Rupert Murdoch, head honcho at the powerhouse Fox News media empire, kept MyPillow ads on the air knowing that the far-out conspiracy theories peddled by Mike Lindell about the 2020 election being stolen had no truth to them.
After the recent revelations that Murdoch cynically allowed Fox hosts to endorse the “Big Lie” for ratings, we now learn that the reason for Lindell’s immunity from being canceled was equally simple: “The man is on every night. Pays us a lot of money,” read a snippet from Murdoch’s January deposition in a court filing from Dominion Voting Systems released on Monday. “At first you think it’s comic, and then you get bored.”
Murdoch went on to admit in his deposition that he could have pulled Lindell’s MyPillow advertisements — but chose not to. This was even after the pillow CEO made wild, unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud on Fox News’ programs, per Dominion’s court filing.
“It is not red or blue, it is green,” Murdoch expressed during his deposition — presumably a reference to money.
Dominion’s filing on Monday also alleges that Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott sent Lindell gifts and urged various Fox shows to book Lindell to “get ratings.” But Lindell told Insider in mid-February that the idea that Fox might have bought him a gift is a “Dominion lie” and that Fox “never sent anything.”
Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit, which alleges the network pushed a conspiracy theory that their systems helped to rig the 2020 election. Lindell is also facing a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion. The company has accused him of hurting their business by spreading baseless conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud.
In a call with Insider on Monday, Lindell complained that Fox News has not had him on-air for a while.
“Ever since Smartmatic sued Fox News, no one in this country can go on any conservative stations and talk about the election,” Lindell told Insider, seemingly oblivious to the gravity of his actions and that his allegations against Dominion have been widely discredited.
When asked about how Fox News stood by him and refused to pull his ads, Lindell said that he commends the network for “not punishing MyPillow” and standing up to Dominion.
“I mean, I’m glad that Fox News doesn’t boycott because it has nothing to do with MyPillow and my 2,000 employees if I’m standing up for my country and trying to try to raise the flag of these machine companies that were hacked,” Lindell told Insider, once again pushing an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that voting machines were rigged during the 2020 election.
A Fox News spokesperson told Insider that Dominion is trying to “publicly smear Fox.” The spokesperson also accused Dominion of “mischaracterizing the facts” and trying to “generate headlines” about its defamation lawsuit against Fox.
A Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson told Insider: “Dominion is a strong believer in the First Amendment and its protections. As long-settled law makes clear, the First Amendment does not shield broadcasters that knowingly or recklessly spread lies.”
Meanwhile, Lindell has not backed down to any extent and continues to claim that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. He is such a fervent believer that he has essentially staked his entire fortune on that allegation. In February, Lindell told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that he has spent more than $40 million pushing Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud. The figure amounts to four-fifths of Lindell’s estimated $50 million net worth and there is no change in sight for Lindell.
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