‘It’s Incredible!’ CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Oliver Darcy Shocked By New ‘Extremely Stunning E-Mails’ In Fox News Case

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and media reporter Oliver Darcy were shocked by a new round of “extremely stunning emails” in the $1.6 billion Dominion defamation suit against Fox News.

Yet another batch of private communications from Fox News figures was released Wednesday, with revelations that included “‘This Has to Stop Now’: New Bombshell Emails Show Fox News CEO Warning Fact-Checking Trump is ‘Bad Business’” and “‘That C*nt. I Hope She’s Punished’: New Texts Show Tucker Carlson Fumed About Trump Team’s Stolen Election Claims.”

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, the host discussed the “incredible” and “stunning” developments with Darcy, who predicted the network’s latest legal maneuver would be unlikely to succeed:

COOPER: Stunning that the CEO of FOX sent in an e-mail or a text said that factchecking the former President which some FOX employees were trying to do was bad for business.

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Not something you would expect from a leader of a purported news network, right, Anderson? There’s just more fallout every day from this $1.6 billion lawsuit against FOX News from Dominion Voting Systems. And now we’re having new e-mails that really shed light on the pressure that FOX News was under as a business after they called the election accurately for Joe Biden.

I want to read to you an e-mail that Suzanne Scott the CEO sent another executive after a correspondent, Eric Shawn factchecked Trump’s lies and a guest who went on Sean Hannity’s program and spread some election lies. And she said, “This has to stop,” and goes on to say, “This is a bad business and there clearly is a lack of understanding. What is happening in these shows? The audience is furious and we are just feeding them material. Bad for business.”

COOPER: I mean, it’s incredible!

DARCY: It’s incredible. Now, FOX News will say that this was because they fact check a guest that was spreading again these election conspiracy theories on Sean Hannity’s show, but still regardless, like if a guest went on CNN and spread election conspiracy theories, it would be pretty normal, it would be expected that other anchors would then call it out and factcheck that for the audience.

COOPER: There were also e-mails about concern about viewers dropping out of their streaming services, is that right?

DARCY: Yes, well, we knew viewers left in pretty large numbers after the election when they were rebelling against FOX News. They switched over to Newsmax, which Donald Trump was telling them to do. But now we’re also learning in this new e-mail that 25,000 subscribers to FOX Nation, FOX News’ streaming service had also dropped. They just unsubscribed apparently, because they were so angry that FOX News had the nerve to accurately call the election for Joe Biden.

And in another e-mail that we also see, we see Dobbs’ producers talking about how putting on election liars like Rudy Giuliani, like Sidney Powell was actually good for the ratings. In one e-mail, they write, “I mean, to keep this alive, we really need Rudy or Sidney,” I mean, extremely stunning e-mails.

Again, just a mountain of evidence now showing the behind-the-scenes at FOX News.

COOPER: And FOX traditionally has said with these things that are released that they’re cherry picking texts and quotes. What are they saying?

DARCY: That’s exactly what they’re saying tonight. They’re saying these are more examples of Dominion cherry picking quotes to make the network look bad. They say they have good legal arguments against Dominion, and we will see what happens if this case does go to trial in a few weeks. This Judge is still — we’re still waiting to hear from the Judge whether they are going to rule on those summary judgment motions, which basically, Dominion is asking FOX to declare themselves the winner. FOX is saying we should be declared the winner without a trial. That’s unlikely to happen from the legal experts I’ve spoken to. It’s a very high bar.

So this should go to trial in a few weeks. Jury selection is set to start April 13th, and then the trial will get underway April 17th.

COOPER: All right, Oliver Darcy, appreciate it. Thanks so much.

A Fox News spokesperson responded to Mediaite with the following statement, “These documents once again demonstrate Dominion’s continued reliance on cherry-picked quotes without context to generate headlines in order to distract from the facts of this case. The foundational right to a free press is at stake and we will continue to fiercely advocate for the First Amendment in protecting the role of news organizations to cover the news.”

Watch above via CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.