The once peripheral right-wing network Newsmax, which enjoyed a post–Election Day boost in ratings and notoriety after carrying Donald Trump’s “stolen election” delusions further than Fox News was willing to, now appears to be giving up on the conspiracy theories that led to its 15 minutes in the president’s spotlight. “As a result of the Electoral College vote Joe Biden is the president-elect and will be referred to as such on Newsmax,” a network spokesperson told The Hill on Tuesday. Newsmax is still trying to have it both ways, as the spokesperson added, “We also recognize President Trump continues to contest the results and we will cover aspects of that news story.” But given the president’s history of wildly turning against media allies the second he feels even a little bit slighted, Newsmax’s capitulation to reality in referring to Biden as the winner may lead to Trump and his supporters breaking off their short fling with the network.
On Monday afternoon, Newsmax anchor John Bachman did refer to Biden as “president-elect,” which aligns with Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy’s view on the Electoral College votes this week marking the final nail in the 2020 race. But later that night, Newsmax’s Greg Kelly, the channel’s most popular host, explicitly went after members of the conservative media who are granting Biden the “president-elect” title. “Our president is in the fight of his life. And there are people right now who are out there calling Joe Biden the ‘president-elect,’ ” said Kelly. “At this point, there is some political and some historical justification for them to do so at this point. I personally feel they’re wrong.” He then closed his show by insisting that the election “is not over. It’s not, actually. You can look it up in the Constitution” before trying to soothe his audience of Trump diehards: “Hey, it’s tough, it’s got a tough fight, bleak. But [Trump has] been in tough spots before. Stay tuned.” (Kelly, whose 7 p.m. program managed to beat the competing hour of Fox News in the key ratings demo last week, has arguably benefitted the most from Trump’s election fantasies staying alive this long). Earlier in the evening, Kelly’s colleague Bob Sellers, who hosts Newsmax’s American Agenda, referred to the election as an unfinished affair, saying that Americans are “waiting with bated breath” to see which way the tide will turn over the next couple of weeks and claimed that “there are still some outstanding cases of irregularity.”
Sellers expressed the false sense of hope within hours of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court delivering another blow to Trump’s barely breathing legal crusade on Monday after it dismissed a “meritless” argument for overturning 220,000 ballots cast. The ruling marks another L for the president’s dubious election challenges, which have been repeatedly thrown out over the past few weeks, including in Georgia on Sunday. But it appears that the Trump campaign will continue fighting until the casket drops on January 20, as it filed a new federal lawsuit in New Mexico this week challenging how absentee ballots were collected, despite Biden winning the state by nearly 100,000 votes.
Over on Fox News, the remnants of hope in a Trump reelection are being stomped out by the day. Like a Japanese Imperial soldier still patrolling the Philippine jungles decades after the guns of World War II went cold, Students for Trump chair Charlie Kirk appeared on Fox on Monday to claim that he currently has “more questions than ever before” regarding the legitimacy of Trump’s loss. (Fox, like other major networks called the election for Biden on November 7, even as some hosts have kept amplifying Trump’s baseless fraud claims). “These elections were very much on the margins, especially in Georgia and Arizona, and you suppress that conversation—that is not healthy for our country, Geraldo. We want answers,” argued Kirk in a clash with Fox correspondent Geraldo Rivera, who replied by noting that the president has already “litigated this for six weeks” and still has found nothing to back his conspiracy theories. “Twice the Supreme Court of the United States has rejected it…including all three of Trump’s associate justices,” Rivera added. “You have to stop this.”
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