51 percent say Fox hosts made comments about 2020 election they knew were untrue: poll

A majority of respondents in a new poll say they believe hosts at Fox News made comments about the 2020 election they knew were untrue.

A total of 51 percent of adults asked in a YouGov poll answered “yes” to the question, “Do you think hosts on Fox News said things about the 2020 election that they knew were untrue?” Meanwhile, 29 percent said they were “unsure” when asked the same question, and 21 percent answered “no.”

The YouGov poll was taken from April 29 to May 2 among 1,500 U.S. adults.

Fox last month agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a blockbuster defamation lawsuit brought against the network by Dominion Voting Systems in connection with the channel’s airing of false claims about its software.

Before it settled, Fox in legal filings and public statements argued the allegations about Dominion, which former President Trump and his allies promoted, were newsworthy and warranted coverage on its top shows.

In a deposition taken by Dominion’s lawyers ahead of what was expected to be a lengthy jury trial, Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire conservative media mogul who owns Fox, acknowledged some of the leading hosts on his network embraced Trump’s false statements about the election “as commentators.”

Fox is gearing up to defend itself from a second defamation lawsuit, brought by voting systems company Smartmatic, over similar claims made on its air.

A trial in the Smartmatic matter is not expected for months or possibly years.

“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025,” a spokesperson for the network said in a recent statement about the case. “As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on its face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”