Despite Fox News' nearly $800 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems last year over the right-wing networks' role in promoting 2020 election lies in favor of Donald Trump, the MAGA hopeful is leaning heavily on the conservative corporation to help land him, once again, in the White House.
"The truth matters. Lies have consequences," Dominion Voting Systems attorney Justin Nelson told reporters following the settlement, according to The Associated Press.
Still, as the former president faces 34 felony counts on falsifying business records in efforts to benefit his 2016 campaign, Media Matters for America fellow Matt Gertz points out that "Trump’s effort to delegitimize this trial leans heavily on favorable commentary from his friends at Fox."
READ MORE: How Fox News’ Trump trial coverage became an exercise in 'unintended hilarity': columnist
In a Sunday, May 19 op-ed published by MSNBC, Gertz highlights comments Trump made earlier this week to reporters outside of the courtroom: "Everybody — Alan Dershowitz — everybody says there’s no crime here. There’s no crime. Jonathan Turley, every single person, Gregg Jarrett, Andy McCarthy, anyone you want to name, Mark Levin, great lawyer, all of them. Great lawyers, great legal scholars, every single one said there’s no crime. The crime is that they’re doing this case."
The Media Matters fellow writes:
What do Dershowitz, Turley, Jarrett, McCarthy and Levin have in common? Each has been a fixture on Fox News during its coverage of Trump’s trial. The five have combined for at least 116 weekday Fox appearances from when jury selection began on April 15 through Wednesday, according to Media Matters’ database.
Gertz notes that the MAGA hopeful "may not have scoured Fox’s stable of legal analysts to fill his defense team, as he did in 2020 for his first impeachment trial. But as the 2024 presidential election ramps up, it is clearer than ever that the network is doing everything it can to help him, including undermining the rule of law."
Although billionaire Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch appeared to break from Trump as Republican candidates vied to win the GOP nomination over the ex-president, Gertz also notes that "the network’s stars never really broke from Trump, and as he reconsolidated support from the GOP base, it was inevitable that Fox would return to its role as his megaphone."
He writes:
The New York trial, which comes in the wake ofTrump establishing himself as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has provided Fox with an opportunity to prove its loyalty. Commentators have lashed out at District Attorney Alvin Bragg, his prosecutors and the case they have presented; criticized the judge, witnesses and jurors at the trial; and baselessly blamed President Joe Biden for Trump’s legal peril.
"It is impossible to overstate Fox’s impact on Trump’s worldview," Gertz emphasizes, noting, "The insight he garnered about the GOP base as a regular on 'Fox & Friends' helped him to win the presidency.
Gertz's full op-ed is available at this link.
