White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre deflected when asked whether Congress should have the power to take away Fox News’ license for knowingly lying to the public about the 2020 election.
Jean-Pierre appeared on SiriusXM’s “The Dean Obeidallah Show” days after new filings from Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems revealed further evidence that the former publicly endorsed a “stolen election” narrative that they privately questioned or doubted.
In a recent show, Obeidallah asked Jean-Pierre if the FCC’s jurisdiction over broadcast should be expanded to include cable. That would allow the government to sanction Fox News for “distortion” and potentially take away its license.
“Do you think there’s any chance to explore the idea of expanding that?” he asked. “Because if not, why would Fox not just keep lying to the American public without any consequence? I don’t know why they would stop this.”
Jean-Pierre responded that she “had to be careful” with her answer. And she was.
“FCC is an independent agency, so we need to be careful here. But I get your point,” she said. “You know, look, I think everybody has a responsibility, if you call yourself a news organization, to tell the truth, and I mean, that’s probably as far as I can go.”
Jean-Pierre referred to Rupert Murdoch and other executives’ admissions that hosts like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham went too far in their denial of the election results.
“…The best way that I can answer it is even Fox News leadership, in their depositions say, as I was being asked about the Tucker Carlson show, that it’s not news or truthful,” she continued. “And I think that tells you everything that you need to know. I mean, when the leadership is saying that, I think that tells you everything that you need to know and I’ll just leave it there.”
Watch the clip above.
