A Fox News ‘Defector’ on How the Network ‘Played Footsie’ With Trump
Produced by ‘Sway’
The former Fox commentator Jonah Goldberg — who has been called a “Fox defector” — says that Tucker Carlson’s latest documentary series was “the anvil that broke the camel’s back.” Titled “Patriot Purge,” it featured conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 insurrection under the guise of journalistic interrogation. It also became a breaking point in a schism unfolding at the network between those who have embraced the Big Lie and those who feel troubled by the network’s abandonment of basic facts.
[You can listen to this episode of “Sway” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]
In this conversation, Goldberg offers insight into Fox’s embrace of Trumpism and the ways the network has “played footsie” with falsehoods and the former president. They discuss Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and the legacy media shake-up spurred in part by Substack, which Goldberg and his business partner Stephen Hayes use to distribute their conservative online publication, The Dispatch. And they discuss the 2024 Republican primaries, as Goldberg muses about whether a potential Tucker Carlson ticket could beat Trump.
This episode contains strong language.
(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)
Credit…Courtesy of Jonah Goldberg
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“Sway” is produced by Nayeema Raza, Blakeney Schick, Daphne Chen, Caitlin O’Keefe and Wyatt Orme, and edited by Nayeema Raza; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; mixing by Carole Sabouraud and Sonia Herrero; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.
