When it came to CNN's philosophy, disagreement was not allowed. Instead, it’s conform or face a full-court press to send every last employee to the unemployment rolls. On Wednesday night, CNN senior media reporter and conservative media Benedict Arnold, Oliver Darcy falsely claimed Fox News Channel’s Special Report anchor Bret Baier engaged in a “[d]erliction of duty” and insufficiently fact-checked President Trump’s 45-minute voter fraud video.
Like the poisonous snake that he was, Darcy tweeted a deceptively-edited video to make it seem as though Baier had zero fact-checking or objective reporting on Trump’s speech (which was boosted by The Washington Post's Jeremy Barr). Instead, Darcy purposefully ignored a seven-minute-and-seven-second lead-off report from Baier and White House correspondent Kristin Fisher.
Oh, and not only did Darcy refuse to cop to his lies, but he did so a day before Baier’s son Paul would undergo his latest open-heart surgery.
Darcy tweeted a 100-second video lacking said context, writing: “Dereliction of duty from @BretBaier, Fox's chief political anchor, who just aired multiple clips from Trump's 44-minute voter fraud video without issuing any sort of fact-check on the nonsensical and wild claims Trump alleged.”
Baier promptly clapped back during a commercial break: “Sorry you missed the beginning of the show Oliver. And the panel segment —but thanks for the tweet.”
CNN’s censorship hall monitor replied: “It's great Kristin fact-checked at very start of your show. You then played a bunch of clips later and didn't provide any of that necessary context. C'mon.”
Again, Zuckerville didn’t allow any diversity in presenting the news. It’s their way, or be treated like an enemy combatant.
Baier hit back at Darcy’s cheap-shot: “I am mid-show. But you may want to rewind Kevin Corke’s piece -the discussion with the panel. It’s called balance. You should try it. Thanks for always tuning in.”
Because he doesn’t possess an ounce of maturity, Darcy offered one last juvenile tweet:
Hard-hitting stuff, Bret. pic.twitter.com/wF0iR1q384
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 2, 2020
As we learned Tuesday in the Project Veritas videos, CNN puppetmaster Jeff Zucker was feeling his oats because, somehow, the network’s sophomoric chyrons need to be nastier.
Now, what did Baier and Fisher actually do? Because Darcy has a narrative (read: marching orders) to push, we’ll do it for him.
After beginning the show with two Trump soundbites, Baier stated his lead that Trump used the video to make “his case insisting he will continue to challenge last months election results and gives his strongest indication yet that he does in fact planned to run again in 2024 if his efforts fail.”
Baier then roundly criticized the White House’s decision to directly post the speech online without the presence of the press pool, which should have tempered Darcy’s gripes, but that didn’t matter because chyrons or something.
Fisher’s segment was a back-and-forth with Fisher playing three Trump soundbites and then analyzing/fact-checking them. Before the first one, she noted that “most of what he said is at odds with what his own attorney general said yesterday.”
Once that first one played (which consisted of Trump’s opening), Fisher invoked Attorney General Barr’s assertion he hasn’t yet seen fraud on a scale that would change the outcome, and former DHS official Chris Krebs calling 2020 the most secure election in American history.
Here were the other two fact-checks (click “expand”):
FISHER: Now, little bit later on in this video, President Trump continued to take aim at Dominion voting systems, that company that manufactures so many electronic voting machines across the country.
TRUMP: And on top of everything else, we have a company that’s very suspect. Its name is Dominion. With the turn of a dial or change of a chip, you can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden. What kind of a system is this? We have to go to paper. Maybe it takes longer, but the only secure system is paper.
FISHER: Now, the attorney general also said yesterday that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security looked into these claims specifically about voting irregularities with these Dominion voting machines and the attorney general said that they saw nothing to substantiate these claims. He also have the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security agency putting out a statement a few weeks ago saying that there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised. Finally, and this is a long, 45-minute address by the President so I'm trying to consolidate it, but the other entity or people that the President attacked in this video where the judges who were hearing so many cases, so many different lawsuits that have been brought forward by the Trump campaign. Listen here.
TRUMP: It was about to many other things. But above all, and it about fraud. This election was rigged. Everybody knows it. I don't mind if I lose an election, but I want to lose an election fair and square. What I don't want to do is have it stolen from the American people. That is what we are fighting for, and we have no choice to be doing that. We already have the proof. We already have the evidence and it is very clear. Many people in the media and even judges so far have refused to accept it. They know it’s true. They know it’s there. They know who won the election. But they refuse to say, “you’re right." Our country needs somebody to say, “you’re right.” Ultimately, I'm prepared to accept any election result and I'm hoping Joe Biden is as well. But we already have the proof, we arty have tens of thousands of ballots, more than we need, to overturn all of these states that we are talking about. This is an election for the highest office in the greatest country in the history of the world.
FISHER: Let's go back to that one line from President Trump where he said the judges have refused to accept it, refused to accept the evidence that his campaign has presented in court. I can’t go case-by-case again because there are so many lawsuits and so many states, but let's just take that really big case in Pennsylvania, which was tossed out by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. And those three judges — those three judges on that appeals court — they were all appointed by Republican presidents. And the judge that wrote that opinion, who said the trump campaign have brought forward this lawsuit, that those claims had no merit whatsoever, that judge was appointed by President Trump himself. But Bret, tonight, President Trump making it clear in this 45 minute video that he is not giving up this fight and appears no closer to conceding.
Having received the toss back, Baier thanked Fisher for having done a “great job consolidating that in a very short time” and because she didn’t know “it was coming to begin with.”
At the end of the show, Baier signed off by saying he’ll “be out for the next couple of days dealing with a family health issue” and thanked everyone who has reached out to him with “your prayers and your good wishes.”
The Story host Martha MacCallum added her best wishes in the handoff to her show: “We will miss you this weekend and all of our thoughts and good wishes are going out to Paul and all of you over the course of the next few days. We are thinking of you.”
To see the relevant FNC transcript from December 2, click “expand.”
FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier
December 2, 2020
6:00 p.m. EasternPRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This may be the most important speech I’ve ever made. [SCREEN WIPE] This is not just about honoring the votes of 74 million Americans who voted for me, it is about ensuring that Americans can have faith in this election and in all future elections.
BRET BAIER: Well, that is a portion of a video released by the White House a short time ago in which President Trump lays out his case insisting he will continue to challenge last months election results and gives his strongest indication yet that he does in fact planned to run again in 2024 if his efforts fail. Good evening, welcome to Washington. I’m Bret Baier. The most expansive statement from President Trump since the November balloting, usually a speech like this, the President called, as he heard, likely one of the most important of his presidency would be covered by the White House press pool. covered live or on tape and play back with an editorial presence in the room. This was not done like that. The White House press pool was not invited in. This is a White House-edited video. There was no option to take it live. It was posted on Facebook and a little piece on Twitter about an hour ago. Also tonight, a hearing at this hour in Michigan with presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, testifying before state lawmakers about alleged election fraud. We’ll go there live shortly. But we begin tonight with his speech and with correspondent Kristin Fisher live on the North Lawn of the White House. Good evening, Kristen.
KRISTIN FISHER: Good evening, Bret. This was a 45-minute-long video posted directly to Twitter and Facebook by the White House. The White House press pool was not notified that these remarks were about to be released and President Trump said that this may be the most important speech that he has ever delivered, even though most of what he said is at odds with what his own attorney general said yesterday.
TRUMP: I want to provide an update on our ongoing efforts to expose the tremendous voter fraud and irregularities which took place during the ridiculously long November 3rd elections. We used to have what was called Election Day. Now we have election days, weeks, and months and lots of bad things happened during this ridiculous period of time, especially when you have to prove almost nothing to exercise our greatest privilege, the right to vote. As President, I have no higher duty than to defend the laws and the Constitution of the United States. That is why I am determined to protect our election system which is now under coordinated assault and siege.
FISHER: Under coordinated assault and siege. Quite the claim from the President of the United, especially when you take into consideration what Chris Krebs, who was the former Trump administration’s cyber election — cybersecurity election official that was fired by the president for saying he believed that the selection, the 2020 election, was the most secure in U.S. history. You also have to consider what the attorney general, Bill Barr, said just yesterday. He said, and I quote, “today, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in this election.” Now, little bit later on in this video, President Trump continued to take aim at Dominion voting systems, that company that manufactures so many electronic voting machines across the country.
TRUMP: And on top of everything else, we have a company that’s very suspect. Its name is Dominion. With the turn of a dial or change of a chip, you can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden. What kind of a system is this? We have to go to paper. Maybe it takes longer, but the only secure system is paper.
FISHER: Now, the attorney general also said yesterday that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security looked into these claims specifically about voting irregularities with these Dominion voting machines and the attorney general said that they saw nothing to substantiate these claims. He also have the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency putting out a statement a few weeks ago saying that there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised. Finally, and this is a long, 45-minute address by the President so I'm trying to consolidate it, but the other entity or people that the President attacked in this video were the judges who were hearing so many cases, so many different lawsuits that have been brought forward by the Trump campaign. Listen here.
TRUMP: It was about many other things. But above all, and it was about fraud. This election was rigged. Everybody knows it. I don't mind if I lose an election, but I want to lose an election fair and square. What I don't want to do is have it stolen from the American people. That is what we are fighting for, and we have no choice to be doing that. We already have the proof. We already have the evidence and it is very clear. Many people in the media and even judges so far have refused to accept it. They know it’s true. They know it’s there. They know who won the election. But they refuse to say, “you’re right.” Our country needs somebody to say, “you’re right.” Ultimately, I'm prepared to accept any election result and I'm hoping Joe Biden is as well. But we already have the proof, we already have tens of thousands of ballots, more than we need, to overturn all of these states that we are talking about. This is an election for the highest office in the greatest country in the history of the world.
FISHER: Let's go back to that one line from President Trump where he said the judges have refused to accept it, refused to accept the evidence that his campaign has presented in court. I can’t go case-by-case again because there are so many lawsuits and so many states, but let's just take that really big case in Pennsylvania, which was tossed out by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. And those three judges — those three judges on that appeals court — they were all appointed by Republican presidents. And the judge that wrote that opinion, who said the trump campaign have brought forward this lawsuit, that those claims had no merit whatsoever, that judge was appointed by President Trump himself. But Bret, tonight, President Trump making it clear in this 45 minute video that he is not giving up this fight and appears no closer to conceding.
BAIER: Kristin, great job, consolidating that in a very short time. Not knowing it was coming to begin with. We appreciate that.
