President Trump unloaded on Fox News, a heavily pro-Trump channel that has been compared to state TV, because they cited the New York Times as a source and employ Democratic pundits.
Trump took issue with the network’s weekend coverage, complaining that its weekend anchors are “worse” than CNN or MSNBC.
“Fox News, who failed in getting the very BORING Dem debates, is now loading up with Democrats and even using Fake unsourced [New York Times] as a ‘source’ of information,” he wrote. “Fox News is changing fast, but they forgot the people who got them there!”
Trump then complained that the network had hired former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile as a commentator.
“Impossible to believe that @FoxNews has hired @donnabrazile, the person fired by @CNN (after they tried to hide the bad facts, & failed) for giving Crooked Hillary Clinton the questions to a debate, something unimaginable,” he wrote.
“Now she is all over Fox, including Shep Smith, by far their lowest rated show,” he added. “Watch the @FoxNews weekend daytime anchors, who are terrible, go after her big time. That’s what they want - but it sure is not what the audience wants!”
Why did Trump erupt at Trump-loving Fox News?
It’s unclear what prompted Trump’s outburst. Media Matters’ Matt Gertz, who tracks the president’s Fox News watching habits, surmised that the tweets were prompted by Fox News’ coverage of the New York Times reports on horrific conditions at immigrant detention centers.
“I'm pretty sure that President Trump's freak-out about Fox's weekend anchors was spurred by the network running Sunday segments in the noon and 1 pm hours that mentioned The New York Times' story on the Clint, TX migrant detention center,” he wrote. “Fox aired segments at ~ 12:20 p.m. and 1:20 p.m. that used the Times report as a hook to discuss migrant detention conditions.”
It’s unclear why Trump chose to attack Brazile. As Gertz pointed out, she had not appeared on the network in a week and the decision to hire her was announced back in March.
Trump trying to get Fox to fall in line:
“Though Trump has shown a willingness to criticize Fox News in recent months, don’t be fooled,” Ryan Bort wrote at Rolling Stone. “The president still likely spends hours every day watching the network, the programming of which plays an overlarge role in shaping his approach to governing. He loves Fox News just as much as he always has, as he will certainly demonstrate on his Twitter feed on multiple occasions this week. The network has over the past two years demonstrated such an unwavering devotion to pushing Trump’s agenda, though, that he now feels he’s in a position to demand absolute loyalty from every talking head the network throws in front of a camera. Fox News is already deep in the bag for Trump. He’s just trying cinch off the drawstrings.”
