Lachlan Murdoch Wants to Know Why CNN Isn’t Getting Sued Over Trump Town Hall

Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Invision for Twentieth Century Fox/AP Images

Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch took cracks at CNN while voicing a degree of frustration over the lawsuit Fox News just had to settle with Dominion Voting Systems.

In comments made at a conference by MoffettNathanson and reported by the Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr,  Murdoch defended Fox News hosts named in the defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems tha the network settled for $787.5 million.

Murdoch said he did not believe the hosts defamed Dominion and that he believed the company would have won the case at trial — though he added that settling was “the right decision” for Fox after Delaware Superior Court Eric Davis restricted their legal argument.

When asked what changes Fox News would make after the settlement, Murdoch brought up CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump, during which the former president repeatedly pushed the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. That lie was the foundation of false claims aired on Fox News about Dominion that prompted the lawsuit.

Murdoch said that during the CNN town hall, Trump made “a lot of allegations about the 2020 election.” He then added sarcastically: “And I haven’t seen a lawsuit yet!”

There are differences between the CNN town hall and Fox’s coverage after the 2020 election, of course. First, the claims aired on Fox News were aimed specifically at two companies, Dominion and Smartmatic, which meant they could sue Fox for defamation.

What’s more, CNN hosting Trump and fact-checking him in real time is not likely to land the network in a defamation suit. Fox was accused of not just reporting on the false claims of a stolen election, which every major news outlet did in 2020. As Judge Davis pointed out in the Dominion case, the network aired claims about Dominion that executives knew to be false, and declined to share information with its audience debunking those claims.

What’s more, the false claims were not just limited to guests hosted on the network. As Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted in his deposition, some Fox hosts actually “endorsed” the false claims.

By contrast, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pushed back on Trump’s lies over and over.

Murdoch also addressed the firing of Tucker Carlson. He declined to explain why Fox ousted the host, saying only “we make all of our decisions about what’s best for the company in the long term.”