During a meeting with his anchors, Murdoch expressed remorse for not having urged them to reject President Trump’s claims that the election had been rigged due to malfunctioning voting equipment. As first reported by Vanity Fair, a meeting participant overheard the Fox founder saying, “In hindsight, I would have liked us to be more forceful in denouncing it.”
In order to avoid a defamation suit, the network recently settled for $787 million with Dominion Voting Systems and fired primetime personality Tucker Carlson as part of the arrangement. For years, network officials had tried to transfer blame for the charges that led to the Dominion action from their own employees and onto Carlson and the other anchors.
For years, DeSantis has profited from Fox’s soft prohibition on President Trump since he departed the White House in 2021. He declared his campaign on Wednesday in a glitchy Twitter sit down with Elon Musk and a handful of other allies. The governor of Florida has been on several Fox News shows, including those hosted by Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and others, to discuss current events and his record as governor of Florida. Fox has slowly begun covering the former president again and will air a town hall with Hannity and Trump on Thursday.
The race for the Republican nomination between Trump and DeSantis has just begun, and it promises to be a test of each candidate’s unique abilities. DeSantis has proven to be a formidable fundraiser, collecting $8.2 million in the first 24 hours after announcing his candidacy, nearly double the $4 million raised by Trump after his criminal indictment. The president is known for his everyman messaging and headline-grabbing provocations.
