The Trump-Fox Feedback Loop

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. A major theme over the last three nights at the Republican convention has been going after the media blaming outlets for targeting Trump supporters and bias against conservatives in reporting. In other words, fake news.

Amy Johnson Ford: I don't want the media taking my personal story and twisting it. Let me be clear. As a healthcare professional, I can tell you, without hesitation, Donald Trump's quick action and leadership saved thousands of lives during COVID-19.

Andrew Pollack: The media turned my daughter's murder into a coordinated attack on President Trump, Republicans, and our Second Amendment.

Nick Sandmann: I look forward to the day that the media returns to providing balanced, responsible, and accountable news coverage. I know President Trump hopes for that too.

Brian Lehrer: That was Amy Ford, Andrew Pollack, and Nick Sandmann from their respective speeches over the past few days. When Trump and his supporters call out the media, they don't, of course, mean Fox News. Even though Fox has the most-watched news shows on any cable network, its viewers still don't like to think of it as the mainstream media. It's "anti-establishment" "for the people" and not "politically correct." Now, if that sounds like a description of how the president sees himself, it's not a coincidence. There's a feedback loop between the president and his favorite news channel, so much so that some say the two have become inexorable. My next guest says that the extremely close Trump-Fox relationship is responsible for many of the president's policy decisions, including most recently, the country's slow response to the pandemic. Brian Stelter, the anchor of CNN's Reliable Sources, their media criticism show, is now the author of Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. Hi, Brian. Welcome back to WNYC.

Brian Stelter: It' so great to be here. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: I want to add a clip of Tucker Carlson on his Fox show last night. He defended the actions of that 17-year-old who was arrested and charged with murder after two people were killed in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as apparently "a white, vigilante agitator from out of state" as he's been described in reporting shot at Black Lives Matter protesters. Here's what Tucker Carlson said.

Tucker Carlson: Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17-year olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would.

Brian Lehrer: Now, you've watched hours and hours of Fox News to prepare for this book. How surprised are you that Tucker would say something like that?

Brian Stelter: I wish I was surprised, but I am getting numb to the Tucker Carlson shocks. What was most disturbing is that many millions of viewers appreciate what he is saying and root for Carlson, and tune in every night to hear it again. He has, on some nights, the highest-rated program, not just on cable news, not just on Fox, but on all of cable, beating the sports networks, beating the entertainment networks. That's because Fox has such a monopoly.

Brian Lehrer: You mean not just on cable? You mean all of television, including CBS, ABC, the regular shows?

Brian Stelter: There are nights where that is also true. They're not as frequent, but that is also sometimes true. Certainly, during this convention, Fox News is highly outrating all of the broadcast networks, actually, all of them combined. It's because Fox has a monopoly now, Brian. The Fox has a monopoly on the right-wing audience that is much more intense than it even was five years ago. They've consolidated this audience and, in many ways, they've radicalized this audience.

Brian Lehrer: The premise of your book is that there's a reciprocal relationship between Trump and Fox, that they perform for him and he parrots and shapes policy off of what they say.

Brian Stelter: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Do you expect this comment of Tucker's to seep into the president's speeches and tweets in the coming day and say, "No wonder a 17-year-old white kid takes to the streets with firearms."

Brian Stelter: It's certainly possible. This is another example of Tucker performing white identity politics. He does it for a salary of about $10 million a year, and he's not held accountable for these offensive and outrageous remarks because he has the backing of the Murdochs. This book Hoax is ultimately a business book, it's a leadership book, and it's a politics book. The business story is that the Murdochs are fine with this kind of outrageous commentary on the air. They know that Fox News is on a path to make $2 billion in profits a year. They just want the network to keep humming along. As a result, there's not a lack of strong leadership. There's nobody to call him out. Internally, I had sources in the network say, "We're just on cruise control." In fact, many staffers actually miss Roger Ailes, because while he was a bully and an abuser, but at least he was their bully. At least he told people what to do with the network. It's almost like now Tucker Carlson just runs his own show himself and doesn't report to anyone.

Brian Lehrer: You spoke, I see, for the book to over 250 current and former Fox insiders, but they know you from CNN. Why did they talk to you?

Brian Stelter: That's actually why they talked to me, because I'm at CNN. Yes, CNN and Fox are rivals, but it means that I understand television. I know the ratings wars. I know what they're up against. I even know how to put on my own makeup now during the midst of the pandemic. I think it's because I was in the television business and am in the business that a lot of sources we're willing to talk. The bigger reason that, Brian, is, there are so many people there that are unhappy with the way things are. They are disgusted by some of the commentary on Carlson's show and Sean Hannity's show. There are journalists, there are news anchors, there are producers, they are executives who are unhappy with the way Fox has gone off the rails and been hijacked by the Trump White House. They are trying to speak out. They wouldn't call themselves a resistance, but they are. That's, I think, why I had to write the book. It's because there's a real fight internally for the soul of Fox News. Right now, the propagandists are winning and the journalists are losing.

Brian Lehrer: The title of your book is Hoax, and you write that, at one point, the president graduated from the term "fake news" to "hoax" and that he used the word "hoax" over 300 times in 2019 in tweets, speeches, and interviews. Can you talk about the significance of the word "hoax" as you come to understand it?

Brian Stelter: I view it as the president trying to shock us more and more. First, with the term fake news, the enemy of the people. These terms started to lose meaning. They didn't really have an effect anymore. He's graduated to the word "hoax." He now says the word more than once a day on average so far this year. This is how the feedback loop works. When he tweets it, Fox repeats it several times. Then it's like a poison, a slow-acting poison that trickles into the bloodstream of the American right-wing. I think it leaves people with the impression that nothing's true and everything's possible, in the words of Peter Pomerantsev's book. There's this sense that everything could be a hoax. You should just trust your own tribe, trust Fox, and don't trust anybody else. I think that just has dangerous consequences for democracy, especially this year in the midst of the pandemic. The president used the word "hoax" once at the end of February. He was complaining about the Democrats for raising alarms about the virus and blaming him for not doing enough.Of course, the Democrats were right. In that instance, that president was not doing enough, but he used the word "hoax" once which permission to his fans to not worry so much about the virus. Sean Hannity did the same thing in early March. Early March, when the virus was silently spreading all throughout our city. Hannity is a New Yorker. I know he's out on Rhode Island, but he's a New Yorker and he downplayed this pandemic when his neighbors were getting sick.

Brian Lehrer: Here's that example. I think the very one that you're talking about, when Hannity used the same frame as Trump. This is on March 9th when he bashed Democrats and members of the media for allegedly exaggerating the threat of the virus.

Sean Hannity: They're scaring the living hell out of people. I see it again as like, "Oh, let's bludgeon Trump with this new hoax."

Brian Lehrer: Hoax.

Brian Stelter: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: Hannity insists he never called the virus a hoax, just the Democrats support trail of it, and you write he's technically right, but what he did was even worse. Why do you think that?

Brian Stelter: Because, day after day, he was blaming media hysteria and focusing on the politics, not the medicine. That was the fundamental error on Fox News. They treated this like a political story in late February and early March. Not a medical emergency, not a healthcare story. I want to be clear. There's a lot of blame to go around. You've talked about this for months about the mistakes that were made when this pandemic ravaged the country. Fox and Trump had the biggest responsibility of all because they had the biggest platforms of all. That's ultimately why we named this book Hoax. We open and close the book with the story of the pandemic and the mistakes that were made, because, Brian, when you come up with the timeline of what Trump was saying and what Fox was saying back in February and March, it is even more damning than people realize. It is even more embarrassing than people realize. I do have sources of the network who say, "What we were doing was hazardous to our viewers. What we were airing was outlandish at the time." I'm afraid some of those mistakes are being repeated now in the summer as we head into the fall. Right-wing media is not really covering the pandemic much. I don't want to say they're literally pretending like it's not happening anymore, but they are certainly downplaying it once again, and I worry that that's going to lull the president and his supporters into a false sense of security as we head into the wintertime.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, viewers of Fox News, or not viewers of Fox News, we can take a few questions for Brian Stelter, CNN Reliable Sources Host and author now of Hoax. I'm getting back to the full title of the book, Hoax, Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. People will say there should be different points of view on different media channels. It's good that there's conservative media as it's good that there's progressive or liberal media, that in the old, old days of television, just the three major networks, people on the left and right, were unhappy because they felt that their views were getting locked out for a kind of centrist mainstream. Now, it's good that there's MSNBC and it's good that there's Fox News. Do you agree with that to any degree?

Brian Stelter: I do agree to a great degree, but I think the conservative news ecosystem needs to be healthier and newsier . Far too often, what right-wing blogs, websites, and television shows are doing is they are regurgitating other people's reporting, they are spinning up culture war segments that only have a grain of truth. They are promoting conspiracy theories that mislead their audience. Instead of having vibrant newsrooms that are out there gathering information and trying to report from a point of view, they're instead just smearing and lying about their enemies. It's not just me saying this, this is staffers inside Fox. Let me tell you about Sean Graf, who was a researcher at Fox News, who spoke with me on the record while he was still working there because he was so disappointed by that work. He said, "Many people inside the network know that what we're doing is wrong." He said in the same way the GOP has abandoned their core principles, so has Fox. He said, "Our allegiance to President Trump is putting our democracy at risk." He said we must stand up to Trump. I sympathized with what Graf was saying. I agreed with him, but I don't know if that version of Fox can exist anymore, because the audience seems to have been radicalized, at least some viewers. You think about how Fox has broken up so many families, Brian, in the same way that Trump has, where it's hard to talk to loved ones who, all they hear every day is about Seattle and Portland being war zones. They hear all day about New York City being a deathtrap. I know we've got our challenges, Brian, but the way that they talk about our city on Fox News, it bears no relation to what I actually see happening.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Steve in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Brian Stelter from CNN. Hi, Steve.

Steve: Hey, good morning, Brian. Good morning. Mr. Stelter. I just wanted to add that with some Waukee books, the Milwaukee Brewers that also played a part in Major League Baseball, and my question is if Cy Vance had continued with his investigation into [unintelligible 00:13:23] Kushner and Ivanka's shenanigans with one of the buildings in Manhattan, instead of calling it off when he was given some money by one of Trump's lieutenants, would he have been nominated as the Republican candidate in 2016?

Brian Stelter: [chuckles] You reminded me of the proposal reporting from October 2017 about there's a title of that piece was Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. were close to being charged with felony fraud. I am personally of the view that the president would have been able to talk himself out of that scandal, just like he's talked his way out of so many and I do think the X-Factor is his pro-Trump propaganda. Remember, back in the '80s, the president used to call up reporters at Page Six and pretend to be someone else. He would pretend to be John Barron, a spokesman for Donald Trump. He was leaking information as a fake spokesman. Now he doesn't need John Barron because there's thousands of them. He has thousands of Sean Hannitys out there willing to defend anything. I think when it comes to investigations of the family, investigations of the president and his business, Fox, those guys just look the other way. They just focus on attacking Joe Biden and pretending those investigations and scandals don't even exist. I bet every past president dreams of having a Fox News in his corner.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a split personality of Fox News? Obviously, the very right-wing talk show hosts in the prime time slot, but also something that you would describe as more journalistic because they do have Chris Wallace who does- you tell me what you think, but fairly honest job, I think on Fox News Sundays on that program, and he appears on the network, they have Bret Baier's 6:00 PM news program which, I would say, has a conservative band, but looks at a lot of stories and has different points of view. They do bring on liberal analysts. They have one Williams on that show. The Five every day, it's kind of used as a foil with the four other hosts who are conservative, but they have him on there. I'm not sure they have the equivalent on MSNBC after the convention speeches. This week I've seen Chris Wallace with Donna Brazile, the former Democrat, chair of the Gore campaign, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know how you would describe it after looking at the network so closely, whether it's a nod and a wink, whether it's a loss leader to pull people in for the-

Brian Stelter: [laughs] Loss leader, I like that.

Brian Lehrer: -the opinion shows, but there does seem to be a split personality.

Brian Stelter: I liked the term "loss leader." I was going to say the exception to the rule. There are exceptions to the rule. Last week during the Democratic convention, they did go to analysts like Donna Brazile, to hear a liberal perspective at key moments. What's so interesting about what happened during the Democratic convention is that the ratings for Fox fell off a cliff whenever they covered the Democrats. Sean Hannity attacking Biden worked really well and rated really highly, but as soon as the news anchors like Bret Baier came on, viewers turned to the channel. When Kamala Harris and Joe Biden spoke, more viewers turned to the channel, and then they came back afterwards. That speaks to what's happened to the audience. That's not entirely Fox's fault, but Fox does share some responsibility for so demonizing Democrats that their viewers don't even want to hear their voices. I think Chris Wallace is a really interesting example, and Bret Baier is a really interesting example, Baier once said in an interview, "I don't spend a lot of time analyzing what the opinion shows on Fox are doing." The problem with ignoring what's happening on the rest of the schedule on Fox is that you're missing what's happening in GOP politics, the extreme rhetoric, the appeals to white identity politics, I hope Baier reads this book, because he needs to know what's happening in prime time on Fox News. You know what he has told some of his friends in DC? He says, "I try to stay unemotional. That's the way to be a news anchor at Fox in the Trump age, don't get emotional." I appreciate that idea. Don't get emotional in your coverage. Here's the problem though. All those pro-Trump propagandists on Fox are incredibly emotional, and that's what works. That's what people want to watch. They want to watch emotion and fire and passion. I think, when we see news anchors of Fox unwilling to fact-check Trump, unwilling to challenge the lies and the smears, that does damage because it distorts reality, and it makes Trump seem like any other president. "Oh, maybe he's loose with the facts once in a while," but the situation, that's so much direr than that.

Brian Lehrer: Mike in Montgomery Township, you're on WNYC with Brian Stelter. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Oh, hi. Brian, God bless you for writing this book. Doesn't really matter how many lies Trump sells if Fox doesn't broadcast them. I'm really desperate to get your input on helping me understand why the bulk of the serious news media protects Fox News. I don't mean the extremes of why they submit amicus briefs for when Fox is being sued, because, obviously, news media wants to protect their First Amendment rights, but why in print do they not make Fox the story? Thank you.

Brian Stelter: You just hit on the reason why I had to write Hoax. It's true. I think that we have to pay more attention as a news media to what's happening in right-wing media because it is, at this point, a complete alternative reality. It is a complete alternative universe. One of the frustrations I wrote about it in the intro of the book is, oftentimes I hear coverage of what is happening at the White House, but they don't include why it happened, which is Fox. The president will tweet something incorrect. For example, the day that he tweeted about Baltimore and Elijah Cummings, he lied and said nobody would ever want to live in that wonderful district up there in Maryland. I'm a Maryland native. I was so offended by that, that he was posting these racist tweets about Baltimore. That all started because of Fox News. It all started because of a segment on Fox and friends. Days later when me and everybody else in the press is covering that controversy, we forget to mention that it all happened because of Fox. He got misled because of Fox. I'm with you. I think we have to do a better job as a media, of pointing out the connections between what he's hearing, what the Trump TV addict in the White House is hearing, and how it's affecting him. You said, "Why? Why is it this way?" I think there's sometimes almost a gentlemanly sense that you don't want to comment too much on your competition. I understand that point of view. People don't want to get caught up in the cable news wars, but this isn't about cable news wars anymore. This isn't about ratings races anymore. This is about a president who's getting misled by television talk show hosts, and it affects all of us. Even if we never watch Fox, we're still affected by his downplaying of the pandemic, by his denialism. I'm glad you called that out, and I'll try to spread the word.

Brian Lehrer: How do you see your own network, CNN, in this ecosystem right now? Trump calls nobody fake news more than CNN, I think. The network has, I think it's fair to say, taken a more adversarial tone in the Trump era than it has toward previous presidents. Did you have to look yourselves in the mirror and say, this is no time for Bush era, bothsidesism because the two sides of the debate are not equally legitimate to even have, or how did you, at CNN, come to however you would describe your positioning now?

Brian Stelter: At Fox, there was never a single meeting where it was said, "We're going to really lean into Trump." It happens much more gradually. I think, at CNN, the same is true. There was never a meeting or an announcement where we're going to fact-check and we're going to try to call out all of the lies and deceit. It did happen naturally. It happened in 2017 and onward. I think the main way it's happened is through these essays and monologues that many of the anchors do. Where we try to present the facts, show the lies. Then, again, present the facts, create a true sandwich so that we're explaining what's going wrong. One of the most important hirers CNN's made in years was Daniel Dale, the head of our fact-checking team to try to keep up with all the nonsense. What we're seeing in the country is asymmetric line. Yes, a lot of politicians tell a lot of fibs, but there's a lot more lying and deceit happening from Trump and his supporters right now, that's asymmetric line. If we act like both sides are equally bad or equally false right now, that would actually be a lie as well. I think CNN is the call-it-out network, call it what it is. By the way, if Joe Biden's elected, and for some reason, he decides to go down a deeply untruthful path and start lying about voter fraud the way the president has and start lying about the pandemic the way the president has, then, by all means, I think CNN will call him out too.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, what do you think happens to Fox if Trump loses? Because, I think, historically, opinionated networks and shows like when the other party is in power because they have something to rail against-

Brian Stelter: Oh, yes.

Brian Lehrer: -in terms of what it does for their ratings, but in this case, we've seen Trump ratings go through the roof when that person was in power. What happens if Joe Biden wins?

Brian Stelter: The Trump age has been the hoax age. They have tried to convince people not to believe anything but Fox. If Biden wins, the network becomes even more anti-Democrat than it is today, but I think there's a bit of a cliffhanger in the book that I'll leave your listeners with as well. A possible change in control of Fox News. Yes, the editorial would be anti-Democrat for the foreseeable future, for as long as Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan are running the business, but in the event of Rupert's death, there will be a struggle for control of Fox Corporation. James, the more liberal son who supported Peter Buttigieg in the primary, he is on the sidelines right now. He may try to take over the company with the help of his sisters, try to wrest control away from the more conservative Lachlan. In that scenario, which right now is only hypothetical, but in the event Rupert dies, we could see a big change at the company. That could mean changes for the Sean Hannity's of the world as well, but I don't know who will be president by the time that happens.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Stelter, former New York Times media columnist, is the anchor of CNN's Reliable Sources and the author now of Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. Thanks, Brian.

Brian: Thank you, Brian.

 

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