Former House Speaker Paul Ryan was grilled last week over his decision to remain on the board of directors of Fox News’ parent company after damning court documents showed that the right-wing network knowingly peddled election lies to its audience.
In the interview, conducted by conservative commentator Charlie Sykes at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and posted Tuesday on The Bulwark Podcast, Ryan was asked how he could associate himself with a company that “is pumping toxic sludge, racism, disinformation, and attacks on democracy.”
“Do you have any responsibility?” Sykes asked.
“I do. I have a responsibility to offer my opinion and perspective and I do that, but I don’t go on TV and do it, right. So I offer my perspective, my opinion, often,” Ryan replied. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
Sykes continued pressing Ryan.
“Is there a red line for you at any point where you said, “‘I cannot be associated with a company that does this’?”
Ryan declined to directly answer the question. Instead, Ryan said, “I want to see the conservative movement get through this moment. And I think Fox is a big part of the constellation of the conservative movement.”
“Is it the solution or the problem?” Sykes asked.
Ryan said he believed Fox News is “gonna have to be a part of the solution if we’re going to solve the problem in the conservative movement.”
“Because there isn’t a bigger platform than this in America,” Ryan said. “So I think the conservative movement is going through a lot of churn and a lot of turmoil and I don’t like where it is right now.”
Ryan and other Fox Corporation board members have faced scrutiny for not doing enough to prevent executives at Fox News from allowing lies about the 2020 election to be knowingly promoted to the network’s millions of viewers.
In the latest legal filing Monday from Dominion Voting Systems, it was revealed that behind the scenes, Ryan pleaded with Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox Corp. CEO, to prevent Trump’s bogus election claims from being broadcast to Fox News’ audience of millions. Ryan, according to messages uncovered in the case, said that Fox News should “move on from Donald Trump” and “stop spouting election lies.”
But Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, the renowned professor and senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management, told CNN that Ryan’s actions were not enough.
Clarification: This story has been updated to note that the podcast went live Tuesday but was taped last week.
