'Sensed a change': Chris Wallace opens up about Fox News' shift to appeasing MAGA audience

Conservative-leaning CNN reporter Chris Wallace opened up to MSNBC's Ari Melber about his time at Fox News, and what he viewed as the network's deteriorating editorial standards in the waning days of former President Donald Trump's tenure as it tried to keep MAGA viewers who didn't want to hear Trump lost the election.

"I have someone who worked in Fox not praising you, and we only learned about this from private text messages," said anchor Ari Melber. "Laura Ingraham says, 'My anger at the news channel is pronounced,' her making a distinction between what some news anchors do and what she does. Tucker Carlson texted, 'It should be. We devote our lives to building an audience and they let Chris Wallace wreck it.' Your response?"

"Well, I'm employed, and Tucker really isn't anymore," said Wallace. "So, that's part of my response."

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"Look, I had a very good 18-year run at Fox, and they never messed with me the whole time," said Wallace. "As you can see from some of those reports, I asked tough questions, I booked the toughest guests, and I never got second-guessed by the executive floor at Fox."

Wallace then shared when he felt the winds shifted at the network.

"I sensed a change in Fox, as time went on, particularly after the 2020 election, particularly after we, correctly, but were the first to call Arizona on Election Night in 2020. And the Trump campaign was very upset with us, and a lot of Trump supporters were very upset with us, and they began going to other news avenues, like Newsmax that were even further to the right. And I sensed a change, that there was less interest, even in the news side, in sticking to the facts, sticking to the truth, and more in telling that audience, to try to win them back, what they wanted to hear."

Moreover, Wallace added, "they paid a big price for it" when Dominion Voting Systems sued them for promoting conspiracy theories about their election equipment.

"I have to say I'm not unhappy that Fox had to pay $787 million because there ought to be a price to pay when you don't tell the truth and you deliberately misinform people about things that the evidence in that case showed that higher-ups at Fox knew wasn't true," said Wallace.

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