Schumer Goes on MSNBC to Torch Fox News — Demands They ‘Retract’ Election Lies Revealed in Dominion Lawsuit

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) went on MSNBC to torch Fox News and explain his demand they “retract” the election lies that have been highlighted and revealed in the Dominion defamation lawsuit.

Earlier this week, Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) sent a letter to Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch, demanding he correct and “retract” the network’s promotion of “The Big Lie” as revealed in the blockbuster $1.6 billion Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit.

On Thursday night’s edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, Schumer explained his demand to host Chris Hayes, and even seemed to claim that Fox News is in some ways a bigger problem than former President Donald Trump:

CHRIS HAYES: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Fox executives demanding the network stop spreading lies about the 2020 Election and issue a retraction on air. Senator Chuck Schumer joins me now. You know, I think, senator, my basic assumption about the level of cynicism at that news, or that organization, I shouldn’t call it a news organization, is so intense that the notion of a retraction seems not likely. But it was interesting to me that you focused on that. Why?

LEADER SCHUMER: Well let me say this, first, Chris. I feel this passionately. You know, our democracy has been at a greater risk than it is ever been and probably the number one reason is that people are losing faith in the veracity and the reliability of our elections…

Well what caused this? Above all, it was Fox News and their lack of fidelity to the truth of their spreading of the Big Lie. It seems now for mercenary reasons. But Fox News is the perpetrator of this. And all of a sudden we get this real break, because they’re pretty impervious to all of these criticisms. But because of the Dominion court case, we saw that even the these people like Tucker Carlson, like Laura Ingraham, knew they were lies but still spread them. But now, the leader, the chief cook and bottle washer, the formulator of this awful organization, Fox News that spread lies, Rupert Murdoch, is caught in depositions saying that he knew they were lies. He knew that they should not have gone on and he regrets it. Well, regret is not enough. So Leader Jeffries and I sent him a letter saying now you’ve got to go the next step if you regret it. You’ve got to tell the Tucker Carlson’s, you’ve got to tell the Ingraham’s and all the others, to first admit that they were lies and start telling the truth.

Will he go along? We don’t know. We haven’t heard from him yet. And you know, if he doesn’t, we’ll have to see what else we can do. But to let this go, unanswered, when it is blatant but it is not just blatant and it’s not just a typical mistruth. This lie is the worst lie that has been told in the history of our democracy as long as I can tell, because it is eroding faith in the whole enterprise. So, I feel a moral obligation, I feel this deeply not really politically but personally as an American that we have to do everything we can, and maybe, you know, maybe Murdoch will respond. Maybe he won’t. And as I said, if he doesn’t, we’ll have to see where we go from there.

CHRIS HAYES: I’m going to follow up on that. But one thing I want to just ask, you talk about them as being sort of the principal cause here. And I think, given the platform, that is true. It also seems that the ex-president of the United States, a singularly malevolent figure, I think you and I would probably agree, and a singularly dangerous one with respect to American democracy. I mean today, you know on his weird knock off social media site, the same stuff, still going and is likely to be – independent of Fox News, independent of that entire ecosystem – you know is the front runner for the nomination of one of our two parties in this great country that you love so much?

LEADER SCHUMER: Look, he’s a duplicitous character, but my strong belief is that there if there were no Fox News, his big lies wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Fox News was the giant megaphone, not just once a week, every minute, every hour, every day, every month, for a year, two years, that spread this lie. Without Fox News, and the alliance they had with Trump. You know, it’s reported that Murdoch and Trump at times when he was president, would talk several times a day. It wouldn’t have spread this way and so Fox News, if Fox News were to retract this, I think Donald Trump would have a lot less ability to spread the Big Lie than he did and he has now.

Fox News responded to the lawsuit in a statement:

“Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims. Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear FOX for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”

Watch above via MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.