New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu turned Chuck Todd's obsession with Fox News around on him during a Sunday morning appearance on NBC's Meet the Press and instead brought up how dishonest CNN and the rest of the media are when it came to covering the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. While Sununu didn't sufficiently defend Fox News from Todd's dishonest and biased attacks, he did at least move the focus of the segment to the leftist media's bias by omission on the growing number of scandals surrounding Hunter Biden.
Todd asked Sununu his opinion on what Fox News needs "to do to regain some trust" and asked whether he was concerned that it's still possible to "have an honest conversation with Fox viewers." While he didn't challenge the premise of the question and defend Fox News, he at least attacked the media for their decades of biased news coverage.
"All of television media and everyone has to own a little bit of the lack of trust and the lack of accountability. It’s okay to get something wrong in the news, but you got to come back and own it and whether it's Fox, CNN or MSNBC, or whatever, everyone just has to own it," Sununu said.
Sununu deflected Todd's smears against Fox News by retorting "I think you're all in the same basket, I really do. But I can go to CNN when they ignore the Hunter Biden laptop story."
It wasn't just the Hunter laptop scandal, Sununu noted that the media dismissed the theories that the COVID-19 virus came from a lab in Wuhan, China which turned out to be true:
We can talk about the virus truly coming out of the lab in Wuhan, we can talk about a lot of different things. If you're not owning that you misrepresented the story, whether it was intentional or not, everybody does it and that's the problem. America is losing faith in media and you guys have a huge opportunity to regain that.
He ended by giving advice to Fox News which from this writer's perspective they have already taken. "My message to Fox News is build your ratings, build your audience. Go bigger because if we don't go bigger as a Republican Party we can't win in November."
This segment on NBC's Meet the Press was made possible by Allstate. Their information is linked.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
NBC’s Meet the Press
3/5/2023
10:30:15 a.mCHUCK TODD: What do you think Rupert Murdoch and Fox News need to do to regain some trust after what we’ve learned about this and are you at all concerned you can have an honest conversation with Fox viewers?
GOV. CHRIS SUNUNU: Oh, I don't think it's just Fox. I'll put them in there, but all of media. All of television media and everyone has to own a little bit of the lack of trust and the lack of accountability. It’s okay to get something wrong in the news, but you got to come back and own it and whether it's Fox, CNN or MSNBC, or whatever, everyone just has to own it. As a governor I might try four or five things and if one or two don’t work—
TODD: What about intentionally lying to viewers?
[crosstalk]
TODD: Intentionally lying to viewers though, that to me, seemed to cross a line. You can make a mistake, but that wasn't a mistake.SUNUNU: So explain to me—Look, I'm not defending everybody. Because I think you're all in the same basket, I really do. But I can go to CNN when they ignore the Hunter Biden laptop story. We can talk about the virus truly coming out of the lab in Wuhan, we can talk about a lot of different things. If you're not owning that you misrepresented the story, whether it was intentional or not, everybody does it and that's the problem. America is losing faith in media and you guys have a huge opportunity to regain that, but right my message to Fox News is build your ratings, build your audience. Go bigger because if we don't go bigger as a Republican Party we can't win in November. So I want them to talk to independents, We're not changing our values or who we are or what we’re talking about as Republicans, but get more opportunistic about the chance to bring more people in.
