Category: Worldwide

There are some things in things in life that are just better together. You know, ice cream and cake. Netflix and chill. Bonnie and Clyde. Sports and beer. But then there are those splendors of the world that are mighty forces all on their own. Then — when paired with another individually great thing — they create a cataclysm of awesomeness.

We’re talking about pizza and wine, obviously.

Since its 19th-century introduction to the U.S., we’ve loved pizza as a standalone dish, whether it’s topped with pepperoni or sausage, veggies or herbs. But a cheesy, gluten heavy pie is going to leave you thirsty. And while a sudsy pint of brew will wash down your meal just fine, we’d argue that a glass of red or white wine, paired with the toppings of your choosing, creates and equally-delicious-while-slightly-more-refined tandem.

Pizza and wine isn’t a particularly complicated pairing to enjoy, either. With so many types of grapes grown across the globe, it’s easy enough to find a bottle of wine to highlight even the most outrageous pizza creations. Vegan cauliflower crusted ‘za and Nero D’Avola? Hell yeah, sign us up!

To help you save some time, we’ve compiled a list of nine wines under $35 that will elevate even the most basic of mid-week pizza nights. These wines are all accessible in retail shops across the country and available for online delivery in the linked prices below. So go ahead and order from your favorite chain or mom and pop — we’ve got the bottles to turn that meal into a full-on sensory experience.

Nicchia Lambrusco di Modena N/V DOC

ABV: 8.5%
Average Price: $12

The Wine:

First of all, there isn’t a pizza pie out that Lambrusco can’t make better. The sparking ruby red wine just has the right type of light fruity bubbles to make even the blandest slices of cardboard crust, sauce, and processed cheese taste like a delicacy. This blend of native Italian grapes including Salamino, Marani, and Grasparossa has a crispy texture and acidity to counter the fats of the cheesiest, meatiest pizzas down to the simplest slices.

Tasting Notes:

This is an effervescent medium-sweet wine that displays a ton of fruit on the palate like a basket of ripe strawberries, raspberries, and a splash of black currant. For all its fruitiness though, it cleans up nice with a slightly mineral and dry, quick finish.

Bottom Line:

Drink this wine slightly chilled with any type of pizza. It’s guaranteed to tingle your tastebuds whether you’re sipping it with a Papa John’s cheese slice or the fanciest pie from your favorite upscale pizzeria.

Lini 910 Labrusca Bianco N/V

ABV: 11%
Average Price: $16

The Wine:

Hailing from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, this is a white wine that’s drier than the napkin you’ll need to dab your grease-covered lips with after biting into a white pie. And yet, somehow, it displays a level of freshness that balances the decadent ricotta and olive oil topping on that classic pizza iteration.

Tasting Notes:

Because this is made completely of Salamino grapes, the smells of crisp pear and hard lemon candies from your grandmother’s purse spill out the bottle. On the palate, this wine is intense with stony acidity—probably a nod to the cement vats it’s aged in. It displays crisp expressions of citrus that last throughout its generous lingering finish.

Bottom Line:

You know those pizzas that are so amazingly decadent that it’s hard to breathe after wolfing down a slice? Well, this wine is the dry, frothy air to revive your lungs. Wash out your palate with this, and get ready for the next bite.

Trimbach Gewürztraminer 2016

ABV: 14%
Average Price: $25

The Wine:

The Alsace region of France is the largest producer of Gewürztraminer. The region grows a grape that tends to lead with a dry and sometimes floral freshness that can bring out the best of those sauceless flatbread pizzas smothered in soft tangy cheeses like Taleggio and Camembert.

Tasting Notes:

Get a whiff of the pear, white peach and lightly floral notes radiating from the bottle as soon as it’s uncorked. On the sip, the medium-bodied wine is dry and concentrated with notes of apple peels and lemon meringue. The texture lasts throughout the finish, which is crunchy with acidity and citrusy hints of clementine.

Bottom Line:

Do you like a pizza covered in prosciutto or speck, porcini mushrooms, and brie? This is a wine that will give all that salty goodness a refreshingly zesty uplift.

Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Villages Nouveau 2019

ABV: 13%
Average Price: $13

The Wine:

Gamay—the grape this wine is made with—is typically light in body and high in acidity. That makes it the perfect partner for a wide range of foods like, say, a pepperoni pizza drizzled in hot honey oil and sprinkled with red pepper flakes. This one produced by Georges Duboeuf, who is heralded as the King of Beaujolais, is ripe and full of easy-drinking freshness.

Tasting Notes:

Aromas of strawberry are accentuated on the palate with notes of currant, raspberry and blueberry—literally alllll the berries. The quick finish gets a pleasant surprise from hints of smoke, but overall this wine is bursting with juicy berry fruit from start to finish.

Bottom Line:

This is the simple sipper you grab when you’re feeling too lazy to think too much about what to drink or eat. It’ll compliment any kind of pizza. And if you never actually get around to ordering that pie, well, this wine is good for crushing all on its own, too.

Opolo 2018 Mountain Zinfandel

ABV: 15.7%
Average Price: $25

The Wine:

Here’s a hearty wine from California’s Paso Robles to pair with your heartier pizzas. The body and structure of this weighted-wine can stand up to all your meat-loving, sausage and bacon-loaded pies.

Tasting Notes:

As if the aroma of chocolate-covered raisins wasn’t alluring enough, this deep red wine serenades the senses with rich and ripe dark fruit flavors like blackberries and purple plums spiced with white pepper, clove and nutmeg. Although it has a silky smooth texture on the first sip, the weight of its tannins — the natural polyphenol found in fruit skins and seeds —backload the long and lingering finish.

Bottom Line:

This is the dry and heavy wine to soak up all the fatty toppings on a traditional “American” pizza.

Field Recordings 2019 Freddo

ABV: 11.9%
Average Price: $25

The Wine:

If you need a wine to counter all the intense flavors of a classic pepperoni pie or a veggie pizza, this is the one. Another from Paso Robles, this Sangiovese has the bones to hold up to meats and the flexibility to support not-so meaty pizzas. It’s delightfully light but has some complexity that makes it a nice companion for food.

Tasting Notes:

This garnet crystal red wine smells of sweet cherry pie, but—surprise!—it’s drenched with sour cherries on the palate and splashes of cranberry. A little strawberry balances out the tart in the refreshing, barely noticeable finish.

Bottom Line:

This is a brainless pizza pairing that can support almost anything you throw at it. Sangiovese, at its core, is like that for many edible things. So pile on all the toppings you can imagine. This wine won’t back down.

Pro tip: Pop it in the fridge to give it a slight chill. When the label turns blue, it’s ready.

Ferreira Casa Ferreirinha Vinha Grande

ABV: 13 %
Average Price: $22

The Wine:

This blend of Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, and Tinto Cão is produced by a family who’s made wine for as long as pizza has existed. The family behind the Portuguese label Casa Ferreirinha has been in the wine business since the 1700s and continues to succeed at creating quality, complex wines that can provide an elegant experience for whatever meal it’s paired with.

Tasting Notes:

This is an intense, dark crimson-colored wine with a lot of character. Floral notes like violet and lilacs lead the aroma while the palate is rich with red and black fruit like strawberry, raspberry and blackberries that are underscored by flavors of cocoa and spiced oak. It’s a voluminous wine with velvety tannins that intertwine with touches of slate and minerals that last throughout the finish.

Bottom Line:

Are you a pizza snob who believes it’s all about the sauce? Then this is the wine for you. Its rich and soft tannin profile is a nice balance for those red-sauce pizza pies, whether the sauce leaning on the acidic or sweet side. Extra bonus points for taking down a Chicago deep-dish pie with a bottle of this.

Feudo Montoni Nero D’Avola Lagnusa Sicilia DOC 2018

ABV: 13.5%
Average Price: $20

The Wine:

“Lagnusa” is a Sicilian term that means “lazy” and “produces small quantities,” but don’t let that definition fool you. In many instances, a vineyard that produces less equates to more quality wine. This organic ruby red sucker is exactly that: quality.

Tasting Notes:

Cinnamon and clove dominate the fragrance of this wine, but the juice is delectable with tastes of red plum, blackberry and all the sticks, seeds, leaves and dirt they grow with. Seriously, you get a sense of soil in every sip, but in an enjoyable, clean kind of way thanks to the slightest hint of menthol that gives the wine’s earthy underbite a spray of freshness. As for the finish, it’s refined and lingers with structure, compliments of it’s delicate tannins.

Bottom Line:

The earthy components of this Italian wine will bring out the best in every bite of your vegan or vegetarian pizza.

Masciarell Marina Cvetic ISKRA 2015

ABV: 14.5 %
Average Price: $33

The Wine:

There’s a reason why you’re likely to see bottles upon bottles of Montepulciano on the wine lists at fancy pizza joints: the wine has a relatively mild tannin profile and medium acidity, which pairs well with the most basic and bizarre pizza toppings. The tannins on this particular bottle lean on the firm side, which creates a more robust drinking experience.

Tasting Notes:

This wine features fragrances of cherry cola, spices, and herbs, but it’s pretty jammy on the palate—blackberry jam to be more specific—and it displays a subtle note of oak as well. Sturdy tannins give it an almost chewy mouthfeel that lasts throughout the long finish.

Bottom Line:

This is a good food pairing wine that will go with almost anything, but it’s definitely excellent with a plain old Margherita.

Some new Jordan merch is coming on the horizon, but you won’t be able to pick them up on the SNKRS app any time soon. That’s because the company is teaming up with Titan, a retailer from Manila, for a special line that will primarily be available for consumers outside of the United States.

According to a release, a pair of Jordans — the Air Jordan XXXV and the Air Jordan XXIII — will be designed in conjunction with Titan and will feature the company’s signature lightning bolt on them. Per the release:

The Air Jordan XXIII, a landmark silhouette for the Philippines after the 2008 Titanium release, features lightning-bolt-esque stitching on the upper. The Titan lightning bolt logo appears on the tongue and the sockliner. The Air Jordan XXXV brings a similar color scheme, rooted in a black heel counter and crossing into red webbing above the Eclipse Plate 2.0. The lighting bolt logo is subtly printed throughout the silhouette.

An image of the XXIIIs are at the top of the post, while the XXXVs are below:

For a full list of where you can find the kicks — which will most widely be available in China but will be released worldwide, including a pair of spots in Los Angeles — click here. The non-U.S. outposts will drop the kicks on Dec. 29, with the American locations making them available on Jan. 23.

Drake and Pusha T’s beef from the summer of 2018 was one of the biggest moments of that year. While most fans were all for the back and forth that ensued between the two rappers, others were disappointed to see things unfold the way that they did. One of those people was Pharrell. The celebrated producer recently stopped by N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN’s Drink Champs podcast and during their three-hour conversation, the Virginia producer revealed that he was not a fan.

“I hate to see what [Pusha] and Drake are going through, or what they went through,” Pharrell said around the 1:11:29 mark of the podcast. “I hated all of it. Every bit of it. It wasn’t good.” He then revealed that he was unaware of Pusha’s strategy for “The Story Of Adidon.” “He knows I would’ve stood in front of him as much as I could, but he’s a different kind of person, he’s a Taurus,” he said. “When you feel like a line is crossed and you take off the gloves, that’s where your brain is at.”

Pharrell added, “It still breaks my heart to this day, because I would’ve loved to have heard those guys on a song together or heard a joint project together. I would’ve loved to twist that,” he said. “By the way, Pusha says Drake’s got bars. When Drake makes something that’s amazing, we talk about it all the time.”

Pharrell was also asked if his relationship with Drake was affected by his close friendship with Pusha. He declined that anything has changed between him and the Toronto rapper, and he revealed that Drake has always had nothing but good things to say about the Virginia native, both in public and in private. “Neither one of them are into problems,” he answered. “They don’t like it and it’s unnecessary but they’re both people when they feel like they’re being pushed to the limit they gotta do what they gotta do.”

You can watch the full interview in the video above.

Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly have spent the last two years in a classic beef, and they haven’t exactly buried the hatchet. The latest jab comes from the Detroit legend, who fired off a pair of subliminal attacks on his new album Music To Be Murdered By — Side B (Deluxe Edition). The first can be heard on “Gnat,” inw hich Eminem raps, “They come at me with machine guns / Like trying to fight off a gnat.” The second one is on “Zeus,” with Eminem rapping, “Fair weather, wishy-washy / She thinks Machine washed me / Swear to God, man, her favorite rapper wish he’d crossed me.”

Machine Gun Kelly caught wind of the disses, and it’s safe to say he was far from impressed. In a tweet, he wrote, simply, “those subliminals,” followed by laughing and trash can emojis. Whether we receive a fuller response from MGK remains to be seen, but surely he’s aware of the consequences of engaging in another public battle with Eminem. He recently revealed that their beef hurt sales for his 2019 album, Hotel Diablo.

“It was coming off the tail-end of that infamous beef [with Eminem]. So no one wanted to give it the time of day,” he said. “What I did in the beef was exactly what it should be, but that project wasn’t welcomed.”

You can hear “Zeus” and “Gnat” in the videos above.

Music To Be Murdered By — Side B (Deluxe Edition) is out now Shady/Interscope. Get it here.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the superstar of the nation’s pandemic response team. He’s the voice of reason, the one who knows how to stand up to Trump without inspiring his wrath (well, not always), the adult in the room. Speaking of which, he had a message for kids who are about to experience the weirdest and possibly worst Christmas since the pandemic of 1918: Don’t worry, Santa Claus is among the lucky few who’ve been vaccinated.

Dr.Fauci was on CNN fielding questions from the nation’s young children, who are worried about things like seeing relatives during the holidays and how much getting vaccinated will hurt. He was his usual laidback, charming, smiling, reassuring self, able to explain scary and complicated data in ways that were both clear and lacking in condescension. But he also knew the value of preserving their childhood, which is to say he wasn’t about to tell them that You Know Who isn’t, you know, real.

“I took care of that for you, because I was worried you’d all be upset,” he said to one kid’s question about St. Nick. “So a little while ago I took a trip up there to the North Pole. I went there and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself. I measured his level of immunity, and he is good to go. He can come down the chimney, he can leave the presents, he can leave and you have nothing to worry about. Santa Claus is good to go.”

You can watch more of Dr. Fauci’s CNN appearance in the video below, and it’s worth noting that more kids will likely take his advice some actual adults — the ones who’ve thrown temper tantrums about putting a piece of cloth over the mouth and nose, leading to the nightmarish spike we’re living through each and every day. But hey, at least Santa’s doing fine!

(Via CNN)

LeBron James spent his Saturday afternoon doing what he usually does during Saturdays in the fall: watching the Ohio State Buckeyes play football. Ohio State participated in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday afternoon in Indianapolis, coming from behind to take down Northwestern, 22-10.

The Buckeyes could not get much of anything going through the air against the pesky Wildcat defense. NFL Draft hopeful Justin Fields struggled, going 12-for-27 for 114 yards, no touchdowns, and a pick in an uncharacteristically awful performance. Instead, Ohio State turned to its ground game, with transfer running back Trey Sermon putting on a show at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Sermon, formerly of Oklahoma, ran the ball for 60 yards in the first half, but only got seven carries in the game’s opening half hour. Despite the fact that it was obvious that the ‘Cats couldn’t stop him, Ohio State relied on Fields, and as a result, they went into the locker room down, 10-6.

Then, the Buckeyes started leaning on Sermon, who put on a masterclass. By the time the dust settled, he had 29 carries for 331 yards and two scores. We’ll get into some of the records he broke momentarily, but watch how helpless the Northwestern defense looked trying to slow him down.

Ohio State threw the Wildcat front around, but still, Sermon managed to make dudes miss, bowl others over, and put a whole lot of miles on his tires a few minutes away from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As a result, he had a pretty big fan in the reigning NBA Finals MVP.

On the day, Sermon broke Ezekiel Elliott’s Big Ten title game record for rushing yards in a game (220 yards), Auburn’s Tre Mason’s record for yards in a conference championship game (304), and Eddie George’s record for rushing yards in an Ohio State game (314). He also caught a LeBron tweet and probably earned the Buckeyes a spot in the College Football Playoff, so all in all, not a bad afternoon for the young man.

The NBA is a star-driven league. Whether those stars are in actual or symbolic leadership positions, they exert enormous influence over the machinations of the league, be it free agency, the Draft, the collective bargaining agreement, or something else.

In the era of player empowerment, only now are they beginning to understand the full weight of what that means. It goes far beyond just exercising control over their financial destinies or which they team up with. More and more, it’s begun to encompass a much larger sense of social responsibility. In 2020, that influence continued to spill over into the political sphere in a major way.

It wasn’t just the marquee stars who took to the front lines of the Black Lives Matter movement. Players at every level used their platform, their money, and their clout to lead social justice initiatives. And in one of the year’s biggest moments, it was a pair of lesser-heralded players on a small market team that helped orchestrate an unprecedented work stoppage in Orlando amid the ongoing police violence against Black Americans, forcing the NBA as an institution to take action.

This time around, it wasn’t anything so glamorous as LeBron James and company taking center stage at the ESPYs to call for an end to gun violence. In fact, the moment that left an indelible mark on the league this year happened in the most modest of settings: in the tunnel just outside the locker room, featuring Milwaukee Bucks players in their masks and warm-ups, issuing an historic call to action and condemning a system that has been allowed to act against its own people with impunity for far too long.

Even Giannis Antetokounmpo, the team’s most visible star, ceded the spotlight to NBA veteran George Hill, who delivered the statement alongside Sterling Brown explaining why the Bucks were refusing to play in Game 5 of their opening-round game against the Magic in Orlando.

The Bucks were uniquely positioned to take the reins on the work stoppage, and not just because they play their home games less than an hour away from Kenosha, where the Jacob Blake shooting had recently shaken that community to its core. Brown himself had been a victim of police brutality just two years prior, when Milwaukee police tased and kneeled on him over a parking violation.

What was even more stunning about the Bucks’ decision was that it was made wholly independently. The rest of the league was free to respond however they wanted. The Magic, who were trailing 3-1 at the time, would’ve been within their right to take the forfeit. But, of course, that was never going to happen, and once they joined the Bucks in refusing to play, it caused a snowball effect, with the rest of the teams canceling their scheduled games for the night and subsequently throwing the remainder of the playoffs into doubt. It quickly spread to other sports leagues as well, as the WNBA and several MLB and MLS teams all postponed their scheduled games in a stunning show of solidarity.

It was a bold move, particularly the decision not to involve the players union or some of the other influential stars around the league. And to be sure, the Bucks’ unilateral decision muddied the path forward in the coming days. According to various reports, there were squabbles inside those marathon meetings in Orlando about what to do next, and shutting down the remainder of the season was very much, albeit briefly, in play.

Even before the work stoppage, Hill had expressed his regret about coming to the Bubble amid the widespread reports of police violence against Black people around the country and the widespread protests that had erupted in its wake. Many players echoed similar reservations about resuming play, before and after they arrived in Orlando. After the walkout, the question had been raised again: Was it better to use their platform via the NBA to bring awareness and change, or would their efforts be better served back home in their respective communities?

Ultimately, staying won out, in no small part because of the financial implications on a league that was already hemorrhaging money during to the pandemic. But not before the players had demonstrated the full capacity of their power in a way we’ve never seen. Despite the chaos that followed over the next 48 hours, they were able to meet all of their goals: resuming the playoffs, bringing the game back to fans, and putting pressure on the league to take tangible action in the fight for equal justice.

The result was the creation of the NBA’s Social Justice Coalition, which focuses on voting rights, education, civic engagement, criminal justice reform, and more. It also looked to expand the use of team-owned arenas as voting locations in the November election, a plan that was already underway in several cities and would arguably go on to impact the election in some key states — according to USA Today, nearly 300,000 people voted at sporting arenas across the country on November 3, and no stadium saw a bigger turnout than the Hawks’ State Farm Arena in Atlanta, where approximately 40,000 people cast their ballots in a state that ended up helping Democratic president-elect Joe Biden carry Georgia.

But the Bucks’ initial refusal to play was only partly aimed at forcing the league to take action. The more immediate target was the Wisconsin State Legislature. After the walk-out, the team got on the phone with Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes. Together, they clarified the phrasing of their demands to apply pressure to the Republican-led legislature for their inaction during months of civil unrest and a deadly virus that was spreading rapidly.

Since then, several Bucks players have spoken about the emotions and the intensity surrounding their decision and its immediate aftermath. Kyle Korver described the atmosphere inside the Bucks locker room prior to their bombshell announcement and what it was like watching assistant coach Darvin Ham, a father, openly reckon with the possibility that his son could be murdered by police without provocation or repercussion.

Korver also confirmed that it was indeed Hill and Brown who took the lead and first told their teammates that they would refuse to play and, more so, that they were willing to go it alone without putting pressure on the rest of the guys to join them. By all accounts, it wasn’t a premeditated act. Hill and Brown didn’t arrive at their decision until about 45 minutes before the scheduled tip-off and hadn’t communicated their intention with the Magic, the referees, the players’ union, or league officials. Bucks owner Marc Lasry didn’t even know about it until just before they notified game officials.

The whole thing didn’t just signal a new level of social and cultural engagement for the NBA and its players. It demonstrated the sheer power of an individual who is willing to stand on principle. In doing so, George Hill and Sterling Brown reminded us what real leadership looks like. They reminded us that it doesn’t have to come from the top, and it doesn’t have to come by committee. In a time where apathy and cynicism threaten to undermine the fight for equal justice, we’d do well to remember what even a single person is capable of.

Sukihana and Cupcakke’s lyrical warfare has just finished its second round. Earlier, Cupcakke dropped the scathing “The Gag Is,” in which she made it quite clear that the two rappers won’t find peace any time soon. Now Sukihana has responded in kind. On “Cupcakke Bummy,” Sukihana pulls no punches, taking aim at her competition’s family, with disses against her mother and kids. She also addressed something Cupcakke had said in “The Gag Is,” in which she called out Cupcakke for having an OnlyFans account. Only issue? Cupcakke, she claimed she’s also a subscriber.

The battle between the two artists began with Cupcakke’s brutal remix of 50 Cent’s “How To Rob,” which she released on Wednesday and in which she also attacked Cardi B, City Girls, Chief Keef, DaBaby, Doja Cat, DreamDoll, Flo Milli, and others. A day later Sukihana became the first to take the bait, responding with “Rob Who.” Twenty-four hours after that, Cupcakke released “The Gag Is.” Based on these events, we can expect a response to “Cupucakke Bummy,” from Cupcakke herself, by Sunday.

You can hear “Cupcakke Bummy” in the video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Jim Carrey is an unqualified comic genius whose legacy as one of the most inventive and fearless performers is secure. But even the greats swing and miss. Taking chances is what they do! With that in mind, a number of people have not enjoyed his most recent work, which has been playing SNL’s version of incoming president Joe Biden. And if you were among his detractors, then good news: He’s conceding the role to someone else.

“Though my term was only meant to be 6 weeks,I was thrilled to be elected as your SNL President…comedy’s highest call of duty,” Carrey wrote on Twitter. “I would love to go forward knowing that Biden was the victor because I nailed that s*it. But I am just one in a long line of proud, fighting SNL Bidens!”

Carrey debuted his take on the former veep-turned-president on SNL’s season debut, back early October, and he wound up doing it over a total of six episodes. His Biden seemed partly inspired by his old In Living Color character, Fire Marshall Bill Burns, though he played him as cooler and more confident than the longtime politician really is. In fact, it seemed so divorced from the actual Biden, who’s folksy and charming and endearingly bumbling, that it almost seemed like Carrey had studied the wrong guy.

But a smart person knows when to throw in the towel, and that’s what Jim Carrey has done. And it will free him to do other, better activities. There’s no word yet on who will take up the Biden mantle, but Carrey joins a fine list of Biden SNL performers, among them Jason Sudeikis, Woody Harrelson, and John Mulaney. But since Biden will be with us for at least another four years, obviously it makes more sense for SNL honcho Lorne Michaels to go with one of the regulars, rather than going to an outsider, as he’s overly wont to do.

(Via Vulture)

Lou Dobbs has always been one of outgoing president Donald J. Trump’s most stubborn cheerleaders, sticking with him through thick and thin. The Fox Business commentator has been on his side for the last month and a half, loudly parroting baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud, even scolding high-up minions he feels have been insufficiently supportive. But on Friday night’s show, Dobbs did perhaps the wildest thing he’s done yet: He aired a segment that utterly debunked some of his most recent allegations about voting machines.

Dobbs’ most recent bête noir has been the Florida-based company Smartmatic, which has found him claiming, among other things, that they were in cahoots with Dominion, which has taken the brunt of the Trump team’s incoherent attacks. Friday’s segment began with what seemed like more of the same, before taking a hairpin turn.

“There are lots of opinions about the integrity of the election, the irregularities of mail-in voting, of election voting machines and voting software,” Dobbs told viewers. “One of the companies is Smartmatic, and we reached out to one of the leading authorities on open source software for elections, Eddie Perez, for his insight and views.”

The show then cut to an interview with Perez — not done by Dobbs, mind you, but by an unseen interviewer. Perez was asked point blank about many of the Trump team’s claims — that they were altering votes, that it had connections to Dominion, that ballots were counted outside the U.S. And Perez shot them all down, one after another.

When it was over, Dobbs didn’t come back. Instead, the show cut directly to commercial, with no further commentary.

What’s more, as per Mediate, the exact same fact check video will air during shows by Maria Bartimoro and Jeanine Pirro, who have also repeated similar claims.

So what happened? Why was Lou Dobbs setting up a segment that utterly contradicted and debunked his tall tales? Mediate reports that, after numerous Fox News segments linked Smartmatic to Dominion, the former threatened legal action, demanding not only a retraction from Fox but also the even more pro-Trump OAN and Newsmax. Will this change hearts and minds, convincing the many Republicans that their questions about election security are bogus? If history is any indicator, almost certainly not.

(Via Mediate)