Speaker 1: Wow. Fox News and Dominion voting systems have settled Dominion's $1.6 billion
defamation suit against Fox News. They have settled that its $787 million just as the trial
was starting. This will require and did require Fox News in writing to concede that they got some
things wrong, aka lied. But it will not require them to make on air apologies. And we're going to
talk about that now. As we talked about yesterday and the news yesterday was there is not going to
be a settlement within minutes of that episode going live. They reached a settlement. What we
talked about yesterday was the to some degree lose lose aspect to this for Fox News. If you settle
it, you're admitting wrongdoing, whether you admit wrongdoing in writing or not. It's understood that
you're not fighting for what you believe to be true to the end of the you're settling.
You're saying, okay, fine, we'll pay. We'll pay because we did the thing, at least to some degree,
that we were accused of doing. And of course, they can try to wash it by saying it's not
that we believe we did anything wrong, but it became clear that they were going to drag this
out for political reasons. But we're the victims. Okay, fine. But you're saying we're going to pay
if you refuse and you go into a four or even six week trial, you see six weeks of headlines,
including potentially more discovery elements, texts, phone calls, who knows what could come out
and it could be even more damaging potentially. So as deadline reports, Fox News agrees to pay $787
million to settle the Dominion false election claims case. Fox has admitted to telling lies,
said the Voting Systems CEO. The Delaware Superior Court judge Eric Davis, overseeing the case,
made an announcement that, quote, the parties have resolved their case, offering no additional
details. News of the sex assault settlement was strategically made public right before Wall Street
ceased trading for the day. It is going to be $787 million, 787 and a half million. In fact,
Fox has admitted to telling lies about dominion that caused enormous damage to my company,
our employees and the customers we serve, said Dominion CEO John Polo's. Nothing can make up for
that. Fox News is not required to air an apology or reject retraction. However, Fox was quick to
address the settlement and crafted language that softly walks back the claims made by hosts and
guests that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. There's a couple different aspects
to this that I think are very, very important to talk about. One of them is that we have to
distinguish free speech claims from defamation. This is not about free speech. This is about a
responsibility for a public platform the size of Fox News not to defame others. And when we talk
about defamation, we're talking about false claims damaging to one's reputation. Were it true that
Dominion participated in rigging the election to steal it from Trump? It would be damaging to their
reputation, but it would be accurate and therefore it would not be defamation. And so the crux of
this is inextricably interwoven with the lies told about the 2020 election. Trump didn't win.
Biden did. And whatever story you had about cured ballots or sauteed ballots or grilled ballots and
stuffed, you know, double double stuffed crust ballots or whatever. Or it was Dominion and
Smartmatic that rigged it or whatever. It's all part of a bigger lie. Now, we have video
here of lawyers for Dominion who are taking the perspective that lies have consequences.
And that is true. Whatever you think about $800 million nearly. Is that the right amount? The lies
have consequences is the perspective that they are taking. Today's settlement of $787,500,000
represents vindication and accountability. Lies have consequences.
Speaker 2: The truth does not know red or blue. Speaker 1: Today. I want to also be really clear
that this is not going to take down Fox News. There is a Smartmatic defamation suit as well,
and that could get settled for hundreds of millions as well. It's it's not going to take
down Fox News financially. We then get to the question, is it going to take down? Fox News in
other ways. Yesterday I told you that Fox has major negotiations coming up with three major
cable providers. Fox, unlike most cable channels, doesn't really depend on advertising so much as
they have negotiated fees per cable subscriber. I have a cable subscription. I don't watch Fox News,
but a couple bucks, I believe somewhere between two and $4 of my monthly payment
goes to Fox because that's the deal that Fox has negotiated. So there's the question of whether
in the under the black cloud of this settlement and future lawsuits that continue, whether Fox
is going to be able to negotiate the same sort of deal that may hurt them. And then secondly,
there's the question of, wow, now that they've paid nearly 800 million to settle a defamation
claim in which they lied to their audience, maybe they will lose their audience. But of course,
I don't think that that's going to happen. The Fox News viewer actually sees Fox News as the
victim here, by and large. I want to play a couple of interesting clips for you. Here is
FOX media analyst Howard KURTZ appearing with Neil CAVUTO just moments after the announcement of the
settlement. And take a look at what he had to say. Speaker 2: And this had to do with the idea that
Dominion voting machines and former President Trump and his allies made this case on Fox and
elsewhere were somehow, you know, stealing votes from Donald Trump and flipping them to
Joe Biden. That's obviously false. Those were conspiracy theories. But the case would have
revolved around, you know, whether Fox had done digital news, whether it was reckless,
whether it was simply reporting, as the network contends, on an extremely newsworthy matter argued
by the former then president of the United States himself. So whether the amount of the settlement
will leak off and it doesn't, maybe that's part of the deal. But at this point, that's what we know.
Speaker 1: Okay. So a couple of different things. One reaction to that clip was, wow, look, that's
Fox News admitting on Fox News that the stuff that they said was obviously untrue. KURTZ really
downplays it significantly. He said, oh, you know, there were there were some statements made which
were not true. This was months and months of coverage on both the news and opinion sides,
giving voice to the wackiest of wacky. You know, Sidney Powell and Mike Pillow and all these other
people. It was more than just as some things were said that weren't true. That being said,
Fox News is going to minimize this incredibly and eventually frame themselves as the victims.
I want to show you an article that was published about the settlement yesterday. It's fewer than
200 words long. It mentions that the judge praised Fox's lawyers and it doesn't mention
what the settlement amount was. The article is called Fox News Media Dominion Voting Systems
Reach Agreement Over Defamation Lawsuit. Dominion filed a 1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox in 2021.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis praised both parties for the handling of their case. Quote
I've been on the bench since 2010. I think this is the best lawyering I've had ever. I
would be proud to be your judge in the future. The settlement came as a trial was scheduled
to launch this week with a jury selected earlier in the day. The lawsuit stemmed from coverage of
the post 2020 presidential election, and it became media fodder. Then President Trump and his allies
challenged Joe Biden's victory. Some of them, including members of his legal team, made false
and unsubstantiated claims against Dominion voting systems and are the subject of separate defamation
lawsuits. DUNN End of story. You scroll down, it's just ads. Okay. That's the full story. Not
Fox News has admitted in writing that they signal boosted those claims. Fox News is going to pay
nearly $800 million to get this to go. None of that stuff is included. This is the summary,
the nice tidy summary of this by Fox News. So this is the way that it ends with a dominion advantage
to dominion of going. This route also includes that rather than a drawn out trial potentially
appeals and then trying to collect the settlement, they presumably will have a much more direct
path to that $787 million. Interestingly, just before the settlement was announced,
Fox News lawyers threw Trump and allies under the bus. I want to talk about that next.