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‘The View’ Furious With Fox News, Dominion Agreement, But Not For The Reasons You Think

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


The hosts of the ABC talk show “The View” 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 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 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 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.”

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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 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 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.’”

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.

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“The delay immediately triggered speculation that some sort of settlement talks are in the works, as is not unusual at the last minute before high stakes and big bucks litigation heads to trial. A well-informed legal source said that there were talks but no deal and that the situation remains fluid,” Deadline reported.

The judge made an announcement in court on Monday morning as speculation mounts of a potential settlement between Dominion and Fox News.

“Dominion/Fox judge in court just now said he expects trial to proceed tomorrow, saying ‘this is not unusual.’ ‘This is not a press conference,’ Judge Davis said. ‘I have made the decision to delay the start of the trial until tomorrow.’ no mention of a settlement talks,” ABC News reporter Olivia Rubin tweeted on Monday.

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“In court on Monday morning, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis, who is presiding over the lawsuit, said he decided to push back the beginning of the trial to Tuesday, instead of Monday as scheduled. He didn’t explain the reasons for the move. Davis initially announced the move through a court spokesperson on Sunday night. In court on Monday, he said he asked jurors to return on Tuesday morning and told them not to read any media coverage of the case,” Business Insider reported.

Judge Eric M. Davis said in a late Sunday statement: “The Court has decided to continue the start of the trial, including jury selection, until Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at 9:00 a.m.”

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