Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seized on the latest revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News, as they called on Rupert Murdoch to curb hosts from spreading election conspiracy theories.
According to a Dominion filing on Monday, Murdoch said in a recent deposition that some Fox News hosts “endorsed” the “false notion of a stolen election.” Murdoch, however, saw many of Donald Trump’s claims as “bulls—.”
“Though you have acknowledged your regret in allowing this grave propaganda to take place, your network hosts continue to promote, spew, and perpetuate election conspiracy theories to this day,” Schumer and Jeffries wrote in their letter to Murdoch. (Read it here).
“The leadership of your company was aware of the dangers of broadcasting these outlandish claims. By your own account, Donald Trump’s election lies were ‘damaging’ and ‘really crazy stuff.’ Despite that shocking admission, Fox News hosts have continued to peddle election denialism to the American people,” they wrote.
A spokesperson for Murdoch did not immediately return a request for comment.
Fox News and Fox Corp., named defendants in the lawsuit, have said that Dominion’s lawsuit takes an “extreme” view of defamation law, as its hosts and anchors were covering something undoubtedly newsworthy: a sitting president’s claim that the election was stolen from him.
“The Washington Post could be on the hook for reporting President Trump’s allegation that President Obama was born in Kenya, since several of its editors understood that the claim was bogus,” the network said.
The network also contends that Dominion is highlighting texts and emails that ultimately won’t apply to the legal issues involved in the case.
Schumer and Jeffries also cited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s move to give Fox News host Tucker Carlson exclusive access to tens of thousands of hours of Capitol surveillance from January 6, the day a mob stormed the complex. Both Democratic leaders have expressed concerns that Carlson will use the footage to fit into his own narrative of what happened that day. Carlson produced a Fox Nation documentary series, Patriot Purge, that advanced the theory that the attack on the Capitol was a “false flag” operation to denigrate Trump supporters.
“We demand that you direct Tucker Carlson and other hosts on your network to stop spreading false election narratives and admit on the air that they were wrong to engage in such negligent behavior,” Schumer and Jeffries wrote.
McCarthy defended his decision on Tuesday. “Well, first of all, we didn’t hand over anything. Tucker was interested. You had videos for more than two years. I didn’t hear anybody concerned about that when CNN was given exclusive,” McCarthy said, per ABC News. CNN did get footage, but this is the first media access to all of the video.
“Have you ever had an exclusive?” McCarthy told reporters. “Because I see it on your networks all the time. So, they have exclusive, then I’ll give it out to the entire country.”