Brian Stelter - Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth

ALSO BY BRIAN STELTER

Top of the Morning

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2020 by Brian Stelter

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First One Signal Publishers/Atria Books hardcover edition August 2020

and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information, or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Interior design by Renato Stanisic

Jacket design by James Iacobelli

Jacket photograph by Michael Candelori/Shutterstock

Author photograph courtesy of CNN

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-9821-4244-5

ISBN 978-1-9821-4246-9 (ebook)

For Sunny and Story

It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.

D ONALD T RUMP , M ARCH 10, 2020

In serious situations, truth matters.

S EAN H ANNITY , M ARCH 11, 2020

On March 26, 2020, the people of the United States desperately needed a leader. Instead, they got Donald Trump and Sean Hannity.

The day began with a dreaded round number: 1,000 confirmed deaths from the novel coronavirus. Every six minutes another American died from the disease, and everyone knew the true number was even higher, since many died at home without being tested. By nighttime, the official death toll reached 1,195. The suffering was most pronounced in Trumps hometown, Queens, New York, at Elmhurst Hospital Center, where sick residents lined up in the cold and prayed for a chance to see a doctor. Elmhurst was already out of beds, and would soon be out of ventilators too. The hallways were jammed with patients who could barely stand or say their own names. The scene was far worse than any of the vague, hopeful pablum issued by the White House would have led you to believe, and thats why two young doctors risked their jobs to alert the public. Dr. Colleen Smith filmed inside the hospital on her iPhone and sent the video to The New York Times. Her colleague Dr. Ashley Bray told a Times reporter of the apocalyptic atmosphere as patient after patient died despite heroic efforts. Brays description on page one of the March 26 edition marked a turning point in the publics understanding of the crisis.

But the president didnt read the story. Months earlier, hed proudly claimed that he canceled the White Houses subscriptions to the Times. Whenever the paper published a painfully true critique of the administration, Trump and his media allies at Fox News claimed the Times was fake and failing. But the beleaguered and shrinking pool of committed journalists at Fox knew that was a lie. They wished sources like Bray and Smith would call them instead of the Times, but they knew the misconduct of their prime time peers made that impossible. The rich-beyond-belief stars like Hannity had downplayed the virus and now looked just as ignorant as the president. Fox correspondents tried in vain to report the news anyway, sharing Brays apocalyptic quote five times on five different shows. But viewers like Trump had been trained, by Fox, to disbelieve what other news outlets said, and they didnt want to believe it was that bad.

There was a severe deficit of trust, including at the top. Trump didnt even trust the news anchors on Fox News. They had a tendency to be nasty, he told aides, and some of them belonged on CNN or MSNBC , not on the network he promoted to his tens of millions of followers. To be clear, Trump didnt jabber about Fox out of the goodness of his own heart. He needed Fox. He depended on propagandists like Hannity to tell him what he wanted to hear. He depended on Fox to keep the walls of his alternative reality intact.

Thats why the president was scheduled to call in to Hannitys show at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Nine oclock couldnt come soon enough for Trumpthat days daily press briefing on the Covid-19 crisis had been a disaster. Hed gone out before the cameras at 5:30 and told the public to relax. He shared his affections for NFL quarterback Tom Brady. And he attacked the corrupt news media. I wish the news could becould be real, he said, insulting the journalists spread out before him in the briefing room due to the governments social distancing guidelinesguidelines that he flagrantly ignored. After thirty-nine misleading minutes, he left the briefing early, ordered dinner, and waited for his turn on Hannity. The power imbalance was something to behold: The president had the joint chiefs and the cabinet and any number of world leaders at his beck and call, but when it came time for an interview on Fox News, he was just another caller who needed to be patched into the control room switchboard. Hannity started the show with his usual sermon about Democrats endangering the country. On this night, he ripped into New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. Hannity accused the two Democrats of politicizing this national emergency by criticizing Trump and said both of you need to stop. Then he politicized the national emergency himself with the help of his caller, Donald from Queens.

Is he there? Hannity asked his producers. He heard nothing, and momentarily freaked out. He waited for the control room to tell him what to do.

Then came a Voice of God, just the savior this host needed: I am, Im right here. Hi, Sean.

Mr. President! Hannity exclaimed. Thank you

And they were off. Trump began by flattering his facilitator: He claimed that he had postponed a critical phone call with Chinese president Xi Jinping in order to talk with Hannity.

That shows the power of that shows you have the number one rated show on television, Trump said.

The ratings claim was a lie, since Hannitys show had always been eclipsed by numerous other television shows, from NBC Nightly News to American Idol, Wheel of Fortune to Survivor. But Trump was only talking about cable. He didnt care nearly as much about broadcast networks. He was a cable guy. His call with Hannity was the highlight of his day.

This interview, if you could even call it that, was a love-in and a lie-fest. But there was a little bit of truth embedded in Trumps first answer. He really did keep the Chinese president waiting. I am talking to him at ten-thirty, right after this call, Trump told Hannity.

Beijing noticed Trumps televised stunt and kept him waiting for a while after 10:30, according to a White House source. Trump tweeted at 1:19 in the morning, Eastern time, that he just finished a very good conversation with President Xi.