Fox Paid $787.5 Million For Trump’s Election Lies. He’s Repaying Them With a Punch in the Face.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
Fox News paid dearly for their decision to broadcast former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election: an enormous $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems that came after months of embarrassing headlines about private communications between Fox’s on-air personalities and top executives admitting Trump lost, all culminating in the defenestration of its top-rated host Tucker Carlson. Plus, there’s the Smartmatic $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit still looming menacingly.
The ex-president has repaid that loyalty with a metaphorical punch in the face.
Trump will participate in a town hall next week in the critically-important early primary state of New Hampshire, taking questions from undecided GOP primary voters, a highly publicized, nationally televised event that is very likely to deliver solid ratings for the network hosting it – and that network will not be Fox News, but instead its competitor CNN.
The former president slammed CNN as “Fake News” just a few days ago and rejoicing in Don Lemon’s firing, but that long-running animosity doesn’t seem to have been a hindrance to him agreeing to sit down for the town hall, which will be hosted and moderated by one of Lemon’s former colleagues on CNN This Morning, Kaitlin Collins.
The report about the CNN town hall was shortly followed by news that Trump was considering skipping one or both of the planned GOP presidential primary debates – and that he was specifically adamant about not wanting to participate in the one hosted by Fox News because he did not want to be questioned by Bret Baier. From the New York Times’ report:
“Why would I have Bret Baier” question me, Mr. Trump told an associate, explaining a reason to skip the Fox News debate. Mr. Trump was furious with Mr. Baier, a Fox host, over his coverage of the 2020 election, in which Mr. Baier refuted many of the election-fraud claims made by the Trump team.
Trump also didn’t hesitate to pour salt in the wound after Carlson’s firing, calling it a “shame” and defending the former Fox News host as someone who was “telling the truth” while the others were “lying.”
The ex-president’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr. has expressed similar frustrations and criticisms of the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable network, bitterly complaining that he had not been invited on any Fox News programs in some time. “I haven’t been on in nine months,” he said. “Not a call, not an invite, not anything.”
And with Smartmatic, Fox is facing the threat of another settlement or jury verdict in the hundreds of millions or possibly even billions of dollars they might have to pay, only for the person who instigated this entire sordid mess showing them zero gratitude whatsoever. Because you see, of course, for Trump to acknowledge Fox is paying a defamation settlement for any remotely justifiable reason, he would have to admit his election fraud claims were bogus.
And that’s never going to happen. As Trump himself warned in a poem he liked to read on the campaign trail, they knew damn well he was a snake before they took him in.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
