'Bankrupt, disbarred, destroyed': Morning Joe predicts Fox News will suffer same fate as all Trump allies
Fox News has struck a defiant posture against its next defamation lawsuit after settling with Dominion Voting Systems for nearly $800 million, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said the network could be "destroyed" for following Donald Trump's orders.
The conservative network issued a statement defending the parade of lies it broadcast about Dominion and Smartmatic, which is seeking $2.7 billion in a case that will likely go to trial in 2025, by insisting that broadcasting false claims about Trump's election loss were newsworthy because they had been made by the former president and his allies, but the "Morning Joe" host said the suits could do real damage.
"I'm confused -- you look at these people, and you look at the entire situation a lot of those people that are talking there, most likely, if you just look at where all of this is going, they're going to end up bankrupt, disbarred, destroyed, simply because they followed Donald Trump's orders after the 2020 election, lying about American democracy," Scarborough said. "Gravity returns, there is a price to the lies a lot of those people talking there, you know, they're not going to be protected by Fox News. They're going to be up there on their own. I would be shocked if they didn't have to declare bankruptcy."
"You wonder what the board members are thinking, you wonder what shareholders are thinking -- this is disastrous," he added. "Let's just remove this from Fox News, let's even remove this from being about people lying about elections to try to overthrow elections. Let's just talk about basic negotiating strategy. You could -- I often quote my torts professor from my first year, Professor Pearson, who said, 'You should have seen that coming like a freight train out of the mist,' slow motion, coming right at you. This has all been so predictable. They had no case they were never going to let Rupert Murdoch or Tucker Carlson testify on the stand, they were always going to settle, but they let all the damage be done to their hosts, to their company brand, then they still had to pay about $800 million. So you just sit there wondering, how is this handled so badly?"
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That settlement could set the stage for an even bigger payout to Smartmatic, which is seeking more than $1 billion more than Dominion had demanded in its lawsuit.
"They've proven they're willing to pay $800 million to not have their brand completely destroyed by having their hosts get up on stand, get cross-examined and be destroyed reputationally," Scarborough said. "They're not letting Rupert Murdoch get on the stand, they're willing to pay $800 million. You know where I'm going. If I'm the lawyer for Smartmatic, I'm sitting back saying, 'Listen, here's the deal -- you've already paid $800 million, we're going to require more. You have to give us $1.2, maybe $1.5 billion [billion], maybe $1.5 billion, or else you've already wasted $800 million. That $800 million is going to go up in smoke because we're still going to get all your hosts and Rupert Murdoch up on the stand.'"
"This doesn't change anything, they've only delayed even more pain," Scarborough added. "The question, of course, is why six months ago, didn't the lawyers sit down and say, 'Okay, we're going to do a universal settlement, but Smartmatic and Dominion, you go in the room figure out how much we need to pay both of you to make this go away. If you don't come up with a number, we're going to go and destroy the company before we settle with you.' They would have been able to get a settlement then. Now they've just delayed it. They're going to get hit again with another $800 million, $1 billion. You sit here wondering, who is in charge of legal strategy over there?"
Fox News responded to this report with a statement:
“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025," said a network spokesperson. "As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on its face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”
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