Part One: Inside Fox News with Katy and Cody

How's how's everything going? Midc Yeah? Yeah, oh wow, Cody, I might try to have you do a couple of Murdoch lines for us, a little bit like Ringo. To me, it sounds a little bit like my Boston and Colson. It would be so much, It would be so good if, like his historically, you could go back in time and switch them so that, like Tucker, Carlson was kind of the most replaceable beetle and Ringo was a fascist on

mets um. Anyway, how are you? How are you guys? Oh, Robert? Okay, more specific question, have any of you, like had a complications among your loved ones as a result of a Rupert Murdoch property. I just laughed, and it's been a thing that has complicated my life with a number of family members, and it's a kind of a thing that like, I have a couple of cousins, and every now and then we'll talk, like, you know, something will be going around, so to speak. I'm trying to be vague in the

interests of like family piece. Something will be going around and we'll be like, yeah, it's fucking Tucker Carlson or whatever like started started this saying this bullshit. Now a bunch of the people, bunch of the very nice people who raised me, believe something terrible. Um, and it's it's

deeply frustrating, it's very effective. Yeah, it's um, it's and it's it's been kind of this black box up until recently, Like every now and then you would get these lawsuits involving Fox, you know, and a bit, one little bit of it would go viral and you'd see in like all of the lefty newspapers whatever, Oh Fox argues that they're not you know, a news agency or whatever, that it's a character or yeah. But we we we we haven't gotten like a tremendous amount of detail about what

inside the company looks like until very recently. Now, you have y'all been paying much attention to the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News. No, it's no that that's that's good, you're I'm aware of it. So there are there are yeah, yeah, there are two big lawsuits that Fox is fighting off right now. One is from Dominion Voting Systems, which is in I think twenty eight states, and it's a one

point six billion dollar defamation suit. And there's also a two point six billion dollar defamation lawsuit from Smart Mattock, which I think was only in one state. But there were a bunch of Fox allegations that they were like

hacking the election. We'll get into the details of all this in a little bit, but um, it's it's been interesting because you know, for years and years and years there have been Fox has been what I would morally consider not in a legal sense because they haven't been found guilty this in a legal sense, but I would morally consider them to be doing slander on a pretty regular basis against a wide variety of people. I think that's fair, Yeah, fair statement to make a fair statement

of protected opinion. But Dominion chose to fight back, and I you know, I think there's an argument to be made that they had more of a solid legal ground than a lot of the people that Fox has targeted over the years, or that Fox personalities have targeted over the years. Um but they they they sue Fox, and throughout twenty twenty two, they put together this team of lawyers who started running through a laundry list of Fox News producers, line executives, and on air personalities and in

deposing them. Right, so, you sit someone down, You sit Sean Hannity down, you sit Tucker Carlson down, you sit Lachlan Murdoch down, who who's probably going to be the heir to Rupert Murdock's fortune, and you ask them questions about what happened in you know, this kind of spate of disinformation, and if they lie, they can go to jail, right Like it's a crime to lie in a deposition.

And in order to help enforce that, there's also a process called discovery where Dominion's lawyers got access to what seems to be a mountain of text messages, memos, emails from Fox personalities in order to hold them accountable because you can actually see what they were saying to each other in addition to what they claim during the deposition

and the questions that Dominion asked. They spread well beyond kind of just the specific allegation Fox personalities made against Dominion and went more broadly into Fox company culture and

how decisions filtered both up and down from management. And yeah, it's as a result, it's given us kind of the most complete look inside Fox and the most complete look at like the kind of human beings who work there and how they talk amongst themselves, and how they kind of what they see, like the moral universe they inhabit in a way that I never thought we actually were going to get evidence of. And so that's what I want to go into this week because there's there's a

tremendous amount here. It's worth noting before we start that Fox is in actually some potentially serious financial trouble. We're talking between these two lawsuits, somewhere around four billion dollars that they could be found liable for. And this is in addition to the one point two billion that Fox is paid over the last decade due to the phone hacking scandal that racked the Sun and News of the World.

You're both UK Murdoch properties, are you? Did you guys hear remember do you guys recall much about the phone hacking scandal. Not a lot of details, but I remember the basic story. Yeah, the gist of it is that Rebecca Brooks, who edited both of those publications and went on to lead their UK publishing arm, and Andrew Colson, who was an editor at News of the World, and five of the papers journalists conspired to hack the voicemails of more than six hundred people over a six year period. Yeah,

it's so. They hacked like a bunch of public figures and celebrities. But what really got them in trouble was they hacked the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl, um, in order to like what, Yeah, it's fucked up like that is unbelievable. I mean it's no, it's unbelievable. Yeah, I mean it, Yeah, it's it's I think what's really unbelievable is that Rupert Murdoch claimed whence this came public, that he'd had no knowledge of it. Um, he told me

this is very fun. Actually, Cody, I'm gonna I'm gonna toss this text into the into the chat and you can you can do your Rupert Murdock boys. Oh god, yeah, you're a really good Foilfield people I trusted. I'm not saying who let me down? And I think they behaved disgracefully and it's time for them to pay. Wow, I think you're the one that led us all down by that accent. No, I think that's a flawless Aussie. Thank you. I just mean I've worked on it. Yeah, it's it's okay.

Most people who do an Australian accent it just winds up really Boston. So you know, I'm glad that I got New Zealand that happened crooking. So that's that's very funny. Um that he's like, oh, those bad Fox News reporters, I'm gonna make him pay. I had no idea this was happening as the CEO of Fox News. A lot of people wondered whether, you know, sorry, I'm sorry, like it's time for them to pay. Is such a weird thing like phrasing for like you could make that happens.

Yeah yeah, yeah, like be you know, taken to account or like yeah there should be consequences, like it's time for them to pay. Such a who phrasing whoever needs to kill them is what he's saying. Yeah, Okay, um, yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's it's it's good, good old fashioned, weasely bullshit. So now, obviously, legally I can't say that Rupert certainly knew something. But we are in the United States and I can say which I couldn't say if we were

in the UK. It seems kind of weird and suspicious that he wouldn't know anything about this massive hacking scandal as journalists and editors engaged in. And while I'm not going to push much further than that, because he is a billionaire with a lot of lawyers, what I will do is quote a Fox News article about the UK Parliamentary Committee investigation into the hacking scandal. Quote from Fox News.

Although Rupert Murdoch and his son James were not accused of misleading parliament, the committee said it was simply astonishing that they only realized that the hacking was not confined to one rogue reporter in December of twenty ten. The report said that they should ultimately be prepared to take responsibility for the willful blindness of News International and News Corporation over the scandal. Aside from the four hundred and fifty four million they spent on legal fees. Yeah, yeah,

that's good stuff. So sketchy as that all was. The phone hacking scandal did not wind up doing Murdoch or News Corp any like permanent harm. But Dominion's lawsuit included not only depositions under oath, but again this expansive discovery process. So suddenly we know exactly what Rupert Murdoch's involvement was

here to a degree of legal certainty. I should also note here because it's very funny that dominions lawyers to post Sean Hannity for more than seven hours and honestly, moment of silence for those lawyers because they had to talk to Sean Hannity for seven hours. Brutal, that's hazard pay. Yeah yeah, I hope they hope they have. They had to take frequent breaks. Yeah, they needed some MDMA and

a therapist. Shit. So the bulk of the questions asked and materials provided have to do with discussions around the decision of several major Fox stars to host Sydney Powell on their pro Remember Sidney Powell, Yeah, she was a former lawyer for Donald Trump who filed lawsuits in numerous states attempting to overturn the results of the election. Now she spent most of her time since twenty twenty fighting disbarment hearings. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like she's going to

get disbarred. I think the case wound up being in Texas. But in the heavy days after November second, she started massaging a collection of deeply questionable sources to argue that Dominion, which ran voting machines in twenty eight states and smart Mattock quote ran an algorithm that shaved votes from Trump and awarded them to Biden. There's a lot more to her allegations, and we'll cover those presently, but that's what

you need to go to start. And before we get into all that, I wanted to begin this episode by giving you guys an example of how good journalists treated Sydney Powell, because we're going to spend most of this time talking about how Fox did. I want to play a clip from an interview she did with an Australian journalist, so Cody, you can brush up on your accent working for ABC four Corners, an Australian news agency. Yeah, it's it's it's good stuff that Smartmatic shifted votes from Trump

to Biden in multiple battleground states. That was your argument, wasn't it that there was an algorithm run the machines via the software of it, shaved votes from Trump and gave those Biden. What actual research or bactricking did you do at the time to find out what smartmatics actual involvement in the election was. If you work for smart matter, Smartematic that the election. I think it's incumbent on both of us to know what smart matos involvement was. It

seems like a pretty foundational fact. Confused right now about why you're here because you made a series of very strong allegations against smart Mating, containing many errors of fact. Do you accept the fact now that the company that you accused of stealing a national election only operated in one county in LA in California, one county, one state. No, I'm not prepared to accept that fact. I think smartmatics involvement was far more significant than that. I think they're

trying to minimize their involvement, of course, I do. You said that smart matic owns dominion. How do you justify the basic factory error interview. We're not even in the area of great dispute. These are the simple and she gets up, what did she think this was? What did she think she was showing up for? Which she interview like, I love fuck Sydney. Legitimately, what did you think they were going to ask? Think they were going to do

what Fox did? Actually, I think is the answer. It's like, can you tell me you're just any any reason for you to have made these claims? Do you work for them? Yeah? Do you have any evidence that they were present in more than one county in Los Angeles? Can you show your work, Sydney. It's a simple question, Sydney. Um. We will talk about where her what her sources later And I don't want to spoil it, but it involves decapitation. So yeah, I know, I know, I know that's going

to be started that word. I thought you were going to say, DiCaprio no, but no, no, no. I do believe everyone involved was older than twenty one, so he was unlikely that we have played a role. Yeah. Yeah, So we will continue our main source for today with our main source for today, which is the public version of a filing by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. This is a brief in support of Dominion's motion for summary judgment on liability. I'm going to explain the legally shortly.

The document opens up with several quotes, however, and I think these are interesting. Quote Number one, seventy one million voters will never accept Biden. This process is to destroy his presidency before it even starts. If it even starts, we either close on Trump's victory or delegitimize Biden. The plan all caps that. Steve Bannon to Maria bartar Romo on November tenth, twenty twenty. Maria bartar Romo is a Fox News financial journalist and TV personality who hosts Mornings

with Maria and Maria Bartaromo's Wall Street. She used to work at like CBS. She was like a fairly respected border before all this um. When you google her name, Rick Wikipedia provides this poll quote. As a reporter, I approach every situation knowing that everyone has his or her own agenda. It's not a bad thing. It's just a fact, Okay, I mean not untrue. For example, the agenda you and

Steve Bannen hatched to de legitimize the Biden election. The only thing, yeah, the only thing that I would push back on is the it's not a bad thing part. Yeah, yeah, I mean it is a bad thing in your case, because your agenda was to overturn a democratic election and commit treason. It certainly can. Yeah. Yeah. If the thing is, for example, installing a dictatorship, then yes, that personal Agendato, Tomato, Robert. If your personal agenda is increased post office funding, then

perhaps it's okay. Yeah, yeah, we could give that a path. Yeah. So Maria started Fox's troubles when she interviewed Sidney Powell right after the election on November eight, twenty. She said, quote, Sydney, we talked about the dominion software. I know they were voting irregularities. Tell me about that. And Powell replied, that's putting it mildly. The computer glitches could not and should

not have happened at all. This is where the fraud took place, where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist. Now, immediately, thank you, thank you. I've practiced for years now. Immediately after airing this, Rupert Murdoch sent a message to one of his producers saying it was very hard to credibly cry foul everywhere because Trump had lost multiple swing states. Yeah, it's hard point yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's one of

those things. You can see why there was an interest on behalf of the Fox personalities using Sidney Powell to tie in Dominion to this because they were they were active in a bunch of different swing states and kind of creating this and pushing this conspiracy allowed them to explain how all of those swing states had broken against Trump, which was the thing that Fox's reporting had led folks

to believe was not really possible. Dominion's filing notes that Fox was aware that these claims were bogus from the jump. And here's a message from Sean Hannity to Fox Politics editor Chris Sterwalt that whole narrative that Sidney was pushing. I did not believe it for one second. No reasonable person would have thought that Stirwalt gets fired after this. By the way, so the motion itself opens with this. Fox knew from the top down. Fox knew that the

Dominion stuff was total bs. Yet despite knowing the truth, or at minimum recklessly disregarding that truth, Fox spread and endorsed these outlandist voter fraud claims about Dominion, even at as it internally recognized the lies as crazy, absurd, and

shocklingly reckless. Those are all quotes from Fox executives. So this all serves to support dominion's key contention that Fox knew their claims were false unless they reported on an election fraud in a way that demonstrated actual malice without resort to motive or other circumstantial factors. That's the legal term for they're completely at fault and they don't even have a right to defend themselves, right, Like, that's that's

basically what complicit. Yeah, that's that that's more or less what they are saying here, because like this is a motion for summary judgment. So the thing that they're saying is, we want the judge to just kind of rule on this right now based on the merits of the case.

We think that this is such a clear case that like there's there's really nothing else to say, um, based on the information that discovery and the depositions have drug up, Like it's like on its face prima facy or whatever, however the fuck you're supposed to pronounce that, Um, this is just such an obvious case that we want a ruling right now, um, which is rare. You don't generally get that, especially with very large lawsuits like this. We'll

see what actually happens. Um. But based on the reporting they've put together, I think I think they have a strong yeah. Yeah, um. So I want to continue from the motion. But first, you know what motion. I want to urge people towards forward, pulling out that pulling out that wallet, Abby, pulling out that wallet. That's right, baby, m shrimping the dingo ate your baby, that's right. Yes, that's a that's Australian for purchase these products and services.

No one knows why we're back quite quite quode. I'm gonna give you the rest of the episode to figure out what that acronymics on it. So, um, I want to continue from the motion here. Fox's correct call of Arizona for Joe Biden triggered a backlash among its audience, and the network was being rejected. That's a quote from a Fox executive. Rival net network such as Newsmax took advantage of the opening by promoting an alternative universe another

quote of election fraud. So Fox went on a war footing, caring more about protecting its own following viewership than about the truth and the words of Fox News is SVP and managing editor of the Washington DC Bureau, Bill Salmon, It's remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things. I might have a couple of notes for that, including the idea that there were many good journalists at Fox News. But that's where I went as well, Yeah, that's that's

where I might have an issue. So next dominion goes on to assert why this is different from most defamation lawsuits. Normally, plaintiffs proved defendant's actual malice, whether they knew it was false or in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of the statement by inference, as it would be rare for a defendant to admit such doubts. And they cite Solano versus Playgirl in that here, and they note that here overwhelming direct evidence establishes Fox's knowledge of falsity,

not just doubts. And I want to I want to talk about the Clanov Playgirl case. That it's a two thousand and two ninth Circuit Court case that dominion brings up here because because it's kind of interesting. And then in the January nineteen ninety nine issue of Playgirl magazine, there was a cover photograph of actor Jose Solano, who played someone called Manny Gutierrez in Baywatch from ninety six to ninety nine. Solano had not posed for or given an interview to Play Girl, and he did not consent

for them to use his image. He was shown shirtless and wearing red lifeguard trunks and had like a bunch of models surrounding them on the front cover in like a suggestive way that was kind of like meant to portray an image of him as a less wholesome character than he personally portrayed himself as. And since he hadn't actually like sat down to be interviewed or anything by Playgirl,

his argument. Salano's argument was that they were basically there was essentially direct like they either knew that what they were doing was false or they had serious doubts as to the truth of the statement. Right, Like that's kind of the case that's being cited here as like a previous example of um of precedent, and Salano won the

case and established damages. I think it's I don't know, I think it's interesting that they're they're falling black on this Playgirl case is sort of evidence of like this is the most this is like this is the most um directly similar kind of irresponsibility from like a major a major media network in the recent past. UM Dominions lawyers note that Fox to fame their company, uh not once or twice, but many times over a period of months.

H Tucker Carlson accused Dominion of committing quote, the single greatest crime in American history. Um. Yeah, and so again that's yeah, it's pretty hard to mitigate that. I know, right, there's a few genocides, there's a lot of Yeah, that sounds pretty hyperbolic, oh, Tucker, and that that's that's going to come back to bite Tucker in the ass in

a very short time. Here. UM Dominion notes that while defamation cases tend to involve just the malicious acts of either an individual employee at a company or maybe a small group of people at Fox, literally dozens of people with editorial responsibility were involved, which is part of why they're saying, we just want the judge to rule on this because the irresponsibility is so deep and far reaching.

M Fox, for their part, it admits Sidney Pale and her team never provided Fox with any evidence as to her claims. Dominion, by contrast, made thirty six hundred separate communications to Fox, with a dozen separate and widely circulated fact check emails, each pointing the third party information debunking the claims. I bet the algorithm did something, no to it made it lies? Well, yeah, because Sydney stuff just trended so well. Yeah, yeah, I love that clip of

her talking. They love just like being like, an algorithm did it. There's a seister algorithm. It's always, it's always Algorithm's so easy to point to the thing that nobody actually understands very well. That's the fun thing about algorithms, and it's about to be the fun thing about AI and deep fakes and that and that. Like, as far as most people in media are concerned, it's just magic. And so like, if you're a bad actor, like literally anyone at Fox, you can just use the word algorithm

or now it's yeah, deep fake. It's easy. Yeah. Um, it's just like saying a wizard did it, but some sort of plausible explanation for an implausible thing. Yeah. And I don't know. I'm torn on this because I do think we need more wizards in American politics, but not not like this, not like this. No, no actual wizards computer wizards, not computer wizards, real wizard wizards. No wizards,

yeah wizards, Yeah, like Gandolf. Yeah, I want Gandolf to have his own like fascist news show where he supports Rhonda Santis in removing books from from elementary schools. That's what I want, That's what even like a Gumbledore, I don't know, Well, Gandolf in particular Hosts he got radicalized after they banned indoor smoking. That really that really that really got him. Well yeah, he's a big anti masker too. Dumbledore and JK are type still so mm hmm yeah, problematic. Yeah,

I'm just glad he's dead. Um. So now Dominion is yeah, moving for summary judgment, which again has a there's a very high burden of evidence when you ask a judge to do this. Dominion argues that they can cross it easily. Quote Fox falsely claimed. Number one Dominion committed election fraud by rigging the twenty twenty presidential election. Number two Dominion Software and algorithms manipulated vote counts in the twenty twenty

presidential election. Number three Dominion is owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections for the dictator, Hugo Chavez and number four Dominion government official machines. This is what this is what false the claims. But yeah, these

are the claims. They have to be ver falls. Yeah, yeah, they don't have to prove it, like Dominions saying these are obvious false claims, Like yeah, this is the only evidence that they have that would make what they did responsible if these were true, and it's it's patently ridiculous. Um so the number four oh yeah, number four Cody is Dominion paid kickbacks to government officials who used its

machines in the twenty twenty presidential election. Um yeah, this is like, these are pretty serious allegations to make with absolute there's not quite no history. Oh again, we're building towards what the evidence here was for the greatest crime in American history. So Dominion insists that it's irrelevant that the accused statements that I just read were made by guests of Fox rather than the hosts. Yeah, and basically

they're like, look, Fox is a publisher. Every statement that they choose to put out without contradiction or questioning is something they are publishing. If you were to have Sidney Powell on and then question her like that, ABC four current Corners journalist died. That's okay, Then you don't have to defend what she's said, because you're deliberately like questioning its accuracy, you know, like you're actually trying to report. But if you just let somebody talk as Fox News,

you are publishing their allegations. Yeah. There's also like there's a supportive language that a lot of Fox News, I mean all of them, I guess, maybe use when dealing with these topics because of stuff like this, because they know they can't say one hundred percent, but they're not always great at it. Yeah, and they maybe they won't

get away with it. Yeah. I mean it's like, uh, you know when when when the three of us were trying to launch that podcast on your network, and you guys wanted to report on breaking news, and I wanted to make a series of allegations against the Home Depot Corporation um and and these of one bad time you had at home Depot. Yeah. Well, and because of the tunnels underneath home depots where they traffic, well, I probably shouldn't make another trafficking children joke. The last one we

made went badly against us all see it. I can't imagine why Robert, this is me being a responsible publisher. That's right. Yeah, recognizing that the years of lawsuits from home Depot when we tried to put that out are not worth repeating a second time. See, unlike Fox, some of us can learn your lessons. Go to home Depot, did it dot Org? Anyway, let's move on. Let's move on here. So yeah, the bulk of Dominion's assertion is that they are due summary judgment because Fox editorially employees

demonstrated actual malice. Prevailing on summary judgment in this case requires that they show just one person acted with malice free false claim about the company. And this is where the stuff that's really interesting to us comes in. Quote, as Tucker Carlson told Sidney Powell November seventeenth, you keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software. I hope you will prove that very soon.

You've convinced them that Trump will win. If you don't have conclusive evidence of fraud at that scale, it's a cruel and reckless thing to keep saying. And then on November twenty first, Carlson texted, it was shockingly useless to

claim that Dominion rigged the election. If there's no one inside the company willing to talk or internal dominion documents or copies of the software showing that they did it, and as you know, there isn't, which is is a pretty clear evidence that Tucker knew that what Sidney was saying was wildly irresponsible. Yeah, oh yeah, no, I mean you're right. I'm wondering how like much pushback? Like what

qualifies pushback? Right, because again, what he said was like, well this is a very it's compelling, and you've you've convinced people, but you need to show evidence, so like you know the thing that he does and he knows that he's doing. Yeah yeah, Now. Dominion furthermore alleges that the statements Fox made are what you call, again per se defamatory. This means that they alleged that the dominion that the defendant committed a serious crime, and those allegations

injured the defendant in their trade or profession. The key here is that when a statement is per se defamatory, the injured party doesn't need prove specific damages to establish liability, right, not per se? Yeah, not per se. I love you,

you know lawyers, those wacky guys. Per Se defamatory so Dominion also notes that Fox cannot claim they had some sort of a right to report on Powell's allegations against Dominion on the basis of newsworthiness, since doing so would require them to report accurately that Powell had no evidence

to back up her assertions. Discovery has given Dominion some interesting ammo here, including a text from Rupert Murdoch asking Suzanne Scott, current Fox News CEO, whether it was quote and here's Murdoch again, unarguable that high profile Fox voices fed the story that the election was stolen and that January sixth was an important chance to have the results overturned.

That is Rupert Murdoch telling the CEO Fox. It is a unarguable that high profile Fox voices fed the story that the election was and that jan six was an important chance to have the results overturned. That's Murdoch's saying, we absolutely caused January or help. That is nuts, an unbelievable thing that he just said, Yeah, what he texted his coworker. He texted the quiet part. You can't just say that, Yeah, maybe you can't. He did. He did.

That's that's maybe I should have been paying attention to this story we did January. That's that Rupert Murdoch quote. We did January six. You put that on some merch. I just wanted to get that lady Murky by the Secret Service. Yeah, that's that's Rupert Murdoch for you. That's a joke. It's not legally actionable. Uh So Fox News responded to Murdoch's like state, but basically Murdoch is like,

I'm fairly certain that we contributed to this. Do we have evidence of like our voices feeding, like our people feeding the story that the election was stolen? And executives responded to him with fifty examples of this um, which again really making the lawyers at Dominion's job easy for them. That's so they can't even be like Dominions like dug up all these examples and Fox those aren't examples, they're like noreast sign it signed Rupert. Yeah from Rupert. Here's

some perfect evidence. I hope, I hope it gave him indigestion when he had to hand over all of his fucking text messages to these rhea. I agree with you, Katie. I hope, I hope he was shitting a sand bag. So to spool boys, I hope. Yeah, Rupert Murdoch's shit. There's a video going around. I tweeted it recently. If a guy like getting sucked down into a grain silo, that's the consistency of that is awful. Yeah, stay the fuck away from grain silos, Yes, Joe, don't stay away

from them. Shoot them at a distance, talking about readily grain silos, and I was like, what's that about? Didn't investigate? Now, I know. I came from a small farming town where every year people would die in grain silos, Grain silos and drunken ATV rides. Um, those were two of the leading causes of death. Um. If only Fox News had

a similar record. I'm going to continue quoting from the dominion lawsuit, as Rupert Murdoch told Suzanne Scott, who's again the CEO of Fox in the aftermath of January sixth, All very well for Sean to tell you he was in despair about Trump. But what did he tell his viewers When Rupert Murdoch watched Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell spin their lives on November nineteenth, he told Suzanne Scott terrible stuff, damaging everybody. I fear Scott concurred, Yes, Sean,

and even Piero agrees. They talk about judge Janine Pierrouh. My god, yeah, look at all the damage. We're cozy. Yeah. Wow, we're really fucking some shit up there. Um, you know who else is fucking like all those other times? No speaking of fucking shit up, but like in a good way, in an ethical, capitalist way where we all learn about what kind of mattresses we need. Cody, A lot of people don't know this about you. You prefer to sleep we call it PEB and J style, with a mattress

below you and another mattress on top of you. Makes me feel secure, that's right, A little bit um, a little bit cozier, a little bit more weight than a weighted blanket. Yeah, I'm not rustling around. Yeah. If you have guests over, they can stay on top. This is

this is the difference between us, Cody. I prefer to sleep literally PEB and J style, where once a week I bake two large bedside sheets of bread and I fill them with jam and with peanut butter, and I just I just roll around in a naked all night and then in the morning my breakfast is ready. Oh, I just licked myself clean like a lizard. Like that's good. I'm good the mattresses. Yeah, anyway, here's some real ads. Ah, we're back. I hope you enjoyed those good words from

the good people at Jeff Jeff. It mixes well with your sweat. Um. Oh man, you're gonna steal the big Jeff account from me, Cody, We're waiting w dot Patreon backslash hit him up. Jeff a lot of money here, potentially. So. One of the things I find compelling about the allegations Dominions lawyers have put together is the fact that Fox execs were aware ahead of time that Trump would claim

fraud if he lost. Now, this suggests you might say something of a conspiracy, a loose plan to find a serviceable election fraud argument and then push it whether or

not it's true. In the words of Chris Sterwalt, Fox's politics editor, who again gets shit canned after this, during the relevant timeframe, long before the election, Chris says, Trump started making the claim that the only way he could lose the election was by fraud, or that the only way he would not prevail would be if it was stolen. He had laid that predicate down throughout the spring and into the summer, and it was very well known and understood by everybody in the business that this was the

gambit that he was making. That's a straight quote from Sterwalt's deposition. Now Sterwalt Welt said this under oath, and dominion adds that other Fox executives made similar statements under oath. They understood that Trump was laying out a false line ahead of time so that he could justify contesting the

election even if the evidence did not support it. As the COVID nineteen pandemic made more male in voting inevitable, and understanding evolved that the discrepancy between in person counts and mail votes would provide an opportunity to question the election. So before the election, Fox personalities were talking about like, well, you're going to have all the in person votes get counted first, but then the mail ins are going to

come and it's going to cause a sudden shift. And that what's funny is that we were all talking about how they were going to be doing this. Yes see, we're not so different after all, Katie, We're all things. Yeah, we created I'm gonna quote again from Chris Steerwaltz deposition. Here, election day votes are going to skew heavily Republican. Early

in absentee votes are going to skew heavily democratic. If you stretch out the period of time over which that's going to be counted, it's going to create a false It could tend to create a false impression about the direction that the election was going to go overall um. He noted that political professionals and political journalists at Fox universally understood this phenomenon, also termed the red mirage and the blue shift. Yeah, so that's good. That's good, good

that they just said all this. Now, dominion just happened to be in a position at the nexus of all these facts, which made them a convenient scapegoat for false claims of election fraud. Discovery in this case also gives us some insight as to communications between Fox employees and

members of the Trump team. When Fox called Arizona first at eleven twenty pm, a member of Trump's team called Fox's Washington Bureau managing editor Bill Salmon and told him it was quote way too soon to be calling Arizona. White House chief of Staff Mark Meadows followed up shortly thereafter, just as angry and Fox viewers were even more enraged. Quote on November fifth, Fox's chief White House correspondent told Salmon and FANC president Jay Wallace, we are taking major

heat over the AZ call. Our viewers are also chanting Fox News sucks. Something I have never heard, something I have never heard before. Why, I've definitely heard that. UM. Listing Dominion also cites internal Fox emails, stating, holy cow, our audience is mad at the network and they're all

caps furious. Um. It is at this point that we get to one of the more into because again, parts of this are redacted, and the way that redactions work, you know, you don't you don't always know why, right, Um, Like, that's that's sometimes yeah, yeah, But there's there's uh the like immediately following those internal Fox emails. Um, there's this paragraph that begins the backlash was so strong that and

then the rest of the paragraph is all blacked out. UM. I am no idea what that's going on about, but I hope we find out some days. Um. And the mystery of what that paragraph holds is made all the more enticing by what comes next. Fox hosts Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram, and Sean Hannity immediately understood the threat to them personally. Carlson wrote his producer Alex Piffer on November fifth, we worked really hard to build what we have. Those

fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me. He added that he had spoken with Laura and Sean a minute ago that they are highly upset. Carlson noted, at this point, we're getting hurt no matter what. Phifer responded, It's a hard needle to thread, but I really think many on our side are being reckless demagogues right now. Tucker replied, of course they are. We're not going to follow them, and then he added what Trump's good at is destroying things.

He's the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong. This is awful and so good it is. There's so much going on there too, because He's like, first off, I'm furious they're destroying our credibility by questioning the narrative that Trump's election was stolen from him, Right, That's what they're doing that's destroying our credibility, is they're making the audience distrust us because the audience will only believe the lie that the

election was stolen. But then he's like, fuck these people who spread the election lies in the first place, because they're being reckless demagogues and we're not going to follow them. But also Trump is a destroyer and I don't want him to destroy It's this incredible mix of totally aware of how much of a lie that they're spreading, and also comprehensive cowardice. Yeah, and a history of that knowledge too, because even the they're all they're acting like demagogues. Of

course they are, is what he's saying. Yeah, imply like, of course they are. That's what they do, That's what we are, right, Yeah, Yeah, they don't mind that part yep, Nope. So Dominion Next presents evidence that Summit Fox sought to actively reign in this disinformation. Chief political correspondent Brett bare repeatedly told colleagues that there was no evidence of fraud, and he alerted his boss when Maria Barbaromo posted baseless allegations of vote dumps social media, telling him we have

to prevent this stuff, we need to fact check. And it is a note of how bad this is that Brett Baar is the is the voice of recent center of the company out. Yeah, Like I I'm like, I understand kind of because Shep Smith was like the other guy at Fox there was not not not a completely

broken monster. Um. It's fascinating to me, like what these guys must have told themselves in order to keep doing this, because they clearly have some ethical center, right, because this is also like it's interesting because this is just about this one yeah topic. Yeah, and I can't imagine just now do all the rest? Yeah, yeah, what have you been saying about everything? Yeah? Yeah, because one of two

things is true. Either Brett does this with everything that Fox lies about or this was the first time he was like, well this is a bridge too far, right, Yeah, like everybody like textasure like this is damaging. How we're gonna do this and play it in a lie to people? Yeah? Yeah, I think I kind of suspect because you remember there's that thing, Um, oh god, what's her name? The lady with the TV show who's like very popular liberal news person.

Um racial matter. I was literally she put anyway whatever, Um, I can't believe I forgot her name. Um, But like she's made comments about Tucker being a nice guy in person and like they're friendly together, and I kind of suspect that's what's going on with Brett, where it's like there's a certain degree of like malfeasance and propaganda that like his friends, who you know, are elsewhere in media

and politics. Don't mind from Fox Right, but this denying the election entirely trying to inciting this fucking seditious act of January sixth, that was fucking a step too far, and it was it was gonna make him look bad in front of his friends, so he had to. I don't know, I don't know Brett Bete, but clearly for some of them there's a line. By November sixth, Rupert Murdoch had stated the same fears as Brett Bear and

Warren CEO Suzanne Scott. If Trump becomes a sore loser, we should watch Sean especially, and others don't sound the same union Sean, He's gonna be a wildcard on this one if Trump ties to make himself a dictator. That same day, Sidney Powell was a guest on lou Dobbs Tonight, where she told viewers about a supposed CIA program called Hammer and Scorecard. Hammer was a government supercomputer, she told viewers, and Scorecard was a program that would allow it to

change votes. She told Fox viewers, this quote explains a lot of what we're seeing. After the broadcast, a viewer emailed Brett bar about Hammer and Scorecard. He forwarded this to Fox president Jay Wallace and asked, what is this? What the fuck is this? So there is evidence that Murdoch even took steps with one of his other properties, The New York Post, to stop stolen election conspiracy theories

from spreading. On November seventh, the Post published an editorial begging Trump to admit he'd lost and quote get Rudy Giuliani off TV Murdoch. One of the things that discovery revealed is Murdoch thanking a Post employee for ensuring the editorial was spread, so he had no problem with like manipulating his various periodicals in order to get this message out, which is particularly interesting to me given another factor revealed

by the dominion lawsuit. Dominion alleges Rupert Murdoch provided Donald Trump's senior advisor and son in law, Jared Kushner, with confidential information about the Biden campaign, and specific they gave Kushner access to Biden campaign ads before publication, and information on his debate strategy. Dominion does not go into more detail here. That is just an allegation that they make

in their filing. Fox, for their part, say that Dominion is mischaracterizing the acts here, and they further note quote Dominion cherry picks any sound bite it confined from any corner of the Fox organization, even though it admits in its brief one hundred and seventeen pages later that most of the evidence is utterly irrelevant to the legal issues in this case. Dominions focus on such irrelevant evidence demonstrates that it is more interested in headlines than in law

or fact. And what's compelling to me about this is that that's not entirely wrong. I don't think they're Dominions wrong on the facts. They are including a lot of shit in here that is not specifically targeted towards their lawsuit. Right, that is not specifically about claims Fox made about Dominion.

I think their strategy here is to try and improve how comprehensive the malice and irresponsive delivers a Fox also the culture and what this Yeah, yeah, painting a full picture here, yeah, And I think what they're doing is fair. I also kind of suspect that a piece of it also is them being like, well, they fucking dragged our name through the mud, and we can do that without lying about I'll be fun pieces of shit. Well we can throw down. You want to throw down, motherfuckers? Try me. Yeah,

that's what this is. But right now, do you want to motherfuckers? Want to throw down by telling people your plugs? This is part one. We're done. This is part one. We're done. We're done and done a being bought a boom baby and then the lessons. Yeah, and everything was good forever. Yeah, this wraps up. Yeah, we've got piece of shows for you to check out. Plug the podcast Even More News. Oh but you guys have a podcast and um and we talk about stuff. We shoot the ship,

we make jokes, we have fun guests. Sometimes Roberts a guest. Robert, would you like to come on our show again soon? We'll typically love to come down the show again. I've been meaning to get into podcasting, so this could be a really good I think that you'd be really good interesting, interesting, interesting, Cody plug our other things. Oh yeah, we have another show called some More News. Um. It's also available as a podcast if you'd like. It's on YouTube dot com

as well as a video. There's stuff in it with puppets are there sometimes and check out our Patreon dot com s. Last some more news support those things. Yeah, furthermore, furthermore, things to be continued doing when we return. Yeah yeah, what yeah, how are you doing? Like, would you flex for us? Maybe? Like lay down, take those shoes off, get that shirt off too, you know, come on, come on asking them to flex their cuddle up with me? Just just just come on, get on, get on in here.

Another mattress, mattress on top of us. Just make that a double texts. We got ourselves get covered in peanut butter and jelly together. Kay, this guy, maybe watch season one of True Detective. You know, good stuff, good stuff, good stuff. It's a great season. I did. I rewatched it recently. It's I love that show, that season, just for the Regila to do of it, that show. Um, anyway, I'm gonna go dig out my generator from this pile of fucking snow. Yeah, and I'm gonna rewatch True Detective

season one again again already. Wow, I'm not going to do either of Those Things behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.