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being taken to slaughter. rupert murdoch admitting his fox hosts endorsed, his word, trumps election lies on air. and thats not all hes confessing as fox fights a $1.6 billion lawsuit. and an "outfront" investigation tonight, our david culver traveled to the epicenter of the covid-19 outbreak, the virus likely leaked out of that lab in wuhan, china. lets go "outfront." good evening, im erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, exclusive new information about putins staggering losses. rus...

and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, i am your retribution. i am your retribution. >> donald trump at cpac over the weekend, feeding his followers the dark conspiracy driven vision for america that they crave. just like fox news, trump and the rest of the republican party would rather fill their followers brains with lies than tick them off by telling them the truth. also tonight, trump pledges to run in 2024 even if hes indicted. the strongman principle used by other in...

is? what if the question isnt are we really going to do this, are we going to maybe elect a convicted felon running explicitly on a platform that ends the american experiment in democracy but on a more basic level should we be asking a different question like is he all right? watch as the presumptive republican presidential nominee celebrates a deadly domestic terrorist attack he helped incite on the united states capitol, as he openly shows contempt for and toward his own supporters s...

Member of the state legislature. am i reading that wrong? >> theres a lot of provisions. its very difficult to take a single provision out of this piece of legislation. and it interlocks in a way. theres some other provisions in there whereby it doesnt even have to be false because it revives another legal maneuver which has already been overruled by the florida supreme court. but theyre retroducing it, which means you could write something about a public official that is 100% true, but if the o...

There is no fox. its just a bunch of people, and theyre all lying and theyre admitting theyre lying deliberately lying, meeting the test of "new york times" v. sullivan, deliberate falsehood that ruins reputations can expose you to damages. wake up, thats the law. and its very clearly not on the side of fox. whether fox exists or not. >> and fox -- their statement says, in part, they call these fanciful damages. do you believe that fox really could go away because of this? and i suppose thats a ...

Because there is a concerted effort by mostly conservative lawyers out there, not all conservatives, but mostly to try to rein in the legal protections that "new york times" v. sullivan gives to make these mistakes. >> giving the press a wide way to cover public figures, even getting it wrong without being able to sue and win. >> the first amendment allows you to make mistakes, right? because the idea is that you -- the news organizations who make mistakes honestly shouldnt be litigated out of e...

Darn close. it is a close call in that sense. it is a trial. anything can happen. but if you are just playing the odds, "the new york times" should be safe. however, it could potentially really damage if it goes up to the supreme court, and i do think this is a court that would take on this issue and would take on "new york times" v. sullivan. if you had asked me that two years ago i would say, no, right leaning justices are the opposite of activist justices. i no longer think that. i think it i...

Any time the court is asked to revisit a precedent, there are criteria that the court uses to decide whether or not to overrule a precedent. "new york times" vs. sullivan is a precedent, and stare decisis is very important. the principle that courts -- that the supreme court should maintain its precedents for predictability and stability in the law. if the court is asked to revisit a precedent, its criteria, what it looks at, are whether the precedent is wrong and, in fact, egregiously wrong, th...

The supreme court has held as much, and that was the basis for the courts determinations in protecting the press from liability in "new york times" vs. sullivan and its progeny. >> okay. as you know, that ruling was unanimous ruling in support of the first amendment, and the court held that when newspapers report on public officials, theyre only liable for untrue statements that are published with knowledge or reckless disregard for whether the statement was false. the court in sullivan based it...

"new york times" v. sullivan 1964 case. we have recently witnessed, as you know, unprecedented attacks on journalists and journalism, whether its violence overseas, recently losing, sadly, members of the press just in the last month in ukraine, or threats and intimidation at home. this is very concerning to me, given the important role of the first amendment. my dad was a newspaper reporter, so the issues hit home for me. can you talk about your view of the role of journalists in our democracy? ...