Fox News Hits Panic Button As White House Criticizes Network On Live TV

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to Fox News' "dictator" graphic, and the network didn't seem to like it.


By Ed Mazza
Jun 15, 2023



Fox News can dish it out ― but they can’t seem to take it.

The right-wing network hurriedly cut away from a White House news conference Wednesday after press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about an on-screen “Fox News Alert” graphic the night before labeling President Joe Biden a “wannabe dictator.”

“There are probably about 787 million things that I can say about this,” Jean-Pierre replied, referring to the $787 million penalty Fox News agreed to pay to settle a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for spreading lies about the 2020 election.

“That was wrong, about what we saw last night,” she continued, but most Fox News viewers didn’t hear what came next as the network dropped her audio and cut away from the White House completely.

Host Sandra Smith interrupted to say the network would monitor for news “obviously as major allegations are waged against the current president, obviously after the arrest of the former president, Donald Trump.”

The network quickly moved on to a story about a 10-foot crocodile:

Fox News viewers missed Jean-Pierre saying she wasn’t “going to get into it” over the Fox News “wannabe dictator” graphic.

“There’s no comment the White House has on it?” the reporter pressed.

“I think I just commented,” she said, prompting a few chuckles from the press.

The exchange was about a moment on Tuesday’s “Fox News Tonight,” hosted by Brian Kilmeade, who defended Trump after the former president was indicted on 37 federal criminal charges in the classified documents scandal.

At one point, the Fox News screen featured side-by-side images of Biden and Trump with a chyron across the bottom that read: “Wannabe Dictator Speaks at the White House After Having His Political Rival Arrested.”

Fox News later released a statement saying the graphic was “taken down immediately and was addressed.”

Here’s the full exchange on Wednesday that Fox News cut away from: