Fox puts all-caps disclaimer over Trump’s speech as he claims election was ‘rigged’

‘The voting system companies have denied the various allegations made,’ broadcaster says in graphic

Fox News was spotted running a disclaimer over Donald Trump’s speech to counter his baseless claims of voter fraud at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) speech over the weekend.

During the headlining speech on Sunday, the former president lashed out at US voting systems and repeated his baseless claims of election fraud.

“We were doing so well until the rigged election came along,” Mr Trump said.

False election fraud claims persisted as a running theme across the entire conference. In response to the claims, Fox News was seen running a disclaimer on screen.

“The voting system companies have denied the various allegations made by president Trump and his counsel regarding the 2020 election,” the graphic read.

Panels at the event included “Detecting Threats to Election Integrity: How to Collect Evidence of Fraud” and “Spare the Fraud, Spoil the Child: The Future of American Elections.” CPAC attendees voted their biggest priorities as “voter ID and election integrity”.

Mr Trump has continued to push false claims of voter fraud since he lost the 2020 election, the misinformation culminating in an attempt to overturn the electoral certification on 6 January.

According to CNN’s Oliver Darcy, the disclaimer message ran for about 40 seconds on the screen while the former president was speaking.

“Fox News is so well aware that the voting fraud allegations are nonsense that they ran a disclaimer during Trump’s speech so that they can’t get sued for spreading misinformation,” one user said in response.

“When Fox News runs a disclaimer banner, you KNOW the person talking has FLAMING pants!”, another commented.

One Twitter user observed: “Of course, nothing about all of the courts that have rejected dozens of lawsuits that claimed there was election fraud. That would be asking too much of Fox.”

Some users criticised the broadcaster for not giving a strong enough regarding the claims. “This is not strong enough language from FOX and they know it,” a user posted.

The broadcaster has previously found itself in hot water over its broadcasts in support of the former president’s allegations that the election was “rigged”.

They were forced in December to air a series of packages debunking baseless claims against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, both makers of voting machines.

Both companies have filed legal action against the broadcaster seeking millions in damages. Fox News moved to dismiss the lawsuits which they call “baseless”.

“FOX News Media is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court,” they previously said in a statement.

In another statement the broadcaster called Smartmatic’s lawsuit “meritless” and argued that the First Amendment protects their “reporting and commenting on competing allegations in a hotly contested and actively litigated election.”

Following around 50 lawsuits filed in several swing states by Mr Trump’s team the Department of Justice said in December that they had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the wake of the election.