As election results poured in on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, Fox News found itself defending its position as the only network to call the state of Arizona for Vice President Joe Biden.
To do so, they trotted out Arnon Mishkin, who is the director of the “decision desk” for Fox News.
“What I think we’ve heard from the White House is that … they need just to get 61% of the outstanding vote, and there are 870,000 outstanding votes, and they’ll be getting that,” Mishkin said. “That’s not true.”
He continued, “The reality is that they’re likely to only get about 44% of the outstanding votes that are there. We’re right now sitting on a race that is about Biden at 53%, Trump at 46%. I’m sorry, the president is not going to be able to take over and win enough votes to eliminate that seven-point lead that the former vice president has.”
It wasn’t until several hours later, at 11:51 p.m PT, that the AP joined Fox News in calling Arizona for Joe Biden. Election results for several states are not expected to come in until Wednesday morning or even later.
In an interview with the New York Times in September, Mishkin, who is a paid consultant and not a Fox news employee, said, “There will be no one putting their finger on the scale in either direction.”
Amid Trump team pushback, Fox News Decision Desk Director Arnon Mishkin defends Fox's decision to call Arizona for Biden:
"I'm sorry, the president is not going to be able to take over." #Election2020 pic.twitter.com/X0yIy18H9O
— The Recount (@therecount) November 4, 2020
Fox News decision desk director Arnon Mishkin, who made the Arizona call for Biden, gets testy when Bret Baier repeatedly presses him on whether he's 100% sure.
"Yes… We made the correct call and that is why we made the correct call when we made it. I’m sorry!" pic.twitter.com/gic0uSKFyr
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) November 4, 2020
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