Comic and pundit Bill Maher drew stunned gasps from his audience when he read a text from Tucker Carlson that was an exhibit in the blockbuster Fox News-Dominion case that was settled this week.

There was joy in some quarters when Fox News agreed to a settlement this week that included a $787.5 million payout in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit that was just about to play out in a weeks-long trial after volumes of damaging revelations were publicized pretrial.

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher used most of his monologue to celebrate the news and mock the network — but drew a particularly sharp reaction from the audience when he read Carlson’s text:

BILL MAHER: But the big news is Fox News this week. I don’t know if you’ve been following this there. They were going to be on trial with Dominion voting system. Dominion are the people who count the votes with their vote. And of course, Fox News is trying to sell their bullshit that Trump really won the election. So they said, well, Fox, Dominion was in on it. So Dominion sued Fox News. We were going to see the trial. No, Fox News settled. They have to pay Dominion $787 million.

AUDIENCE: (CHEERS WILDLY).

BILL MAHER: This way they avoided a trial and the harrowing prospect of having to swear to tell the truth. That’s what this was really about. Oh. And of course, they had them dead to rights because they had the texts from the Fox News anchors on the air, The Fox News people were toeing the Trump line. Behind the scenes they knew it was bullshit and they were saying, it, you know. The last straw was last week. Tucker Carlson. Some of his new texts came out. He called Trump’s lawyer, Sidney Powell, who he was having on his show, giving credibility to, in the text. He says, “She’s a fucking bitch, a psychopath, a liar and a cunt!”.

AUDIENCE: OHHHHHH!

BILL MAHER: And the Fox News spokesman said, Well, they are cherry picking those text out of context. I’m not making this up. I just want to know in what context is fucking bitch a compliment? That’s just my question. So Fox News, they put out a statement after the settlement was reached? They said This settlement reflects the continuing commitment of Fox News to the highest journalistic standards. But I got to say, you know, which news outlets have, I think, even higher journalistic standards? The ones who don’t have to pay three quarters of $1,000,000,000 for being a fucking liar.

Watch above via HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

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