Fox News cuts away from Donald Trump’s spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany over election fraud claims

Kayleigh McEnany delivers remarks about election fraud without producing any evidence

Credit: Bloomberg

Fox News cut away from a news conference held by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday, with the host explaining there was no evidence to back up her "explosive charge" about election fraud.

In another sign of a growing split between US President Donald Trump and the broadcaster, anchor Neil Cavuto broke away from the video feed from the Republican National Committee headquarters after Ms McEnany claimed, without evidence, that Democrats were inviting fraud and illegal voting.

“There is only one party in America trying to keep observers out of the count room, and that party, my friends, is the Democrat Party,” she said, adding: “You don’t oppose an audit of the vote because you want an accurate count. … You take these positions because you are welcoming fraud and you are welcoming illegal voting.”

Interrupting the press secretary, Cavuto said: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just think we have to be very clear that she’s charging the other side as welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting.

"Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.”

Fox News cuts away from Kayleigh McEnany news conference after airing it for less than a minute.

Neil Cavuto: “I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this…She started saying right at the outset, [Democrats were] welcoming fraud, welcoming illegal voting. Not so fast." pic.twitter.com/1jn5jC2r5E

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) November 9, 2020

He continued: “I want to make sure that maybe they do have something to back that up, 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. Not so fast.”

Fox New, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, has often given Trump an uncontested mouthpiece during his term. But tensions have risen in recent days after the broadcaster called Arizona for Joe Biden on election. The first to do so, it made the projection when only 86 per cent of the vote had been counted and Mr Trump was only just behind. Four days later, no other US TV network had called the state.

His campaign attacked Fox News "decision desk" director Arnon Mishkin as a "Clinton-voting, Biden-donating Democrat" who made a "terrible decision" and "refused to retract an unjustified call".

In the days after the election, Fox News has been careful when reporting the president’s allegations of massive vote fraud. In a Friday night broadcast, Fox News anchor Brett Baier said: "We just haven’t seen it. It hasn’t been presented to us."