‘Split Within the Murdoch Media Empire’: Ari Melber Argues the Jan. 6 Hearings Are Breaking Through in Right-Wing Media

MSNBC host Ari Melber noted on Wednesday’s episode of The Beat that he has noticed a change in tune for some of Rupert Murdoch’s media outlets when it comes to Donald Trump and the January 6 hearings.

“Today as it roils the nation, other conservatives are also, some, joining the same breaking point,” Melber began after noting former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had applauded Cassidy Hutchinson who testified before the January 6th Committee on Tuesday.

Melber went on to say he can see “cracks in the normal united defense of Trump in right-wing commentary and media.”

“The top hosts of Fox News, some are still trying to dismiss all the testimony, but there are also pretty clear and unusual signs of a partial split within the Murdoch media empire,” Melber argued, adding:

One legal expert on Fox telling the audience there the new testimony was worse than America thought and the top newspaper in the Murdoch empire, the Wall Street Journal has a new editorial, on behalf of the paper, which does criticize the committee – I alway want you to have the full facts – they do take shots at what they see as a partisan committee but they note, quote, ‘accumulating evidence of Trump’s conduct based on first- hand accounts’ and Republicans must face the evidence of Trump’s behavior, which will be relevant to voters if he runs.

“The split has continued on Fox’s air where political anchors are still defending Trump amidst the evidence but other legal guests have broken ranks,” he continued.

Melber then played clips of Sean Hannity dismissing the hearings as a “bizarre hearsay allegation” and Fox News legal expert Andrew Mccarthy touting the hearings as impactful.

“‘Unfitness,’ ‘may be guilty of a crime,’ another word is ‘devastating’ and the last voice was the conservative prosecutor Andrew Mccarthy,” Melber explained of the clip.

“He wrote a whole book defending Trump and attacking the Mueller probe as The Real Ball of Collusion during the Trump era and that’s his book and I want you to see where he’s coming from and the positions he’s taking on other legal issues and people debate what the Mueller probe ultimately found as a factual matter but Mccarthy is about as hardcore a conservative lawyer you can get, maybe that’s why he’s on Fox so much,” Melber added.

“And he is out here now saying, as a factual matter, a legal matter, and a matter of criminal exposure for Donald Trump this new testimony is devastating because it implicates Trump directly,” he concluded.

Watch the full clip via MSNBC