Chris Wallace on Fox News departure: ‘The truth is nonnegotiable’

CNN anchor Chris Wallace took a shot at his former network over its coverage of the last presidential election and the resulting lawsuits the outlet was hit with.

“I had no problem with conservative opinion any more than I do with liberal opinion,” Wallace said during a podcast appearance with Mediaite Editor-in-Chief Aidan McLaughlin. “But what I do have a problem with is conspiracy and lies. The truth is nonnegotiable.”

Wallace, the former host of “Fox News Sunday” who moderated presidential debates and anchored political coverage on the network for years, left the top-rated cable channel in 2021.

He has previously criticized Fox over its controversial but highly-rated opinion programming.

Wallace months after leaving Fox told The New York Times working at the outlet had become untenable for him, saying, “When people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.”

As part of his conversation with Mediaite, Wallace went a step further to say he was “glad” the network agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems millions of dollars to settle its defamation case. Dominion sued Fox in 2021 for airing false claims about its software that were being promoted by former President Trump and his allies after the 2020 election.

“To the degree that Fox was scared by the cost of calling Arizona correctly and people going to other more conservative outlets, there’s also a cost to lying and misrepresenting,” he said. “And I was happy to see that cost was being exacted.”

Wallace, who now hosts a weekend talk show on CNN, also offered some pointed criticism of ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis.

The two moderated the second presidential debate between Trump and Vice President Harris earlier this fall and received pushback from the Trump campaign over their repeated fact-checking of the former president.

“If at the end of the debate, people say, ‘That was a great debate, was there even a moderator there?’ that’s a success. Like a prizefight, ‘God, that was a great fight, did they even have a referee in the ring with them?,'” said Wallace, who has moderated a number of presidential debates. “So at any point where you become the story in a presidential debate or a vice presidential debate, I think you’ve failed.”

Trump, again the Republican nominee for president, has refused to concede defeat in the 2020 election and regularly singles out Wallace as part of his broader attacks on the media.