This perfectly illustrates the dangerous tightrope walk being indelicately pursued by Fox. If Trump refuses to step down or ever accept that he lost the election fairly and squarely, and Fox News hosts continue to cower in the face of his conspiracies, a large subset of the more than 70 million Americans who voted for Trump will always believe 2020 to have been a stolen election.

That’s a remarkably dangerous position to be in, with tensions on either side.

The lucrative approach for Fox News is to continue to draw in viewers with more conspiracy theories, which is what a free market system, devoid of any journalistic responsibility, would suggest being the profitable path. But the responsible and the journalistically sound decision is to call facts as facts.

In other words, Fox News executives have to make the fundamental decision that they are staying in the news business.