Trump and Fox News, the clash after the defeat: the loyal network breaks
After Neil Cavuto took the floor from Kayleigh McEnany, the president's spokesperson: "If he has no evidence, I can't pass this stuff on", the rift between the journalists of Murdoch's network is increasingly clear: who distances himself from Trump, who stay
Four days ago Kathryn - the wife of James Murdoch, the son of Rupert who, after leading the group together with his father and then remaining alone as director, finally resigned from all positions in dissent with his line in July politics - made headlines with a tweet in which he shared invitations to Fox to report the result of the vote in an objective manner without embracing Trump's generic fraud allegations. Less noted, a message from her spread on Election Day: "How will you one day tell your children the part you played in this story?"
In the Murdoch saga, the family that inspired the television serial Succession, James is now out, replaced by his brother, the eldest son Lachlan, who has rejoined the group after a long parenthesis. Like his father, Lachlan thinks of news in terms of business: more sensitive to the occupation of market spaces than to the ethical profile of information. Behind the scenes, the patriarch, 89-year-old Rupert, an old conservative, continues to support Trump but can smell the wind.
These articulations in family ownership and the objective situation of information stress produced by the enormous pressure from Trump denying Biden's electoral victory, created a deep rift in the Fox information machine, the true engine of change in America's conservative soul in the 'era of The Donald: a machine that, beyond appearances, has never been monolithic.
For days the distance between two fronts has widened: on the one hand, many journalists and presenters of daily news, from Chris Wallace to Bret Baier, from Sandra Smith to Neil Cavuto, who do not criminalize Biden, pursue right-wing figures who talk about elections rigged by asking them for detailed evidence and broadcasting interviews to Republican magistrates like Andrew McCarthy according to whom "even if some fraud is proven, it is hard to question elections lost by tens of thousands of votes".
On the other hand, the president's loyalists, gathered around the three political leaders of the evening prime time - Carlson Tucker, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham - who, however, continued to support the Trump line, even if Ingraham said that the Republicans did not nothing to blame, having fought just battles: an admission that the presidential elections are lost (complete with an invitation to Trump to step aside, while continuing his political battle), while the other two argue that fighting to the bitter end to keep the President in the White House is a duty.
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The other evening the most sensational case: the afternoon host Neil Cavuto cut a direct connection with the White House press room while Trump's spokesperson, Kayleigh McEnany, was accusing the Democrats of stealing the elections: "He is saying explosive things , accuses opponents of fraud. Unless he has concrete elements to support such a thesis, they cannot continue to transmit this stuff. " A similar behavior to that previously reprimanded by Fox itself to Twitter and Facebook when social networks began to report, or even delete, Trump's posts containing blatantly false accusations.
Three hours later the reply came from another star of the network: Carlson Tucker stigmatized the behavior of his colleague because "in a democracy you cannot ignore the honest questions of citizens: you cannot cut what you don't like. Here people no longer believe in elections and this puts democracy in danger ». True, only that Cavuto did not block "people's questions" but unfounded statements from the White House. If not supported by facts, it is these claims (unfounded until proven otherwise and amplified by Carlson himself) that demolish trust in democracy.
And Rupert? When Trump got mad that Fox prematurely awarded Biden Arizona, he defended the net. He is now silent: he knows that it is precisely the controversial Carlson and Hannity who drag his listening to him.
