Emails and Texts Show What Fox News Hosts Really Thought About ‘Rigged’ Election

Fox News needs to present a certain face to its audience. It’s one of sadness and pain, of a changing world that’s changing too damn fast. All too often, the entire network strays into the absurd, be its guests talk about “climate vaccines‘ or its hosts, like Tucker Carlson, who talk of ‘switched off‘ by a newly designed M&M mascot.

Nothing was more absurd than the conspiracy of 2020 election deniers. Fox News did its part to bring to light the people who said President Joe Biden stole the election from former President Donald Trump, despite the lack of evidence that that there is something behind the conspiracy.

Accordingly court documents Filed Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems, many at Fox and its parent company Newscorp doubted there was real evidence of voter fraud. The documents share texts and emails sent back and forth between large Fox faces. In these texts, prominent moderators actively criticized prominent election deniers such as Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, called them “crazy people” or “idiots”. Meanwhile, the hosts were very concerned that their ratings would be hurt if they denied anything about Trump’s counter-choice campaign.

Dominion previously filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in Delaware state court in 2021. The company argued Fox magnified the false story that Dominion was involved in a grand conspiracy to rig the 2020 election in favor of President Biden. The company submitted one similar lawsuit against ultraconservative networks Newsmax and OAN.

Steve Banon, the ex-White House staffer who became MAGA’s mouthpiece after his ouster, made it clear that there was a “plan”. In a Nov. 10, 2020 text to Fox personality Maria Bartiromo, Bannon wrote, “71 million voters will never accept Biden. This process is designed to destroy his presidency before it even begins; IF it even begins… We either complete Trump’s victory or delegitimize Biden… THE PLAN.”

But according to the files, Fox was more than committed to its audience. After the canal called Arizona for BidenExecutives and celebrity hosts were stunned by the intensity of the criticism hurled at them.

In their own summary judgment, released the same day, Fox attorneys argued that the network had the right to report allegations of voter fraud by Trump, loudly calling it “undeniably newsworthy.” Reuters. The network went on to say that its coverage was protected underneath New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark case that offers protection to media companies being sued by officials. The full process is expected to begin on April 17th.

In their texts, hosts often chatted to each other about review analytics. Whenever they or reporters mentioned talk show host Tucker Carlson’s talk show host Tucker Carlson said the co-op campaign was “ridiculous,” they saw an immediate “backlash” with ratings. Carlson even said, “I’ve heard from angry viewers every hour of the day all weekend, including at dinner tonight.”

Bill Sammon, the former editor-in-chief and vice president of Fox News, told the network’s political analyst Chris Stirewalt, “It’s remarkable how poor ratings lead good journalists to do bad things,” the filing says.

Overall, the news shows that Fox News’ prominent figures felt the entire narrative was wrong, but that they had to thread the needle lest they destroy Fox News’ stock price or anger Trump and his fans, one made up such a large part of the Fox news audience.