By 11pm on election night, Fox News had declared Donald Trump a “phoenix in the ashes.”
“(He’s) the greatest political phoenix to rise from the ashes that we’ve seen in political history,” anchor Bret Baier said.
Some of Fox’s biggest stars have weighed in on Trump’s come-from-behind victory as tallies in some battleground states begin to show him in the lead, making a victory look more likely. I was writing the first draft for
Commentator Ben Domenech said: “This is the most amazing political comeback we’ve seen since 1968.” This is “not just the biggest political comeback in history,” Laura Ingraham added. “It’s going to be the biggest comeback of all time.”
Despite increasing competition from the likes of NewsMax, the One American News (OAN) network, and countless conservative podcasts, Fox News still sits firmly at the center of the conservative media landscape. The U.S. station remains the most-watched cable news network in the country, consistently beating CNN and MSNBC in ratings.
By 11 p.m. on Election Day, none of the seven key battleground states had received a call from the network, but FOX’s roundtable appeared to be gearing up for a Trump victory, and politics and U.S. media guess what to say about the future.
Sean Hannity, who did not appear on election night in 2020, said Tuesday night: ) and her radical position, what does this mean about legacy media? It’s dead. ”
Jesse Watters told viewers that Trump’s victory would be a “mandate” for running the country. He added that a Trump victory would “completely negate everything[the media]has been telling us about Donald Trump.”
Several Fox commentators noted the “diverse coalition” the Trump campaign has assembled in this election, noting that Trump appears to be doing well with black and Hispanic voters. Commentator Dana Perino called it “the most racially diverse political coalition we’ve seen in generations.”
On election night 2020, things looked very different. Just before 11:30 p.m., FOX News called Arizona to endorse Joe Biden. This call was extremely important. Arizona voted for Trump in 2016, but the drop to Biden would signal that Donald Trump’s grip has loosened since the 2016 election.
This early call infuriated President Trump. President Trump has come to view Fox News as a friendly extension of his own communications team, frequently calling into the network and appearing in exclusive interviews during his presidency.
Since then, the network, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has had to navigate an occasionally strained relationship with Trump. The former president gives the network the highest rating. On election night 2020, the network had 14.1 million viewers between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. That’s 5 million more viewers than CNN in the same time slot and more than double the number of viewers of any other news network.
However, this cozy relationship sometimes caused network problems. Fox News paid voting machine maker Dominion $787.5 million in a settlement over misinformation in the 2020 election. A $2.7 billion lawsuit from Smartmatic remains in court.
Networks are walking a tightrope in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. The station hosted a town hall with Trump in January, marking the former president’s first appearance on the station in nearly two years. He called for more participation in the network and participated in another town hall hosted by the network in October. Murdoch, who said in 2020 that Trump would be worthless, appeared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.
However, Trump and Fox News have maintained a certain distance since 2016. In the days leading up to the election, Trump told reporters he was angry that the network continued to play clips of Oprah’s speech endorsing Harris.
“The only other person who should be ashamed is Fox,” Trump said. “Everyone thinks Fox is very pro-Trump. They’re not pro-Trump at all.”
But on Tuesday night, even though most battleground states were too close to make a call, Fox hosted the network’s He invited some of the most pro-Trump commentators onto the air.
“That’s going to be up to the Democrats and the media,” Watters said. “What is their attitude toward a huge come-from-behind victory that we have never seen before?”
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
