Fox News Spent More Time Covering The Rock Not Endorsing Biden Than Mike Pence Not Endorsing Trump
When former Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News last month that he will not endorse Donald Trump, under whom he served, it was something of a watershed moment in electoral politics. After all, Pence was loyal to Trump up until the very end when Pence, who had done anything for MAGA, decided that he won’t do that – with that being the refusal to certify the results of the 2020 election, which he and Trump lost.
After an insurrection at the Capitol and several chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” later, the former vice president decided that the man whose election lies put him and his family in jeopardy on Jan 6 is not the best man for the job, even if he is the presumptive Republican nominee.
Since Pence announced his non-endorsement of Trump on the March 15 edition of The Story on Fox News, the network devoted just four minutes to this fact in subsequent days, according to a Media Matters article dated March 19 by Matt Gertz.
A search of the SnapStream TV transcript database yields just two mentions of Pence’s announcement on Fox News after March 19 – on March 29 and April 3. Both of these were in passing and consumed mere seconds of airtime.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Fox News released an exclusive interview with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who said that unlike in 2020, he is declining to endorse President Joe Biden – or anyone, for that matter. Throughout the day, The Rock’s interview became fodder for segments on Fox & Friends First, Fox & Friends, America’s Newsroom, The Five, Jesse Watters Primetime, and Hannity. And that was just on Friday.
To be fair, The Rock is a major celebrity. On the other hand, he has never served as Biden’s vice president. Come to think of it, he has not served in the Biden administration at all.
Most of Fox’s programming framed The Rock’s lack of endorsement as a lament for having endorsed Biden in 2020, but as Mediaite’s Jamie Frevele noted, that is not the case.
“If Johnson regretted anything, it was the fact that his endorsement caused division amongst his fans, and he has a lot of them,” she observed. “Speaking out in favor of any political candidate would have done that, and that’s why he said he won’t do it again.”
