WATCH: Brian Stelter Confronts Michael Wolff Over Fox Claims in Heated Back-and-Forth
CNN’s Brian Stelter clashed with author Michael Wolff about some specific claims he made in his new book about Fox News on Election Night 2020.
To briefly recap: Wolff’s new book Landslide claims 1) that Fox News’ Bill Hemmer called Trump adviser Jason Miller to give him a heads-up on the network’s impending Arizona call for Joe Biden, and 2) Rupert Murdoch himself greenlit the Arizona call.
Fox News firmly denied both in statements provided to Mediaite, and as many people noted after the excerpts dropped, Hemmer seemed legitimately surprised on-air about the network call.
Stelter — who wrote about Election Night at Fox for the updated version of his book Hoax — weighed in on Twitter saying, “There’s simply no evidence that the Murdochs had anything to do with it, and ample evidence to the contrary.”
I devote a couple chapters of https://t.co/oGOKIamS5l to Fox's Arizona call. There's simply no evidence that the Murdochs had anything to do with it, and ample evidence to the contrary. pic.twitter.com/x0FXev8PDE
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 9, 2021
Wolff shot back, standing by the story:
Reminding you that I am Murdoch's biographer with deep sourcing throughout his companies and family. Idea that Murdoch would be hands off on this is laughable–impossible! https://t.co/YpDd9er9dy
— Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) July 9, 2021
So Stelter spoke with Wolff on Reliable Sources Sunday about his reporting and asked him about the Fox denials.
“You say Rupert Murdoch was involved in the election night decision to call Arizona for Biden,” Stelter said. “I’ve never heard such a thing. Fox denies that’s true.”
Wolff interjected and told Stelter, “It is an interesting thing that week after week all you do is question Fox, question its veracity, question its honor, question et cetera et cetera, but suddenly now you think that they might be honest to a fault.”
“I’ve never questioned the decision desk,” Stelter responded, “the professionals who made the call.”
Wolff pointed to Miller claiming it did happen and accusatorially told Stelter, “You want this to be true.”
“What do I want to be true?” Stelter asked.
“You seem to want it to be true that Fox is questioning my reporting,” Wolff responded.
He defended his reporting by saying that “I am Rupert Murdoch’s biographer.” Stelter remarked “one of many,” and that really set Wolff off.
“No, not one of many. That’s totally ridiculous!” Wolff said.
“Go on Amazon, there’s lots of Rupert books,” Stelter remarked.
“I am the singular biographer… who was given enormous access to him,” Wolff insisted.
You can watch the full segment above, via CNN.
