you. you are there today. there s a lot of suspens during this pause. i don t think the announcement is shocking anyone how did they not do this sooner? what is your take away fro this announcement? in effect, they did settle i think it s not shocking but it is disappointing. there s been so much evidenc already unveiled through the course of this process about the utter cynicism and contemp with which fox news treated it audience and its journalisti responsibility there was a hope that a lo more would come out. to be honest, i was really curious about how fox wa possibly going to defend itself because the judge had really shut off every avenue of argumentation you could imagin fox news making. they were going to try to argu that they were reporting o newsworthy allegations by th president and his attorney the judge said he cannot d that did judge already rule that fo news aired defamator falsehoods the only thing we were arguing about was whether in airin those defamatory falsehoods
every month, for a year, two years, that spread this lie. if fox news were to retrac this, i think donald trump would have a lot less abilit to spread the big lie that h did. of course, the senate majority leader chuck schume on this very program last mont as we were uncovering th deaths of the deception, tha was being fed to america b fox. fox could keep its stock price up and then that we have settlement and the case won go to trial, what does thi mean for the informational and political landscape? david plouffe served as th campaign manager for obama s 2008 presidential campaign, as well as senior adviser t president obama when he was in the white house. he joins me now. good to have you here. nice to see you one of the things here, a someone who went through multiple elections and particularly democrati primaries, there is no analo to fox that is just a completel different universe over there.
you, know first of all, they will not go on the air and defame - it s pretty clear, i would hope i think you are right. that was always the case. but in the run up to 2024 this stuff will all surfac again. trump is going to say th primary is rigged if he loses state. he s going to say dominion voting machines or tabulatin the votes in new hampshire if he loses new hampshire, like, it s a lot of issue that s going to play on fox news in a way that there is some deterrent effect, harry, fro this settlement. i don t disagree. all the, the settlement amount itself, chris, it s a big check, but i don t think it could v been much less than that whatever deterrent effect it
that being said, i still think fox, rupert murdoch, mos republicans believe desantis somehow gets by trump, he is the stronger general electio candidate, maybe just becaus of generational difference with biden we will see, i don t think the gave that up yet but the vultures are circlin desantis again, it s wildly early but so far he has shown no evidence he s ready for th stage. that is what is fascinating to me the hype cycles in both directions are nuts. we were giving up for the obama i say this to my staff al the time the american prospect cove story, the month before iowa was basically, or a month or two, why hasn t obama been abl to do it why is he stuck in the mud i still remember that. it was a political obituary yes. here s an example from th you know donors, and nothing worse than donors off th record, you know, it s like rich people want t dance for them but this is lance gooden,
represented dominion in this case i think they did a great service for the country in wha they ve done up to today i understand often thes settlements have ndas around them and they are prescribed things that cannot be divulged i am a journalist, so i will ask you. there is reporting indicatin that there will be no on air apology from fox can you confirm that i m not as close to the details. i honestly am less intereste in apologies i m more interested in the truth. what i would hope is the fox hosts would say on air wha they admitted in their depositions, when they admit that they know the truth and that s what matters. to my mind, apologies don matter the truth matters. i do hope that they can become adults and actually tell the truth to their audience abou all this what are the implications here for the broader legal landscape? there are other lawsuits, mark magic put out their statemen today, you can t speak about ongoing litigation settlements have reverberation here, what