Categories: Politics

White House snaps back after Fox News calls President Biden “wannabe dictator.”

(Ted Shaffrey/AP)

White House snaps back after Fox News calls President Biden “wannabe dictator.”

Stephen Battaglio

June 14, 2023

If you think Fox News has moderated its tone since paying $787.5 million to settle a landmark defamation lawsuit, think again.

The conservative news network controlled by Rupert Murdoch continued

extremely stunning over the top on screen

graphic Tuesday under a double box of images of President Biden and former President Trump; the latter faced criminal charges in Miami on 37 charges related to mishandling classified documents.

At 8:59 p.m. EDT, potential 2024 election rivals appeared over a chyron that read, “Wannabe dictator speaks at White House after his political rival is arrested.”

The line ran during “Fox News Tonight,” the program that replaced Tucker Carlson after he was removed from the program in April, with “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade in the anchor seat.

The chyron stayed on screen for just under 30 seconds before switching over every hour to host Sean Hannity’s program. Earlier on “Fox News Tonight,” Kilmeade introduced Trump as “the President of the United States” before switching to a live speech.

The chyron caused disbelief on Twitter, where Fox News clips and quotes are a common topic.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about it

Wednesday

during her daily afternoon briefing with reporters and was clearly prepared for the question.

“There are probably 787 million things I can say about this that were wrong about what we saw last night,” said Jean-Pierre, directly referring to the $787.5 million settlement the network paid

hand over

to Dominion Voting Systems in April.

Fox News paid the voting machine company to lead a lawsuit, but not before releasing evidence that reflected badly on the network.

Dominion claimed it was corrupted by Fox News amplifying false claims made by Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani

that the company’s machines manipulated votes to help elect Joe Biden’s president. Fox News is facing a similar lawsuit from

Smartmatic, a voting software company.

Fox News, which broadcast the press conference live, muted the audio during the broadcast

the

Jean-Pierre’s comments and quickly went back to anchors Sandra Smith and John Roberts at his Washington studio. The network switched to a report of a crocodile being pulled from a Florida swimming pool.

Speaking before the press conference, a Fox News representative said, “The chyron was immediately removed and dealt with.” No further explanation was offered.

Fox News has spent a lot of time covering Trump’s legal troubles, including airing a harsh assessment of former Attorney General William Barr, who said the former president is “toast.”

But

in

opinion leaders have done their best to refute the negative narrative about Trump, a crowd favorite, with a steady stream of commentary about Biden and Hillary Clinton not being prosecuted for their handling of classified material.

Guests and hosts often call the Trump indictment politically motivated and downplay the seriousness of the charges against him.

The Dominion case revealed how Fox News executives were concerned about audiences dropping out after the 2020 election, as their viewers tend to leave if things don’t go well for Trump or the Republicans. Executives and broadcasters debated how to retain audiences by covering Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, even as their own reporting determined the election was fair.

Fox News is currently struggling with a decline in viewership since Carlson

was expelled

the prime time lineup.

“Fox News Tonight,” Carlson’s interim replacement, has failed to retain its predecessor’s audience, as viewership has dropped by more than 50%.

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