Fox News' Trump trial coverage proves it's no longer Rupert Murdoch's network

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“Everybody — Alan Dershowitz — everybody says there’s no crime here,” Donald Trump said before his trial in Manhattan resumed on Thursday. “There’s no crime. Jonathan Turley, every single person, Gregg Jarrett, Andy McCarthy, anyone you want to name, Mark Levin, great lawyer, all of them. Great lawyers, great legal scholars, every single one said there’s no crime. The crime is that they’re doing this case.” What do Dershowitz, Turley, Jarrett, McCarthy and Levin have in common? Each has been a fixture on Fox News during its coverage of Trump’s trial. The five have combined for at least 116 weekday Fox appearances from when jury selection began on April 15 through Wednesday, according to Media Matters’ database (Levin also hosts his own show that airs on Fox on Saturday and Sunday nights). It is impossible to overstate Fox’s impact on Trump’s worldview. Trump’s effort to delegitimize this trial leans heavily on favorable commentary from his friends at Fox. The former president is regularly promoting trial takes from the network, which has offered a full-throated defense of Trump and an unrelenting attack on everyone involved in his prosecution. Indeed, as Trump finished speaking and entered the courthouse on Thursday, Fox brought on McCarthy and Turley to preview the day’s trial testimony. It is impossible to overstate Fox’s impact on Trump’s worldview. The insight he garnered about the GOP base as a regular on “Fox & Friends” helped him to win the presidency. As chief executive, he reportedly used what he called a “Super Tivo” at the White House to watch hours of the network’s programming each day. (In fact, the “Super Tivo” may have been regular DirecTV.) He filled his administration and his personal legal teams with familiar faces from the network’s green rooms; consulted with Fox’s stars as if they were Cabinet members; and adopted positions on a wide variety of federal policies, from pardons to contracts to spending legislation to pandemic response, based on what he heard from the people on his television screen. As Fox remade itself during the Trump administration as a propagandistic extension of his White House, Trump habitually promoted its incessantly favorable commentary as part of his communications strategy. He regularly tweeted in near-real time in response to what he was seeing on the network, a phenomenon I termed the Trump-Fox feedback loop. He also frequently shared video clips of the network’s stars defending him and attacking his foes. After Trump lost his re-election bid, attempted to stay in office by subverting the election results, and ultimately left the White House, his relationship with the network became somewhat more complicated. Fox founder Rupert Murdoch preferred for Trump to fade from the political scene, and for a while the network propped up his potential rivals and even reportedly instituted a “soft ban” on Trump interviews. But the network’s stars never really broke from Trump, and as he reconsolidated support from the GOP base, it was inevitable that Fox would return to its role as his megaphone. The New York trial, which comes in the wake of Trump establishing himself as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has provided Fox with an opportunity to prove its loyalty. Commentators have lashed out at District Attorney Alvin Bragg, his prosecutors and the case they have presented; criticized the judge, witnesses and jurors at the trial; and baselessly blamed President Joe Biden for Trump’s legal peril. Fox hosts have even gone so far as to praise Trump for repeatedly falling asleep in court, with some even claiming that they too would nod off under the circumstances. Trump’s Truth Social feed has become a nonstop stream of clips in which Fox hosts, contributors and guests lash out at the various cases against him. Turley, Dershowitz, Jarrett, McCarthy and Levin have not been quite that comically sycophantic, but all are using their Fox perches to throw cold water on Bragg’s case. And you can tell Trump appreciates their work because he keeps highlighting it in his public appearances. “I did nothing wrong,” he said before court on May 6. “Take a look at Gregg Jarrett this morning, he went off. Take a look at Andrew McCarthy or Jonathan Turley or Mark Levin. They say there is no case here.” Before court on May 9, Trump purported to provide the opinions of “the top legal scholars in the country.” He then read comments criticizing the prosecution and the judge from Turley, Dershowitz, McCarthy and Fox contributor Newt Gingrich. Trump went through a similar litany before court on May 14, reading quotes attacking the case or the judge (and frequently interjecting with his own criticisms) from Levin, McCarthy, Turley, and Fox host Jeanine Pirro. Likewise, Trump’s Truth Social feed has become a nonstop stream of clips in which Fox hosts, contributors and guests lash out at the various cases against him, including videos featuring Turley, Dershowitz, Pirro, McCarthy and Jarrett. Trump may not have scoured Fox’s stable of legal analysts to fill his defense team, as he did in 2020 for his first impeachment trial. But as the 2024 presidential election ramps up, it is clearer than ever that the network is doing everything it can to help him, including undermining the rule of law.