He just can't let her go. Now Hillary Clinton is warning them that legal matters could happen if they keep it up. |
Former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton finally had enough of the Fox agitators saying her name. She is warning them that if they keep on pushing these baseless conspiracies about her, there will be repercussions.
“It’s funny [how] the more trouble [Donald] Trump gets into, the wilder the charges and conspiracy theories about me seem to get,” Clinton told a gathering of New York Democrats. “Fox leads the charge with accusations against me, counting on their audience to fall for it again. And as an aside, they’re getting awfully close to actual malice in their attacks.”
Hillary Clinton was mentioned nearly 200 times on Fox’s air Thursday, per a search of rush TV transcripts. Jesse Watters and Tucker Carlson hyped her as a potential 2024 candidate, while Sean Hannity dared her to sue the network. More in @ReliableSources: https://t.co/HisPluGgBd pic.twitter.com/aRgqDCipgv
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) February 18, 2022
Hannity claims the Clinton campaign hacked into Trump campaign’s server/the office of president and stole material according to the filing pic.twitter.com/IHYda2vWyG
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 15, 2022
Watters opens his show comparing Clinton to a rat pic.twitter.com/6dY1BvBeM5
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 18, 2022
Fox News quickly cut away from Hillary Clinton's speech as she called for people to reject Trump's big lie about the 2020 election pic.twitter.com/AOEwZlRI92
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 17, 2022
Finally, I find it hilariously ironic that Hannity is cheerleading these defamation lawsuits James O'Keefe is filing against media outlets, considering the fact that Fox is currently staring down multi-billion dollar defamation suits from Dominion and Smartmatic. pic.twitter.com/vPXajQilXw
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) April 16, 2021
Hannity: Media Wrong for 3 Years on Russia Collusion, Missed FISA Court Lied To On 4 Separate Occasions, Now Throwing Wet Blanket on Durham Revelations pic.twitter.com/9t98y72Abc
— Alexandra Datig | Front Page Index 🇺🇸 (@alexdatig) February 16, 2022
At the New York Democratic convention, Clinton endorses Kathy Hochul for governor and made a speech that certainly riled up the only human being so obsessed with saying her name every time something bad happens to Washed Up 45.
He has Hillary on the brain. |
A media personality so fucking annoying, you have to literally hope that his show would finally find something that may stick.
A person who is dubbed the official softball of the former president.
"Softball" Hannity addressed Clinton directly during his Thursday night show. “Malice, really? It’s called news,” the right-wing propagandist claimed. “Hillary, we invite you to bring it on.” Of course, while it is extremely unlikely Clinton would take any such legal action against Fox, I would be curious to know what the network’s lawyers think of him daring her to sue for defamation.
Remember he and his network paid a hefty amount of punitive damages to the family of Seth Rich.
The right-wing talk channel, which has in recent days dishonestly twisted a court filing from special counsel John Durham to accuse Clinton of nefariously spying on Washed Up 45, mentioned Clinton’s name nearly 400 times.
It is difficult to prove that this network was malicious towards Clinton. She is a public figure although not running for politics.
CNN Media Analyst Oliver Darcy said that Fox carried Clinton's remarks briefly before abruptly cutting away when she started to talk about the Big Lie. But if the network had stuck with her speech, the channel's viewers would have heard Clinton rip into Fox's recent coverage of her. "Fox leads the charge with accusations against me, counting on their audience to fall for it again," Clinton said. She then invoked some legal language. "As an aside," Clinton said about Fox, "they're getting awfully close to actual malice." Clinton spox Nick Merrill wrote on Twitter that she had "called them and their bullshit out by name."
A rep for Fox didn't respond when I asked about Clinton mentioning "actual malice," the bar a public figure needs to clear in order to succeed in a defamation lawsuit.
The softball was the only Fox figure that I could find who addressed Clinton's malice comment on the network's air. Other personalities, however, devoted significant time elsewhere. One theme Fox promoted Thursday night might inspire some déjà vu: That Clinton is gearing up to run for president again. It was pushed by both Karen Watters and Tuckems.
The white nationalist who mocked Clinton for calling out Fox, framed her speech as "the start of something big." He added during a lengthy segment, "We fully support Hillary Clinton as she runs for president."
The big picture: Expect Fox and the right-wing media universe as a whole to continue its focus on Clinton. These outlets need villains and, all these years later, Clinton serves as one of the ultimate foils. Tracy Sefl, the Democratic strategist who is familiar with the right-wing media universe and who was once described as the "Drudge whisperer" for having dealt with Karen Drudge on behalf of the Clinton campaign, had a similar thought when I texted her Thursday. "Why the obsession?" Sefl asked rhetorically. "Simple: [cha-ching]..."