Yesterday, Fox News anchor Eric Shawn and guest Hans Nichols, of Axios, swatted down Donald Trump’s falsehoods about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election – yet Fox had no problem with letting host Maria Bartiromo validate the lies.
On America’s HQ yesterday, Shawn pointed out what Bartiromo didn’t in her sycophantic interview with Trump, that the Trump campaign had failed to prove the election was stolen or any other of his allegations in court. “In fact, your government, election officials, experts and others, many of them Republican, including Trump-appointed officials, say that the president’s claims are false and unsubstantiated,” Shawn said. “Critics say his claims are unsupported, reckless, and incendiary.”
Nichols called Trump’s comments to Bartiromo “more of the same.” He added, “The news from the president will be when he formally decides to concede.”
Shawn noted that election officials say there were no “illegal dumps” of ballots, as Trump claimed, “just the counting of the many mail-in ballots that are entered into the computer system.” He asked Nichols, “Are these illegal votes? Is that proof of massive voter fraud?”
“There’s no evidence to substantiate that,” Nichols replied. “[T]he fact of the matter is it appears that the president just didn’t get the votes he needed to win.”
Shawn also addressed Trump’s claim that “thousands of dead people voted,” asking, “Was that enough to change this election?”
“Statistically, likely not,” Nichols said.
Shawn also said, “Every machine, Dominion machine, is backed up by a paper trail, a paper ballot, so when they, for example, in Georgia did the hand count, it matched up with what Dominion found exactly.”
Nichols said, “Experts that I trust say that’s close to impossible” to falsely credit votes for Trump to Biden. More importantly, he noted, “Not a single court of law has agreed with the president on that.”
Trump just “can’t process the fact that someone who he thinks is so inferior to him won the election,” Shawn said.
“Or maybe he’s just establishing a predicate for running in 2024,” Nichols added.
While it’s better that Fox aired this segment than not airing it at all, these are the comments any legitimate journalist would have challenged Trump with during the interview. Furthermore, as CNN’s Brian Stelter noted, “The men who control Fox, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, were evidently pleased enough by Bartiromo's propaganda, proud enough of her Trump sycophancy, that they rebroadcast her 10am ET hour at 3pm.”
You can watch Fox try to close the stable door after allowing Bartiromo to let the horse out, below, from the November 29, 2020 America’s News HQ.