MRC Sucks Up To Accused Sexual Harasser

We’ve documented how the Media Research Center tends to whitewash or outright censor sexual misconduct claims against Fox News personalities — one of whom was Fox Business host Charles Payne, whom once-prominent right-wing talking head Scottie Nell Hughes said had coerced her into a sexual relationship. Fox News placed Payne on hiatus for two months in 2017 after the accusations surfaced, but he was reinstated a couple months later and has stayed on the air since, even after Hughes accused him of rape. In 2018, Fox News settled a lawsuit filed by Hughes.

Not only have MRC people continued to appear on Payne’s Fox show, Payne paid the MRC to rent its mailing list for the purpose of shilling his stock-pick newsletter to MRC readers. But the MRC took that love of a credibly accused sexual harasser to the next level with an July 29 “EXCLUSIVE” interview with Payne fawningly conducted by Joseph Vazquez:

Fox Business host Charles Payne has had enough. He’s fed up with the anti-Trump media and their one-sided coverage of the stock market and economy. 

The Making Money with Charles Payne host hammered the liberal media negativity in an exclusive interview. Payne concluded that the media spends “big rally days openly wondering (dare I say hoping) when the market will get it right (crash).” He even nuked New York Times economist Paul Krugman on his ongoing doom-and-gloom narrative: “The Krugmans of the world always bet on America staying down.”

Payne’s message to the media? “Park as much of your political animosity at the door.”

Vazquez gushed at the end: “The media could learn quite a thing or two from Payne’s critiques. If they have any sense left, they’ll do well to heed them.”

Vazquez was even more obsequious on his Twitter account, where he effused: “It was an honor and privilege of mine to conduct this interview with @FoxBusiness’s @cvpayne. He’s a great American. If the media has any sense left, they’ll do well to heed his spot-on criticism. Thank you Charles.”

Needless to say, Vazquez was not about to let reality intrude on his right-wing fantasy by mentioning the facts of Payne’s controversial personal life. 

This is just another reminder that the MRC cares nothing about journalism — it’s an arm of the Trump re-election campaign. And it will suck up to the worst people in order to push its right-wing, pro-Trump narrative.