trick of the studio lights, but conservative social media was soon abuzz with conspiracies that he was wearing a “Mission Impossible”-style skin mask during the taping.

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“Holy sh*t why is this man on Fox News wearing a literal CIA mask,” conservative influencer Blaire White shared to over 700,000 followers on X-formerly-Twitter.

“Mr Harward has been kidnapped and they are using this mask to show someone how powerful they are,” one woman suggested in the comments, adding that “something is fishy.”

“Remember. Whoever designed the system doesn’t make mistakes,” another poster hypothesized, whatever that’s supposed to mean. “If you’ve seen it, it’s cuz you were supposed to see it.”

Even nominally reputable commentators were put off by Haward’s unsettling visage. Journalist Seth Abramson said he was “hereby boycotting any further activities of any kind in my life” until someone “explains to me like I am a 5 year-old exactly what in the B-horror-movie hell I just saw.”

“Seriously, just shutting my life down until this is resolved,” Abramson wrote.

Whatever’s behind the strange appearance on the live news program remains to be seen. It certainly isn’t the first time Fox has been accused of faking an expert to juice up a live broadcast.

Back in 2025, rumors swirled that the network’s masked “Antifa whistleblower” and “Mexican Mafia hitman” interviewees were really played by Hollywood crank Michael Rapaport.

In both cases, it’s impossible to say for sure, but it’s clear that any semblance of trust in the media — even a network as notorious as Fox News — has been fractured beyond repair.

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