In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, CNN chief media correspondent and author of “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth,” Brian Steltzer said that multiple Fox “News” hosts have expressed doubts about President Trump’s mental health and capability.
Maddow read excerpts from “Hoax” describing the initial coverage of the coronavirus, where Fox “News” was echoing back Trump’s own view that the virus wasn’t impacting Americans when, in fact, hundreds of people had contracted the virus.
This, apparently, disturbed a number of Fox employees who felt the network should have been reporting the actual impact of the pandemic rather than soothing Trump’s ego.
“So many sources inside of Fox ‘News’ were pouring their hearts out to me,” Steltzer said, “–and this was just in my normal course of work covering media–they said the channel they used to love and respect had gone off the rails because President Trump, slowly but surely, took control of the channel.”
The host of “Reliable Sources” on CNN, Steltzer describes Fox as a channel where many reporters and hosts are concerned about the path Fox “News” has taken away from journalism.
“It’s nothing close to journalism,” Steltzer said when Maddow noted that some Fox “News” shows intend to influence Trump’s policies and statements. “There are real journalists at Fox who are very uncomfortable with that, who are disturbed by this situation, but they don’t have the power. The primetime stars have the power; the “Fox & Friends” in the morning have the power.”
“They are the ones talking to Trump and they’re the ones turning around and telling their friends that, in Hannity’s words, “Trump is a run-on sentence.” In the words of an executive at Fox, “He is not well.”
“It’s such a disconnect between the on-air rhetoric and the off-air reality, and that is what’s propping up this presidency. It is hard to image the president at a 40% approval were it not for these people on Fox,” Steltzer says, adding, “who–I’m sorry, Rachel, I don’t like to talk this way–they’re lying about him every day.”
“They are talking about a president who doesn’t actually exist: someone who stopped the virus when it was coming in from China,” Steltzer continued. “We all know that’s not true. But these talking points are repeated over and over again in a form of propaganda we have never had before.”
Steltzer stated that there’s a fear inside the management of Fox “News” that should Trump lose the election, that he’ll start a competing news network that will siphon off QAnon supporters and other members of the Fox “News” viewership base.
Noting that Fox “News” did not show the first hour of the Democratic National Convention daily programming, Steltzer noted that Fox “News” is programmed to be an “anti-Democrat” channel, which is easier than being a network advocating for something. “It’s easier to be in the opposition.”