Fox News yesterday aired a disclaimer adding context to comments made by former one-term President Trump referencing electoral fraud during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“And now, it’s also because I got more votes, 75 million, than anybody in the history of the presidency, and far more than Clinton, far more than Obama, and a record 12 million more than 2016,” Trump said of what he has continued to describe as an effort to “rig” the election against him. “Think of it, in the history usually they go down a little bit second term and they win, but they go down a little bit.”
As Trump continued to make misleading or false claims about the result of the election, Fox News, which was carrying the former president’s speech live, replaced its chyron with a disclaimer.
“Voting system companies have denied the various allegations made by President Trump and his counsel regarding the 2020 election,” the disclaimer read.
The right-wing network currently faces a $1.6 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems for their role in promoting baseless election fraud claims.
Another voting systems company, Smartmatic, also filed a $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox News earlier this year.
Fox has filed Motions to Dismiss for both suits.
Back in December 2020, Fox News aired a fact-check rescinding comments made by some of their on-air personalities on shows hosted by Lou Dobbs, Judge Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo.
Trump and his allies criticized Fox News in the days and weeks that followed the election, taking issue with the network’s decision to call Arizona for President Biden before many other outlets and an unwillingness by many hosts and anchors at the network to back his unfounded claims of voter fraud.