lawsuit in what is arguably the most painful chapter in their lives, hats off. thanks, chris. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. one of the most watched cable news programs in all of the united states is rewriting the history of january 6th, defending the violent mob that attacked the capitol, and they re doing it with c the explicit aid and support of the highest ranked elected republican in the country. last night fox news host tucker carlson aired his first news report, footage carlson was given access to by speaker of the house kevin mccarthy. we re not going to show you all of tucker carlson s defense for january 6th rioters here, but this is a sample of what the fox newsat audience heard last nigh. very little of january 6th was organized or violent. it was neither an insurrection or deadly. they were peaceful or meek. these were not insurrectionists, they were sight seers. they re not destroying the capitol. they re there because they believe the
in one of the biggest defamation trials in us history, fox news, owned by rupert murdoch, and america s most watched cable news network, has agreed to settle a huge lawsuit out of court. fox has agreed to pay nearly $800 million to a voting machine company called dominion voting systems, which had accused fox news of spreading false statements after the 2020 presidential election which donald trump lost to joe biden. fox news repeatedly broadcast false claims about vote rigging, and blamed dominion and its voting machines. the news about the settlement came in the past hour. let s join our correspondent michelle fleury in delaware. tell us first of all what kind of impact this outcome had and how damaging could it be to rupert murdoch and fox news? this damaging could it be to rupert murdoch and fox news? this was very abru t, murdoch and fox news? this was very abrut, we murdoch and fox news? this was very abrunt. we had murdoch and fox news? this was very abrunt. we had got murdo
pretty explicit about how fox news held off on calling the 2020 election to avoid angering trump. quote, we should and could have gone first, but at least being second saves us a trump explosion. and this behavior predated the election. on september 25th mr. murdoch sent trump senior advisor jared kushner an e-mail that seemed to say murdoch was sending kushner ads that the biden campaign had placed on fox, and he was sending them to kushner before they aired so that kushner could craft trump s ad strategy accordingly. in his deposition mr. murdoch was asked to clarify. question, do you think it s appropriate for someone in your position to give a heads up to the opposing campaign about what the ad of the opposing cam pape will show before it s public? murdoch, i was trying to help mr. kushner. he s a friend of mine. question, you were trying to help the trump campaign by giving a preview of the biden campaign s ads before it was public? murdoch, i guess so.
but the deposition continued. question, why did fox news not want to antagonize trump further on november 16th, 2020, sir? murdoch, he had a very large following and they were probably mostly viewers of fox, so it would have been stupid. for weeks we ve gotten drips and drabs of internal fox news communications as they ve been quoted in legal filings in the defamation lawsuit between the dominion voting corporation and fox news. tonight the actual raw evidence, the e-mails, the texts, the deposition transcripts, all of that was released. it is a mountain of material. this is only some of it, and we are still making our way through it. but already there are some broad strokes that are unsettling. the big one is just how far fox news and its owner, rupert murdoch, seemed to be willing to go to appease president trump and his followers, how thar faild go not to antagonize them. in another e-mail murdoch is
on january 20th, the owner of the media empire that runs fox news sat through a deposition in a defamation case against fox brought by the dominion voting machine. one of the things they asked him about was this e-mail he sent to fox news ceo suzan scott on november 16, 2020, two weeks after the election. this is the owner of fox news rupert murdoch, quote, we should concentrate on georgia helping anyway we can. we don t want to antagonize trump further. in his deposition dominion s lawyers got murdoch to break that e-mail down. question, sir, how did you intend to help in any way you can? murdoch, i just give exposure to the republican candidate. stick a pin in that red hot partisan admission from the owner of fox news. we ll get back to that.