Why has Fox News imposed 'soft ban' on former US president Donald Trump?

After a number of Donald Trump-endorsed Republicans lost crucial elections in the midterms, several branches of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire have started urging the party to get past the former United States president.

According to news startup Semafor reports, Trump’s relationship with his once-beloved cable news channel has allegedly worsened to the point where a “soft ban” is keeping him at arm’s length.

His chances of winning the GOP nomination next year may be suffering as a result of how that scenario is currently developing.

Let’s take a closer look at the matter.

‘Soft ban’ on Trump

According to four Trump aides who spoke to Semafor, Fox News has imposed an unofficial ban or “soft ban” on Donald Trump, claiming the Murdoch family wants to “move on” from him.

The Republican source told the outlet, “The understanding is that they’re (Fox) not to have Trump on for an interview, because the Murdochs have made it pretty clear they want to move on from Trump … Fox is showing that by not having him on.”

Semafor cited one of the sources as saying that “everyone knows” the bans exist, and that they are “indicative of how the Murdochs feel about Trump in a particular moment.”

Another claimed to have learned about the policy directly from Fox News personnel.

Notably, the former president last appeared on Fox News in November, when he formally declared his candidature.

Quick Reads

View All

How your takeaway coffee is leaking microplastics into your body

Explained: From princes to President, the tradition of 21-gun salute at R-Day parade

The former president reportedly told Sean Hannity during his last weekday appearance on the network in September that he could declassify records simply “by thinking about it,” according to Independent.

Fox News hasn’t featured Trump since last year, but it has given his prospective competitors a platform.

The Semafor report cited Media Matters data that  Nikki Haley had been featured on the network seven times since announcing her presidential bid. The barely-known Vivek Ramaswamy has made four appearances on the network, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been regularly featured for weeks.

Despite the alleged ban, the former president is trying to book appearances on the channel in the upcoming weeks.

‘Make Trump a non-person’

According to one of Trump’s aides, in order to “give more fair coverage, or fair airtime” to other Republicans, the network has been pushing harder.

“I don’t think they’re trying to reverse course, but they’re trying to appease and tamp down, some of that criticism,” the source said according to Semafor.

The ban may also seem justified in light of the fact that Rupert Murdoch instructed to “make Trump a non-person” in the wake of the Capitol riot, according to documents that were made public in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation action against the channel.

Inevitably, Trump was outraged by this as he posted a statement on his Truth Social page labelling the media mogul a RINO and telling him to leave the “News Industry.”

“If Rupert Murdoch honestly believes that the Presidential Election of 2020, despite MASSIVE amounts of proof to the contrary, was not Rigged & Stolen, then he & his group of MAGA Hating Globalist RINOS should get out of the News Business as soon as possible, because they are aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA with FAKE NEWS,” Trump wrote, according to Independent.

On Thursday, he continued to criticise Murdoch, stating he should “apologise to his viewers and readers for his ridiculous defence of the 2020 Presidential Election,” before going over his standard election-related lies once more.

“How many forms of cheating and rigging does he have to see? He should also apologize to those anchors who got it right, and fire the ones who got it wrong, or were afraid to speak up (of which there were many!). It’s time to get rid of Fake News, and call it like it is!” he wrote.

Dominion Voting Systems vs Fox News

According to Associated Press, Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, which sells electronic voting hardware and software, is suing both Fox News Network and parent company Fox Corp. for defamation. Dominion contends that some Fox News employees deliberately amplified false claims by supporters of Trump that Dominion machines had changed votes in the 2020 election, and that Fox provided a platform for guests to make false and defamatory statements about the company.

Dominion attorneys contend that executives in the “chain of command” at both Fox News and Fox Corp. knew the network was broadcasting “known lies, had the power to stop it, but chose to let it continue. That was wrong, and for that, FC and FNN are both liable.”

Attorneys for Fox Corp. note in their filing that Murdoch also testified that he never discussed Dominion or voter fraud with any of the accused Fox News hosts. They say Dominion has produced “zero evidentiary support” for the claim that high-level executives at Fox Corp. had any role in creating or publishing the statements at issue.

Dominion’s contention that the company should be held liable because Murdoch might have had the power to step in and prevent the challenged statements from being aired, they said, “has no basis in defamation law, would obliterate the distinction between corporate parents and subsidiaries, and finds no support in the evidence.”

With inputs from agencies

Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.