Former US President Donald Trump has called on Rupert Murdoch to support his baseless allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, ahead of the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company, Dominion Voting Systems. In a recent post on his Truth Social platform, Trump claimed that Fox News is “in big trouble if they do not expose the truth on cheating in the 2020 election.” However, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would have impacted the outcome of the election.
Trump also suggested that Murdoch, who is the chairman of the Fox Corporation, “should say that ‘he just didn’t know,’ but that is hard to believe.” Meanwhile, according to court filings, top executives and hosts at Fox News have privately admitted that they did not believe Trump’s allegations of election fraud.
Murdoch himself has called false voter fraud claims “damaging,” and has privately suggested that the network’s prime time hosts should “say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won,'” to dispel the Trump myth that the election was stolen.
The defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News and its parent company is set to start shortly. Dominion filed the lawsuit in 2021 after Fox News reported on unproven claims that the voting machine company played a role in rigging the election. Fox News has denied any wrongdoing and has described the lawsuit as a “political crusade in search of a financial windfall.”
In the lead-up to the trial, Trump’s comments have once again brought the issue of election fraud to the forefront. However, with no evidence to support his claims, it remains to be seen whether they will have any impact on the outcome of the trial.
