- Fox News and other Murdoch-owned entities are showing signs of a new post-Trump era.
- The primetime lineup is still in his corner, and January 6 remains a sensitive topic.
- But some hosts are pivoting, and the network recently lost a motion to dismiss Dominion's $1.6 billion lawsuit.
After a 4-year presidential term of "Fox & Friends" call-in interviews and live tweeting the network's weekend programming, Donald Trump is facing headwinds at his once-favorite cable news channel.
A variety of Fox News hosts and contributors have either recently issued stern critiques of the former president or outlined a vision for the 2024 presidential election that does not include him.
Even the network's latest Trump exclusive showed how a new dynamic is at play: his reaction to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade ran on Fox News' website, not as a live TV appearance.
Fox News and its parent company are also dealing with a legal fight inextricably linked to Trump, who gave interviews to the network around 8 times more often than any other TV channel during his presidency.
Failure to dismiss Dominion's $1.6 billion lawsuit
Dominion and Smartmatic, two rival election technology companies, have filed a series of defamation lawsuits against right-wing media organizations and individuals they say falsely accused them of rigging the 2020 election results against then-President Trump.
Newsmax, One America News Network, and Fox News are among the institutional defendants. Individual defendants include MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and other election conspiracy theorists closely aligned with Trump.
All of the lawsuits have continued to make their way through the courts.
Dominion achieving a major victory last week, when the Delaware judge overseeing its case against Fox News ruled that Fox Corporation, the media organization's parent company, would also be subject to discovery. Dominion made a convincing case that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, who oversee the company, pushed the media organization to follow Trump's the election lies in order not to lose ground to Newsmax and OAN, the judge said.
While Fox News did not carry nearly as many election fraud-related segments as Newsmax or OAN, an interview from host Maria Bartiromo 's weekend show with former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell was one of the video exhibits during the January 6 committee hearings. The interview has also become a centerpiece of both Smartmatic's and Dominion's lawsuits against Fox News.
Powell's lawyers have argued "no reasonable person would conclude" her claims about the 2020 election and vote stealing to be "truly statements of fact."
Fox News did not return Insider's request for comment.
Fox personalities leaving Trump in the past
Piers Morgan appeared on Fox News last week to flesh out his latest column for the New York Post, titled "Memo to Republicans: It's time to dump The Donald and run with The Ronald" — the latter a reference to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
"He isn't just 35 years younger than Trump, he's more eloquent, focused and organized, going about his business with military-style planning," Morgan wrote. Later, in an appearance on Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto," Morgan compared DeSantis to Barack Obama for the Democrats in 2008.
Vanity Fair also recently reported on the Murdoch property-wide phenomenon of boosting DeSantis ahead of 2024.
The primetime lineup of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham are still nowhere close to being Never Trumpers.
Carlson counter-programmed the first night of the January 6 hearings with a version of his demonstrably false streaming mini-series on the insurrection being a "false flag operation." Hannity has recovered from his reported falling out with Trump after the election, with the former president calling into his show back in January.
In the case of the January 2022 call-in, Hannity did not ask Trump about the substantial body of text message correspondence between network stars like himself and White House officials — particularly Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff — around January 6. When mutually beneficial, Trump and the top stars at Fox News have shown they're still willing to get along on-air even after the election fallout.
The same can't be said for one of the morning side's biggest stars.
On Sunday, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade harped on Trump for not letting go of his election lies.
"I've said this before: I believe from the time when the election results came in until January 6th is the worst moment of Donald Trump's political career," Kilmeade said on the Fox News Sunday show "Media Buzz."
"I think how you lose in life defines who you are," Kilmeade continued. "And even if there are things that bother you, welcome to the world."
Kilmeade, who once pressed a 6th grader in a live interview for praising Biden and not giving Trump enough credit on school reopenings, recalled how Trump stormed out on him off camera after he briefly pushed back on the former president's claims of election fraud.
"As soon as we were done, he just stormed off," Kilmeade said. "And you know how long I've known him, for 15 years or 20 years prior to him going to the White House. I've never seen him so angry."
Trump has already given Fox News 1.6 billion reasons why they shouldn't let him hitch his wagon to theirs again. DeSantis, should he run for president, might be the best protection they can find.