In a last-minute move, Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787 million settlement Tuesday as part of a high-profile defamation suit filed by the company that produces and sells electronic voting hardware and software against the media company.
The settlement, one of the largest in history for a defamation suit, came just moments before opening statements were set to begin in the case, which involved Dominion accusing Fox News of knowingly pushing election and voting conspiracy theories that harmed the company.
Before even officially getting to trial, the case had produced a number of revelations and controversies for Fox News and its anchors who were involved in promoting election conspiracies on air, despite some indicating in private internal company communications that they knew what they were stating was untrue. Thus, the trial left some — including Hollywood’s late night hosts — eager to see what else might come to light during the trial.
During The Late Show, host and comedian Stephen Colbert made addressing that first on his list of settlement news. “Damnit! I want my trials. I want it,” he told the audience as they laughed. “You were supposed to provide me six weeks of delicious content. I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames.”
Colbert would ultimately spend the most time discussing the settlement in his opening monologue Tuesday night, which was filmed only a few hours after the news broke. “According to Dominion, the settlement was for our gargantuan $787.5 million dollars. That’s a lot of dough-minions,” he joked before pivoting to the “bad news” of the deal — that Fox News anchors will not have to “acknowledge on air that it told lies” about Dominion following the 2020 election results.
As the crowd booed, Colbert joined in. “What they said. Boo, boo, sir. Boo, I say,” he responded. “I guess it’s satisfying for Dominion that Ruppy had to fork over a pile of cash, but that does nothing for our democracy. What we need is Fox News personalities to look straight into the camera, admit that they lied over and over again about the 2020 election and then hurl themselves into Mt. Doom.”
Colbert also harked on Fox News’ statement in response to the settlement, criticizing it for “semi-acknowledging that something kind of sort of maybe happened” before sharing a clip of CNN‘s Jake Tapper laughing as he read out part of the statement, which claims the “settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.” Colbert supported Tapper’s response, calling the statement “hilarious” and Fox News “liars.”
“Fox tried to do some damage control ahead of time with this full-page ad in The New York Times boasting, ‘Trusted now. More than ever.’ Really? Really,” he said, continuing to criticize Fox News’ efforts. “I want to point out the number of people who trust them in their own charts is 41 percent. So less than half. Kind of a weird thing to brag about. You’ll never see a toothpaste ad bragging, ‘Four out of 10 dentists recommend.’ The other six? ‘No, it’s just relabeled hemorrhoid cream.’”
The statement also took up a portion of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue Tuesday, with Kimmel blasting the statement as lies. “They’re already lying in their statement about lying,” he said. “It’s shameless.”
Amid his takedown of the news, Kimmel also shared his stance that “America had a worse day than Fox News today” and ultimately took aim at Dominion after admitting that “obviously Fox is the main villain here.”
“I also want to say nice going to Dominion. We naively thought this was about making Fox News take responsibility for destroying their reputation because that’s what they told us it was about. But no, they took the money instead, which means the liars who knowingly misled their oatmeal-brain viewers and seriously damaged our democracy don’t have to say anything about it at all. No apologies, no testimony. They can go right back to sodomizing the country,” he said. “Dominion and their lawyers go shopping for yachts, I guess.”
Kimmel also took a couple shots at the Fox’s advertising revenue — “it’s going to take a lot of reverse mortgage ads to pay that one off” — and specifically anchor Maria Bartiromo for “providing Dominion with so much evidence.”
“You can find her at Planet Hollywood in Times Square, where she will be waiting tables for the whole rest of her life,” he added.
On The Tonight Show, news of the settlement garnered just a sliver of a joke at the top of the show, despite host Jimmy Fallon acknowledging it as “the big news of the day.”
“The trial was set to begin for Dominion versus Fox News, but the two parties reached a settlement,” he told his late night audience. “You could tell Fox was stressed about the trial because they spent the day chugging Bud Light.”
But on The Daily Show, guest host and longtime correspondent Jordan Klepper delivered an anticipated and more extended biting takedown of the settlement news. “Wow. $787 million. That is a ton of money — and Fox was already strapped for cash. Tucker Carlson can only afford one facial expression,” Klepper joked as a photo of Carlson appeared onscreen.
Even more so than Colbert, Klepper acknowledged that he’s “still pretty disappointed,” despite there being “some accountability” on Fox’s part. “We’re not gonna get a trial because all the Fox anchors would have been forced to testify,” he noted. “It would have been like the Seinfeld finale, but instead of soup Nazis it’s just … Nazis,” he said to crowd hoots and laughter.
Klepper continued to focus his jokes on the anchors as he noted the nearly billion dollar settlement will mean “they’ll need to implement cost-cutting measures.”
“Sadly they have to fire Brian Kilmeade’s reading tutor. Janine Pirro has to switch to the cheap box of wine. Development on a third Doocy has been halted,” he said, nodding to Fox’s White House correspondent Peter Doocy. “They’re gonna have to switch from Jesse Waters to tap waters and, of course, they’re gonna have to put down Sean Hannity.”
“Apparently,” Klepper told the audience, “widespread lying and deceit may have some consequences.”
