Fox Business’s Varney & Co. appears to have intentionally altered a graphic breaking down a Fox News presidential poll in an effort to mislead viewers. The poll, conducted between September 9th and 12th, shows former President Donald Trump leading incumbent Joe Biden 48 percent to 46 percent, but the graphic displayed by Varney & Co. on Monday uses what can only be described as a purposefully confusing method to label the results – giving the appearance that Trump is losing to Biden 46 to 48 percent.
The flipped results and added complexity of the Varney & Co. graphic caused confusion on social media, with some users citing it as evidence of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis having the ability to win in 2024. The poll, in fact, shows the opposite.
Stuart Varney, the host of the Fox Business program, is slated to be a co-moderator for the 2nd Republican primary debate on September 27th.
The graphic (below) used by FoxNews.com’s write-up of the poll clearly shows Trump leading Biden, while DeSantis and Tim Scott are both losing to Biden.
The Fox Business Network wouldn’t be the first media property owned by the anti-Trump billionaire Rupert Murdoch to play fast and loose with the truth about the former President’s lead over both the Republican primary field and President Joe Biden. The New York Post recently claimed Trump was ‘getting smoked‘ in the Republican primary, despite leading by historic margins.
Attempts to meddle in the Republican primary haven’t stopped with just flawed and misleading news coverage. Murdoch – who recently announced his retirement as CEO of News Corp – pushed a spate of firings at Fox News, removing hosts and staff who were perceived not sufficiently hostile to the Trump campaign. This culminated in the firing of “the most popular prime-time host in cable news” Tucker Carlson in April of 2023.
The National Pulse has reached out to Irena Briganti, the Senior Executive VP of Corporate Communications, at Fox News for comment, but at the time of publication, has received no reply.