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Trump Fox

How Trump's Fox News feedback loop powers his Manhattan trial defense

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe, Harrison Ray & Chloe Simon

Published 05/20/24 8:57 AM EDT

For MSNBC.com, I wrote about how Donald Trump is channeling legal takes from his friends at Fox News as he responds to his Manhattan hush-money trial:

“Everybody — Alan Dershowitz — everybody says there’s no crime here,” Donald Trump said before his trial in Manhattan resumed on Thursday. “There’s no crime. Jonathan Turley, every single person, Gregg Jarrett, Andy McCarthy, anyone you want to name, Mark Levin, great lawyer, all of them. Great lawyers, great legal scholars, every single one said there’s no crime. The crime is that they’re doing this case.”

What do Dershowitz, Turley, Jarrett, McCarthy and Levin have in common? Each has been a fixture on Fox News during its coverage of Trump’s trial. The five have combined for at least 116 weekday Fox appearances from when jury selection began on April 15 through Wednesday, according to Media Matters’ database (Levin also hosts his own show that airs on Fox on Saturday and Sunday nights).

Trump’s effort to delegitimize this trial leans heavily on favorable commentary from his friends at Fox. The former president is regularly promoting trial takes from the network, which has offered a full-throated defense of Trump and an unrelenting attack on everyone involved in his prosecution. Indeed, as Trump finished speaking and entered the courthouse on Thursday, Fox brought on McCarthy and Turley to preview the day’s trial testimony.

Read the whole thing.

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