Fox News anchor Julie Banderas aggressively rebuked Tim Murtaugh on Tuesday when the Trump campaign communications director falsely claimed Democrats moved Election Day in Pennsylvania, eventually shutting him down while taking time to underscore the facts to Fox viewers.
Since news networks and outlets—including Fox News—have called the 2020 presidential election for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, the Trump-boosting network’s news anchors and legal analysts have pushed back and questioned the Trump campaign’s baseless charges of widespread voter fraud. At the same time, a chasm has formed, as many of Fox’s loudest Trump sycophants have continued to amply the president’s narrative that the election was “stolen” from him.
Banderas, it would seem, falls into the former category.
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Interviewing Murtaugh on Tuesday afternoon, the Fox anchor immediately pointed out that the Trump campaign’s election lawsuits in several key battleground states where the president is behind have been rejected by the courts before asking him why he thinks Team Trump’s latest effort in Pennsylvania will be any different.
That lawsuit in question contends that the large increase in mail-in ballots—which largely swung Democratic—created an “illegal two-tiered voting system” because vote-by-mail “lacked all of the hallmarks of transparency and verifiability that were present for in-person voters.”
Murtaugh claimed to Fox that the state conducted an “unconstitutional election” because “there were no safeguards” for any of the mail-in ballots, insisting that their lawsuit falls within the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
Banderas replied that much of Team Trump’s argument centers on the state allowing mail-in ballots to be received up to three days after Election Day as long as they were postmarked by Nov. 3, resulting in a back-and-forth over the state’s law extending the deadline that quickly blew up.
“They effectively moved Election Day by three days,” Murtaugh grumbled. “Remember, this is what Democrats accused President Trump of wanting to do months ago. They said, ‘Oh, he’s going to move Election Day.’ Well, Democrats actually did it.”
The Trump flack continued to claim that the president’s legal team has affidavits proving allegations of election fraud before Banderas stepped in, exclaiming that “election day was not moved.”
The Trump flack attempted to steamroll and talk over Banderas at this point, prompting the Fox News host to finally put her foot down.
“Wait a second, hold on a second, you are not listening to what I was saying,” she exclaimed. “If that ballot was mailed before Election Day, in other words, if you put the ballot in the mail on Nov. 2, it’s not going to get to Pennsylvania or any of these counties until November 4th or 5th. If it’s postmarked Nov. 3, that’s not moving Election Day, that’s giving it a few days to get to the ballot counters.”
Murtaugh shot back that the Pennsylvania law was previously that ballots should be received by Election Day and that it was the state’s Supreme Court and secretary of state that changed that law, all while claiming that Banderas was “confusing the law.”
The Fox News anchor, however, got the last word in, cutting off Murtaugh to return to live coverage of a Senate hearing on the origins of the Russia investigation.
“I’m not confusing the law,” she declared as Murtaugh’s voice dimmed into the background. “I know votes were allowed to come in as long as they were postmarked.”
As Murtaugh tried to retort, his feed was cut and Fox News turned back to the Senate.
