Trump has also maintained the unswerving support of other Fox opinion hosts, including Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro, both of whom were at the election-night party in the White House’s chandeliered East Room. Fox was on the big-screen TVs as Trump won the key state of Florida, and the room filled with increasing optimism that Trump had again defied the polls.
Until 11:20 p.m., when Fox News called Arizona for Biden with 73 percent of the expected vote counted — a “screeching of tires” that brought the party to a halt, said one official present.
This account is based on interviews with 11 current and former Fox News and Trump officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive dynamics between Fox News and Trumpworld.
Trump
erupted in anger, telling others in the White House to “get that result changed,” a senior administration official said. His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, phoned Fox News’s decision desk repeatedly. Top aide
Hope Hicks, who had returned to the White House earlier this year after a stint at Fox Corp., messaged Raj Shah, a former Trump White House staffer whom she hired at Fox, about how to get the call reversed. Kellyanne Conway got in touch with Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier to complain. Jared Kushner reached out to Fox Corp.’s billionaire owner, Rupert Murdoch.
But even as White House officials vowed to Fox executives that they had data from Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) demonstrating that Trump could still win, and as all the other major networks continued to hold off on a call, Fox decision-desk chief Arnon Mishkin remained unmoved.
Stick with us, he and his deputies told the anchors.
We’ll be right. And that was the path Fox News chose.