Fox News did not air a second of the speeches from alienated GOP leaders and former Trump officials who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris at this week’s Democratic National Convention.
The DNC speakers included former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who spoke in prime-time before Harris’ Thursday keynote; former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham; Olivia Troye, who served as a homeland security aide to former Vice President Mike Pence; and Mesa, Arizona, Mayor John Giles.
MSNBC and CNN treated those speeches as newsworthy, airing each of them in full, according to a Media Matters review of the networks’ convention coverage. But Fox hid the content of all of those speeches from their viewers, often displaying the video on screen without audio as the network’s on-air hosts and guests offered commentary.
It’s not hard to figure out why: Fox is a Trumpist propaganda organ that helped the former president purge the GOP of his critics and is working tirelessly to return him to the White House.
The network typically shies away from highlighting dissension in the party’s ranks. Fox virtually ignored former Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to endorse Trump and former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s denunciation of the former president as “unfit for office” — both of which originated in Fox interviews.
At the DNC, lifelong Republicans and people who served in Trump’s administration offered scathing reviews of Trump’s personal and presidential conduct, describing him as a “felonous thug” who lacks empathy, turned their party into “a cult,” and is “laying the groundwork to undermine this election."
They also provided a permission structure for Republicans to join them in abandoning former President Donald Trump and instead back Harris. Kinzinger, for example, said that he is supporting Harris because “whatever policies we disagree on pale in comparison with those fundamentals matters of principle, of decency, and of fidelity to this nation.”
All of that is anathema to Fox, and so the network simply avoided letting them make that case to their viewers.