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MEDIA MOGUL RUPERT Murdoch described Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen as “crazy,” according to court documents that also threaten to embarrass Fox News’s top stars.
The 91-year-old billionaire made the comments in emails to senior Fox executives even as anchors on his conservative US network continued to give credence to Trump’s false allegations, yesterday’s filing showed.
The document also says some of Fox News’s most popular hosts, including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, privately ridiculed top Trump advisors who were saying Joe Biden had lost the election.
The messages were disclosed as part of vote machine maker Dominion’s $1.6 billion (€1.5b) defamation lawsuit against Fox News, a cornerstone of Murdoch’s global media empire.
Dominion sued Fox News in a Delaware court in March 2021, alleging that the 24-hour news behemoth promoted Trump’s false claims that its machines were used to rig the election.
When Trump advisors Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell gave a press conference in November 2020 pushing that claim, Murdoch wrote an email to Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media.
With the subject line, “Watching Giuliani!” Murdoch wrote: “Really crazy stuff. And damaging,” according to the filing.
On another occasion, he wrote: “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.”
The 192-page document, which contains numerous redactions, shows Murdoch regularly expressing his concern over Fox’s coverage of the election and its aftermath.
“If Trump becomes a sore loser, we should watch (host) Sean (Hannity) especially and others don’t sound the same,” he wrote to Scott three days after the election, as counting suggested Biden appeared to be heading to victory.
Dominion alleges that Fox News began endorsing Trump’s false claims because the channel was losing its audience after it became the first TV outlet to call Arizona for Biden, projecting he would win the presidency.
“Getting creamed by CNN! Guess our viewers don’t want to watch it,” Murdoch wrote to Scott the next day, on 8 November, 2020.
Dominion was forced to repeatedly defend its reputation, as Giuliani and Powell pushed more outlandish allegations, including that the machines had been designed to rig elections for dead Venezuelan dictator Hugh Chavez.
The documents allege that Carlson told Ingraham that Powell “is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.”
Ingraham responded by saying, “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”
“Rudy is acting like an insane person,” said Hannity.
A spokesperson for Fox News said Dominion had “mischaracterized the record” and “cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context.”
“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners,” Fox News said in a statement.
“But the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution.”
The case risks inflicting significant financial and reputational damage on Fox News, but it can be difficult for plaintiffs to win defamation suits in America due to the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
Dominion will have to prove that Fox News acted with actual malice, a tough burden to meet. The case could go to a civil trial if the parties do not settle.
The vote machine maker has also sued Giuliani and Powell.
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What is the point of this? There are equally, if not slightly more women who are able to vote but they didnt vote for women on the ballot? There are very few quality candidates as it is and the last thing we need is people voting based on a gender quota.
@Da Vid: A complete waste of time, more women have the vote than men, there are quotas for candidates, what else do they want?
@Justin Gillespie: I never so much bull.
Get out and vote and may the best person win. This is just another waste of taxpayers money, as I keep saying.
This Craic can’t last?
A sure sign they’ve run of things to talk about.
Why is it always the higher end jobs that they complain most about when it comes to gender quota?
Politicians, CEO’s and so on.
Never hear the moaning on quotas in construction, fire brigade, truck drivers and so on.
Where’s the argument or push to get more men into nursing jobs, childcare jobs etc etc.
Where are the voices of common sense to stand up against this nonsense?
@HopefulEgalitarian: What about equality in the Dail for foreigners, Muslims, traverrlers, left handed people, redheads etc etc.
@Justin Gillespie: quiet you fool, you’re only giving them ideas!
The female ministers who focused primarily on gender issues have been dropped by the electorate. They believed they knew what women want, i.e. to be more like men. If they had bothered to ask women they would have been told that they wanted houses to live in, child care for their children, teachers, health care and more Gardai to allow them feel secure in their community.
We all know that gender is fluid and a mere social construct; therefore, there is no need for this talking shop.
Keep them away from talking about legal fees, housing, waiting lists, transport infrastructure, electricity and insurance pricing.
Great stuff.
A pointless talking shop. Nothing more.
What is the point of this Citizens’ Assembly? Is that what the Dáil is? It’s an assembly made up of our citizens, who we pay to talk about and deal with many topics, including this if they want to.
Then they come along and make up this new Assembly to fob off a load of their work and make life even easier.
Gender in the LGBTQ ….. community is that not a contradiction. Piers Morgan was right. Let’s all be non binary identifying Penguins. Exercise in total B.S
So they will predominantly hear from interest groups and academics in gender studies who all have a vested interest in presenting this as one of the biggest issues facing the country in need of guess what… more funding for interest groups and academics. Total waste of time
@Gavin: yes, its interesting how these groups always conduct a survey which finds that, low & behold (insert groups mandate here) is worse than ever & our group is needed more than ever. More funding please! We have a bloated NGO sector in this country that is nothing more than an extension of the civil service.
@Gavin: Nail on head.
I for one will not vote for a female candidate in any election while there are gender quotas and I hope others who believe this interference in free democracy to be abhorrent are doing the same. I don’t care if the female in question is capable of being the best politician this country has seen in hundreds of years as even if she is there are hard working male councillors up and down the country who are being denied a chance to run for election because they were unfortunate enough to be born a man. Seems to be the message is stick to jobs where you get your hands dirty and leave the high earning clean jobs to women. Positive discrimination is discrimination against men and the sooner people start realising this the sooner you will have equality and respect between men and women.
@Dino: I take this approach to female candidates too, although I would caution it should only be applied to female candidates representing political parties; a woman standing as an independent can’t use gender quotas to unfairly advance her ambitions.
@Gordon Comstock: Good point, this wasn’t an option in our constituency in this general election but I’ll keep an eye out for future elections
A mans world? Is Bolton street still open? Not stopping girl putting down Bolton street for the CAO yet you were luck to to have a class with max 5 women in it.
What’s this going to cost…..
Like all the other comments I agree – this is complete and unadulterated rubbish
Identity politics is anti-equality
Whinging blokes up early today.
@DJ François: *Soy boy alert*
@DJ François: oh this guy is woke
@DJ François: you seem unaware you are the victim of your own statement
It’s mad how triggered some people get by the idea of 99 citizens becoming informed about gender equality.
The citizens assembly has been instrumental in the process of Ireland making changes based on facts and not emotion, and yet here come all the logical shrieking snowflakes to say that it’s a pointless endeavour and what have the citizens assembly ever done for us!
Relax lads, if equality isnt a problem, then 99 people drawn from a representative sample of the population will conclude that.
@Mick Hennessy: What makes them qualified to say whether its a problem or not? The average person will always err on perceived fairness if someone presents something as unfair to them. This is one of the reasons Trump has popularity in America, he spins a narrative that the establishment is against him and how he is being unfairly targetted. More than 50% of a representative sample in the US would likely say the establishment is against him and its not fair that doesn’t mean he should automatically be protected though. Citizens assembly is a waste of time and money, we elect official representatives to run our country, this is democracy not 100 unelected citizens that can be led by people with agendas.
have your say