Russian president suggests detained Wall Street reporter could be freed in prisoner exchange
Vladimir Putin has said he believes “an agreement can be reached” to free the imprisoned US journalist Evan Gershkovich, hinting he would trade him for a Russian killer serving a life sentence in Germany.
Speaking on Thursday to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, Putin said he did not rule out the possibility of Gershkovich returning “to his motherland”.
Continue reading...On Fox News, wife of Ron DeSantis mistakenly invites ‘moms and grandmoms’ to cross state lines and illegally vote in caucus
Casey DeSantis, the wife of Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, has upset party officials in Iowa by urging her husband’s supporters from around the US to “descend” on the state and illegally take part in next month’s caucuses.
The former television news reporter, who has become the Florida governor’s chief supporter on the campaign trail, made the faux-pas during an appearance with him on Fox News on Friday, in which she wrongly stated it was legal for out-of-state residents to participate.
Continue reading...Mark Levin called Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper ‘self-hating Jews’ on syndicated radio show, prompting furious response
For the second time in two days, the White House denounced Fox News over remarks by a host relating to the Israel-Hamas war, following condemnation of Jesse Watters’ apparent incitement of violence against Arab Americans with condemnation of Mark Levin for calling two CNN anchors “self-hating Jews”.
Andrew Bates, a spokesperson, said: “President Biden believes in an America where we come together against hate and don’t fan its flames. But not only is Fox News aligning with those who fan the flames of hate – Fox is paying their salaries.”
Continue reading...Trump tell-all author returns with tale of Fox News strife which also includes prediction Ron DeSantis will be Republican nominee
In winter 2022, at a hideaway in St Barts, Rupert Murdoch directed “sudden fury” at Donald Trump, who he thought would lose the 2024 Republican presidential primary to Ron DeSantis, but who the media mogul also said was likely to cost him “fifty million dollars”, through a lawsuit regarding Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
The lawsuit was filed by Dominion Voting Systems, over Fox News’s broadcast of Trump’s lies. Settled this April, it cost Murdoch considerably more than he predicted: $787.5m, to be precise.
Continue reading...New York pension funds and Oregon are long-term shareholders of Fox and accuse network of inviting defamation claims
New York City pension funds and the state of Oregon sued Fox Corporation on Tuesday, alleging the company harmed investors by allowing Fox News to broadcast falsehoods about the 2020 election that exposed the network to defamation lawsuits.
The lawsuit, filed in Delaware, accuses Fox of inviting defamation claims by amplifying conspiracy theories about the election, including a suit Fox News agreed to settle for nearly $800m with Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of voting machines.
Continue reading...The Fall will be published next month and promises to chronicle the rightwing network and the Murdoch family’s downfall
The author Michael Wolff, whose bestselling books have chronicled the rise and fall of Donald Trump, promised on Tuesday to tell readers how Fox News will end.
“I have been telling the story of the great power of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News for many years,” Wolff said, announcing his new book, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty. “This power is now reaching a natural end and The Fall brings the story to its closing act.”
Continue reading...Dinh’s exit another major departure from the network since its $787.5m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in April
Fox Corp said Friday that its chief legal officer Viet Dinh was stepping down, a high-profile exit that follows the media company’s $787.5m settlement in April of a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over its 2020 US election coverage.
Dinh, who will exit the role at the end of 2023, joined Fox in 2018 and headed its legal and compliance divisions during the months-long legal battle sparked by the network’s coverage of false claims that Dominion rigged the election.
Continue reading...Ryan Grim calls Tucker Carlson replacement ‘a classic bully’ and says fight started when he backed colleague Watters had harassed
The US political journalist Ryan Grim broke the news of allegations against Brett Kavanaugh before his 2018 supreme court justice confirmation, and he was among the first to report on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s initial ascent to Congress.
Still, to some, he remains known as the guy who got into a fight at the 2016 White House Correspondents’ Dinner with Jesse Watters, who debuted Tuesday as host of the coveted 8pm Fox News slot made available by Tucker Carlson’s firing.
Continue reading...Lawyers for former US president ask Georgia’s highest court to prevent district attorney from prosecuting him
Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy condemned congressman Eli Crane for using an outdated and offensive term to refer to African Americans on the House floor:
Politico reports that Crane has apologized for using the language:
Continue reading...Ex-producer had also accused network’s lawyers of pressuring her to make misleading statements in Dominion Voting Systems case
Fox Corporation has settled for $12m a lawsuit by the former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who had made claims of gender discrimination.
She also accused the network’s lawyers of pressuring her to make misleading statements in the Dominion Voting Systems case, her lawyer Tanvir Rahman said on Friday.
Continue reading...Governor spoke with host Sean Hannity about the state’s housing crisis and criticized Ron DeSantis while praising the president
California’s Gavin Newsom sat down with Fox News’s Sean Hannity for a wide ranging interview on Monday night that fueled speculation about his presidential aspirations – even as he again said he had no plans to run for the presidency in 2024.
The Democratic governor’s decision to appear on Hannity confounded many of his supporters, but Newsom, who routinely spars with Republicans on social media, took the opportunity to defend his state’s record and its policies with a senior adviser telling Politico that he viewed the interview as “going into the lion’s den”.
Continue reading...Carlson attorney Bryan Freeman accuses network of attacking first amendment rights amid dispute over post-firing settlement
Responding to Fox News’s contention that Tucker Carlson was in breach of contract when he debuted his Twitter show this week, a lawyer for the fired hard-right host accused the network of attacking his client’s first amendment rights.
“Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds,” said attorney Bryan Freedman in response to reports, first by Axios, about a letter to Carlson from a lawyer for Fox.
Continue reading...Source says ‘we removed equipment after building a custom studio at our expense … we did not tear down the studio’
As Tucker Carlson prepares to take his show to Twitter, Fox News, the network which fired the primetime opinion host last month, has dismantled the studio it built in a barn at his home in Maine.
“Fox came in last week and got all their shit out of there,” DailyMail.com quoted Patrick Feeney, who it said was managing work to rebuild the studio, as saying.
Continue reading...Wife of former CEO forced out over sexual harassment allegations says Rupert Murdoch lacks her husband’s ‘genius’
Rupert Murdoch’s family has “wreaked havoc” on Fox News, said the widow of Roger Ailes, the network’s former chief executive, adding that the 92-year-old media baron would “never come close” to her late husband’s “genius”.
Ailes died on 18 May 2017 at the age of 77. The former Republican operative built Fox News into a rightwing media giant but died less than a year after he was forced out over allegations of extensive sexual harassment.
Continue reading...Host was fired by the news network last month in the aftermath of its $787.5m settlement with Dominion over election lies
Tucker Carlson will be reviving his show on Twitter, after being abruptly dismissed from Fox News last month.
In a tweet captioned “We’re back,” Carlson on Tuesday shared a video discussing his next moves. The former host said he would be taking his show to Twitter, which he described as “the last remaining platform in the world” to allow free speech.
Continue reading...CNN’s Wednesday town hall with the ex-president could be a warning bell for cable news to not repeat mistakes from 2016
It claims to be the most trusted name in news. But on Wednesday it will devote an hour of prime time to a serial liar who sought to overthrow American democracy.
CNN’s live town hall with Donald Trump, the former US president, has been condemned by critics as a marriage of convenience: an ailing network looking to boost ratings and a disgraced 76-year-old candidate seeking rehabilitation.
Continue reading...Fired Fox host allegedly described Trump supporters assaulting a man, while finding himself ‘rooting for the mob’
A racist text message allegedly sent by the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson set off alarm bells at the top of the network and ultimately contributed to his firing, the New York Times reported.
The text, which remains redacted in court filings in Dominion Voter Systems’ defamation case against Fox News, included the line: “It’s not how white men fight.”
Continue reading...Ex-Fox News anchor shown referring to fans as ‘post-menopausal’ and unnamed woman as ‘yummy’ in clips released on Tuesday
Leaked video published on Tuesday showed the fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson describing an unnamed woman as “yummy”, referring to his fans as “post-menopausal” and attempting to discuss sexual technique with British journalist Piers Morgan.
The first two remarks were previously reported by the New York Times. The clips were released by Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog that on Monday released other video in which Carlson derided the Fox Nation streaming service.
Continue reading...Different reports fly around while Fox News declines to comment on the cancellation of top TV host’s show
The exact reason behind the rightwing TV host Tucker Carlson’s abrupt firing from Fox News remains unclear, days after the star’s show was suddenly cancelled.
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported Carlson was fired after executives discovered vulgar text messages, including one in which he called a top executive the C-word. There were also concerns among Fox management that Carlson was acting as if he was above the network, the Journal reported.
Continue reading...Abby Grossberg alleges she was subject to bullying, sexism and antisemitism while working on the former host’s prime-time show
Tucker Carlson’s abrupt departure from Fox News sent shock waves through the American political and media landscapes and immediately many US pundits linked it to the huge settlement the rightwing channel had just reached with Dominion Voting Systems.
Carlson, as a far-right provocateur, had been instrumental in the channel’s airing of conspiracy theories around the 2020 election that had often put Dominion’s voting machines at the heart of false claims of ballot rigging.
Continue reading...