Fair and Balanced?! Rupert Murdoch Told Fox News CEO the Network Should Help GOP Win Senate ‘Any Way We Can’ in Newly-Released Email
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
Fox News Chairman Rupert Murdoch emailed CEO Suzanne Scott in November 2020 to say then-President Donald Trump was toast, and that the network should focus on boosting Republican U.S. Senate candidates in Georgia.
The email was cited in a filing by Dominion Voting Systems on Thursday in its defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which filed an amended counterclaim against the company.
In the days and weeks after the 2020 election, Fox News hosts and guests baselessly suggested or flatly claimed that Dominion’s voting machines were part of a conspiracy to steal the election from Trump, who to this day falsely says the election was rigged.
Dominion sued Fox News over its coverage and is seeking $1.6 billion in damages.
In Thursday’s filing, Dominion includes an email from Murdoch to Scott on Nov. 16, 2020, nine days after various news outlets called the election for Joe Biden.
Despite the call, Trump insisted the contest was stolen from him.
In his email, Murdoch charitably stated the nutty voter fraud claims of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani should be taken “with a grain of salt.” More notably, however, the founder of Fox News, whose original slogan was “Fair and Balanced,” said the network’s efforts should be focused on helping Republicans win two upcoming U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia.
Murdoch also expressed concern at the sudden rise of Newsmax, a rival conservative network that briefly scored a ratings win over Fox News in the period between the 2020 election and Biden’s inauguration.
The Dominion filing states on page 34:
Meanwhile, Fox continued to broadcast its lies about Dominion as it nervously eyed Newsmax. In a November 16 email, Rupert Murdoch told Scott to read a Wall Street Journal piece about Newsmax, telling her: “These people should be watched, if skeptically. Trump will concede eventually and we should concentrate on Georgia, helping any way we can. We don’t want to antagonize Trump further, but Giuliani taken with a large grain of salt. Everything at stake here.”
Time proved Murdoch wrong, as Trump never conceded. But the chairman’s email encapsulated the bind Fox News was in. The network had unabashedly supported Trump for four years, but it was becoming unfeasible to keep going along with specific claims of election fraud. For Murdoch and Fox News, it was time to focus on Georgia.
Republicans needed to win just one of those races to maintain control of the Senate. But if Democrats managed a sweep, they’d control a 50-50 Senate, where any ties would be broken by incoming Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Those runoffs, which took place on Jan. 5, 2021, became necessary after none of the candidates in the two races received a majority of the vote in November’s general election. Under Georgia law, this meant an election between the top two vote-getters in each contest would take place.
Despite Fox News’ attempts to boost both Republican candidates ahead of the runoffs, Democrats won each contest. Jon Ossoff defeated Sen. David Perdue, and Raphael Warnock ousted Sen. Kelley Loeffler.
Meanwhile, in the present day, Fox News denies Dominion’s lawsuit is credible.
“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” Fox News said in a statement.
The Murdoch email was one of several pieces of behind-the-scenes correspondence disclosed in Dominion’s filing. Collectively, they show a stark contrast between what Fox News hosts claimed publicly versus what they said privately at the time.
