Thanks so much. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melbert. Our top story is about this push that we need in America, the push for accountability as we face political lies and violence. So let me start here tonight. Do you remember where you were when Joe Biden beat Donald Trump? Do you remember how that entire race came down to that official call on the weekend?

There was rejoicing.

There were spontaneous crowds gathered in the nation, people making their own signs, walking around.

It was kind of a big moment.

It was unlike as a reaction, any recent president losing an election. Do you remember the

road to that call? Because the election actually took several days to be formally resolved,

but the key to that resolution I'm about to show you when the writing was on the wall

was when Trump lost a state that he almost

certainly needed for any hope of victory. It was Arizona. Among insiders, people on the campaign,

people who follow this closely, Steve Kornacki, I mean, people who are really counting every state,

everybody knew you lose Arizona and you're Donald Trump, you're the loser of the race. And it was actually an arm of Fox News, not Tucker Carlson, not the host being sued for defamation,

which I'll get to, but something they have over there called their election decision desk,

which, when it came to the fateful Arizona decision, well, they made that call.

The Fox News Decision Desicions Des Desk is calling Arizona for Joe Biden.

That is a big get for the Biden campaign.

Big indeed.

That call decimated the reality-based wing of the Trump campaign because those numbers

showed it was over. And now,

for the first time, we're actually learning about backroom dealings at the highest levels of that

losing president's campaign and Fox News, you just heard, make that call. And we're only learning

about this because of the effective billion-dollar case against the Fox Empire, which we and other media have been covering because it's a huge deal.

Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch cites the Arizona call, what I just showed you, as a defense.

...