President Trump was once a big fan of Fox News. He’d call in to the morning show and hold court for an hour or more.
But he’s now among the conservative cable network’s harshest critics.
“Can’t believe how badly @FoxNews is doing in the ratings. They played right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats, & now are floating in limboland. Hiring fired @donnabraziIe, and far worse, allowing endless negative and unedited commercials. @FoxNews is dead. Really Sad!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
Brazile is a former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee and once leaked the topics of a town hall-style event to 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Trump has been blasting Fox over the network’s decision to call Arizona in favor of Joe Biden on election night long before other networks. He has also railed against Fox for calling the entire election for Biden and referring to him as “president-elect.”
Earlier this week, Trump blasted Chris Wallace, its most high-profile news anchor, who moderated the first debate. Critics complained that Wallace was unfair and repeatedly interrupted Trump, but not Biden.
Trump had another complaint he aired on social media, blaming the network for his reelection loss.
“Perhaps the biggest difference between 2016 and 2020 is @FoxNews, despite the fact that I went from 63,000,000 Votes to 75,000,000 Votes, a record 12,000,000 Vote increase. Obama went down 3,000,000 Votes, and won. Rigged Election!!!” he wrote on Twitter.
Axios reported Tuesday that Trump has pledged to make Fox “pay” for calling the election for Biden, but he’s also told confidants that the “people at the highest levels of Fox” have tried to make peace with him
“He’s focused in particular on Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. Trump interrupted a recent conversation that had nothing to do with Fox to ask the person he was talking to whether they’d heard that Newsmax’s Greg Kelly recently beat MacCallum in the 7 p.m. hour,” Axios reported.
Kelly, in fact, beat MacCallum in one demographic in that time slot.
And Fox still continues to dominate in the cable ratings, despite Trump’s criticism.
Figures for the week starting Dec. 7 show Fox News averaged the most total viewers on cable television in prime time and was also No. 1 in total viewers across the 24-hour day, Adweek reported. The network’s 2.8 million primetime viewers last week was a 2.8% increase over the previous week.