On Wednesday, The New York Times’ Donald Trump publicist reporter, Maggie Haberman, announced that disgraced, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump would be making his triumphant return to Fox News next week. His choice of show, of course, is hosted by ol’ buddy Sean Hannity.
What makes this news is that Trump has been exiled from Fox News, and Fox News has been exiled from Donald Trump since September 2022—his last appearance on the network. The relationship between the proliferate lying entities has been strained since November 2020, when Fox News became the first media outlet to accurately call Arizona for then-candidate Joe Biden. It has been further strained over the last few weeks, following revelations that people at Fox News despise Donald Trump. The details came out during the billion-dollar defamation lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems filed against the network for promoting the election fraud lies of Donald Trump.
Both Fox News’ and Donald Trump’s orbits are inhabited by craven, unlikeable people—which is why it was easy for the network to step away from Trump for the past couple of years. Unfortunately for Fox News and the rest of the Republican Party, the polls are not looking so good for the other aspiring fascists in their midst, especially Ron DeSantis. Thus, welcome back!
Fox News has been facing a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit that has exposed how complicit the fake news channel was in the weeks and months after the 2020 election in promoting the “Big Lie”—that the elections were stolen or rigged by way of a massive conspiracy. It has also reminded the world that Fox News worked hand-in-hand not only with the propaganda wing of the Trump administration but also, at times, as its think tank. At the same time, Fox has tried to rid itself of Trump by tiptoeing toward throwing Trump under the bus over the past few years, including airing the occasional fact or two about Trump’s suspected crimes.
In recent weeks, the enmity between the two camps—big liars on the one side, and big liars being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for lying on the other—has been very public. After revelations in February of how little Fox News hosts and their producers cared for the Donald and his lies, the Trump crew after the network. Earlier this month at CPAC, Trump’s top pretend-Leninist, Steve Bannon, called out Fox News as an opponent of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, saying, “Fox News illegitimately called it for the opposition, and not Donald J. Trump.” This delusional (and presently being litigated as defamatory) lying is exactly why Fox News has needed to create space from the likely-to-be-indicted Trump.
At the same time, Trump slammed Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch, writing:
“Rupert Murdoch should apologize to his viewers and readers for his ridiculous defense of the 2020 Presidential Election. How many forms of cheating and rigging does he have to see? He should also apologize to those anchors who got it right, and fire the ones who got it wrong, or were afraid to speak up (of which there were many!). It’s time to get rid of Fake News, and call it like it is!”
Will Trump, who has never stopped saying the election was stolen, even though he and everyone around him know it wasn’t, and Fox News is being sued for it, be able to talk about anything other than the 2020 election? Probably not. I mean, he will say mean things about Ron DeSantis and mean things about other Republicans. He will obviously say things about how, if he were president, Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine (because Trump would have annexed it for him). But we should expect the bulk of his rants to be a continuation of the Big Lie, because they always are.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
