On MSNBC's Alex Wagner Tonight, Angelo Carusone describes how Murdoch family drama reveals that Fox News is a “political tool”
Carusone: “Fox has sort of given up any of its own independent rule, and they are functioning purely as a subordinate toward what Donald Trump wants, and his will, and his agenda”
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From the December 10, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Alex Wagner Tonight
ALEX WAGNER (HOST): So The Times reports that "in recent years Rupert and Lachlan have grown increasingly concerned that James, Elisabeth, and Prudence are planning" some sort of coup. A coup that after Rupert Murdoch's death would "change the editorial vision of Fox News" and maybe make it less of an audition space for Trump appointees or an echo chamber for conservative paranoia. Now, the reason we know any of this is because Rupert and Lachlan got so concerned about this alleged family plot to de-MAGAfy Fox that they started a legal battle to change rules of the family trust.
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WAGNER: In terms of the importance of Rupert or Lachlan Murdoch ultimately staying in charge of the conservative Fox News network, how critical is it-- first of all, I should say, how important is any one man in this scenario in your estimation?
ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): I mean, in this case it's really hard to separate out what Fox News is in terms of its larger place within the right-wing landscape and Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch. So in this instance, they are one and the same, at least the editorial direction of Fox News right now and that's clear. I mean, the evidence of that is in the lead up -- in the aftermath of the 2020 election, and Rupert Murdoch just before January 6th, just a couple days before, was thinking to himself, that the only entity in the country that could correct the misunderstanding, the false information that Trump was pushing out there that the election was stolen, was Fox News. And ultimately he decided not to do that, that all came out as a result of the Dominion lawsuit, so that was a Rupert Murdoch decision. Everything that Fox News did in 2020, everything that Fox News is, is a consequence of Rupert Murdoch and now Lachlan Murdoch. They are inseparable in that way.
WAGNER: The fact that this decision came down, this ruling came down in Nevada, I mean, how much import do you attach to the fact the other Murdoch children, James, Elisabeth, and Prudence, may play a significant role in determining the ultimate direction of Fox News? I mean, do you believe that they will potentially steer the network in a less conservative direction?
CARUSONE: I think that you know, I don't want to pretend that somehow they're saviors that are going to come in and sort of protect everybody from the destructive effects of Fox News. That's not what I think necessarily, but I don't think I need to think that. There are real realities here and that plays out even in this litigation, which is that Fox News is about as much about as making money as it is about advancing a political agenda. It is a political tool.
It is functionally a super PAC in many ways as an extension of Murdoch's sort of politics. That's evident by the fact that they actually leave a lot of money on the table. All these advertiser issues that they've had over the years with Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly or Tucker Carlson, they were not maximizing profits, they were losing money every day during parts of those years. They were leaving money on the table, but they let that happen, because they were serving a political advantage during a period of time.
So what I think is likely though is that they see a future for Fox News. We got a keyhole view of this before James Murdoch left. He had really big plans for Fox News post-2017 when he moved into -- him and Lachlan Murdoch, at one point, they were peers, they were sort of co-running the place. He had a very big strategy for how they were going to expand their footprint internationally, how they were going to grow their footprint increasingly in the sports field, which would get massive amounts of increased revenue, and to weaken the brand that Fox News had built.
It was toxic brand globally. Part of the reason they lost this satellite deal they were trying to have in the UK and then regulators killed it is because they were concerned about Foxification of their own news industry over there. They squashed that deal. So James Murdoch had big plans for leveraging Fox's assets and growing it and increasing their revenue. So what do I think the likelihood is here? I think they see all the potential that this company could be if you don't make politics on par with making money.
If you just make it about making money, then that means you do eliminate some of the extremist politics that are there, you don't do some of the crazy things, you don't make yourself one and the same with sort of the Trump administration, you actually focus on the business first, and the politics second or third. The effect of that would be to weaken it, and that matters, because Fox News is like a center of gravity for the rest of the right-wing media. What they do when they are doing it well, and they are echoing it, it reverberates through that massive right-wing media landscape.
WAGNER: Yeah, I would say politics is one thing, lies are another, and the defamation suit is costing them just as much as anything else, right? The Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit cost Fox $787 million, and that wasn't because of a political event. That's because they were interested in defaming Dominion Systems in defense of Donald Trump. In service of an extreme political agenda, it cost the network literally three quarters of $1 billion.
I wonder, Angelo, you know, when you think about the way in which Fox remains a holding pen for Trump administration officials, a staging area, an echo chamber, and you know, a sort of audition platform, what is your expectation for the incoming Trump administration in terms of the utility of the network given how big of a role it's already played in staffing the Trump White House?
CARUSONE: Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I will say I think, my prediction or my sense is that it is not going to be the same as it was the last time. In 2017, it was a feedback loop. Sometimes Donald Trump would be leading Fox News, and sometimes Fox News would be leading Donald Trump. It sort of depended every single day. There were two independent entities deeply intertwined in a line, and they overlapped.
This time around Fox has sort of given up any of its own independent rule, and they are functioning purely as a subordinate toward what Donald Trump wants, and his will, and his agenda. And what that means is when you think about their potential for incubating new personnel, new policies, that's going to be really different.
There were many instances in the last cycle where Fox News got out in front of Donald Trump and pressured and pushed him to implement certain types of policies or push for certain personnel. They are not going to do this this time. They are going to be laggard. They're not going to be a vanguard. They will be sort of like what used to be fertile ground, but they are not going to be driving in the way that they were.
And really then their major effect is going to be influencing the rest of the right-wing media and how much effort and energy they choose to put into carrying water for Trump or some of his Trump officials will then have an effect on the rest of the landscape. I don't think it's coincidence that we started to see the tides turn around the narrative on Pete Hegseth when Fox News finally started to let its on-air personnel do a lot more pro-Hegseth defense as opposed to just being silent.
Their initial posture with the scandals was to be silent. Then Donald Trump pressured them, and then they started to run defense, and now you are starting to see some cracks in the opposition to Hegseth. And I think that that's going to be the role that they play, a subordinate. And that's not good for their own power long-term. But, it's not also good for their business. And I think that it comes back to this case here is that Murdoch's assessment here is very, very short-term. But long-term, the real money and the power is actually with James and Elisabeth's sort of strategy.
WAGNER: Can I ask you one question? James Carville has been on the air with my colleague Ari Melber, saying that he thinks the person who has the most influence right now over Trump's staffing decisions and broadly the administration's agenda is former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. And then everyone from Elon Musk to JD Vance, a lot of these picks, Kash Patel, are straight from the mind of Tucker Carlson. Do you have any sense of the role he's playing behind-the-scenes? Or do you have a thesis, or a hypothesis, on kind of who is pulling the strings right now?
CARUSONE: You know, when you think about the right-wing media, you basically have Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. And Rush Limbaugh had the narrative. He had a worldview, and he was a storyteller. When he died, a few people actually stepped into that void. The two that stepped into that void were Tucker Carlson, he had a narrative that everybody -- that he was driving that would filter down into the others. The other would be Steve Bannon.
And so to James' point, he's right about one thing, and that's that Tucker Carlson's worldview, and his narrative, and the story that he's telling about America and the rest of the world, and it's not a good story, but a lot of the picks and personnel and the policies, and sort of the vibe of MAGA, what has become the professionalization of MAGA is coming from Tucker's worldview. But I wouldn't discount the worldview that sort of Bannon is pushing out there as well.
They each are people that have a narrative, they are dependent, they are related, but I think that is where Tucker's influence is. I don't think he's picking individual people. But I think he is actually telling a big story that only certain characters can be casted for.
WAGNER: The synthesizers, neither of whom is on Fox News, both on their independent platforms.