On SiriusXM, Media Matters’ Andrew Lawrence explains how Fox News is costing Republicans elections
Lawrence: “What motivates people to watch Fox News does not motivate people at the ballot box, and the Republican Party needs to either grapple with that or they're going to continue losing elections”
Published
On SiriusXM, Media Matters’ Andrew Lawrence explains how Fox News is costing Republicans elections
Citation
From the November 17, 2022, edition of Sirius XM's The Dean Obeidallah Show
JOE SUDBAY (GUEST HOST): There was one other Twitter thread from one of your – it was Matt Gertz again – that gave me such joy today. I mean, we take our joy where we can get it, right?
“Let’s have some fun. Here's a thread of Tucker Carlson interviewing 18 Republican politicians who were defeated in the midterms. I give you Tucker's losers.”
This was just delicious. And this is -- this is why I love Media Matters. Guys, it's so -- it's like, it is just -- it was just so fun reading through it. And there were a lot, Tucker had a lot of losers this year.
ANDREW LAWRENCE (GUEST): Yeah. And it's not just Tucker. I mean, it's the entire conservative media and the Fox News universe. And I think that that is, you know, I've said this a few times, in that the -- Fox News used to exist to prop up the Republican Party, and now the Republican Party needs to prop up Fox News, and it's costing them elections. You know?
It's -- there's Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz, Blake Masters. These were – these were Fox News creations, they were Fox News candidates that were put up in very winnable races, and you look at what lost these races for the Republican Party. It was the craziness, you know, of what these people were saying that -- that to a normal audience, to normal people, it just doesn't -- it doesn't sound right.
And, you know, Fox News, they brag about their ratings and they are the top-rated cable news channel in America, but their most-watched shows on their most-watched nights get about three million viewers, and that's about one percent of the American population. So it sounds big, but it's really not, especially when we talk about something like a national election.