Super Tuesday - A Breakdown of All Nine Hours of Coverage on Fox News
A super nerdy deep dive into NINE hours of Fox News election night coverage
I had no idea what I was getting into on Tuesday night but once I realized Fox aired nine hours of coverage, I took it as a personal challenge to go over all of it.
The network went all in. Fox had correspondents reporting from all over the country including the southern border. The network also included as many as six Fox News hosts and experts in discussion panels.
A lot of the Fox News hosts praised Donald J. Trump at length while they toned down their vitriol and criticism of Nikki Haley.
When they weren’t praising Trump or tearing down President Joe Biden the producers weaved in segments about the southern border including the murder of Laken Riley. Fox also included segments about the recent Supreme Court decision to reject any state ballot challenges to Trump’s campaign along with his other criminal and civil court cases.
I’ve compiled examples of the moments when Fox News personalities slipped a bit and showed some of the weaknesses in Trump’s campaign.
Democracy 2024 - Super Tuesday - Hour 1 - 7PM EST
Anchors
Co-anchor - Bret Baier, Fox News
Co-anchor - Martha MacCallum, Fox News
Featured host - Laura Ingraham - Fox News
Fox News Correspondents
Bill Hemmer - Fox News (election map)
Aishah Hasnie - Fox News (Trump HQ, Mar-a-Lago)
Bill Melugin - Fox News (Nikki Haley HQ, - South Carolina)
Mark Meredith - Fox News (Raleigh, NC)
Alexis McAdams - Fox News (New York City) - Reporting on ‘migrant crime’
Panel
Brit Hume - Fox News
Laura Ingraham - Fox News
Dana Perino - Fox News
Harold Ford Jr. - Fox News (moderate)
Legal Panel
Shannon Bream - Fox News
Andy McCarthy - Fox News legal analyst
Jonathan Turley - Fox News legal analyst
The Booze Report from Mar-a-Lago
While some of her co-workers seemed to be reporting in desolate areas near the southern border or sidewalks outside government buildings Aishah Hasnie was in the middle of the celebration at Mar-a-Lago.
Her most pressing concern was the ballroom bar.
“Here in Mar-a-Lago. Again, the party getting under way, just about 200 people, I would say, here already. There is no open bar and there is a soda bar, a pop bar, if you want to call if you're from the Midwest. But wait. Nope, no free alcohol, at least tonight here in Mar a Lago. Well.”
Fox included a segment about ‘migrant crime’ featuring images of four clips of surveillance video from various cities split into quarters across the screen.
Laura Ingraham Suddenly Loved Nikki Haley
As I’ve reported before Ingraham openly criticized Nikki Haley as soon as she announced her campaign for president. Now that it was obvious Haley didn’t have a chance at beating Donald J. Trump for the nomination Ingraham’s criticism turned to praise.
“Nikki Haley. Look, she has given it her all. She's crisscrossed the country. She's raised a huge amount of money. I think for the last year, she's pretty much represented the more kind of establishment Bush old Bush wing of the party better than anyone. And she's attractive. She's articulate, She's very smart. She's tried to go at Trump. I don't know how you could have done it any better than she did it.”
Run for your life it’s Migrant Crime!
Alexis McAdams, a Fox News correspondent best known for falsely reporting a terrorist attack in Niagara Falls, was reporting from New York City.
“Well, when you're out on the campaign trail, as you know, you talk to people and they speak about everything from violent crime to migrant crime. It's incidents like this on your screen that have people all across the country on edge from smash and grab robberies in Virginia to brutal beat downs. Out in California, these crimes that you're looking at there on the screen, you can see the guy waving a gun in the beat down there in the corner. Those are just in the sticks. Super Tuesday states, although the FBI says crime in almost every single category has gone down across the country in 2023. What are those stats really mean to people who have been victims?” said McAdams.
Of course there’s no such thing as ‘migrant crime,’ it’s just a term Donald J. Trump invented to try to whip up fear of immigrants. No one would label an armed robbery committed by a native-born American citizen ‘citizen crime,’ or ‘native born crime.’
“Not much. Right. And this election, migrant crime is sitting in the national spotlight. Here you can check out these mug shots. With recent cases of migrants accused of committing violent crimes, including the tragic case of Laken Riley, which we've been talking about, the 22-year-old nursing student was murdered while out on a run in Georgia. Now, Jose Antonio Ibarra, who,” said McAdams.
Democracy 2024 - Super Tuesday - Hour 2 - 8PM EST
Anchors
Co-anchor - Bret Baier, Fox News
Co-anchor - Martha MacCallum, Fox News
Featured host - Jesse Watters - Fox News
Fox News Correspondents
Bill Hemmer - Fox News (election map)
Mark Meredith - Fox News (Raleigh, NC)
Rich Edson - Fox News (Laredo, TX) - reporting at the Southern border
Sandra Smith - Fox News (Fox News Voter Analysis Survey)
Panel
Jessica Tarlov - Fox News (liberal)
Larry Ludlow - Fox Business
Kellyanne Conway - Fox News, former senior counsel to Trump
Trey Gowdy - Fox News, former congressman (R-SC)
Karl Rove - Political consultant - G.W. Bush
Jesse Watters Thinks Biden has a Bunch of Lawyers
While discussing Trump’s chances in the general election Jesse Watters seemed to confuse law enforcement with prosecutors.
“Is it going to be sabotage? Prosecutors? His big mouth? But so far, he's risen above DeSantis Haley, and he's been beating the pants off of Biden in the polls since Halloween. And there's a few reasons. One is because American people don't like dirty cops and Joe Biden's gang of lawyers jumped Donald Trump with six on one. They're kicking him, hitting them with raids, with fines, with mug shots. And Americans don't like that. They want to see a fair fight. We can sense that kind of injustice.”
Watters and Karl Rove Disagree on the State of the Republican Party
Jesse Watters, a man hired for his hair and ability to produce racist man-on-the-street segments, thought the Republican Party was more unified than ever.
“The Republican Party is now more unified than the Democratic Party, and the Democrats are the ones on defense having to answer for Joe Biden, having to answer about the border. They're trying to give the guy advice.”
Karl Rove, a seasoned political strategist with a long career, said the Republican Party fractured and divided.
“Having said that, the high command of Team Trump ought to be concerned about unifying the Republican Party, because as we see in the in these states, a third of the vote in Virginia, 43% of the vote in Massachusetts going to Nikki Haley, a quarter of the vote in North Carolina, Maine has now dropped down to about a quarter of the vote, but it was 31% for Nikki Haley, Vermont, 48%. There's still some work to be done to unify the Republican Party.”
Jessica Tarlov Thought Biden Had a Great Night
“But Joe Biden is cruising through this thing tonight. I mean, we're seeing numbers 90%, 91, 92 and 93%. Now, I'm old enough to remember when we thought Dean Phillips was a thing. Right. Or we're tracking how many uncommitted voters you have. The Democratic Party.”
Democracy 2024 - Super Tuesday - Hour 3 - 9PM EST
Anchors
Co-anchor - Bret Baier -Fox News
Co-anchor - Martha MacCallum - Fox News
Featured host - Sean Hannity - Fox News
Fox News Correspondents
Aishah Hasnie - Fox News (Trump HQ, Mar-a-Lago)
Bill Hemmer - Fox News (election map)
Alicia Acuna - Fox News (Denver, CO) - reporting on SCOTUS ballot case
Legal Panel
Shannon Bream - Fox News
Andy McCarthy - Fox News legal analyst
Jonathan Turley - Fox News legal analyst
Panel
Kayleigh McEnany - Fox News - former White House press secretary (Trump)
Charles Payne - Fox Business
Juan Williams - Fox News (liberal)
Ari Fleischer - former White House press secertary (G.W. Bush)
Marc Thiessen - Washington Post (conservative)
Kati Pavlich - Fox News
Special Guest
Kevin McCarthy - Congressman (R-CA), former Speaker of the House
Disaster Averted You Can Get Drunk at Mar-a-Lago!
Aishah Hasnie proudly announced that the Trump campaign was serving alcohol! It was a triumphant moment for the Fox News correspondent and a sign that the Trump campaign might be strapped for cash.
“I was able to ask if there is alcohol here and there is there is a couch here, though. There is a cash bar and mean I was able to ask the campaign if they're going to maybe pop some champagne later tonight. They said they'd get back to me.”
The Republican Party is Attracting Less Educated Voters
Fleischer bragged about how the Republican Party was attracting a larger share of less educated voters.
“It's becoming much more a blue-collar party, a working class party, a less educated party and a lower income party. But these changes, Bret, started under Ronald Reagan. Reagan in 88 won 62% of the college vote. George H.W. Bush, when he ran and won, he got 51% of the college vote. Donald trump got 43% of the college educated vote. Suburbs, Reagan won 20 percentage points in the suburbs. George W Bush, when he won the suburbs by five. Donald Trump lost them by two. These have been longstanding trends that Trump has accelerated, and we're on the tipping point now.”
American Samoa - The Biggest Upset of the Night!
Bret Baier made the announcement.
“You just have a call now in American Samoa. President Biden will lose. To Jason Palmer, a selfless scribe to entrepreneur and investor. He is going to win the American Samoa Democratic Caucus. This marks President Biden's first loss in the 2024 primaries. Palmer takes four delegates. President Biden takes two. We saw uncommitted with more than 100,000 votes in Michigan. I don't even know who Jason Palmer is, but he is now the winner.”
Bret Baier Reminds McCarthy that He’s Not The Speaker
Bret Baier thought it was a good idea to remind Kevin McCarthy that won’t be watching the State of the Union from behind the President this year.
“Mr. Speaker, this Thursday is the State of the Union. It's the first in a few years that you won't be sitting behind the president, United States, trying to hold your facial expressions one way or another.”
Democracy 2024 - Super Tuesday - Hour 4 - 10PM EST
Anchors
Co-anchor - Bret Baier - Fox News
Co-anchor - Martha MacCallum - Fox News
Fox News Correspondents
Bill Melugin - Fox News - (Nikki Haley HQ, South Carolina)
Aishah Hasnie - Fox News (Trump HQ, Mar-a-Lago)
Peter Doocy - Fox News (Washington D.C.)
Bill Hemmer - Fox News (election map)
Panel
Kayleigh McEnany - Fox News, former White House press secretary (Trump)
Charles Payne - Fox Business
Juan Williams - Fox News (liberal)
Ari Fleischer - former White House press secretary (G.W. Bush)
Marc Thiessen - Washington Post (conservative)
Kati Pavlich - Fox News
2nd Panel
Laura Ingraham
Dana Perino
Trey Gowdy
Brit Hume
Sandra Smith
Harold Ford Jr.
Charles Payne Has Mastered the Ultimate Republican Debate Technique
As he’s done in past appearances Payne shouted over someone who disagreed with him. Juan Williams pushed back on Payne’s assumption that Black voters were switching to Trump.
‘There are people like that. Charles. I just don't think that's what we're talking about. I don't think that represents the black vote in America. When we talk about increases for Trump, you may be talking about some people like that who love his gangster style and his,” said Williams.
Payne cut him off and started yelling, “I'm talking about prosperity. Prosperity. You can’t get their vote with welfare. You can’t promise them higher welfare to get their vote.”
Williams responded calmly.
“Hang on a second. Nobody’s promising them that. I mean, if you're watching the State of the Union later this week, you'll hear that we didn't have a recession and there was a lot of talk among the experts that you consult that this was going to be a recession.”
“We did have a recession,” said Payne.
According to Investopedia the last brief recession was from February 2020 to April 2020 due to the global pandemic.
Who Should Mend Fences First Between Trump and Haley?
“You don’t think she should call him and say congratulations sir and then they try to move on from there?” Dana Perino asked Harold Ford Jr.
“Yeah, but if if I'm trying to heal the breach in my party and there's a breach, we need to be clear. 30% of Republicans still say that they wanted someone else. I'd reach out. What does he lose? Not reaching out. And I don't disagree either,” said Ford.
Trump’s victory speech - 19 minutes
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