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Molly Butler / Media Matters

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Fox News is priming another presidential election with election lies and conspiracy theories

Update (9/18/24): This piece has been updated with additional examples.

A year after Fox agreed to a $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in order to avoid a drawn-out and embarrassing trial over the network knowingly spreading lies about the 2020 election, Fox News is once again priming its audience to question the results of an election.

In the first few months of 2024, the network’s hosts and guests have spread conspiracy theories that undocumented immigrants will vote in the 2024 election, claimed that prosecutions against former President Donald Trump are “election interference,” cast doubt on the security of early and mail-in voting, and outright claimed that Democrats will “cheat.” Additionally, the network has continued to spread the same tired lies that the 2020 election was rigged.

Here are some examples of Fox News personalities and guests spreading election-related conspiracy theories in 2024.

  • Fox News personalities and guests spread false claims of Democrats importing undocumented voters

  • As the 2024 election nears, Trump and Republicans are fixated on immigration. As a top election issue, Fox News has been spreading “replacement” conspiracy theory rhetoric more than ever. The network has expanded its talking points from claiming that Democrats are allowing in migrants in exchange for votes in federal elections to claiming that Democrats are allowing in migrants to affect the census and consequently the House of Representatives and Electoral College votes in their favor. 

    • On his radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity said “Democrats” will eventually try to “offer amnesty” to those living in the country without authorization in exchange for votes. “Now amnesty is something of great worth and great value,” Hannity said. “Democrats will be saying to the people that they help break the law with and the people that are offered something of great value to, ‘What, you’re not going to vote for those guys, are you? Because they’re the ones that didn’t want you to come into the country illegally and they’re not the ones voting to make you citizens and give you amnesty and apply for citizenship.’” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 1/9/24]

    • Later, on his Fox prime-time show, Hannity mused about whether Democrats were “holding out, you know, the carrot of free citizenship” to migrants. Hannity said President Joe Biden was “not even pretending to care about the border” before asking, “What would the Democrats want in exchange for assistance in helping people break our laws, not respect our borders, our sovereignty, and maybe holding out, you know, the carrot of free citizenship?” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/9/24

    • The Five co-host Jeanine Pirro: “How many do you need to come into the United States to vote Democrat because they all love Joe Biden?” Pirro continued: “In New York City, they want illegals to vote. And you give them a license, it’s a point of identification that they can then start applying to vote.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/30/24

    • When co-host Jessica Tarlov attempted to dispel Pirro’s replacement theory rhetoric, co-host Greg Gutfeld backed Pirro, claiming that Dems have admitted to the conspiracy theory: “Democrats have said that. And they've never used the phrase ‘replacement theory,’ but they talk about bringing in new voters and turning Texas from red to purple to blue. So it’s not like a racist thing to say.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/30/24

    • Hoover Institute senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson claimed that Biden and other Democrats “felt that open borders gave them new constituencies.” “They called anybody racist or xenophobic who wanted a secure border,” Hanson continued. “They said, ‘Oh, you believe in the great replacement theory,’ even, Sean, as they were writing books called, The New Democratic Majority, or Demography is Destiny.” [Fox News, Hannity, 2/7/24]

    • On his radio show, Fox News host Mark Levin said the “Democrat Party” wants to “change the citizenry as a whole, literally, through open borders and the migration of not just millions but tens of millions of foreigners.” “All of whom come here illegally, over the border, that’s what I’m talking about — not those who go through the process,” he continued. “And all of whom will thank the Democrat Party and Joe Biden.” [Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, 2/29/24]

    • Failed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said it’s not a conspiracy theory but a “conspiracy reality” that Democrats are importing voters to secure a “long-run, lasting electoral majorities.” After Ramaswamy claimed that border security and election integrity are “intimately linked,” host Laura Ingraham interjected, “Do you think illegals are going to be voting in this next election?” He replied, “I think inevitably there's going to be a lot of seepage, and I think that it’s also a long-run play.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/7/24]

    • After listing extreme instances of migrants committing violent crimes, Fox News anchor Julie Banderas said, “These are the people that the Biden administration is inviting into our country in order to join the census and eventually vote for Democrats like Biden to get back into office.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 3/18/24

    • Fox contributor Ari Fleischer: Biden's immigration policy is “part of a political endgame for the Democrats to hold power.” “This is a crisis of his [Biden’s] creation, of his own wanting, because the end game for the Democrats, Sean, is to let people come in illegally, get them work papers, which leads to green cards, which leads to voting,” Fleischer reiterated. [Fox News, Hannity, 4/1/24

    • Fox host Jesse Watters accused Democrats of lying about the border and migrants committing crimes, warning, “Remember, they also say they won't be able to vote.” “They said the border wasn’t open. They said they wouldn’t take our jobs. They said they aren’t committing crimes. And now they say they’re not bringing drugs. All of those things were lies,” Watters said. “And remember, they also say they won’t be able to vote.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/4/24]

    • Hannity suggested that Democrats want to create a “path to citizenship” for migrants in exchange for votes. “What we're talking about here is a plan to ultimately provide a path to citizenship,” Hannity said. “But if they become the party that offers this, the most highly coveted passport that the world can offer and they give it away free — ‘Well, I hope you'll vote for us after we gave you that.’” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 4/12/24

    • Pirro praised Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s voter suppression effort, claiming, “Even though there is a law that says you can't vote if you're illegal, the truth is — New York City, a couple months ago, wants 800,000 illegals to vote in the next election.” She added: “So, this is a war.” [Fox News, The Five, 4/12/24]

    • Conservative radio host Ben Ferguson claimed the Democratic Party — which he described as “Marxist, socialist, and communist combined” — understands that “if you bankrupt a country and you bring in new voters” by “the millions” you can “fundamentally change the United States of America in one generation.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 4/16/24]

    • Watters: “Biden let 10 million illegal aliens into this country. How will we ever accept the results of this election and this kind of landscape?” Later in the segment, Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt accused Democrats of “pressuring them [migrants] to sign up to vote, to register to vote illegally.” Hurt continued, “The whole thing is designed to get these voters to vote illegally and Democrats know exactly what they’re doing.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/14/24]

    • Hannity dismissed Democrats’ criticism of the SAVE Act: “If they don't want proof of citizenship, voter ID, signature verification… you have to ask why. Now, I could only come up with nefarious intentions of some kind.” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said Democrats are “undermining trust in our election process” and “flood[ing] ballots out there.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/9/24]

    • Fox contributor Katie Pavlich said Democrats’ “goal is to somehow get, federally, legislation passed eventually that gives amnesty to, say, two million, three million, 15 million” undocumented immigrants to sway elections. “Elections are determined in this country by margins of tens of thousands,” Pavlich continued, “this is by design.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/6/24]

    • Ingraham complained that the naturalization process “is being sped up by Biden” and questioned “the real objective,” to which Stephen Miller replied, “Their hope is that having a massive amount of unvetted migration into this country, it will tilt the scales to the left.” Miller continued: “Think about how much money is spent trying to move 1,000 votes in Michigan, 2,000 votes in Pennsylvania, maybe 500 votes in North Carolina, whereas for nothing, the government can just mint hundreds of thousands, if not millions of new citizens. … There are no rules, there are no guardrails, it's get them in as fast as you can and make them citizens as fast as you can.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/14/24]
    • Strategic Wealth Partners CEO Mark Tepper accused Democrats of “importing voters.” Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo agreed and said they were “racing it up ahead of November.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 8/29/24]

  • Fox News claimed the Biden administration and Democrats designed the legal proceedings against Trump to sway the election

  • Donald Trump has been indicted in four separate criminal cases. Two of the cases are led by local prosecutors and the two federal cases are led by special counsels, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Fox News has been vigorously peddling claims that Trump’s legal woes are part of a Democratic plot to hurt the former president’s reelection chances, with some personalities and guests calling the cases “election interference.” 

    • Laura Ingraham suggested that Trump’s legal troubles were the result of partisan prosecutors “interfering with the election” by giving voters a choice “between a demented incumbent and a convicted felon.” Ingraham was responding to a clip in which CNN legal analyst and ethics expert Norm Eisen detailed how Trump’s public polling numbers would crater if he were convicted of a crime. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/9/24]

    • Jeanine Pirro claimed that New York state’s civil fraud trial against Trump was a “joke” that amounted to “election interference.” She said, “Look, this case has been a joke from the beginning. It has been an effort on the part of the political attorney general to take down Donald Trump, to keep him not just from the calendar as it relates to the caucuses and the primaries, but to keep him from doing any business in this state. And it's called election interference.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/11/24]

    • Jesse Watters suggested that both New York state Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis were in a “conspiracy with Biden” because they visited the White House while prosecuting Trump: “It’s almost as if Biden’s running the Trump prosecutions from the White House.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 1/11/24]

    • American First Legal president and former Trump adviser Stephen Miller claimed Democrats are using “lawfare” to win the election: “It is the ultimate election interference.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/18/24]

    • Republican National Committee co-chair and former Fox contributor Lara Trump stated that the cases against Trump have been “election interference since the very beginning.” Trump added, “These people are using the least democratic means possible to try and rig an election.” [Fox News, Hannity, 2/5/24]

    • Greg Gutfeld dismissed the January 6 insurrection as a “hoax” and characterized states’ attempts to remove Trump from their ballots for inciting an insurrection in violation of the 14th Amendment as “election interference.” “It’s interesting to see a party that claims to be protecting democracy trying so hard to get the opposition off the ballot, so democracy is thwarted,” Gutfeld said. “If you want election interference, you got it. It’s right there.” [Fox News, The Five, 2/8/24]

    • Trump’s legal spokesperson Alina Habba claimed that the Fulton County district attorney’s case against Trump was “motivated by one thing and one thing only, and that’s election interference, that's trying to bring Trump down.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 3/13/24]

    • Host Harris Faulkner on Trump’s hush money case: “When you look at just the whole scope of what this really means, this actually might be election interference.” Faulkner went on, “When you start to have people who will press against a candidate and run with their name in their mouths, that’s got to taint some voters. No one wants to speak up about that?” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 3/25/24]

    • Fox News contributor Leo Terrell on Trump hush money trial: “This case is a political trial designed to hurt Trump's chances in November.” “President Trump is being prosecuted because he’s running for office,” Terrell added. [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 4/4/24

    • Fox legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said the Trump indictments were “classic lawfare” and “driven by political animus,” representing “a partisan attempt to interfere in a presidential election.” “I think what Biden Democrats and the media underestimate is the intelligence of American voters,” Jarrett continued. “They see these dirty legal tricks for exactly what they are — a pernicious attempt to steal an election through an abuse of our system of justice.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/12/24]

    • Habba on Trump’s hush money trial: “This is political — it's election interference.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/15/24]
    • Sean Hannity called Trump’s hush money trial “a blatant political smear campaign.” “This is not a legitimate trial,” he said. “It is a perfectly timed political scheme led by a prosecutor who did campaign on quote ‘getting Trump.’” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/15/24]
    • Ben Ferguson lamented that “Joe Biden is in Pennsylvania raising money right now while they’ve tied up Donald Trump in court yet again,” adding, “That is election interference." “To your point, Ben, about election interference,” Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy said. “They’re trying to put Donald Trump at the same speed as Joe Biden, right? They want to tie him up in court. They want to make sure he, you know, he can’t do rallies until 9 o’clock at night because he’s got to be in court all day. They’re trying to demoralize him by saying you can’t go to your child’s graduation, treating him like he’s, you know, a criminal.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 4/16/24]
    • Jarrett accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan of “essentially colluding to keep Trump off the campaign trail, tied up in court to damage his election chances.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/16/24]
    • In the same segment, Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz declared, “We have a right not to have that election interference." “We have the right to decide who to vote for without the thumb, or in this case, the elbow of the criminal justice system led by Democrats, in this case the district attorney who campaigned on a promise to get Trump, essentially. We have a right not to have that election interference." [Fox News, Hannity, 4/16/24]
    • Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones: “I think when the former president says that it’s election interference, I think there’s some credibility there and there’s a point there.” He added: “Why are they staging all these trials to where he cannot campaign in another state when Joe Biden gets to be in Pennsylvania?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/17/24]
    • Watters suggested that the indictments against Trump amount to “rigging the election.” “Brilliant move by Democrats. You’re indicting this guy so many times, and then he can’t talk about how unfair it is?” Watters said. “You’re rigging the election and he [Trump] says, ‘You’re rigging the election,’ and then he gets thrown in jail for saying, ‘You're rigging this election.’ This is probably the best campaign strategy the Democrats have ever come up with.” [Fox News, The Five, 4/19/24]
    • Miller: “Every resource is being directed not to protect Jews, not to protect students, not to protect Americans, not to fight crime … they are using their resources to try to put one man behind bars, the ultimate election interference.” “This president is a lawless offense to democracy and civilization,” he continued. “Everything coming out of this White House is destroying the very fabric of this country and our democracy, because of Joe Biden, is indeed in grave peril, Sean.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/23/24]

    • Failed New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin reacted to Judge Aileen Cannon’s rejection of a request for a gag order in the Trump classified documents case, saying, “This is another setback for what is intended to be an election interference effort.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 5/28/24]

    • Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt: “All throughout the witch hunt in New York we saw public polling that shows the majority of Americans view the sham trial for what it was, which was election interference led by Joe Biden's regime.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/20/24]

  • Fox News rehashed tired lies that the 2020 election was rigged

  • The 2020 election was not rigged. According to Trump’s own election officials, the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history."

    • While arguing that Trump had “every right” to try to overturn the 2020 election results, Jesse Watters described the 2020 election as “an unprecedented mail-in ballot election, where rules were loosened on the fly and where the CIA, FBI, and Big Tech colluded and deceived the American voter.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 1/9/24]

    • During Fox’s election coverage of the Iowa caucuses, anchor Sandra Smith repeatedly failed to fact-check a poll result showing two-thirds of Iowa Republicans think Biden was not “legitimately elected.” [Media Matters, 1/16/24]

    • Watters: “The FBI and Facebook suppressed the vote the last election.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 1/31/24]

    • In a segment questioning the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Watters said that “the CIA and FBI interfered in the last two elections.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/9/24]

    • Watters: “Joe Biden would be nowhere without the elites, the CIA, the donors, the media. They put him in there. And they can take him out right now.” [Fox News, The Five, 7/8/24]

    • Watters claimed that Biden was “maneuvered into this Oval Office by the elites that he's now blaming for calling for his head. The FBI, the CIA, all the donors, all Barack's guys, they all put him in there, with the help of the China virus.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/11/24]

    • Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee: “The 2020 election was definitely influenced by the misinformation, by the lies and the distortions that were told. Facebook was a big part of that. They played the game and they played it to win for Joe Biden.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 8/27/24]

    • Co-host Greg Gutfeld ranted that Trump was facing political persecution: “They tried to arrest him. They tried to sue him. They tried to shoot and kill him. They changed laws to destroy him. They changed the way we voted to keep him from winning. They shamed, they targeted, they doxxed, they hoaxed supporters.” [Fox News, The Five, 8/28/24]

    • Strategic Wealth Partners CEO Mark Tepper said, “Everyone on the left hates when President Trump says the election was rigged. But you look at, they're changing the rules on debates.” Anchor Maria Bartiromo added, “Censoring information right before elections like the Hunter Biden laptop, collusion.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 8/29/24]

  • Fox News claimed early/mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes were unreliable

  • Despite claims from Trump and his propaganda network that early and mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes are not secure and invite election fraud, there is no evidence that these methods encourage widespread fraud that affects election results. 

    • Sean Hannity said early voting and mail-in voting isn't “the system that has the most integrity, that would give us the most confidence in results.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/2/24]

    • Hannity told his audience not to expect results from the Iowa Democratic caucuses for months. “Don't expect any numbers from Democrats,” he said. “With a very complicated mail-in voting system and the reshuffling of the Democratic Party's primary calendar, we won’t get an official tally for months." [Fox News, Hannity, 1/8/24]

    • In a segment attacking blue states for supposedly “passing big overhauls of their voting laws,” Laura Ingraham asked American Majority founder and CEO Ned Ryun, “Even if Trump wins the nomination by a landslide, does it matter if these mail-in ballot drop box issues are not countered by the Republicans?” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/22/24]

    • Jesse Watters: “Mail-ins are here to stay. It’s written in the law. Democrats have embraced it — they’ll abuse it to win.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/16/24]

    • Watters claimed that Democrats had a “head start” due to early voting. He said: “Election Day doesn’t matter any more. In some swing states, you can start voting in September and October. A two-month head start. … It’s just a numbers game and Democrats know how to ‘add to the equation.’” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/20/24]

    • Watters: “Let's get rid of the drop boxes altogether. They’re ripe for fraud.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/13/24]

    • Hannity attacked mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes: “This is not a secure process.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/9/24]

    • Ingraham Angle guest Matt Towery: “The Democrats can do a lot of things to win elections. … Wisconsin just allowed drop boxes all over the place.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 7/9/24]

    • Watters warned that “the Democrats are great with shenanigans, and a lot of the ballots and the drop boxes still in play.” Tulsi Gabbard responded, “We should all be very vigilant. … I wouldn’t put it past them to do anything they deem necessary to stay in power and beat Trump.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/10/24]

    • Watters: “We got dead people getting ballots mailed to them in Chicago.” [Fox News, The Five, 9/3/24]

    • Ingraham suggested that election officials are “setting up … a narrative” for election fraud by “warning about problems with the postal service.” The Associated Press article Ingraham cited actually stated that “problems with the nation’s mail delivery system threaten to disenfranchise voters,” but guest Chris Bedford fearmongered: “I think it’s something that certainly undermines trust, not just in the postal system but in our elections.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 9/11/24; The Associated Press, 9/11/24]
  • Fox News cherry-picked local cases of election fraud in order to question the security of the 2024 election

  • Over and over again, election fraud has been proved to be rare and negligible in influencing election results, with occasional exceptions in local races. In 2021, The Associated Press conducted a review of every potential instance of 2020 voter fraud in the six swing states targeted by Trump and found fewer than 475 cases. In those swing states, Biden won by more than 300,000 combined votes.

    • Jesse Watters spent a segment highlighting voter fraud in Bridgeport, Connecticut, saying that it’s “not looking so good” for 2024. He warned: “We told election officials across the country they have to get it together by ‘24 if they want a safe and secure election. And so far, if you look at Bridgeport, not looking so good.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 1/24/24]

    • Watters expressed skepticism over a glitch in Nevada’s ballot counting software. He said: “I don't trust people who are constantly telling me to trust them. We’re just supposed to trust that no one voted in our name?” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/20/24]

    • Watters introduced a report from correspondent Bill Melugin on an undocumented individual who was federally charged with voter fraud: “I thought illegals aren’t allowed to vote.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/9/24]

  • Fox News claimed that the government funded voter mobilization efforts in order to benefit Democrats

  • Fox personalities have repeatedly demonized federal get-out-the-vote efforts and voter registration efforts, spreading the false claim that Democrats are using taxpayer money to bribe voters. 

    • Lara Trump: Democrats are “paying liberal students to register more liberal students with taxpayer money.” She added: “Imagine if Donald Trump, while president, impacted an election and influenced voters with taxpayer money.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/28/24]

    • Jesse Watters proclaimed that the Biden administration is “bribing college kids with taxpayer money to become poll workers and election activists.” Watters continued, “First, Democrats weaponized mail-in ballots to secure election wins while the Republican party lagged, and now they’re turning the federal government into a taxpayer-funded arm of the Biden/Harris campaign.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/28/24]

    • Laura Ingraham argued that government-funded get-out-the-vote organizations are actually partisan Democratic groups, questioning “how Democrats keep winning, right, when their policies are just awful.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/11/24]

    • Watters insisted that Democrats are “targeting people who interact with the federal government, people who are depending on government assistance” including “families that get food stamps, families in the free lunch program, families that get free health care” and “homeless people” to register to vote. He continued, “Is this a demographic that you'd consider traditionally Republican? I don't know, maybe.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 5/8/24]

  • Fox News made wild, unfounded claims that Democrats are interfering, cheating, or will cheat in the 2024 election

  • Fox News claimed outright that Democrats are interfering with or will cheat or try to cheat in the 2024 election, attempting to support their claims with absurd arguments and zero evidence. 

    • Jesse Watters claimed the CIA has “been interfering in our elections for years” and will use diversity, equity, and inclusion to “subvert the Republican nominee” in the 2024 presidential election. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 1/2/24]

    • Greg Gutfeld falsely claimed that “murder victims will come back to life just in time to vote” in the 2024 presidential election as the media supposedly attempt to “lift Joe Biden’s sagging campaign.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 1/2/24]

    • Fox contributor Lisa Boothe accused Democrats of using COVID-19 “to upend the election” and getting “former intel officers to lie to the American people” in the 2020 election, warning, “They’re going to try to win doing anything they can.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/4/24]

    • Laura Ingraham predicted Democrats will “game the system or yeah, maybe even cheat” in the 2024 election. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/16/24]

    • Fox News contributor Tyrus Murdoch predicted that if Trump wins the 2024 presidential elections, Democrats will “have the military in place to arrest him for treason.” He continued, “He didn't do anything with January 6, wasn't convicted or anything, but yet they have courts taking him off the ballot.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 1/17/24]

    • Anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to outline her efforts to prevent voter fraud in 2024 “in the face of potential criminality” by Democrats. [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 1/28/24]

    • Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) predicted that Democrats will use a crisis like COVID-19 to rewrite election rules and “run their elections however they want to” to ensure that Biden is reelected in 2024. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/8/24

    • Article III Project founder and possible Trump attorney general pick Mike Davis instructed states and Republican lawyers to “start filing lawsuits and getting injunctions right now on voter ID, on signature verification, on all-mail ballots, on election observers, so we don't have the election rigged again like it was in 2020.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/4/24]

    • Watters reported that a whistleblower had accused the CIA of “witness tampering” in the Hunter Biden investigation to “help President Biden win reelection.” He also claimed the CIA has a “long history of protecting the Bidens and injuring Trump.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 3/25/24]

    • Ingraham insisted that Democrats who are “urging Biden not to debate Trump” are committing election interference. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/16/24]

    • Hannity argued that Attorney General Merrick Garland is “interfering in the election” because he chose not to hand over the Robert Hur interview tapes: “So the reason they don't want the American people to hear the tapes is because they know that those tapes will be devastating to Joe Biden, likely causing him a chance at reelection.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 4/17/24]

    • Fox News guest Monica Crowley: “I think a lot of people are braced for something that the deep state, that the regime might have up their sleeve.” Watters responded: “They’re capable of anything.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/10/24]

    • On Jesse Watters Primetime, Watters claimed that “Trump isn't just going up against Biden this year; he's going up against the CIA.” He continued, “The agency's whacked Trump twice in a row. What makes you think they won't go for the hat trick?” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/26/24]

    • Watters said: “They’re arresting one candidate, they got him shot, they orchestrated a medical cover-up, then detonate the sitting president and buy off the VP, who no one voted for and was in on the cover-up and the coup.” He continued, “The fact that they think this is going to work makes me wonder what else they have up their sleeve.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/23/24]

    • Fox News contributor Lara Trump told host Sean Hannity that Republicans must make the election “too big to rig.” “We know the Democrats are in full-blown panic mode. We know that when you're panicking and backed in a corner, you're capable of doing anything.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/29/24]

    • Watters maintained that Democrats “do whatever it takes to win.” “If the Democrats’ ultimate goal is power, it’s really their only purpose in life, then they can create an entirely new election process.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/26/24]

    • Fox News contributor and guest Vivek Ramaswamy cautioned before the September 10 debate that “there are strange things that could happen between now and November” if Kamala Harris performed poorly. He clarified, “I do think that we have a machine that we're up against that has demonstrated that it is going to go to great measures to defeat Donald Trump.” [Fox News, Hannity, 9/6/24]

  • Fox News praised Republican efforts to purge voter rolls and change election certification guidelines

  • Ahead of the 2024 election, several Republican-led states announced the removal of thousands of people from their respective voter rolls in an effort to combat supposed noncitizen voting — despite existing laws that require regular voter roll maintenance — drawing criticism from voting rights advocates. Georgia’s Republican-controlled state election board also recently passed new rules empowering county election boards to delay vote certifications, setting the stage for potential chaos on Election Day.

    • Jesse Watters praised Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin for “taking major steps to reinforce Virginia's election integrity ahead of November.” Youngkin signed an executive order “instructing the Department of Elections to remove noncitizens who ‘may have purposely or accidentally registered to vote’ from the state’s voting rolls.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/9/24]

    • Watters reported that Texas Governor Greg Abbott has “just announced he's removed over 1 million ineligible voters from the state's voter rolls ahead of November.” “How are thousands of foreign nationals able to register to vote in the United States? They keep saying it's illegal and it doesn't happen, but now Virginia and Texas have just found thousands of them.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/26/24]

    • On Fox Business, anchor Maria Bartiromo spoke with Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) about how “lots of Republicans are removing ineligible voters from rolls” to “ensure that illegals are not getting registered to vote.” Murphy responded that Democrats want noncitizens to vote “to influence the electorate, it’s to influence the electoral college, it’s to influence elections and that's what they're doing.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 8/28/24]

    • Watters announced that “in Georgia, Republicans are trying to prevent election workers from just rubber stamping election results.” “Right now, you’re allowed to conduct a reasonable inquiry before signing off on the vote totals if you notice numbers don't add up or suspect suspicious activity. But the Democrats are suing to stop that. We want every voter comfortable enough to trust the process. That means clean up the voter rolls in every state, and delete the dead people and the noncitizens, so we can trust the results.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/28/24]

  • Fox News downplayed and dismissed the DOJ’s Russian election interference indictment

  • On September 4, an unsealed indictment revealed that Tenet Media, a United States-based media company employing several prominent right-wing influencers, was secretly funded by Russia. The indictment charged two employees of the Russian propaganda outlet RT for funneling nearly $10 million to the company – which employed MAGA influencers including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern – in exchange for producing content with the purpose of “amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition” to Russia’s interests.

    • Host Jesse Watters reacted to the Russian election interference indictment by saying Democrats are “locking in their excuse now for losing and their insurance policy.” He continued, “If Kamala’s really up in the polls, what's with the dirty tricks?” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/4/24]

    • Watters said the release of information about the indictment is “more election skullduggery than what the Russians are doing.” “So now we have the United States government interfering in three elections in a row, ‘16, ‘20 and ‘24, on behalf of Democrat candidates, weak Democrat candidates, Hillary, Biden and Harris,” he said. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/4/24]

    • Greg Gutfeld attacked Democrats for raising concerns about alleged Russian election interference, suggesting they’re the ones to blame for election interference. “I want to know, what has Russia done to undermine our institutions?” he said. “Did they cover up Joe's dementia? Did they exercise a silent coup? Did they push voting machines over paper ballots? Did they push mail-in voting, no voter I.D., which completely destroys exit polling so you can't gauge fair elections? … My theory on this is that the Dems are jealous, not because Russia is undermining our institutions — it's just that even when it comes to cheating, they hate competition.” [Fox News, The Five, 9/5/24]

    • Jeanine Pirro claimed that the Department of Justice is “setting up a reason to crack down on social media and free speech before the next election” under the guise of potential election interference by Russia. [Fox News, The Five, 9/5/24]