Donald Trump has still refused to concede the 2020 election to Joe Biden despite a growing consensus among national news media (and some on-air counseling from Fox News personalities) that Biden has enough electoral votes to deny the president a second term. Many Republican leaders have followed suit despite Biden assembling a transition team and beginning the necessary steps to take control of the government in January. But one sign that America is potentially heading in a new direction came when even Fox News cut into a Trump surrogate’s press conference at the White House to dispute misinformation.
On Monday, Fox News host Neil Cavuto aired a press conference with White House press spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany that veered directly into outlandish conspiracy theories about voter fraud without, once again, offering any sort of proof that voter fraud happens on the scale that could have possibly “stolen” the election from Trump.
This time, however, Fox News actually cut off the press conference to point out the Trump campaign’s lack of proof. They made the decision not to air more of this talk unless evidence would be presented of the rampant voter fraud that Trump and his allies claim Democrats and the news media has allegedly encouraged.
Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto takes the rare step (for Fox) of cutting into Kayleigh McEnany’s lie-filled press conference about the election.
“Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.” pic.twitter.com/cBd6ASlV8H
— David Mack (@davidmackau) November 9, 2020
“Unless she has more details to back that up,” Cavuto said. “I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.”
It’s a remarkable moment, both that Fox News would willingly dispute something the president clearly wants the network to broadcast. But it also shows just how long people have expected the news network to simply play favorites for Trump despite all evidence or reason. That’s something that as many reporters have noticed, is changing at Fox News, starting with the network’s decision to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden in a move that reportedly made Trump furious for days afterward.
It’s also worth noting, however, that Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity continue to peddle in the whims of the president, even if world leaders and plenty of other people see the writing on the wall of Trump’s presidency. But old habits die hard, and on Monday, at least one of them seemed to have died in a significant way at Fox News.