A former Fox News editor is sharing his reaction to the outcome of the Arizona audit after being fired from the network for calling the state for President Joe Biden during the 2020 election.
Speaking to CNN's Jim Acosta, Chris Stirewalt, a former digital politics editor for FOX News, was asked whether or not he felt vindicated after hearing the outcome of the audit. The Republican-led audit determined that former President Donald Trump actually lost by a larger margin than initially thought as 231 votes were subtracted from his number of votes. President Joe Biden, on the other hand, received an additional 99 votes.
Stirewalt said he still did not feel vindicated as he shared his concern about the real reason for the controversial audit.
"The very doing of it is the bad thing," Stirewalt said on Sunday.
"The point of these is to undermine confidence," he continued. "It's not what the finding is. So I take no satisfaction or pleasure from seeing this outcome that roughly corresponds with the real results. They're doing their damage anyway."
When Stirewalt made the call for Biden as the election results were being reported, Trump's White House was reportedly left in a state of shock as a Democratic presidential candidate had not turned the state blue in decades. According to Business Insider, Trump was so alarmed by the call that he had his son-in-law and White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, appeal to the conservative network to retract the call — but to no avail.
For months now, Trump and his Republican allies have been laser-focused on this audit in hopes that it would uncover widespread fraud. However, that did not occur.
But Stirewalt did express "sincere sympathy for people who were duped" as a result of the endless conspiracy theories and circulation of misinformation regarding the election. Stirewalt noted that he only has "disdain for the people who continue to promulgate" those types of falsehoods.
"The point is to undermine voter confidence in the process," Stirewalt said. "Unfortunately, members of both parties make a habit of doing that these days. But we have a direct assault on the legitimacy of our elections. It is a problem, and you cannot placate your way out of this, Republican Party."
You can watch the video below via YouTube:
