Saturday Night Live went with the biggest media stories of the week for its cold openness: the revelations from Dominion Voting System’s bombshell filing in its libel suit against Fox News. Watch a clip below.
Once again to select the option of Fox & Friends to exonerate the network, hosts Steve Doocy (Mikey Day), Ainsley Earhardt (Heidi Gardner) and Brian Kilmeade (Bowen Yang) explained the revelations and why the network has not covered the case.
“Rupert Murdoch admitted that Fox News aired election fraud conspiracies to get ratings, even though everyone at Fox knew they were fake,” says Day’s Doocy.
“Oh oh. I didn’t. Bring in a brother next time,” says Yang’s Kilmeade.
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Gardner’s Earhardt then tells viewers, “You might be wondering, if it’s such a big story, why haven’t I heard about it on Fox?”
“I think it’s because they’re suing us for $1.6 billion,” Kilmeade says.
Doocy corrects him. “No, that’s complete BS. The media is taking private texts from Fox News hosts and showing them completely out of context.”
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In fact, Fox News has actually argued that in its lawsuits, Dominion has taken texts and emails collected in its lawsuit and taken them out of context.
A planned release Tuesday of exhibits in the case should provide additional context to some of the texts, emails and deposition statements cited by Dominion in its filings. But in SNL sketch, the Fox & Friends hosts try to explain the connection.
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They point to one text from Sean Hannity: “Rudy Giuliani is insane.”
“How could you leave out the rest?” says Kilmeade. “It’s Rudy Giuliani who is insane– very warm.“
The sketch also featured an appearance from Mike Lindell, MyPillow CEO, who is one of the network’s most prolific sponsors — and one of the most visible of conspiracy theorists about the 2020 election.
Before he enters, Kilmeade warns him, “Because of this lawsuit, our lawyers have asked you not to say anything crazy about Dominion.”
Lindell replies, “No problem. I’ve been briefed. I know the rules. Every Dominion machine has a Venezuelan Oompa Loompa inside!”
Then Doocy tries to cut him off.
“You can’t just say whatever anymore.”
Lindell replies, “Of course, of course. Let me choose my words carefully. Dominion Voting Machines give triple votes to Democrats, Illegals, and that lady M&M who stopped shaving her pits!”
Dominion’s lawsuit singles out Lindell as one of the guests Fox featured to bolster the false allegations that the company was involved in rigging the election. Dominion noted in its filings that Tucker Carlson featured Lindell as a guest on January 26, 2021, long after Dominion warned the network that its personalities were reinforcing falsehoods about the company. According to Dominion, “Murdoch admitted it was ‘wrong'” for Carlson to host Lindell without challenging his claims about the company.
Fox News says its coverage and commentary on the election fraud allegations made by then-President Donald Trump are protected by the First Amendment.
The network’s anchors and correspondents have stayed away from stories about the case. Howard Kurtz, who anchors its weekly MediaBuzzsaid on Sunday’s show that he was told not to cover it, even though he disagreed with the decision.
Here’s a clip from the cold open: