Horvath in “Saving private Ryan”
and “Black hawk town.”
Incredible actor.
>>> A bombshell lawsuit is
exposing what some of the
biggest names over at fox really
felt about Donald Trump, even as
they pushed his claims of
election fraud.
A court filing claims that
anyone who veered from the
narrative faced sharp pushback.
This is all coming to light in
dominion voting system’s $1.6
billion lawsuit against the
network.
Joining us is Oliver Darcy as
well as Aden Mclaughlin.
Here is an example of some of
the things fox anchors were
pushing.
>> So much for the claims that
voter fraud never happens.
Of course it happens.
They knew it happens and told us
it never happens because they’re
liars.
>> Today, more reports of dead
people voting from beyond the
grave.
>> This is disgusting and we
cannot allow America’s elections
to be kruptded.
We cannot.
>> Despite what you saw, many
anchors at fox were saying
privately they didn’t believe
this.
But fox issued a statement in
all of this, highlighting the
part that reads, the core of
this case remains about freedom
of the press and freedom of
speech.
Let’s talk about this.
Oliver and Aden.
You know, Oliver, I know you
have done lots of segments on
this since this bombshell
material came out.
And I just have to ask you, when
fox talks about protection under
the first amendment to say
whatever they want, that is
ultimately the crux of the legal
issue in this case.
I mean, it’s going to come down
to that very point.
>> And anyone dominion is going to need
to prove that fox disregarded
the truth here.
I think, you know, there is a
mountain of evidence that might
suggest or show that fox
executives and their hosts,
their top level talent people
like tucker Carlton, Sean
hannity, that they knew behind
the scenes that what they were
selling, what the network was
selling to the audience was
bogus.
But the truth never made it to
the fox viewers, which is really
the sad part here.
Despite them talking in candid
terms behind the scenes behind
how nutty the arguments pushed
by the trump camp were, they
never really shared that with
viewers.
Instead, as recently as this
week, tucker Carlson is on
camera, leading a show by
casting doubt on the validity of
the 2020 election, you know, and
it’s just really quite
reprehensible stuff, Jim.
>> And Aden, your site looks at
what the media business does
writ large.
But one of the other I think
bombshells that came out of this
material this the dominion case
were the scenes over at fox.
They were putting dollars over
democracy, they were putting
ratings over the republic.
That’s essentially what was
going on here.
>> Right.
I think that’s the crucial thing
to remember about those weeks
after the 2020 election, is that
Fox News was the first network
to call Arizona for Biden.
And that enraged trump, his
supporters and campaign.
And that outrage trickled down
to Fox News’ fewers.
You see it in the texts between
tucker Carlson and his producer,
who told tucker that the viewers
were outraged about this call
and tucker casualson tried to
get Jackie hinrich fired because
she fact checked their claims —
trump’s claims about the
election.
So there was this pervasive fear
at Fox News because of the call
and because of a lot of the fact
checking.
There was this pervasive fear
that viewers would flee to
trumpier pastures like OAN and
Newsmax that were embracing
these lies more aggressively.
And that made sure that fox
hosts and executives and even
producers were on board with
promoting these lies
effectively.
>> Yeah.
I remember it because I was
covering the white house at that
time, and looking at what the
ratings were doing.
People were migrating over to
Newsmax and other outlets
because they were going to give
them what they wanted and fox
was trying to report things,
people like Chris Stirewalt, the
political Eder to over there,
they were trying to call the
election for Joe Biden.
Oliver, Fox News filed an
amended counterclaim against
dominion.
What does it say?
>> You know, they are really
wrapping themselves up in the
first amendment here, Jim.
That’s been the legal strategy
all along, that they aired a
news worthy material that what
the president was saying was
news worthy, that the first
amendment protects airing such
material, and they’re really
wrapping themselves in “New York
Times” versus Sullivan.
I want to make one quick point.
I was reading these documents,
one thing that was interesting
is the executives and hosts talk
about respecting the audience,
Jim.
They talk about how we need to
be respectful of the audience,
and one way to be respectful of
the audience, I guess, is not to
tell them inconvenient things,
but I would argue it’s much more
respectful to the audience to be
up front and tell them what you
know, and that’s something we
didn’t see happen after the 2020
election.
>> Aden, we all care about the
first amendment and freedom of
speech.
But what fox was doing was just
reprehensible.
It was just absolutely wrong
when it came to these lies about
the 2020 election.
But let me ask you
dominion is successful, what
would that do to this titan of
the media industry?
>> That’s right.
I do want to point out the
United States is really strong
first amendment media
protections, and that’s a great
thing.
You would have to prove that
they acted with disregard for
the truth if you want to prove
defamation.
So that’s a steep hill for
dominion to climb and to win,
they will have to prove that fox
News the claims they were
putting on the air were not
true.
It could have serious
consequences for fox, this case.
It’s a steep thing to prove, but
there’s a lot of legal experts
that say dominion really has a
strong case against fox.
That’s why Fox News and dominion
did not settle this case.
Usually, a network would not
allow a case like this to go to
trial.
But dominion was asking for a
lot of money to settle, and fox
News refusioned.
So that’s why we see this case
progressing before beyond where
these cases normally do.
Dominion is claiming $1.6
billion in damages.
Fox News is arguing the damages
are nowhere near that.
We’ll see if Fox News is
successful.
When you talk to legal experts,
they don’t think the $1.6
billion number is reasonable,
but this could really hurt fox
News.
On the other hand, Fox News is a
very, very successful company.
It’s a very lucrative company.
It makes $1 billion a year.
So it would take a lot to hurt
Fox News’ bottom line, but it
seems like dominion has a strong
case here.
>> It’s asounding in the
discovery process that we’re
beginning to see this peek
behind the curtain over at fox.
There was one earlier during the
January 6th committee wen some
of those texts from some of the
fox anchors to mark meadows, we
saw some of this same kind of
material.
