Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo supports Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election
Even after the January 6 insurrection, Fox Business gives Trump a platform to still claim “I won”
Written by Eric Kleefeld
Published
Updated
Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo is still in the running for a promotion to a prime-time slot on Fox News, either despite or because of her long track record of spreading conspiracy theories on the air. And during her interview Thursday morning with former President Donald Trump, Bartiromo continued to support Trump’s lies about the 2020 election — complaining only that a person could get in trouble for saying such things.
Voting machine company Smartmatic has sued both Fox News and Bartiromo personally, for the role that she and the network played in spreading Trump’s baseless claims that voting machines used in the election were part of an elaborate international plot to switch votes.
Thursday morning on Bartiromo’s show, Trump continued to assert that he had won the election, claims which led to the siege of the Capitol on January 6 by a mob of his supporters. (Trump also promoted the secretive ballot “audit” now being conducted by the Arizona state Senate and false claims about legions of Democratic attorneys urgently coming into the state.)
Bartiromo responded: “I mean, the bigger question that I'm asking is, whether you believe that or not, you're not allowed to say it, right? I mean, you get hammered if you speak what you feel is truth, honestly. You get hammered on social media.”
Citation From the April 29, 2021, edition of Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria Bartiromo
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's hard to believe I did so well in the election. I won the [2016] election, and then I won the second election, too. But it's hard to believe that I did so well in the election when I had Big Tech against me, I had the media against me. I won't comment on Fox — but Fox is somewhat different than it was four years ago. And you know, it's an amazing thing. It tells you that the people are really smart, they get it. They see what's happening. Without Big Tech, without everything, they see what's happening.
How about lockboxes that come in late, and they happen to have almost all Biden votes. You know, I mean, all of these things, people see this stuff and they get it. That's why everybody's watching Arizona, even though the media is trying to squelch it. You know, the Democrats sent a hundred and — I guess 107 lawyers there over the last three years to try and stop the recount in Arizona. They're doing a forensic audit. They're — nobody's ever seen anything like it. They were deluged with lawyers. Nobody's ever seen so many, because they don't want the real facts to come out.
The public gets it, Maria. They get it. They get Big Tech, much more so than you think.
MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Yeah. I mean, I mean, the bigger question that I'm asking is, whether you believe that or not, you're not allowed to say it, right? I mean, you get hammered if you speak what you feel is truth, honestly. You get hammered on social media.
Bartiromo was a major promoter of the Trump campaign’s debunked claims about the election results, claiming at one point that an “intel source” had told her that “President Trump did in fact win the election,” and also urging that alleged election thieves be sent to prison. She also responded to the January 6 insurrection by alternately claiming that Trump’s supporters “feel robbed” and baselessly alleging that “Democrats infiltrated … and put on MAGA clothing.”
And with Trump using Fox as a continued platform to promote his Big Lie, Bartiromo’s big concern is that a person might face repercussions “if you speak what you feel is truth, honestly.”
Update (4/29/21, 4:45 p.m. EDT): Fox has uploaded only brief clips from the interview to its YouTube and Facebook accounts — none of which include Trump’s repeated lies about the election nor Bartiromo’s approving responses. (YouTube officially banned content that engages in denial of the 2020 election’s legitimacy, in the wake of January 6 — though enforcement has been spotty.)
The subject is also not included in the Fox Business online article about the interview, which includes two other clips. The full interview can be found, however, on Bartiromo’s show page.
The multi-billion dollar lawsuits against Fox by two voting machine companies, Dominion and Smartmatic, are still continuing in their legal processes.