MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Tuesday laid into Fox News in the wake of an explosive court filing from earlier this month which showed that some of the network’s most-watched hosts failed to correct—and maybe even knowingly spread—falsehoods about the 2020 election.
The information came to light because of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit, which was filed in 2021.
While network stars privately acknowledged the absurdity of election conspiracy theories, Fox “spread and endorsed” them, Dominion argued in the filing.
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“In some ways, the most revealing part of this story is the sheer abject pathetic-ness of these people; their cowardice, their groveling fear,” Hayes said after playing a clip of Tucker Carlson questioning the 2020 election results the same night that the filing became public. “A groveling fear…means they will do anything at all to keep their audience, to keep the money coming, keep the power of prestige coming.”
Hayes then honed in on Carlson.
“While he comes from an almost comically privileged background, he has washed out at multiple networks, had his show canceled, [and] had to go back to doing weekend mornings on Fox. That was tough,” Hayes said. “He is clearly terrified of failing yet again, of washing out the third cable network, and is apparently willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
According to the filing, Carlson even wrote to colleague Sean Hannity demanding the firing of a reporter at the network who fact-checked former President Donald Trump’s tweets about the election.
“‘The stock price is down. Not a joke,’” Hayes quoted Carlson. “Oh, the stock price! Mister brave populist, mister scourge of the establishment,” he mocked.
“I’ll tell you something right now: I swear that I have never, ever in my entire life given a single second’s thought to the Comcast stock price, and sure as hell never sent a text about or demanded the firing of a colleague because the truth they were spewing might lower that stock price,” Hayes continued. “My God, how craven can you get? I can only speak for myself, but that is not why I do this; not for the stock price. But as these filings make very clear, that is why Fox does what they do.”
Howard Kurtz, Fox’s top media anchor, said Sunday the network won’t allow him to cover the lawsuit despite it being a “major media story.”
On Monday, progressive group MoveOn said the network declined to run its ad that highlights some of the texts contained in the filing.
