MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan took apart the lying Fox primetime hosts and the complete lack of respect they have for the dupes that watch their shows following the release of their emails from the Dominion lawsuit while filling in for Chris Hayes this Friday.
HASAN: Today, the sheer extent of Fox's hypocrisy laid bare in the pages of that new legal filing in the Dominion lawsuit, and that hypocrisy is clearer than it's ever been. But to understand it, you really need to hear what the star of the Republican party... I'm sorry, the stars of Fox are saying on TV versus what they were telling each other behind the scenes. Take the 8 pm host who is always concerned about conservative losing their jobs for speaking their mind.
CARLSON: You say one wrong thing and you are done. That's called cancel culture. […] Up next, cancel culture have been a global epidemic. […] Cancel culture is happening everywhere. At some point it will and and I do think that the people who stood up in the face of it will get the credit they deserve.
HASAN: But as the filing makes clear, Tucker wasn't so concerned with cancel culture when the message contradicted the lies he was spewing on behalf of Donald Trump. When a Fox journalist publicly fact tracked Trump's big lie, the one that the network was pushing, quote, Carlson told Hannity, “Please get her fired. Seriously, what the ***? I'm actually shocked. In needs to stop immediately, like tonight.”
Trying to get someone fired for tweeting a fact that you don't like? Sounds like cancel culture to me. But it wasn't just Carlson who didn't practice what he preached. Here's Fox host Laura Ingraham platforming the pro-Trump coup lawyer, Sidney Powell, in the days after the 2020 election. And we should note everything you're going to hear her say is a lie.
POWELL: We have demonstrable, statistical, mathematical and computer evidence of hundreds of thousands of votes being injected into the computer systems. Repeatedly. That simply -- don't pass muster. […] The Department of Justice an FBI really need to get after it right now and investigate all the reports of fraud. There are hundreds of them.
INGRAHAM: Yeah, well, I hope Attorney General Barr is doing that.
HASAN: But behind the scenes, Ingraham texted her colleagues, quote, “Sidney Powell is a bit nuts.” Later adding, “Sidney is complete nut. No one will work with her.” Powell also appeared on Sean Hannity's show, again, to spread flat out lies against the voting machines.
POWELL: We've got evidence of corruption all across the country in countless districts. The machine ran an algorithm that shaved votes from Trump and awarded them to Biden. They used the machines to trash large batches of votes that should've been awarded to president Trump, and they used the machine to inject and add massive quantities of votes for Mr. Biden. The only reason we really --
HANNITY: I thought Democrats told us that we like whistleblowers. You are saying these people can't talk because they're going to lose their job.
HASAN: Hannity later testified, “That whole narrative that Sidney was pushing. I did not believe it for one second.” But Sidney Powell wasn't the only pro-Trump lawyer who made an appearance on Hannity's show. He had Rudy Giuliani on multiple times to spread the big lie.
HANNITY: Here to provide even more updates on the Trump campaign's efforts to restore election integrity, attorney for the president, Rudy Giuliani. […] He joins us now for an exclusive interview, former New York City mayor, president Trump's attorney. Mister, mayor always good to see. You thank. […] Here with reaction is more with the president's attorney Rudy Giuliani.
HASAN: But when the cameras weren't rolling, and Hannity's TV audience wasn't listening, he said, “Rudy is acting like an insane person,” and referred to both Giuliani and Sidney Powell as “F'ing lunatics.”
Keep in mind that the next time you hear some nonsense from the mouth of a Fox host, just how little respect they must have for their own audience. To push something publicly that they are more than willing to admit to one another is nonsense, but only, only, when the cameras are off.
The one place you can count on to never, ever air any of the transcripts from the emails is Fox "news." They rely on the fact that the people who watch the network all want to stay in their Fox and right wing bubbles and never stick their heads out for long enough to hear the truth about the garbage they're being fed on a daily basis. They're happy to be lied to and apparently could care less about the lack of respect as long as they're being told what they want to hear.
