‘He is a bad-ass’: Fox News makes amends with
Trump as he faces indictment
The relationship between the former president and the
network had cooled but Fox offered a full-throated defence of Trump on Thursday
night
Jonathan
Yerushalmy
Fri 31 Mar
2023 05.01 BST
A breaking
news graphic rushes across the screen, as flashing amber lights illuminate the
words: “Fox News alert”.
“We have
just gotten word that former president Donald Trump has been indicted,” the
host begins, while a stunned gasp is audible from off-camera.
“What?”
asks another incredulous voice, as the presenter explains to Fox News’
afternoon audience that the former president will be charged in relation to an
alleged “hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels”.
In the
moments after the news broke, the network’s hosts and commentators took some
time to digest the information. After reporting for weeks that Trump’s
indictment was imminent, the news – when it did arrive – seemed to take Fox’s
panel of experts by surprise.
“I feel bad
for the guy … now they’re trying to nickel-and-dime him for a private agreement
he made with a woman eight years ago,” host Jesse Watters says.
But if the
network’s initial reaction was one of shock, even uncertainty, what quickly
followed was more akin to the bellicose confidence that its viewership has come
to expect.
By the time
Watters was back on air with his own show, he was telling his prime-time
audience that America was now in a “a revenge political climate”.
“When Trump
wins back the White House, he needs to start looking into Democrats,” Watters’
guest, Mike Davis, told him.
“Potentially
you could have a former president behind bars. The only way you can get a free
Trump is to elect a free Trump,” Davis added.
‘Hunting
Trump, destroying America’
Fox news
has long been friendly to the former president, but has had a more complicated
relationship with him recently. Until this week, Trump had been absent from the
network for months, the victim of an apparent shadow-ban by senior management.
A closely
watched legal battle between the network and voting machine company Dominion
was thought to be behind the apparent schism. Evidence put forward in that case
revealed what many at the top of Fox truly think of Trump, driving a wedge
between the former president and the network that helped to catapult him into
the White House.
Private
messages, presented as evidence in the $1.6bn case, showed that even as they
went on the air to cast doubt over the results of the 2020 election, many Fox
News personalities privately doubted Trump’s claims.
“He’s
acting like an insane person,” Sean Hannity, one of the network’s best-known
personalities, allegedly said of Trump. Fox News’ owner, Rupert Murdoch, said
several of the network’s top stars “endorsed” Trump’s false claims, and later
added: “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,”
according to a deposition in the case.
But any
lasting animosity between two of the most powerful forces of the American right
appeared to have disappeared by Thursday night.
Across the
network’s coverage, Trump’s indictment was variously characterised as revenge,
political overreach and, perhaps most significantly, a boon to his chances of
securing the presidency again in 2024.
“He is a
bad-ass if he’s got a mug-shot … his poll numbers have gone up with this and I
just think this is gonna make sure he’s going to be on the ticket,” one
commentator said in the moments after the news broke.
By the time
Tucker Carlson, one of the networks most popular personalities, came on air,
the question had shifted: how to respond?
Carlson –
who once told an associate that he passionately hates Trump, according to
evidence in the Dominion case – described the indictment as a turning point for
America. He offered up a potted history of Trump’s presidency, a history that
he adorned throughout with conspiracy theories, calls for the FBI to be
defunded and parallel narratives of the former president’s two impeachments.
From the start, he said, “Washington elites” had been working to stop Trump
becoming president again.
Throughout
his interviews with fellow analysts, a potential Republican rival and Trump’s
attorney, Carlson continued to return to the question of how Americans should
react.
“The rule
of law is suspended tonight,” Carlson announced gravely. “What you’re seeing
now is lawlessness – the question is who can stop it?
“It almost
feels like they’re pushing the population,” he mused at one point.
Carlson
seemed to finally get the answer he was searching for from sports commentator
Jason Whitlock: “They are agitating for unrest … I’m ready for whatever’s next.
And I hope that every other man watching this is ready for whatever’s next.”
Throughout
the evening, the charges against Trump were framed as a direct attack on
Americans themselves. Laura Ingraham came to air accompanied by a banner that
declared: “Hunting Trump, destroying America”.
“It’s a
toxic relationship,” Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National
Committee, said earlier this month.
“They are
good and bad for each other at the same time … Fox can’t do without Trump and
Trump ultimately can’t do without Fox because he knows, at the end of the day,
that’s the media vehicle through which he will be able to reach the widest
audience of his supporters.”
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