Conservative media outlets feud as OAN accuses pro-Trump Newsmax of being a 'left-leaning' network

• A host on One America News has accused Newsmax of being a "left-leaning organization," Newsweek reported.
• He said that Newsmax did not back former President Donald Trump strongly enough after the 2020 election.
• Both stations are openly supportive of Trump and are popular in right-wing circles.

As an increasing number of conservatives move from Fox News to outlets further on the right, the battle for pro-Trump views is well underway for One America News (OAN) and Newsmax.

So much so that an OAN host has challenged the right-wing credentials of pro-Trump Newsmax by calling it a "left-leaning organization," Newsweek reported.

In a recent segment, journalist Pearson Sharp accused Newsmax of professing to be conservative but not backing former President Donald Trump strongly enough.

-Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 22, 2021

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"Then there was Newsmax, which likes to project an image of being home for conservative, right-leaning or at the very least center-right news," Pearson Sharp said. "A place where anyone who's tired of Fox's increasingly left-wing angles can find a fresh take on news. But is that really the case?"

Sharp then moved on to criticize Newsmax for its coverage of the 2020 election results.

"If you dig deeper under the Newsmax image of so-called conservative news, you'll find a very different, much more left-leaning organization," he said.

"Newsmax threw Trump under the bus and buckled almost immediately, declaring Biden the next president, despite all the evidence of massive fraud and without waiting for the contested battleground states to finish their investigations," Pearson added.

Newsmax began using the title "President-elect" to refer to Biden from mid-December, The Hill said. OAN, however, consistently referred to Trump as "President Trump" and to President Biden as just "Joe Biden" or "Biden" until April, The New York Times reported.

There is very little evidence, however, to suggest that Newsmax holds a left-wing bias. The media outlet, which averages roughly 150,000 total viewers per day, has an editorial policy of "being supportive of the President [Trump] and his policies," the network's founder told The New Yorker. The former president, in turn, has often sung the praises of the media outlet.

It was famously sued for defamation by Dominion Voting Systems after consistently promoting false claims about the 2020 election being rigged against the former president, Insider's Jacob Shamsian reported.

OAN is also popular in conservative circles but has a far smaller audience, the Daily Beast reported. It more explicitly prides itself on its pro-Trump credentials than its rival. The media outlet has described itself as one of the "greatest supporters" of Trump, The Hill reported.

The media outlet is also well-known for promoting baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud.