EXCLUSIVE: Karine Jean-Pierre Asked Straight-Up Should Fox News Face Being Shut Down By Government

SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if Congress should give the FCC the power to shut Fox News down over conduct revealed in the blockbuster filings from the Dominion defamation suit.

More stunning comments made by Fox News hosts and executives in private in the aftermath of the election were revealed Tuesday in yet another new filing by Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News for defamation and seeking $1.6 billion in damages.

In an interview for Monday’s edition of The Dean Obeidallah Show obtained exclusively by Mediaite, the host asked Jean-Pierre about the need to hold Fox accountable, and suggested treating them the same as broadcast networks by expanding the jurisdiction of existing FCC regulations:

DEAN OBEIDALLAH: Look, the FCC the way the law is right now, it does not cover cable news. We all know that. Broadcast news, though. It does. It, it’s called distortion. And it has to be you have to show that they said something false on purpose they knew was false and they could be sanctioned. They can lose their license on a network. It doesn’t apply to cable.

Do you think there’s any chance to explore the idea of expanding that, it would take an act of Congress, to expand the FCC’s mandate to include, just apply that, what that already applies to CBS and ABC and FOX on network to cable equally. It would apply to everyone, if (inaudible) did same thing that we know Fox did. 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.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I have to be careful. FCC is an independent agency, so we need to be careful here. But I get your point.

You know, look, I think everybody has a responsibility, if you call yourself a news organization, to tell the truth, you know, and I mean, that’s probably as far as I can go. I think when you ask me about Fox, and I think that’s I think the question that I got on MSNBC with Alex was close enough to that.

But to the question that you did, you just you just asked me. And in the best way that I can answer it is even Fox News leadership, in their depositions say, as we as I was being asked about the Tucker Carlson show, that it’s not news or truthful. And I think that tells you everything that you need to know. I mean, when the when the leadership is saying that, I think that tells you everything that you need to know and I’ll just leave it there.

Fox News issued a statement responding to the latest documents on Monday:

Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny,” the network said, “as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims.

Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear Fox for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

Watch the clip above, via SiriusXM.

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