Fox analyst Brit Hume defends premature declarations of election victory: “Political campaigns are about extravagant claims”
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From the November 2, 2020, edition of Fox News @ Night
SHANNON BREAM (ANCHOR): What do you make of this, Brit, that this -- it's a private company but it's turned into a very public platform, Twitter is going to decide whether you can tweet about whether you or your candidate won.
BRIT HUME (SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST): Well, I think it's a fool's errand ultimately because if you're going to be an open platform you've kind of got to let people say whatever they will. Now obviously you can impose limits that have to do with things like obscenity and certain other things, but when it comes to political claims -- look, political campaigns are about extravagant claims. They're always filled with all kinds of exaggeration and overstatement, and they always have been. People understand that. And look, and if you have good reporters that are out there and responding to this sort of thing, some claim of victory when it's not yet established is going to get jumped on immediately and people will be able to figure it out. It won't stand no matter what you say. You can say all you want about you won the race when the voting -- the voting -- the tallying isn't complete, and then if it is and you didn't win, that will soon be known. So I'm not at all sure what they think they're protecting people from here, that people can't take care of themselves.