Dylan Byers: The Media Trial of the Century?

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I’m Treleysetics. It is April fourteenth two thousand twenty three, and I’m gonna confess I am really nervous about today’s podcast. Our our guest is Dylan Byers, who is the founding partner and senior correspondent at puck News, and he covers the business of media, technology, entertainment. Previously worked at NBC News, CNN, and Politica, and is going to be covering the Fox News defamation trial next week.

So Can I explain why I’m nervous about this, Dylan? Please. Okay. So part of me cannot get my head around the fact. That Rupert Murdoch is going to allow this case, the Dominion case, to go to trial.

So the headline on this is either what the Fox News trial will look like next week or or why there won’t be a Fox News trial next week because they settled. Part of me is thinking we’re recording this Thursday afternoon that by the time we post this, the whole world will blown up Rupert Murdoch will have come to his senses. They’ve written out a check for one point six billion dollars, the most groveling apology in the history of defamation lawsuits, and it will all go away. So is this thing gonna settle by the time people listen to this? What do you think?

No. I think it will not I’m pretty confident it will not actually, you know, lo and behold, I might be eating my words. But, no, your instincts here And the questions you’re asking are the right ones. If you look at how Rupert has handled every scandal across his media empire over the course of his half century career as a media mogul. Settlements are the name of the game.

The Washington Post reported recently that he has paid something to the tune of seven hundred and fifty million dollars in settlements over the course of the last thirteen years alone. So whether it is sexual harassment claims at Fox News, whether it is phone tapping scandals in the UK K. These things are settled. And in fact, within just the last few days, there was a Venezuelan businessman who brought a defamation suit that was tangentially related to the

dominion suit, and Fox News settled with him. This has been his role in businessman, he sued Fox and Lou Dobbs, his Nolan Red Fox. Who had claimed that this guy and other Venezuelans had rigged the election against Trump, so it feels kind of related. So they paid this guy off. So they paid this guy off And so the answer

to your question to why won’t Rupert settle to make this go away, to the best of my knowledge based off of the reporting I’ve done and all the available evidence is that it’s actually the ball is not in his court this time around. It is Dominion who does not want to settle. And I think that’s for a number of reasons. One, I think that they see an opportunity here to wield significant, if not financial damage than at least reputational damage. Against Fox News and this has become and it’s the reason we’re talking about it.

This has become a very historic case at a very fraught time in American politics and American media, and they can go from a company that was worth just eighty million dollars five years ago to becoming sort of the face of the fight against the sort of erosion of truth, the erosion of American democracy, the right word drift of Fox News. And I think they see real potential in that. I think they also know that This one point six billion dollar damages claim

is

sort of a hallucination. Again, the company was valued at eighty million dollars five years ago when its primary owners of sort of mid market private equity group called Staple Street Capital by three quarters of the company, since all of this has happened, There’s actually no real hard evidence that the claims that were made on Fox News have significantly damaged Dominion’s business I mean, in fact, if anything, Dominion’s business seems to be doing just fine. So I think they’re playing right now for history and for Dominion’s role in history because I actually don’t believe they’re entitled to the money that they think they’re entitled to.

Let’s just talk about the money for a moment. So if Rupert Murdoch is sitting up there in the tower and saying, look, I I just cannot as you put it as the, you know, the the headline risks of how bad this is going to be, you know, with all this trove of documents out there, you know, having to testify live and watching all of your stars, on the witness. And if he says, just screw it. Could he write out a check for one point six billion dollars? I mean, is Fox capable of writing out the check?

Theoretically, if you wanted to do it.

Theoretically, but it would be a massive hit to the organization. I mean, this is a company that is hard to know exactly what Fox News makes in the Fox Core universe, but it’s making somewhere between one point let’s call it one and a half to two billion dollars a year. So you’re talking about deprivative somewhere in the ballpark of a full year’s worth of profits. So could they do it? Yes.

Would it be a significant hit to the business? Yes. Know, I think there is a sense here too, which shouldn’t be ignored

that they

don’t wanna become an easy mark for everyone who brings a defamation case against them. And we should not forget that after this one point six billion dollar case, there is a two point seven billion dollar case by another voting software firm in New York called smartmatic. So — Mhmm. — if you agree to settle this case, and pay one point six billion or even half that. And then SmartMatic comes to the table and expects the same thing or expects two point seven billion dollars.

I don’t think that’s a scenario that the Murdochs want to entertain.

Now, normally, something like, you know, calling something the media trial of the century would be over the top hype, but this one doesn’t feel that way because the stakes seem so high, because it seems to have the potential of being kind of a landmark in media lawsuits, in the libel lawsuits, does that? I mean, there’s a lot more here than just whether or not Tucker Carlson is embarrassed.

Absolutely. And and I would say it’s the media trial of of the century or at least the century so far for a couple of reasons. One at the sort of macro view, this could set major precedent or change the nature of how we understand libel laws in this country. And so the way we understand libel laws now goes back to nineteen sixty four and New York Times — Mhmm. Vice Sullivan, this case, depending on how high it goes, has the potential to restructure how we think about that, and indeed one of the arguments that Fox is making here is if we are found liable for defamation, then it becomes a very slippery slope that opens other news organizations up to more vulnerability on the question if they’re entitled to get certain things wrong.

Now, that’s a whole another point we can debate, but the stakes in that regard are extremely high. I would say, another reason the stakes are high is because Look, the partisanship in media has been a fact of life for a very long time, but the Trump era has sort of seen that go into overdrive and what Fox News has become and indeed what they’ve become for fear of having to compete with news organizations that are even more tolerant of conspiracy theories or lies or truly a malicious approach to the news. Poses a real threat to, I think, the way that I don’t wanna take it too far. The nature of media right now and how bifurcated it’s become how unapologetically and brazenly partisan it’s become the willingness to tolerate conspiracy theories or fan the flames of conspiracy theories. We’re at a very significant and pivotal moment in history that does have real ramifications for the Democratic project.

And so I think where this ruling goes in that regard is going to be extremely interesting as well. This

gets way ahead of ourselves. But if Fox loses, end up going all the way to the Supreme Court, yeah, it could. I they’re basically different stages here, so

we go from the Delaware superior court, to the Delaware Supreme Court, to the third Circuit Court, and then ultimately to the Supreme Court. And if you I mentioned this in a piece I wrote this week at puck, but I am already hearing from Murdoch world, generally speaking, they almost seem ready for an appeal. Mhmm. I don’t wanna say that the lawyers believe they’re gonna lose the case in this superior court, but you’re already hearing talk of an appeal out of that side. And so — Interesting.

— I don’t think this ends here and I do think that depending on how things shake out, it is very likely that we could see this go all the way to the Supreme

Court. This case is already, you know, unearth, you know, tons of embarrassing private emails text messages between the Murdoch’s executives, on air talent, members of the board, promoting the, you know, baseless fraud theories that they admit they don’t believe and Obviously, they were worried about losing their viewership. They wanted to stay in the good graces of Maga. They were afraid of competition from News Mac. Over the next couple of weeks.

You can have all of the top talent who is going to have to testify under oath. Are we gonna get live audio or proceedings? I mean, what is it going to be like? This trial is going to last weeks. Right?

I mean, are we going to see it

in real time? How are we going to follow those? It’s a great question and it’s an open question. This week a consortium of media organizations, including the broadcast networks, the New York Times, the wires, etcetera, basically banded together and put in a request for at a minimum a live audio feed, which I think they will be granted by the time this podcast. Comes out if they haven’t already been granted.

The video would take this, I think, to a whole another level. And I do think there will be a request for video. I’m not sure if it will be granted, but you think in recent weeks and months about the way that the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial or the Gwyneth Paltrow ski accident trial sort of became these media events. Right? With everyone sort of, you know, watching and commenting and tweeting and whatnot.

This

one’s so much bigger. This

is so much bigger. And and I do think, like, it is sort of interesting. I think right now, this Fox Dominion thing is a very, very big deal among people in politics and among people in the media industry, but you introduce that video component and you turn it in to a major national news event where all of a sudden people have the opportunity to watch Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch, even go under oath and therefore not be entitled to this sort of brazen, you know, news as entertainment thing that they do on air every night. And they would have to say real things. And I think that that has real potential.

As I’ve always said, there are really two trials happening. There’s strictly narrowly defined legal trial of Fox and Dominion, and then there’s the broader trial taking place in a court of public opinion about Fox’s reputation and how history understands and remembers the Fox News organization. And I think that video component would pose a significant threat to the Fox News brand. This is Charlie Sykes, host of

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listen. Obviously, they’ve already had a lot of damaging information come out. Your reporting suggests that more damaging information may be on the way, and normally all of the discovery is done by now. Right? I mean, everybody knows what the facts are.

You’re suggesting that there may be more damaging headlines to look forward to. Two things happened in Delaware this week.

The judge basically sanctioned Fox for a couple reasons is my understanding. One is that he felt like they had not been fully forthcoming in terms of evidence that there are calls perhaps between I believe Maria Bartoromo and Trump’s lawyers, Giuliani and Sydney Powell, that there are recordings of those phone calls that should have been in the discovery that weren’t. I don’t know if those have already been added to discovery they might have. The second thing which is I found, especially notable, is there was this sense that the judge felt anyway that Fox had not accurately characterized rupert Murdoch’s role at Fox News. Now this is This is This mind blowing, by the way, this park.

Yeah. It is. So I think everyone sort of generally understands that Rupert Murdoch sits atop the media empire that is Foxcorp that owns Fox News. But he actually has a title as a sort of executive chairman of Fox News itself. Mhmm.

And that title potentially, at least in in the eyes of Dominion and seemingly the judge could broaden the parameters of what is liable to discovery in terms of Rupert Murdoch’s own correspondence. So it’s possible we could see more from him as well.

Well, and the judge said he would likely point a special master to investigate whether Fox had withheld information about Murdock role in Marxism. And that’s rather dramatic development. I mean, over the last couple of weeks, the judge in this case has destroyed many of the the fences that I think that Fox had been planning to use. And now threatening a special master, isn’t this the point dylan where the lawyers go in to the executive suites and say, okay, we’ve had all the motions, we’ve had all of this stuff. It’s really shitty.

It’s really bad. You know, this is the time to cut bait. In normal litigation, if you’ve gone through all of the motions, you play it out, you play out the strength, And then when the judge basically hits you on the head with a hammer, time and time and time again. Don’t the words at this point go, hey, we have to give you our best advice, which is you need to bail on this sucker. Mhmm.

Well, I think, again, this is just my best understanding. I don’t know exactly what their thinking. But the impression I get from the conversations I’ve had is they recognize that the judge this go around is not terribly sympathetic to them. Their main line of defense up until recently has been Fox News could make these claims because these were claims being made by the White House and anything said by the White House is newsworthy. And the judge came and said, you don’t get to defend yourself on the grounds of newsworthiness.

Newsworthiness does not entitle you to pedal false information. That’s a huge loss for Fox News. It’s a huge loss for them. So what we’re gonna see, and this is where the question about Rupert’s title becomes so interesting. So what is Fox’s next line of defense going to

be?

You

know, you’ve put forward mountains of text messages and emails from Rupert and Laughlin and Tucker Cross and and Laura Ingram and Sean Hannity, and all pertaining to the voter fraud narrative. But when it gets down to this specific question, of Dominion, and the statements made about Dominion, we’re really talking about three hosts. Lou Dobbs no longer at the network. Maria Bartaramo, engineering hero, the brain trust. The brain trust.

And the argument they’re going to make is these three hosts we’re actually very open minded about the narrative about Dominion and voter fraud. And might have even believed it. Mhmm. And unless you can provide any evidence that these three hosts and their producers did not believe in this false narrative, then you can’t claim that they were being malicious because they actually believed the absolute nonsense that they were spreading. And that’s not totally implausible is it.

I mean, Maria Barbara Romo does seem to be a true believer. She was chugging down the kool Aid there. Right. And look, again, going back to the sort of reputation of Fox, it’s sort of a hilarious narrative to put forward because, you know, I I think, basically, this is a story about how Fox News spread. A lot of really crazy, that is the word Rupert Murdoch used, crazy lies about voter fraud in twenty twenty, and the argument we’re now gonna see from the lawyers for Fox is these three people actually believe these crazy lies.

So therefore, they’re not liable. Mhmm. This is where the Rupert Murdoch role comes in because in order to make that argument, Fox is going to have to convince the jury that Rupert sitting atop all of this sending text messages and emails to the CEO of Fox News, talking about what was being said on air, and then saying in testimony, he could have stopped it. He could have done more to stop it, but he didn’t. That none of that is relevant because he is not directly responsible for what his hosts say on air.

And I’m not sure that the Lawyers for Fox are going to be able to impose that distinction. I don’t think the judge is going to allow it. I think he is going to remain open to the idea that the executives from Rupert Murdoch on down, their responsibility for what was being said on air because it’s clear from the emails and the text messages that they were aware that some of what was being said. Was false or at least was baseless. And

of course, that’s already been litigated. So among the defense, they don’t have to re litigate whether or not this information was true or false the judge has ruled it is false, right, as a matter of blah blah. Now we’re just simply on the question of, you know, was it knowingly disregard with actual malice? Etcetera. Exactly.

And if a Maria Bartorama

or a Janine Perot actually thought that these false statements were true, Is it relevant that Rupert Murdoch or Suzanne Scott or someone else at the network was watching these statements being made and knew that they were not true or at least that they had no no evidence for the statements being true, and then they let those statements be aired anyway. And I think that’s what this case is gonna come down

to. So are we going to see Rupert Murdoch himself walk into that courtroom and sit in the witness box and be sworn in and have to test a binder of. Are we going to watch that scene?

For me, from where I’m sitting is a media reporter who covers media at the sort of executive level, there’s no bigger media model than Rupert Murdoch. To see him testify, to even hear him testify, would be truly an incredible moment in the history of American media. And I think in the history of him and it’s really a really rich and compelling his his own history. And I don’t know. I know that he can be compelled to testify at ninety two.

Is it conceivable that he might find a way to make the argument that he is not in good health and therefore cannot come into the courtroom. You see that happen with media executives all the time. So I don’t know yet, but if we’re ever gonna see Rupert Murdoch testify, it will be in this case. Okay,

I’m trying to think of the theater of all of this because as you pointed out, there are basically two different trials here that Fox has to keep in mind. You know, the trial in that particular courtroom with that jury, then, of course, for public opinion and for, you know, the Fox audience there. And so I kind of wonder how the various players are gonna perform, including Rupert Murdoch. So Do we have any sense based on his past or his personality what we know about him? How is Rupert Murdoch?

How is he carrying himself in the courtroom. How does he interact with the lawyers? I mean, I I’m guessing that when you’re a Rupert Murdoch and you are a billionaire and you have this kind of power, you are not used to being challenged. You’re not used to being pressed. You know, in his prickly personality is, shall we say, not his Secret Podcast would you be watching for in that particular moment?

I mean, it does feel like it might it’s like a scene from succession or something. What’s gonna happen Is he going to

crack? Is he going to be a total asshole? Is how is it gonna play out? What are you looking for? You know what?

I think this is one reassuring aspect of the American project right now is that when people are compelled to testify under oath, it usually forces them to tell the truth. Mhmm. And I think that if you look at the testimony that Rupert Murdoch has given so far, he has been almost shockingly candid. I mean, one thing about this, the reason the Dominion’s case feels so strong right now is because when they got the testimony from ahead of trial, got the testimony from Rupert and from Laughlin and from various Fox News executives, they were very forthcoming about this, about the fact that some of the statements were false or crazy. And like I said, you know, Rupert said he was asked, could you have done more to stop this?

And he said yes, but I didn’t. So I think what we would find is a very candid, straightforward Murdoch who recognizes that he does not want to be found guilty of perjury, also that however this shakes out that he ultimately will not have to take the fall for this. Right? Like, inevitably, this case, I’m talking not now about the legal matter, but the sort Court of Public Opinion. If this gets so bad and it becomes this huge national story that International.

International story of all this you know, whatever terrible things that happened at Fox News, someone’s head may roll, but it won’t be his head. And he will continue to have his empire and Fox will go on and the succession, you know, he will, at some point, pass this on down to his children and so on and so forth. But I don’t expect him to come in trying to evade the truth. Think he will meet the moment head on and tell the truth. And I think that even professional actors like Tucker Carlson and and and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram, will feel the need to do the same because they are under oath.

So you’re looking for more sober and subdued rather than fiery and defiant.

Well, I think witty I mean, Rupert Murdoch has always been witty. And I don’t wanna say straight shooter because, of course, so much of what surrounds the Murdoch media empire. There are so many sort of lies and is truth and have truth, but he does have a way of speaking very plainly and directly, I think. And I would anticipate the same from him here on the witness stand.

So you’ve also written about some of the Fox News strategies that they obviously I mean, that they wanna present a completely different narrative. They’ve issued statements where they’re focused sitting on Dominion’s private equity owners, company called Staples Street Capital, which bought a seventy five percent majority stake in the company five years ago. And this was founded by two Charlie Sykes group veterans. So what is the Fox News narrative going to be about Dominion that they think might

turn this thing around? I’m not sure that I’m getting it. I think right now, the narrative is that you have this sort of small, Dominion Voting Systems is a small business that was started by this guy, you know, this Canadian guy. And it is in the name of democracy, in the name of fact actual accuracy is standing up to the Goliath, the evil Goliath that is Fox News and the Murdochs and whatever. And that in the Court of Public Opinion, this is sort of a compelling David Verisk Goliath narrative.

And I think what Fox is trying to point out now because every time they put out a statement, it is no longer about dominion, it is about private equity owned dominion, staple Street Capital owned Dominion. They’re trying to say, this isn’t a David and Goliath story. This is a private equity firm that sees a chance to net out a bigger return on its investment in this company. And the reason that they are pushing this is because, you know, these Charlie Sykes group guys see this opportunity to go after it. I think that’s what they’re trying to do officially.

I think unofficially in the sort of fever swamps of partisan media, they are kind of hinting that there’s a political agenda here. And in the same way that Republican going back to Gingrich and beforehand, they’ve sort of suggested that there’s this grand liberal conspiracy out there. I think they like sort of nudging people to the fact that, oh, one of the members of the board of staple Street Capital is Clinton’s FCC chair who then became Obama’s ambassador to the EU, Bill Barnard, who by the way, has donated tons of money to Obama and Hillary Clinton and various Democratic candidates and causes. And sort of trying to spin, not themselves, but sort of allowing others to spin this idea that there’s a political agenda here, which by the way, would go to explain why Dominion refuses to settle the case out of court. And unfortunately for them, a private equity firm that owns IT services, dental management group.

They own a flower Bulwark company. These are not, like, political activists. These are guys who are looking, you know, to just make some money. And Bill Kenner sits on the boards of AT and T and met life and Ford, and he’s got a distinguished career both in the private and public sector. He is not.

But for his connections to obama, and Clinton, he is not a very convenient bogeyman. But, you know, you don’t need much these days. No, you don’t need much these days.

That’s the point. You can demonize pretty much anybody as we found out. So among the the other people that we expect to testify, we expect the, you know, all of the the best known names to have to testify. Do we expect to hear testimony from this former producer, Abby Grossberg, who has filed a lawsuit against Fox? Making lots of allegations about how she was coached to testify, talking about the the sexist atmospheres sort of the the horny bro culture of of others.

We’re gonna hear from her.

We might. I mean, I haven’t followed that side of the story quite as closely as I’ve followed the sort of core Dominion case, but it seems to me that the Dominion lawyers are well within their rights to bring any witnesses they want. I think given her claims about, you know, what she felt like she was forced to say almost against her will, I think they could find her to be a very convenient witness. How

long does this trial will go? Do you have any sense? Yeah.

You know, that’s a great question, and that’s this is where sort of legal minds, my colleague at puck, Eric Gardner, is a brilliant legal mind, and he sort of understands the ins and outs and the intricacies of this. And I’m always sort of baffled at what I don’t understand about legal proceedings. So he has been very helpful in that regard. I don’t know, but I anticipate several weeks. And I and I don’t think that it’s I’ve gotten every indication from in terms of how the judge has handled the sort of preliminary pretrial stuff that he has no qualms about sort of asking for more or or asking the lawyers to go back and sort of provide more and the fact that there’s even a special master who might investigate this, I mean, just suggest that there are ways in which this trial can get sort of extended.

And then, of course, we’re just talking about the trial in the superior court. And so the case itself to the degree that it gets appealed is something that could play out throughout the course of the year and into next year.

This is related, although it’s indirectly related, the Murdoch clearly had wanted to move on from Donald Trump at some point. They kind of had a soft ban of Trump on on Fox News, and clearly, that’s been eroded. So were you at all surprised to see Donald Trump showing up again on Fox News? Being back on, being given, you know, lavish tonguebez in prime time. And I guess I’m asking this because if Fox News was genuinely concerned, about the damage from this lawsuit, the reputational damage, etcetera, they would be keeping as much distance as possible from anyone engaging in election lives.

And of course, you have the chief election liar of American politics. And he’s apparently the doors are wide open for him. So were you surprised at all about that?

I was not surprised by it. I would say yes, chief election liar, also Republican

front runner. Right. He’s

the Trump show. And the Trump show is everything. Right? Yeah. He’s the he’s the Trump show.

And and I think a few things stood out to me. When I saw Trump back on Tucker Carlson. One is that all media organizations, Fox News, CNN, the New York to everyone has to reconcile itself to the fact that we are going through another season of the Trump show. Mhmm. And it will look different and it will involve his own trial.

And I think we would all like to think we’re a little more experienced in how we approach this, but he is there. And every newsroom in the country is dealing with the editorial posture toward him to make sure that they don’t make mistakes that were made seven eight years ago. I was also not surprised because one thing that became very clear in the filings for this case and all of those text messages and and email correspondence is that Fox News is not monolithic. And there are ways in which Murdoch’s control over the network is limited. In the Roger Ailes era, Roger Ailes ran Fox News with an iron fist.

And if he had primetime hosts who went out and sort of went rogue and did something on their own, he drew them back in immediately or he kicked them out. You know, there was this moment I believe where Sean Hannity was at a Trump campaign event, and Roger Ailes was like, you know, get on a plane and get back here right now. Mhmm. There is no one at the network, not Rupert not Suzanne Scott who really wields that power over the prime time hosts anymore. And so Tucker Carlson in a way sort of does what he wants.

And he can do what he wants because he’s a ratings juggernaut, and Trump is the greatest ratings juggernaut. And so I don’t know what conversations happen in private rooms or private calls after the text message or the email was exposed in which Tucker Carlson said I hate him passionately referring to Trump. Clearly, they patched that up. You never And look everyone has an angle and everyone has an objective here and Trump wants to be on Fox and Tucker wants to have the ratings that come from Trump. And so that manifests itself in it’s it’s hard to even call what Tucker Carlson did with Trump an interview because he just sort of teed up a question and then sat there while Trump meandered from his indictment and the courtroom to questions about foreign policy, and Russia, and China, and sort of let Trump go wherever he wanted.

Not exactly. Hard hitting. No. It’s not hard hitting at all, and it also suggests that Tucker Carlson and probably Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram too are as much as other aspects of Fox News in the Murdoch media empire might be sort of leaning toward DeSantis. That very powerful and influential trio seems very willing to welcome Trump back into the fold.

For the moment in in the conservative media world and the conservative movement, the Trump show is really the only show in town right now. And what is the counter programming? I mean, if you were to make a programming decision, who do you wanna have on? You wanna have Donald you wanna have Nicky Haley and then do what what what is gonna move the needle more? Donald Trump or Kim Scott.

And it’s pretty easy, I think, so far. Right. Okay. So we’ve sort of been dancing around this big question which you address. What will be the reputational fallout for Fox News?

Obviously, they’re taking a, you know, reputational blow, but does that trickle down to their audience? What is the risk for Rupert Murdoch and company from this trial

or the audience itself and the ratings, their people, Well, so I think if you saw the revelations from this case and we’re sort of shocked by how much contemporaneous evidence there is to show that Fox News Will Saletan tolerated lies and conspiracies in a desperate pursuit of ratings. I think your natural instincts would say that that is going to be very bad for Fox News. But then, of course, it’s important to remember that the reason they fan the flames of the conspiracy theories was because they saw an audience that preferred that to the actual truth. And that their core audience, given the choice between the Fox News that said Biden won Arizona, and he’s gonna win the election, and the Fox News that said the voting systems were rigged. It appeared that at least they believed that their audience wanted the conspiracy, and their audience was ready to go to other networks like NewsMax, if Fox wasn’t going to give them the conspiracy.

So if you accept and I think there’s ample reason to believe when you look at various surveys, of, you know, how many Republicans for instance still believe that the election was stolen, and how many Republicans out there believe in various conspiracy theories. I think that there’s ample reason to believe that the core Fox News audience really it’s not just that they don’t care about this trial or what this trial reveals. It’s that in some cases, they probably

don’t even necessarily believe it. Or they don’t care about it even if they do. Right? I mean — Right. — we normally would think that people would be shocked to find that they’ve been lied to, but there is a large constituency out there that may suspect they’re being lied to, but they really don’t care because they want what they want.

Yeah. And this gets to a much larger fundamental question about where the country is at right now in terms of the sort of appetite for conspiratorial thinking or at least the fusil to accept facts that are right before your very eyes. This is part of the larger story about what Rupert Murdoch created. He fed the lies. He fed the conspiracies.

He fed the partisan victory all and now it has gotten to a point in Frankenstein fashion where he is almost at the mercy of what he has created. Because if he doesn’t continue to give them what they want and what they want, he has becoming crazier and crazier and more and more conspiratorial, then he fears losing his audience.

And

so Fox’s reputation, it’s like, I think from where you and I are sitting, you know, we’re like, is this damaging to Fox’s reputation? And I think from where the Fox core audience is sitting, what is actually damaging is tacking back towards facts in reality.

And I think that Donald Trump understands this better than I think maybe Robert Murdoch did because he knows what the vulnerabilities are. He understood eight years ago that he could attack and he could Bulwark he, you know, he could insult Fox News and they would come back to heel. And it feels like the same pattern over and over again. For people who remember, everybody knew it was lashing out at Megyn Kelly and attacking them. And sure enough, what did they eventually do?

They eventually, you know, came back into line and all was forgiven. And Donald Trump understands that transactional nature of the relationship, but he also understands that vulnerability that the Fox News was ultimately afraid of its base as as as much of the Republican party. That’s right. You know, it’s

sort of interesting as we’re heading to trial and all of this is about to be litigated. There was a survey that came out this week, basically highlighting how much the Republican Party that used to be sort of the country club party has now become the party of country. And that Democrats more and more are the party of the sort of urban and suburban and well educated. And I think one thing that’s happening here is that the split and the fisher between these two different parts of America has become so severe that what we perhaps see as reputational damage by virtue of knowingly lying to your audience or something like that, there are blinders on because the core Fox News audience sees the fact that we would even suggest that as being somewhat, you know, looking down on them, dismissive towards them or that we ourselves can’t be trusted because we’re part of some liberal or deep state conspiracy. Against the American people.

And

this is what makes this trial so fascinating because it involves, it implicates all of those issues. It feels like in the story end of the future who wanted to capture everything that’s going on, could focus on this trial. This trial will capture our era of the way, say, these scope’s monkey trial captured so many issues a century ago. I mean, I’m trying to think of — Yes. — major trials that that really embodied an era and the splits in in society and and and culture, and it’s going to be extraordinary.

It

really is in it. You’re absolutely right, and you’re hitting upon the key point here, which is going back to why is this the trial of this century. It’s actually not just about liberal law. It’s about American political culture, what it has become how much the media has played a role, and particularly Fox News has played a role in what it has become.

And

then I think not to overstate it, but I think generally whether or not we as Americans have a shared narrative anymore. Or whether we are just living in two completely alternate realities and never the Twain shall meet We know the

answer to that. Right? Yeah, I think we do. We don’t have a shared narrative anymore.

And you know, it’s interesting someone at The New York Times did a story where they sort of pointed out, you know, with both Trump on trial and Fox News on trial,

it’s

sort of this really interesting moment and what they suggested is that legal rulings have a way of being sort of definitive in terms of establishing what’s real and what’s not. Right? When you say that someone is guilty of something by law, the suggestion was that it has a way of, like, shutting up the people who refuse to leave it. I’m not really sure that’s true. I think we’ve sort of crossed the Rubicon here where a guilty verdict in ways can only be more empowering.

Whether it be for Fox News or for Trump. I mean, obviously, that changes. You know, if he goes to jail, I don’t even think that people view legal rulings necessarily as the truth anymore. I

agree with you. Dylan Byers is a founding partner and senior correspondent at puck. He covers the business of media technology and payment previously worked at NBC News CNN and Politica and has been writing extensively about what is going to be the Murdoch Media trial of the Century. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast to give us this preview today. Thank you.

Really appreciate it. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. We’ll be back on Monday, and we’ll do this all over again. Board of Podcasts is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

Dissecting politics with exclusive interviews, commentary and humor, useful idiots, with Katie Halper and Aaron Mate. Check out this story that comes via wedding planner, Georgia Mitchell. I’d say that’s a deal breaker if you were to catch your partner being breastfed by their mother. The thing is, she’s here in the second hand. So

Right. We really The

responsible

journalist didn’t you, Erin. It’s just an allegation. Yeah.

None of my sources have confirmed this story. Right. So

Terrible if true. And

definitely a deal breaker. Useful idiots. Wherever you listen.