Fox News cuts away from Kayleigh McEnany’s press conference

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Fox News cut away from Kayleigh McEnany’s press conference Monday afternoon saying they ‘can’t in good countenance continue showing this’ as she made a series of baseless claims that Democrats ‘welcome fraud and illegal voting’. 

The conservative network refused to air the entire briefing from the Trump administration, breaking away from the president’s press secretary moments after she launched into a number of claims – none of which have yet been backed up by evidence.  

This comes after at least seven television networks including CBS, ABC and NBC, cut off Donald Trump‘s White House address Thursday evening to fact check him with many calling out his ‘falsehoods’.

It also marks the latest move from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to distance itself from Trump, as several of its conservative media outlets appear to have switched their messaging in the days after the election.  

McEnany kicked off her press conference insisting the election is ‘not over’ and that Republicans had ‘only begun the process of obtaining an accurate, honest vote count.’

She then launched into a string of unsubstantiated claims, including that the Democrats oppose voter ID laws, the verification of signatures, citizenship, residency and other identity markers, and that they had prevented Republican poll observers watching ballots being counted. 

‘You don’t take these positions because you want an honest election,’ McEnany said.

‘You take these positions because you are welcoming fraud and you are welcoming illegal voting.’

She continued saying ‘we want every legal vote to be counted and we want every illegal vote – ‘ before Fox News’ host Neil Cavuto cut across her. 

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just think we have to be very clear: she’s charging the other side as welcoming fraud and illegal voting, unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue to show you this,’ Cavuto said.  

Cavuto said the network would return to the press conference if McEnany presented any evidence to back up the claims. 

‘But that’s an explosive charge to make, that the other side is effectively rigging and cheating, if she does bring proof of that of course we’ll take you back so far she has started saying, right at the outset, welcoming fraud, welcoming illegal voting,’ Cavuto said. 

‘Not so fast,’ he added.

Fox did not resume airing the press conference.   

When McEnany was later asked by a reporter for evidence of fraudulent votes, Trump’s press secretary was unable to present anything and asked for ‘patience’. 

‘What we are asking for right now is patience as we explore these equal protection claims among others,’ McEnany said. 

The refusal to air the press conference comes after several networks cut away from Trump’s briefing Thursday evening where he also made multiple claims but provided no evidence that the election was rigged against him. 

NBC cut the president off before the end of his speech, with host Lester Holt saying: ‘We have to interrupt here, because the president has made a number of false statements, including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting. There has been no evidence of that.’

Meanwhile CNN’s Jake Tapper called it a ‘sad night’ for Americans who had to hear the president ‘try to attack democracy that way with this feast of falsehoods.’

‘Lie after lie, after lie about the election being stolen. No evidence for what he’s saying, just smears about the integrity,’ he told viewers.

‘When he wins a state it’s legitimate, when he loses it’s because the vote is being stolen from him. It’s not true, it’s frankly pathetic.’

Fox, which has long been a close ally of the president, had been one of the few to air the president’s address in full that night. 

However its move to cut off McEnany mid-speech Monday comes after the network and several other Rupert Murdoch-owned conservative outlets have changed their messaging in the days after the election much to Trump’s ire. 

Murdoch and Trump have often rubbed shoulders in the same social circles and the media mogul’s right-wing networks have long sided with Trump.

But when Fox became the first outlet to call Arizona for Biden Tuesday night, Trump reportedly called Murdoch in a fury ‘to scream about the call and demand a retraction’, a source told Vanity Fair.

The 89-year-old media mogul refused to order his staff to retract the Arizona call.  

Several of Murdoch’s conservative outlets then changed their messaging as Trump’s chances of reelection slipped away in the days that followed, urging him to bow out with grace and all but declaring Biden the winner prior to the crucial state of Pennsylvania – and the election – being called.  

Fox News host Laura Ingraham sent a message to Trump to accept ‘the unfavorable outcome’ of the election with ‘grace and composure’ on her show Friday night.

Meanwhile, the front cover of Saturday’s edition of the New York Post – which last month exposed emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop and in October publicly endorsed Trump on its front cover – all but declared Biden’s victory hours before it was called. 

And the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board penned an opinion piece Friday warning Trump his ‘legacy will be diminished greatly if his final act is a bitter refusal to accept a legitimate defeat.’ 

Trump has refused to concede to Joe Biden and has made numerous unsubstantiated claims of fraud – despite presenting no evidence.   

The Trump campaign has said it will order a recount in Wisconsin, where Biden is up by 20,000 votes, and a recount is also likely in Georgia, where he is currently up by 10,000. 

It has also filed multiple lawsuits including the latest filed in Pennsylvania Monday  making its case to throw out more than 600,000 votes.