D'Souza Offers the Likely Reason Fox News Is Not Covering His Documentary '2000 Mules'
Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza addressed on Wednesday the reason he believes Fox News has avoided covering his documentary “2000 Mules.”
In the movie, he, along with True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, argues an illegal ballot harvesting scheme took place in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin during the 2020 general election.
They offer cell phone tracking data and video surveillance footage of ballot drop box locations obtained through public records requests as proof the illicit conduct took place and likely changed the outcome of the presidential race.
Many legacy media outlets have written about “2000 Mules,” which is the most successful political documentary released in a decade, either to fact check or otherwise discredit it, including: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, Politico and the Associated Press.
All question that cell phone tracking data provides an accurate way to measure whether someone actually went to a drop box and, if so, whether they illegally cast ballots.
True the Vote says it only included those who went to drop boxes 10 or more times and also went to five more more locations of nonprofits, which allegedly acted as ballot collection points from which the “mules” then delivered batches of them to drop boxes.
To further guard against accidentally picking up people who happened to pass by drop box locations regularly, True the Vote bought cellphone data from September, October and November, showing before, during and after election season.
Despite all the buzz and controversy stirred by “2000 Mules,” D’Souza noted on his podcast Wednesday that Fox News — the largest conservative media outlet — has all but ignored the film.
In fact, an online search of “FoxNews.com” and “2000 Mules” on Thursday produced no hits.
“It’s downright strange. It demands explanation,” D’Souza said.
The issue came to the forefront over the weekend when Fox News host Sandra Smith said during a fiery exchange with Alabama GOP congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Mo Brooks that “2000 Mules” had been debunked.
She cited the Reuters fact check.
D’Souza pointed out that Smith had no intention of the subject of “2000 Mules” coming up in her interview with Brooks, but the lawmaker took her there.
D’Souza also stated that save one April pre-release interview he did on Fox Business Network with Larry Kudlow, none of the major news outlets have covered the film, including The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
D’Souza believes that his Fox Business Network interview “slipped through” before the decree came down.
He contended that Fox News certainly does not have to agree with “2000 Mules,” but to ignore it is not normal, especially given the network’s conservative audience.
D’Souza suggested Fox News’ executives should have reasoned, “Well, listen. Dinesh is kind of a regular on Fox. We have him on all the time. Let’s bring him on the show and kind of confront him with these fact checks and go through them one-by-one and have him address them.’ And then feel free to comment, ‘Oh, that’s persuasive. That doesn’t make any sense. But wait a minute, you’re missing this.”
“This kind of normal analysis is what in a healthy society a journalistic network would do, but that is not Fox, at least that is not Fox today,” the filmmaker said.
D’Souza posited three possible reasons for Fox’s conduct.
First, network executives have legal concerns.
Dominion Voting Systems is currently suing Fox Corporation for defamation, saying the network falsely allowed claims to air that the company’s voting machines were used to rig the 2020 general election.
D’Souza dismissed this as a likely cause of Fox’s “2000 Mules” blackout, saying the movie does not deal with voting machines, but rather the legality of ballots cast.
The film also does not name any nonprofits that may have taken part in the alleged scheme, but instead calls on law enforcement to take True the Vote’s data and investigate the matter.
D’Souza then offers fear of offending or losing advertisers as another possible reason Fox is eschewing covering the documentary.
But he does not believe this is the reason either, noting the success of “2000 Mules” makes it newsworthy and other outlets like the Washington Post and Politico have covered it.
Of course the catch 22 for Fox would be if they do cover it critically as these other outlets have, the network would risk offending their viewership.
D’Souza concludes the likely reason Fox is not covering “2000 Mules” is because Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch no longer supports Donald Trump.
“What you have here is a seeming feud. A personal feud. Almost call it a billionaire spat, if you will. One that by the way has been reported off-and-on in a couple of places,” D’Souza said.
He noted some outlets have reported that Murdoch soured on Trump, arguing that the 45th president should move on from the 2020 election.
“Look, it’s Mr. Murdoch’s network. It’s Mr. Murdoch’s newspaper. He can do whatever he wants,” D’Souza said.
“He can burn his brand, if he wants to, but I think this is very unhealthy in a democracy that topics that are of urgent public concern, that are on the minds of certainly the GOP side of the electorate, and probably much more than that, cannot somehow be discussed because one man declares they can’t.”
The Patriot Project reached out to Fox News to comment for this story but had not received a response at the time of publication.
