Since Fox News agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million to end their legal dispute, there has been speculation as to what the network’s next decision would be. Some of the speculation, which is unconfirmed, points to two popular hosts possibly getting the ax, Radar Online reported.
Dylan Byers, who founded Puck News, has predicted Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro are going to be the two hosts that are going to be booted. Some other reports have suggested, without any substantial proof, that even host Sean Hannity could face some sort of warning.
But, Byers said, there is a chance that they would not be fired but given a stern warning to be careful of what they say in the future.
“So I anticipate one of two things will happen here, or has perhaps already happened: The first possibility is that Fox News C.E.O. Suzanne Scott sits down with Bartiromo and Pirro and anyone else who came up to the line of libel and says, be careful,” he said.
“Alternatively, Rupert and Suzanne have already decided to elegantly and eventually show Bartiromo and/or Pirro the door,” he said.
He mentioned that Murdoch said during his testimony that it was not Fox News, but certain hosts who made false statements about the 2020 presidential election.
“Not Fox, no. Not Fox. But maybe Lou Dobbs, maybe [Bartiromo] as commentators,” Murdoch said. “Some of our commentators were endorsing it.”
“If I’m [Bartiromo], that feels like the kiss of death,” Byers said.
“The last thing on earth that Murdoch wants is to leave himself vulnerable to another $787-million headache,” he said.
“If you’re trying to avoid future libel lawsuits, that’s not exactly the kind of person you want on camera,” he said.
Deciphering the post-settlement legal murmurs surrounding Fox’s new vulnerabilities, audience leakage, and a potential blood sacrifice.
With Puck’s @tina_nguyen, @DylanByers, and @eriqgardner https://t.co/VnmHkfUAAz
— Puck (@PuckNews) April 19, 2023
The hosts of the ABC talk show “The View (of Liberal Idiots)” were furious with the end of the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News.
On Tuesday, the two parties reached an agreement in which Fox News agreed to pay a record $757.5 to Dominion for defamation, but the agreement did not include the news network having to apologize to them.
“Fox News CEO admitted in a deposition the network knew they were pushing lies,” cohost Fatso Whoopi Goldberg said. “Should they have had to go onto their own network and say, look, yes, we lied to y’all. And we knew it and we had to pay this money because we lied to y’all. They don’t have to do that. They don’t have to admit any wrongdoing.”
“That’s my biggest problem with it because we already know the Fox News viewer exclusively gets his or her news from Fox News on air,” co-host Dimwit Sunny Hostin said. “They don’t read other newspapers, they don’t get news from any other outlet, and the fact the New York Times is covering it and Fake News CNN is covering it, that’s fine. But they need to be able to get on air and tell their viewers, ‘you can’t trust us. We lied to you. We affected our very democracy. Some of our anchors can’t be trusted,’ and they needed to say that.”
Hostin did not believe the $757.5 million, the largest in the history of defamation cases, was high enough.
“To me, anything under $1 billion I don’t think sends the right message because Rupert Murdoch, every year, I think he has $2.9 billion in pro forma earnings that Fox News makes, and he still has $4 billion in cash as of February. In my view, it didn’t sting enough for what they actually did,” she said.
“You wanted to hear Tucker go out there…but I think is’ good, it’s OK, because, I mean, you’re disappointed, but there are other lawsuits coming up,” cohost Airhead, Joy Behar said. “If Rupert [Murdoch] wanted to maintain any integrity, he’d fire Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity.”
“I understand there’s a lot coming down the pike,” cohost Fatso Whoopi Goldberg said. “But I don’t like the idea that they don’t have to say it out loud. I don’t like that you’re hoping people will read the deposition. I wanted them to have to say, ‘we lied. And we knew we were lying but we lied anyway.’”
FOX NEWS SETTLES DOMINION DEFAMATION SUIT: After a $787.5 million settlement was reached in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against the network over false election claims, #TheView co-hosts question if justice was served. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/o6sLjuXV1T
— The View (@TheView) April 19, 2023
The judge in the case previously said that the trial would be delayed until yesterday, which had many speculating that the parties were working on an agreement.
