Sen. Elizabeth Warren.Photo: CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday emphatically declined a town hall invitation fromFox Newsin a string of tweets that ripped the network as “a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists.”
The network, she wrote, is “designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption that’s rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class.”
A spokeswoman for Fox News did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Warren argued that Fox News had ulterior motives in bringing her on: Hosting a Democratic town hall would be the network’s way of trying to prove itself a “safe” space for potential advertisers who might otherwise be hesitant to be around polemical commentators.
In defense, the network says it draws a bright line between its mainstream news content, from journalists such as Brett Baier and Chris Wallace, and its conservative opinion content from Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others.
The latter group has repeatedly weathered controversies and calls for advertiser boycotts. Host Jeanine Pirro was briefly suspended earlier this year after questioning whether a Muslim lawmaker had anti-American beliefs because of her religion.
“Hate-for-profit works only if there’s profit, so Fox News balances a mix of bigotry, racism, and outright lies with enough legit journalism to make the claim to advertisers that it’s a reputable news outlet. It’s all about dragging in ad money – big ad money,” Warren tweeted on Tuesday.
“But,” she added, “Fox News is struggling as more and more advertisers pull out of their hate-filled space. A Democratic town hall gives the Fox News sales team a way to tell potential sponsors it’s safe to buy ads on Fox – no harm to their brand or reputation (spoiler: It’s not).”
“Here’s one place we can fight back: I won’t ask millions of Democratic primary voters to tune into an outlet that profits from racism and hate in order to see our candidates – especially when Fox will make even more money adding our valuable audience to their ratings numbers,” shewrote.
Warren concluded her Twitter thread with asummaryof the hundreds of interviews and town halls she’s already done, and invited Fox News to cover her events “just like any other outlet.”
“But a Fox News town hall adds money to the hate-for-profit machine. To which I say: hard pass,” shewrote.
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Unlike Warren, other 2020 Democratic candidates have taken the network up on town hall offers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, whoparticipated in April, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, whodid one last week.
source: people.com
