Fox News producer Abby Grossberg threw a monkey wrench into her network's defense of their actions in the $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, alleging that lawyers for the network manipulated her into giving misleading testimony in a deposition.
But as New York Times reporter Nick Confessore noted on Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Grossberg's allegations go even further, alleging a parade of misogynistic behavior behind the scenes at the network. Confessore even compared it to the raunchy college fraternity film "Animal House."
"Let me read some of what she is alleging here," said anchor Ayman Mohyeldin, reading from Confessore's report. "''Last year Grossberg began working as a senior booking producer at Tucker Carlson Tonight. On her first full day, according to the lawsuit, she discovered that the show's Manhattan workspace was decorated with large pictures of Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit. The next day, Justin Wells, Mr. Carlson's top producer, called Grossberg into his office to ask whether [host] Maria Bartiromo was having a sexual relationship with Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Carlson's staff joked about Jews and freely deployed a vulgar term for women, according to the complaint.
"Later that fall, it said, before an appearance on the show by Tudor Dixon, Mr. Carlson's staff held a mock debate about whether they would prefer to have sex with Ms. Dixon or her Democratic opponent, Governor Gretchen Whitmer. After she complained about harassment from two male producers on the show, she was pulled into a meeting with human resources and told she was not performing her duties, according to the complaint.'"
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"So, Nick, those are some serious allegations," said Mohyeldin. "We wanted to go through them point by point based on your reporting. Could Fox face separate litigation based on accusations of a toxic workplace culture alone?"
"Well, she has made a variety of claims and seeking different kinds of redress," said Confessore. "One is in New York in federal court. One is in a Delaware in the same court where the Dominion case is playing out, alleging rampant discrimination and retaliation. If you take the complaint at face value, it's an insult to Animal House to compare it to Animal House. It's just rampant misogyny and everyday sexism. Some weird cross between 'Mad Men' and Breitbart or something like that."
"If it's taken at face value, it really shows what Fox has claimed is a new culture in the company in the wake of Bill O'Reilly being canned for sexual harassment and Roger Ailes being pushed out is not really a new network at all; in fact, the culture hasn't maybe changed that much," continued Confessore. "So I think she's introducing that in a very powerful way here."
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