Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy

Fox News paid almost a billion dollars in legal settlements to bury the contents of this explosive account of the networks blatant attempts to manipulate the truth, mislead the public, and influence our electionsfrom the New York Times bestselling author of Hoax. The ongoing criminal trials of Donald Trump are also a trial for the nation he once led. We are undergoing a stress test of American democracy, the rule of law, and the very notion of a shared political reality. Can we achieve accountability for premeditated assaults on democracy and what forms should accountability take? In Network of Lies, New York Times bestselling author Brian Stelter answers these questions by weaving together private texts, unpublished emails, depositions, and other primary sources to tell the chilling story of Trumps alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election, and the right-wing medias mission to put him back in office in 2024. Trump couldnt have convinced millions of Americans of the Big Lie without Fox News. From the moment Joe Biden became president-elect in 2020, Fox hosts fueled a fire of misinformation and violence by spreading Trumps tales of election fraud and suppressing the truth. Come January, Sean Hannity insisted Trump needed to stop listening to crazy people who swore he could stay in power, but it was too latethousands of Trumps deluded followers had stormed the Capitol and Trump operatives had breached Dominion Voting Systems voting machines in Georgia. Now the 2020 lies are at the center of numerous indictments and his reelection campaign, but Trump is not the only one under fire. The once-untouchable Rupert Murdoch has been held accountable. Dominions legal war, chronicled in-depth for the first time here, revealed that the ninety-two-year-old Fox chairman knew Trumps lies were dangerous but he allowed the lies to fill Foxs airwaves because, as his pain sponge Suzanne Scott admitted, telling the truth was bad for business. Network of Lies goes inside the chat rooms, board rooms, and court rooms where the pro-Trump medias greed and selfishness were exposed. Featuring Stelters thorough and damning (The New York Times) investigative prowess and direct quotations so shocking they read like fiction, Network of Lies is the definitive origin story of Trumps attempt to tear down the guardrails of American democracy, and an urgent plea to learn from past mistakes as we head into 2024s pivotal presidential election.