President Biden took a shot at Fox News on Friday over the massive settlement the network paid last year to Dominion Voting Systems over its coverage of the 2020 election and former President Trump’s false claims about voter fraud.
“In addition, Fox News agreed to pay a record $787 million for the lies that they told about voter fraud,” Biden said during a speech in Pennsylvania marking the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. “Let’s be clear about the 2020 election: Trump exhausted every legal avenue available to him to overturn the election. But the legal path just took Trump back to the truth: that I won the election, and he was the loser.”
Fox in April agreed to pay Dominion the historic settlement after the voting systems company sued the network for defamation two years earlier, arguing in court that the outlet knowingly spread false statements Trump and his allies were promoting about its software.
As part of the litigation, a trove of internal communications from top hosts and executives at the network were made public, many of them showing household name talent and network leaders privately throwing cold water on the voter fraud claims being made by the former president and his attorneys on their airwaves.
When the April settlement was reached, the network said in a statement it was “pleased” to reach a deal with Dominion out of court.
“We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues,” the statement read.
The network pulled top-rated host Tucker Carlson, a favorite pundit of Trump, off the air weeks later.
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum, who was anchoring the network’s coverage of Biden’s Friday speech, acknowledged the president’s criticism of the outlet.
“He took a couple potshots at this network, which more people in America watch than any other network in the country,” MacCallum said. “So I don’t know if they feel like that represents someone who is president to all of America.”
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Biden and his aides have frequently sparred with reporters and hosts at Fox News, the most widely watched cable news channel, over its coverage of his administration.
Biden was caught on a hot mic in January 2022 referring to Peter Doocy, one of Fox’s top White House reporters, as a “stupid son of bitch” after he had asked a question about inflation.
The president’s speech Friday largely focused on what he called “threats to democracy” and the danger Trump winning the White House again in 2024 would pose to the country.