AOC: ‘Better for country’ if Dominion had secured Fox News apology

Dominion Voting Systems would have better served the US public had it refused to settle its $1.6bn defamation suit against Fox News until the network agreed to apologise on air for spreading Donald Trump's lie about voter fraud in the 2020 election, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said.

"What would have been best for the country, would have been to demand that and to not settle until we got that," the New York congresswoman said.

Dominion and Fox this week reached a $787.5m settlement, shortly before trial was scheduled to begin in a Delaware court.

Legal filings laid out how in the aftermath of Joe Biden's election win and the run-up to the January 6 attack on Congress, Fox News hosts repeated claims they knew to be untrue, as executives feared viewers would desert the network for rightwing competitors One America News and Newsmax.

Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old media mogul and Fox News owner, was among witnesses due to testify.

Fox faces other legal challenges but its avoidance of an apology to Dominion caused widespread comment, with some late-night hosts moved to construct their own on-air mea culpas.

Ocasio-Cortez, popularly known as AOC, acknowledged Dominion was not beholden to public opinion.