Political strategist Chai Komanduri tore into Fox News on MSNBC Friday, accusing them of "arrogance" for their repeated baseless on-air insinuations that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the 2020 presidential election — a matter at the heart of that company's $1.6 billion defamation suit against the network.
Fox News maintains that it has not engaged in defamation, that Dominion is "cherry-picking" internal communications to make it look like they knowingly spread false information, and that their reporting was within the speech legally protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.
"You're here not to do the legal analysis but to put this in the broader context," said anchor Ari Melber. "Fox News is not being sued by — I mentioned hurricanes, they're not being sued by hurricane technology companies saying that hurricanes that happened didn't happen or vice versa. They're not being sued by NASA over saying the moon landing didn't happen. There's a very specific political context to how far they are willing to go to say up is down when Biden had won the race?"
"Well, Fox's history is they've gone very far in the past, and suffered no consequence," said Komanduri. "I think what this lawsuit really speaks to is just the enormous arrogance of Fox News and Rupert Murdoch and his family in believing that he could do this and get away with it."
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"They had good reason to believe that because they've done it so much in the past," he added. "I personally remember the New Black Panther Party, 2008 to 2012, having part of Fox's coverage where they're sort of insinuating that there was this violent group of radical extremists who were aligned with Barack Obama. I remember having to talk to voters who really believed this because they saw it on Fox. And we have to remember that half of all of Americans say they trust Fox News. That makes it a very powerful mouthpiece for any kind of thing they put forward."
"The reality is Rupert Murdoch never thought this was going to happen," Komanduri continued. "He never thought anyone was going to hold him accountable. He had good reason to believe that. Before Dominion, nobody stood up to him on this."
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Chai Komanduri slams Fox News' "arrogance"www.youtube.com
