Tag: jeanine pirro
Jeanine PIrro

How Hypocritical Is Fox News On Trump Indictments? Hilariously

Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds. You need only to review the conservative propaganda landscape to see evidence of the pretzels that conservatives will twist themselves into in order to reverse what they once yelled about ad nauseam. You may remember when, in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was being investigated for her handling of government emails on a private server. If you happened to switch your channel to Fox News around that time, you would have been told, in no uncertain terms, that this investigation was grounds to disqualify Clinton from the planet Earth.

Fox News scream-machines like Jeanine Pirro proclaimed, “We cannot have a country led by a president subject to ongoing criminal investigations, potential indictments, and never-ending hearings.” Trump’s bestest buddy Sean Hannity claimed that the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails would “put this country into a major constitutional crisis.” Former Fox host Tucker Carlson was so shocked back in 2016 that he exclaimed, “Holy smokes.” Even the brain of the GOP, former Rep. Newt Gingrich, implied a Clinton investigation would create chaos in her first two years in office.

I’m sure that now, in 2023, with former President Donald Trump having been investigated and indicted, these very same conservative voices are demanding their viewership look elsewhere for a leader. The folks over at MSNBC’s “The Mehdi Hasan Show” put together a video montage showing how much those old thoughts and feelings have mutated now that the candidate isn’t simply being vaguely investigated but is actually indicted—four times!

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Jeanine PIrro

Turmoil Erupts In Fox News Offices Over Fear Of Firings And 'Snitches'

There's a new Rolling Stone story about the infighting inside Fox News studios in the aftermath of Tucker Carlson's firing, and whether it's funny or just pathetic probably depends more on your mood than on the circumstances.

The lede of the piece is that some of the "top" Fox News talking heads are worried that they're going to be next to find they no longer have a job at the studio. Before you get too excited about that, however, know that the hosts who have expressed worry about that, according to the "two sources," are Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro. Both played feature roles in pushing the 2020 election conspiracy theories that are now forcing Fox News to pay out $787.5 million to settle defamation claims brought against it by Dominion Voting Systems, and with fellow voting equipment manufacturer Smartmatic now stepping up to the plate for its own similarly-sized lawsuit it would be hard to imagine Bartiromo and Pirro's jobs not being in danger.

Any actual "news" company would probably have launched the pair out of the building years ago, given their longstanding penchant for bizarre claims and, for one of the pair, way too much online debate over how much of their on-air commentary can be blamed on [makes drinky-drinky gesture here]. So ... yeah. One would imagine "cost the boss three quarters of a billion American dollars" will be coming up in the performance reviews.

That said, neither they nor we have reason to be holding our breath here. Top-ranking Fox host Tucker Carlson appears to have been fired not for his behind-the-scenes efforts to make sure the Fox News division left the Republican election hoaxes undebunked, in the weeks leading up to the January 6 coup attempt, but because Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch thought he was getting too big for his britches. Nobody's ever gotten fired at Fox News for lying to the public on-air. Lots of people have been fired from Fox News because Rupert Murdoch has come to believe that they're endangering the company profit.

The much funnier allegations in Rolling Stone's story are that some Fox executives have "have grilled certain staff about whether they or their teams had recently blabbed to the press about Carlson’s abrupt dismissal," and that Fox staffers have been "changing journalist contacts to fake names" on their phones in order to hide who might be calling them, if the phone rings in the presence of management or "spies" who might "snitch" to management.

Fox executives aren't in a lather because their fact-averse incompetence just cost the company three quarters of a billion dollars. They're worked up because somebody inside the news company might have been talking to real reporters about Tucker's canning.

And if you work for Fox News, there's nothing worse than management learning you've once talked to a real reporter. Imagine the inquisition that would result, if a Fox reporter's phone rang and the name displayed was that of an actual journalist. Heads would roll!

The news, then, is that if we believe the story's inside-Fox sources (and they are very anonymous, because reasons), Fox offices are in an uproar of late, with angry questionings and surreptitious phone calls and members of the alleged journalistic institution muttering bitterly about snitches who might tell management about their own awful behaviors.

Another likely source of turmoil goes unsaid, however. What we've learned from both the Dominion lawsuit and the lawsuit against Fox News filed by a former Fox News producer is that Fox News working conditions are grotesque, with rampant misogyny, harassment, antisemitism, and workplace retaliation inside network offices. Rolling Stone's Fox News sources don't appear to have anything to say about that, but it seems more than likely that part of what's most roiling Fox offices is the thought of snitches who might come forward to level new charges of harassment and abuse.

In all of Fox News, is there really more than a handful of people who have to worry about management finding the phone numbers of outside journalists on their phones? Compare it to the number of Fox employees who were perfectly aware of the illegal workplace behaviors inside the company and who might have themselves engaged in some, and you can be why the current mood inside the building is more grim than just the firing of one ever-pompous wealthy fascist could account for.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Her Fox Producer Called Jeanine Pirro 'A Reckless Maniac'

Her Fox Producer Called Jeanine Pirro 'A Reckless Maniac'

For a glimpse of Fox News’ utter corruption and duplicity, it's worth reviewing the sequence of events involving the network’s handling of host Jeanine Pirro’s program following the 2020 election, as revealed by filings in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox.

Pirro is a longtime Fox backbencher and notorious font of misinformation and bigotry who hosted a pre-taped show airing on Saturday nights. She leveraged her personal friendship with Donald Trump and the fact that he regularly watched her program to gain prominence at the network during his presidency.

In the post-election period, Fox executives took Pirro off the air because they feared she’d promote election fraud lies — then brought her back and let her air two monologues that they knew were filled with falsehoods, all while her own executive producer denigrated her privately as a “reckless maniac” who “should never be on live television.” To cap it all off, they promoted her to co-host a show that airs live and now has the highest ratings in cable news.

Here’s how it all played out.

  • November 6, 2020: Fox cancels Pirro’s November 7 broadcast as executive says she won’t report responsibly on election fraud. Fox executive David Clark, who directly oversaw her show, expressed his concern at the time that he didn’t “trust her to be responsible” and that if her show aired, “her guests are all going to say the election is being stolen and if she pushes back at all it will just be a token.”
  • November 7-12, 2020: Fox calls the presidential election for Joe Biden and, amid a furious viewer backlash, begins attacking Dominion. The internal documents show that Fox feared losing market share to right-wing competitors like Newsmax as viewers turned on the network for being insufficiently supportive of Trump’s fraud lies. Fox executives agreed that they needed to ensure that “viewers know we hear them and respect them,” and punished “news side” staff who aggressively fact-checked lies. Meanwhile, the network proceeded to air Dominion conspiracy theories from discredited sources like Trumpist lawyer Sidney Powell.
  • November 13, 2020: Pirro is informed about Dominion’s debunking of falsehoods about the company. Pirro’s executive producer, Jerry Andrews, forwarded Dominion’s “Setting the Record Straight: Facts & Rumors” email to Fox debunking various false claims that had been made about the company, including that it had been involved in the “deletion” or “flipping” of Trump votes. Pirro’s response to Andrews was redacted by the court, but Andrews forwarded it to Clark commenting that she is a “reckless maniac.”
  • November 14, 2020, afternoon: Clark and Andrews reiterate to Pirro in emails that Dominion denies the allegations. Andrews told Pirro, “you should be VERY careful w[ith] this. There are things we know now that were not out there on Thursday night when these allegations [about Dominion] first surfaced.”
  • November 14, 2020, evening: Pirro makes false claims about Dominion, hosts Powell who spreads more falsehoods with little pushback. Pirro’s show was pre-taped and aired in its normal timeslot. In her opening monologue, Pirro claimed that Dominion’s system “has been tagged as one allegedly capable of flipping votes,” echoing a falsehood debunked by the Dominion fact-checking memo that Andrews had forwarded to her. She also hosted Powell, who, unchecked by Pirro, offered a series of lies about Dominion.

  • November 20, 2020: Pirro’s executive producer tells Fox executives her planned monologue is “rife w[ith] conspiracy theories” and shows she “should never be on live television.” Andrews forwarded a draft of Pirro’s intended monologue for the following night to Clark and fellow Fox executive Meade Cooper, writing that Fox’s internal research department “is going through this now” and describing it as “rife w[ith] conspiracy theories and bs and is yet another example why this woman should never be on live television.” In a separate email to Clark, he described the monologue as “completely crazy.”
  • November 20, 2020: Fox’s internal “Brain Room” review identifies Dominion falsehoods in Pirro’s draft monologue. The “Brain Room” script check identifies at least two areas that require “additional context / fact-checking” in Pirro’s draft monologue, her claim that Dominion “started in Venezuela with Cuban money” and “are capable through a back door of flipping votes through software,” and her suggestion there was “an overnight popping of vote tabulation that cannot be explained” during the 2020 vote count.
  • November 21, 2021, afternoon: Andrews says Pirro is “refusing to drastically change the open despite the fact check.” Clark responds, “Understood.”
  • November 21, 2020, evening: Fox airs Pirro’s pre-taped monologue with the identified falsehoods intact.

JEANINE PIRRO (HOST): For four years we listened to unsupported allegations of a conspiracy by a foreign government to interfere with our presidential election, that Russia stole the election of 2016, implanting their Russian asset, Donald Trump, as president of the United States. For four years we were told Trump was a Putin puppet, a Russian asset, that we must do everything we can to get rid of him and save America. Almost on a daily basis, the Democrat medieval minstrels in Congress put on their conspiracy show as congressmen like Adam Schiff pontificated about real evidence, evidence that he had seen with his own eyes, evidence that required that Donald Trump be gone because America and democracy were at stake.

Never, ever, not once did we see a scintilla of evidence. Never. Were we supposed to take it all on faith? They put the president and the country through hell as the work of Congress was halted and as the media everyday reminded us we were getting closer and closer to the big Russian reveal of Russia collusion that fizzled much like Rob Mueller did when he showed up and testified. And then the medieval minstrels took another show down to the subbasement of the Capitol, where they regaled each other with fantasies of foreign interference in their medieval star chamber. In fact, they never stopped. And now, just over two weeks, the president's lawyers come forward alleging an organized criminal enterprise, a conspiracy by Democrats, especially in cities controlled and corrupted by Democrats.

The president's lawyers alleging a company called Dominion, which they say started in Venezuela with Cuban money and with the assistance of Smartmatic software, a backdoor is capable of flipping votes. And the president's lawyers alleging that American votes in a presidential election are actually counted in a foreign country. These are serious allegations, but the media has no interest in any of this. But you and I do, as we should, because 73 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. Republicans took seats in the House they said would be won in a Democrat blue wave that never came, and so far we've held the Senate. They say the risk of our giving false hope should be enough to stop us two weeks later. I say the risk of not looking at what is staring us in the face is too great to not stop us.

  • November 22, 2020: In email to Clark, Andrews describes Pirro as “just as nuts” as Powell.
  • March 26, 2021: Dominion files $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox.
  • December 16, 2021: Fox loses bid to dismiss Dominion lawsuit, which includes Pirro’s November 14 and 21 shows as evidence of “false and defamatory” statements.
  • January 12, 2022: Fox announces Pirro has been promoted, will co-host its live afternoon panel show The Five.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Trump Cancels Paid Rally To Testify In New York Fraud Case

Trump Cancels Paid Rally To Testify In New York Fraud Case

Former President Donald Trump has canceled an appearance at a paid rally on Friday in Greensboro, North Carolina, to testify under oath on the same day -- alongside his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son, Donald Trump Jr. -- in the New York attorney general Letitia James’s probe into his finances, according to the Raleigh News and Observer.

The 45th president and a host of prominent conservatives were set to attend the rally, which was organized by the American Freedom Tour, a platform that organizes rally-like events across the United States, according to its website, to celebrate “faith… and God-given American freedoms.”

The American Freedom Tour quietly removed all mention of the mid-July event from its website and cited “unforeseen circumstances” when questioned by news outlets that noticed the mysterious cancellation.

Tickets sold for $9 to $3,955, depending on access to Trump, and the event’s organizers said that it had been postponed and that ticket holders could use their tickets at any other of their tours in the country.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Fox News pundit and fiancee of Trump Jr., Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Pinal County sheriff Mark Lamb, and far-right political commentator and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza were among a host of Republican personalities that also canceled their appearances at the rally.

The mass cancellation coincided with reports that Trump and two of his children, Trump Jr. and Ivanka, will submit to July 15 depositions by James’s office, which is in the “final phase of her investigation into Mr. Trump and the business practices of his company, The Trump Organization,” the New York Timesreported.

Trump and his family had for months prior tried to avoid questioning, arguing through their attorneys that James’s investigation was politically motivated. However, a panel of four judges in the appellate division of the state’s trial court disagreed and compelled the former first family to submit to James’s office’s summons for an interview as part of its probe.

The next American Freedom Tour rally — which, according to its website, is scheduled for August in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — will feature the same characters who silently bailed out of Friday’s event. “Come see President Donald J Trump, Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump Jr, Dinesh D’Souza, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Sheriff Mark Lamb and many, many more live and in person,” the website promised.

Making paid speeches to supporters is a money-making venture for the former President, and the American Freedom Tour — the brainchild of Chris Widener, a far-right motivational speaker with a trail of bankruptcy filings — has lined Trump’s pocket with substantial proceeds.

However, the ex-president’s earnings did nothing to prevent the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection from taking him to task in its Tuesday hearing. The committee attempted to tie Trump to the extremists who led the attack on the Capitol and accused the former president of witness tempering.

Trump has denied the allegations and derided the congressional panel as partisan and controlled by Democrats.