MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell suggested Wednesday that three words could have saved Fox News from paying $787 million in the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.
Had Fox hosts said “if that’s true” after hearing unfounded claims that Dominion’s voting machines somehow rigged the election against former President Donald Trump, “The Last Word” anchor said the conservative network was not would have been sued and had to settle for the huge sum as it made its way to trial.
“The stupidity in the executive offices at Fox and at the anchor desks led to this outcome that was completely avoidable,” he explained. “Someone at Fox could have said to the people who host their shows, ‘You can let (former Trump lawyer) Rudy Giuliani tell any lie he wants, as long as he wants, and at the end all you have to say is,’ If that is true… this is a terrible situation and we will have to do something about it.’”
Fox “could never have been prosecuted because the host would have said ‘if that’s true,'” O’Donnell continued. “Those are the legal safe words that will save you $787 million and everyone who works at Fox was too stupid to know those legal safe words.”
“Rupert Murdoch was too stupid to tell his people to use those legal safe words,” he added. “And so Fox lost and the truth won.”
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