-Fox News has apparently barred
its own anchors from covering a billion-dollar lawsuit
against the company that revealed
its on-air personalities knowingly lied to their viewers
about the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, Fox also gave airtime to Marjorie Taylor Greene
to defend her call for a national divorce
between red states and blue states.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]
You will often hear those on the right say
that the so-called elite corporate media lies
to its viewers, although, I personally find it a little odd
that they complain about the media
being corporate elitist when their favorite network
has a giant headquarters in midtown Manhattan
and is owned by a mega corporation run
by a media mogul who is one of the world's richest oligarchs
and the main villain from the second "Crocodile Dundee" movie.
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ Australian accent ] Yes, I can see that's a knife,
nut I'll tell my viewers it's not a knife.
Who do you think they're going to believe?
[ Laughter ]
Now, obviously, I'm not going to say
the media never gets stories wrong
or that you can't disagree with them.
You can, as Senator Bernie Sanders
did recently, without even saying a word.
-We also have one of the most innovative healthcare systems,
when it comes to creation of pharmaceutical drugs.
[ Laughter ] You are doing this.
-Bernie -- [ Applause ]
Bernie uses his index finger the way a samurai uses a sword.
[ Laughter ] If he raises it, he has to wag it.
[ Laughter ] You know, by law,
he actually has to carry a license for it
and keep it in a tiny, little holster.
[ Laughter ]
What I appreciate about Bernie
is that there's just no guile with him.
It's the opposite of a Jedi mind trick.
If Bernie had been in that cruiser with C-3PO and R2-D2,
the scene would've gone much differently.
[ As Sanders ] These are, in fact, the droids you're looking for,
but I'm not going to let you take them, and here's why.
The top 1% of stormtroopers already have 99% of the droids.
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ Cheering ] But there is --
there is a massive difference between criticizing the media
for limiting the scope of debate
and claiming journalists, as a whole,
are engaged in a broad conspiracy
to lie to people, as Bernie explained.
-Do you worry, when you talk about the corporate media,
that you are targeting
journalists when you say that? -No, no.
Donald Trump talks about fake news
and that's simply to deflect attention
from the fact that he's a pathological liar.
My experience, one-on-one with media,
they work hard, very rarely am I misquoted.
But what I am talking about, Margaret,
is that corporate media limits
the kind of debate that we have in this country.
-Mm-hmm. -You tell me. You know more about it than I do.
How often do we talk about income and wealth inequality?
-We're talking about it right now, Senator!
-Yeah, but how often?
Not everybody has Bernie Sanders on your show.
[ Laughter ] -And, you know, Bernie will go on any show,
if you're willing to let him talk about income inequality.
Bernie would fully do "The Masked Singer,"
if it meant...
[ Laughter and applause ]
...getting his message out.
[ As Sanders ] Bravo. Good guess.
But now, the bad news.
[ Laughter ]
Anyway, the point is, there's a difference
between good faith media criticism
and claiming journalists are engaged
in a nefarious conspiracy of lies,
as the right often does.
In fact, as it turns out, they're the ones
knowingly lying to their viewers,
as we found out from a recent court filing
and a billion-dollar defamation suit against Fox News.
-A stunning new court filing revealing how top talent
and executives at Fox News
trashed Donald Trump and ridiculed his legal team
and their 2020 election conspiracies behind the cameras,
all while hyping those same conspiracies on the air,
to their viewers.
-Fox staff were privately blasting the Big Lie as BS
and saying, "mind blowingly nuts," "reckless."
-As Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell
were making wildly false claims about rigged voting machines
after Trump lost in 2020,
private communications reveal that pro-Trump voices
at Fox News were calling it nuts.
"Watching Giuliani!," Rupert wrote in an email...
...Tucker Carlson wrote
to fellow Fox host Laura Ingraham.
Ingraham responded...
...said Fox host Sean Hannity...
They were all communicating privately
about how insane the Big Lie was,
while turning around and hyping that lie to their viewers,
When I first read those quotes, I was honestly speechless.
I just wish I had a way to communicate
my disapproval without words.
[ Laughter ]
Oh!
[ Applause ] Senator, please,
put that finger back in its holster!
[ Laughter ]
You know, when he's over my shoulder like that,
he looks like the Angel Bernie,
telling me not to do something bad.
[ Laughter ] Angel Bernie,
should I lie to my viewers
and tell them Trump won the election?
[ Laughter ] Oh.
Oh, that must mean there's a Devil Bernie on my other side,
telling me to go for it.
Let's see. Devil Bernie,
should I lie to my viewers for ratings?
[ Laughter ] Oh.
Oh, no.
[ Laughter ]
You guys, this is what happens when we take a week off.
[ Laughter ]
We lose our focus and we have two Bernies onscreen
at the same time.
[ Laughter ]
The point is the very same Fox News anchors who constantly
accuse the so-called mainstream media of lying
were themselves lying to their viewers
and were admitting, behind closed doors,
that they were lying to their viewers.
And the supposed evidence they were getting
for all these claims
was transparently insane on its face.
-Before one interview with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell,
in advance, she told Fox that her single source
for these election claims was a person who does
"time-travel in a semi-conscious state."
[ Laughter and cheering ] Let me repeat that.
Their source, now at the heart of this defamation claim,
at a time when the lies led to violence,
was someone who said they knew what they knew
because they got it by experiencing
"time-travel in a semi-conscious state."
[ Laughter ] -If Sidney Powell had a time-traveling friend,
why didn't they tell her
turtleneck sweaters were out of style?
[ Laughter ]
Fun fact -- Sidney wore that outfit at the press conference
where Rudy's head started to leak.
You guys remember that?
[ Laughter ]
A day professional hair and makeup artists
now refer to as their Pearl Harbor.
[ Laughter and cheering ] Of course, Rudy doesn't use
professional hair and makeup artists.
[ As Giuliani ] I save so much money when I do it myself.
[ Laughter ] "Um, Rudy,
one of your eyes fell off."
[ Laughter ]
Double-sided tape, my ass!
[ Laughter ] And can I say, if Fox News had a time traveler,
I always thought it would be Rudy.
I mean, look at him. He always looks like
he just got back from the year 3,000.
[ Laughter ] Of course, in Rudy's version of "Back to the Future,"
he travels back in time to make sure his parents never met.
[ As Giuliani ] If they never marry, my first wife
won't legally be my second cousin.
[ Laughter ] "Yeah, but,
Rudy, if they never meet, you'll never be born."
I'll cross the bridge when I come to it.
[ Laughter ]
But that's right -- Fox aired an interview
with a crazy person who told them, in advance,
that her only source for her election fraud claims
was someone who supposedly
time traveled in a semi-conscious state.
Was there any follow-up?
"Man, Sidney, it would help
if you had a second source here."
[ As Powell ] I have a haunted antique doll
[ Laughter ] who sometimes speaks to me,
but sadly, she's pretty convinced
Biden won fair and square.
[ Laughter ] Yeah, she's being a real bitch about it!
[ Laughter ]
My favorite part of that time travel story, by the way,
is that the Fox anchor who received that information
then passed it along to the Trump family.
-Not only did they air that, but the host,
Maria Bartiromo, welcomed that lawyer Powell,
knowing that she had this made-up conspiracy theory.
And then that's not all.
The Fox anchor then steps in as a conduit
to take that information back to Trump family members,
responding to the lawyer Powell,
that she shared this important "info with Eric Trump."
-Man, if there's anyone in the Trump family
[ Laughter ] who would be excited
to hear that time travel is real,
[ Laughter and applause ] it would be Eric Trump.
[ As Eric ] Thank you for sharing this important info, Maria.
I will use it to travel back in time
wearing a mask of my father's face,
to have a catch with my seven-year-old self.
[ Laughter and applause ]
I think that will fix everything!
I will also intercept and replace that birthday card
he once gave me that said...
[ Laughter ]
Why does Hallmark even make those?!
[ Laughter ]
The lawsuit also alleges that Trump himself tried
to call into Fox on January 6th,
but that Fox refused to put him on-air,
presumably because they knew
what he was saying was dangerous.
According to CNN...
[ Laughter ] That is the most polite euphemism I've ever heard.
[ Laughter ] That's like Hannibal Lecter
describing himself in his Tinder bio as a...
[ Laughter and applause ]
So, Fox knew this was all BS
and yet, they were hiding it to their viewers, anyway.
In fact, they were even trying to punish others at the network
who dared to correct the record.
-When Trump falsely claimed that Dominion machines
cost him 2.7 million votes,
Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich responded
with a tweet saying...
Some of Heinrich's colleagues at Fox
wanted her to be punished,
even though they knew that what she was saying was true.
...Tucker Carlson wrote hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity.
-So, next time Tucker rails against corporate media,
remember, he does the news
with one eye on the stock ticker.
[ Laughter ] He's always checking on Fox's stock price,
as well as his other investments,
like the Bow Tie Emporium
and [Bleep] M&M's.
[ Laughter and applause ] But...
Tucker isn't news.
He's entertainment and he knows his audience
doesn't want the truth. They want their stories.
Tucker Telling the truth would be like Kylo Ren
turning to camera mid-threatening monologue
and saying, "I'm not really Kylo Ren.
I'm Adam Driver. You guys know me.
[ Laughter ]
From 'Girls.' None of this is real.
It's just for fun.
[ Laughter ]
Anyway, back to 'space.'"
[ Laughter ]
Fox viewers didn't want the truth then,
and they don't want the truth now,
which is why no one on Fox is talking about the lawsuit.
Yesterday, one of their anchors said on-air
that the company had told him he couldn't cover the lawsuit,
despite his strong objections.
-Some of you have been asking why I'm not covering
the Dominion voting machines lawsuit against Fox,
involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020,
and it's absolutely a fair question.
I believe I should be covering it --
it's a major media story --
given my role here at FOX.
But the company has decided that,
as part of the organization being sued,
I can't talk about it or write about it, at least for now.
I strongly disagree with that decision,
but as an employee, I have to abide by it
and, if that changes, I'll let you know.
-So, Fox is censoring its own anchors now.
What's next, are they going to replace Sean Hannity
with that Microsoft chat box
that started going haywire on everyone?
[ Laughter ] What are they going to do, program it
to say the word woke over and over?
[ Laughter ] -Welcome to "Hannity." Tonight's top story --
woke LEGOs are taking over.
Woke M&M's, woke textbooks,
woke Potato Head, woke Dr. Seuss.
Woke, woke, woke, woke, woke, woke, woke, woke.
[ Laughter ] And yet, none of these revelations seem
to have changed anything over at Fox.
They're still doing their usual thing.
Just last week, they gave
Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene
extensive airtime to explain
her unhinged call for a "national divorce,"
which, she said, would separate red states from blue states.
-I don't see middle ground on a lot of these issues,
so, what is the other answer, if it's not a divorce?
-Well, exactly, Sean.
That's the problem and where we are today.
And, in my life, in my world,
all of my friends are regular Americans.
Everyone I talk to is sick and tired and fed up
of being bullied by the left, abused by the left,
and disrespected by the left.
And our ideas, our policies, our ways of life
have become so far apart
that it's just coming to that point.
-And do you expect it'll happen? Last question.
[ Suspenseful theme plays ]
[ Laughter ] -Well, I think it's something that we should work towards
because, you know, it's kind of the vision
that our founding fathers had for America.
[ Laughter and applause ]
-A national divorce?
[ Laughter ] [ As Greene ] A national divorce
was the vision of the Founding Fathers!
I know because I time traveled in a semi-conscious state
and talked to them.
[ Laughter and applause ]
How about this? Instead of a compromise --
This will be the compromise -- instead of red states
getting a divorce from blue states,
America gets a divorce from Greene.
She's definitely dressed for it. Remember when she showed up
to the state of the union,
screaming at Joe Biden in a white fur collar,
like she was demanding sole custody of the Maltese?
[ Laughter ] [ As Greene ] You hand over Clarabelle right now!
[ Laughter ] I'm the one who fed her organic chow and put bows in her hair!
[ Laughter ] The Dominion lawsuit has exposed, yet again,
that the people who constantly accuse
the rest of the media of lying are themselves the ones
who knowingly lied to their viewers.
They took their cues from, among others,
a guy who always looks like he's about to...
-Time-travel in a semi-conscious state.
[ Laughter ] -This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]