For the first time since 2020, Fox News will hold a town hall with Donald Trump that is aired live rather than taped — a dynamic that has critics raising alarms about his potential to spread falsehoods unchecked.
The challenge during Wednesday night’s broadcast from Iowa will be particularly acute for Fox, which recently spent $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit prompted by false claims of 2020 election fraud that Trump allies pushed on the network and still faces several other lawsuits stemming from its election coverage.
Based on his recent appearances — including an infamous live town hall on CNN in May, during which he said that the 2020 election was “rigged” and other falsehoods, to the raucous cheers of a heavily partisan audience — Trump will probably attempt to re-litigate the last election during the event, which will be held ahead of the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses.
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And there may not be much that the event’s moderators can do about it.
“There’s no way to control what he’s going to say, and he’s most likely to bring it up,” said George Washington University professor Matt Dallek, who noted that Trump’s attempt to warp reality by denying that he lost “has almost become an uber rationale for his running again.”
He added: “With Trump, it’s very hard to separate the past wrongs and grievances from his political appeal, because the two are so tightly wound together.”
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