Chris Stirewalt said in his upcoming book that viewers would have been more prepared for Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 presidential election if they had been given a more accurate assessment of the race through the network's coverage.
In the book, "Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back," Stirewalt said that over his 11 years at the network, he increasingly saw coverage that didn't fully capture what viewers needed
Stirewalt said that such coverage became commonplace during Trump's White House tenure, and pointed to the "rage" that he encountered after the Fox News decision desk called the pivotal state of Arizona for now- President Joe Biden.
In the wake of the Arizona call, Senator Kevin Cramer accused me of a "cover-up" and called for my firing.
He said that he was covering up what. We did not have any electoral votes to award. Trump's loss would have been seen as a likely outcome if viewers had been given a better idea of the race over time. Instead of understanding his narrow win in 2016 as the shocking upset that it was, viewers were told to assume that polls don't apply and that they were going to be wrong again.
Stirewalt felt confident in his team's conclusion despite Trump's anger that Fox called Arizona for Biden. Out of 3.4 million votes, Biden won the southwestern state by 11,000 votes.
Stirewalt said that they were able to make a call early. We were able to win.
With Biden set to win Arizona and the outcome in several other swing states still up in the air on election night, Stirewalt spoke of how he tried to prepare viewers for the initial results.
The president and the Trump campaign made it clear that they were going to try to exploit the situation, so we went to pains to make sure that we told viewers. The percentage of early votes was higher and that was going to make it bigger.
The person reached out to Fox News.
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