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But his remarks quickly turned pointed that early Tuesday morning as he boasted about how well he had done in the job of president, despite unexpected challenges. Not China, he said, or Russia or North Korea, but the United States. And what had changed the most for him since 2016, he mused rhetorically. “Fox,” he said, answering his own question. “It’s much different now.” As the hosts sputtered, he elaborated: “In the old days, they wouldn’t put sleepy Joe Biden on every time he opened his mouth. . . . It’s a much different operation, I’m just telling you.” It was the last day of a campaign Fox had done so much to support, but it was a preview of the war — now one week old but months in the making — that may have permanently ruptured the bond between President Trump and his once-favorite television channel. As he faces expulsion from the White House, Trump has vowed revenge on the network that propelled his political career, according to close White House aides — perhaps by publicly attacking Fox or undermining its business model by endorsing a competitor. His
early-morning grumblings flew in the face of the friendly venue Fox has been for
him — as well as the personal guidance he has taken from its marquee stars,
opinion hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, who advised him on
his reelection strategy, from how to conduct himself in a debate to where he
should hold his rallies, according to three people familiar with these
exchanges. Trump has also maintained the unswerving support of other Fox opinion hosts, including Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro, both of whom would be in attendance that same Tuesday at the election night party in the White House’s chandeliered East Room, where Fox was on the big-screen TVs as he won the key state of Florida and the room filled with increasing optimism that their candidate had once again defied the polls. Until 11:20 p.m., when Fox News called Arizona for Biden with 73 percent of the expected vote counted — a “screeching of tires” that brought the party to a halt, said one official present. This account is based on interviews with 11 current and former Fox News and Trump officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive dynamics between Fox News and Trumpworld. Trump erupted in anger, telling others in the White House to “get that result changed,” a senior administration official said.
Yet
even as Fox opinion hosts reliably cheered for Trump, the relationship with the
network could be problematic for top White House staff, largely because of the
president’s thrall to what it broadcast. While he was White House chief of
staff, John Kelly regularly complained to aides that the show hosted by
conspiracy-minded immigration opponent Lou Dobbs
on Fox Business Network had far too much sway over
the president, according to two former senior administration
officials. “What we were always concerned about inside is that when he’d do a spending deal or make an announcement that was controversial, and then Fox would attack him, and he’d blow it up the next day,” the former official said. “We’d call the hosts, and say, ‘Please can you tamp it down a bit?’ Because we were afraid the next day he’d rip it up. . . . They usually were pretty good about working with us.” But Trump demanded an unattainable level of loyalty from the network. His reelection campaign at one point asked for a bulk discount advertising deal. Fox said no, noting that everyone has to pay the same rates, according to two people familiar with the exchange — leaving Trump extremely unhappy with Fox. In recent months, he had begun to complain — both on Twitter and among his aides — that Fox had turned on him. That impression was only heightened when reports emerged that Murdoch was telling associates that the president was going to lose. Even as the New York Post, another Murdoch-controlled property, published a dubious front-page article last month, facilitated by Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, that alleged nefarious business dealings by Biden’s son Hunter, the personal relationship had undeniably cooled. Trump took any perceived slight from Fox News especially personally because he viewed Fox as “my network,” three administration officials said. “I give Fox these mega ratings. It’s all me,” Trump has told advisers, according to a person who heard the comments. In reality, ratings have been buoyed across all networks by increased audience interest spurred by the drama of the Trump presidency — and while Fox, too, has prospered, it has also been the number-one rated cable news program for more than 18 years. And for all its Trump sympathies, Fox remained an independent business and a news organization — one that couldn’t help turning its attention to the wider pantheon of political personalities as the 2020 campaign heated up. “People think Fox, and they think what they think. And you can’t do anything about that,” a Fox executive said. “But on election night, I’m telling you, the news side is running the show.” The
fury with which Team Trump
fought back against Fox's call for Arizona
signified the extent to which they saw it as a dire omen — and a betrayal. Yet the state had long been trending more liberal, and Mishkin maintained that his projection was rooted in pure math — hardly a concerted attempt by the network to kneecap Trump. Indeed, in the following days, Fox’s opinion hosts doubled down on their show of loyalty to the president — even going so far as to obliquely cast doubt on their own network’s call by repeating Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.
But other Fox personnel stood their ground — even as Trump fans gathered outside vote-counting locations in Arizona’s Maricopa County, chanting “Fox Sucks.” “Lawsuits, schmawsuits,” scoffed Fox’s politics editor, Chris Stirewalt, assessing the Trump campaign’s threats of legal challenges over the election results. “We haven’t seen any evidence yet that there’s anything wrong.” Baier, Fox’s nightly news anchor for the past decade, repeatedly pushed back against claims of voter fraud leveled by Trump allies. And when correspondent Eric Shawn was asked Friday by host Dana Perino about Trump allegations that GOP poll watchers were being blocked in Philadelphia, he responded, “That’s not true. That’s not true. That’s just not true.” “To come out and say that there is voter fraud . . . to make a statement about an election being stolen or an election being rigged, that can be a dangerous statement,” said Jedediah Bila, a co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend.” “I haven’t seen any evidence.” A
Fox executive acknowledged that regular viewers, attuned to messaging from the
campaign, were “really pissed off” at the network. “But we aren’t backing down
from it.” Still, Trump and his allies have become convinced that the Arizona call represented a strategic decision by Fox to “go to great lengths to prove their objectivity at Trump’s expense,” said one friend of the president. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh amplified this theory on his Friday show: “The cable networks are waiting for Fox” to declare the race, he said. “They want you to eat crow. They want you guys to be the ones to repudiate Trump.” As
it happened, after Fox’s early call on Arizona — which as of Monday morning
still had not yet been matched by any other major news organization other than
the Associated Press, as Trump continued to narrow the gap through the
counting of mail-in ballots — the network seemed to slow down to meet the pace
of its rivals, who all refrained from making aggressive calls in other states
this year. Having placed Arizona in Biden’s column, Fox could well have been the
first news organization to call the presidency for Biden, with only the addition
of another small state like Nevada. Yet the network was loath to do so,
according to two Fox executives. The Trump campaign is vowing to push forward with lawsuits, but some of his advisers are counseling him not to fight too hard so he can leave with his dignity intact and prepare for his next step, whether it is as the leader of a resistance or a 2024 candidate. But officials said Trump was in some ways angrier about Fox News on Wednesday than his actual loss. One ally said that when Trump called on Wednesday, he expected him to complain about the results. Instead, the ally said, Trump “railed about Fox.” Trump’s advisers had long discussed the possibility that when he left office, he would support a news network to compete with Fox or start his own. “This,” said one of his close advisers, “only exacerbates that desire.”
On Hannity (Fox)
Hannity spun—again, baseless—stories about polls
that were wrong on purpose in order to discourage Republican-voter turnout. During an exceptionally fragile week in America, the opinion-mongers have been taking a line from Steve Bannon’s old playbook—flood the zone with shit—and modifying it for the present circumstances. They are flooding the zone with “fraud.” |
