Fox News “ain’t what it used to be,” President Donald Trump complained Tuesday. But there is an upside, he said. “Oh well, we still have the great [Sean Hannity].”
The president tore into the network after watching a “softball” interview between Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA) and Fox’s Martha MacCallum, Mediate reported.
Trump blasts Fox, plugs Hannity
Trump has soured on Fox in recent months over an apparent drift away from staunchly pro-Trump, conservative news, Politico reports. While Fox’s opinion hosts, like Hannity, are stalwart defenders of the president, Fox’s “hard news” division — which includes MacCallum, Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, and Shepard Smith — is more critical.
In the case of Smith especially, skeptical “reporting” of Trump is sometimes hard to distinguish from MSNBC-type liberal propaganda; Smith has called for Trump’s impeachment in everything but name, the Washington Times reports. And in a recent standoff with Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Wallace said that there is “no question” Trump is “stoking racial divisions,” according to USA Today.
In a series of tweets Tuesday, Trump summarized his increasingly fractious relationship with the partly pro-Trump, partly anti-Trump network. After watching an interview of Swalwell, a top Trump critic, Trump bemoaned Fox’s apparent descent into the “Fake News” category.
Just watched Rep. Eric Swalwell be asked endless softball questions by @marthamaccallum on @FoxNews about the phony Witch Hunt. He was just forced out of the Democrat Presidential Primary because he polled at ZERO. Fox sure ain’t what it used to be. Too bad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2019
But Trump was careful to plug Hannity’s Monday night show. Hannity has a bigger audience than any pundit in prime-time television and is a reliable Trump supporter who discusses the alleged “coup” by the “Deep State” to take down Trump on an almost nightly basis.
Oh well, we still have the great @seanhannity who I hear has a really strong show tonight. 9:00 P.M.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2019
Trump, Fox drifting?
This is not the first time Trump has complained about Fox. The president criticized the network earlier this month for “loading up with Democrats” after the party refused to let Fox cover their “very BORING Dem debates.” Trump said that the network, which he claimed was joining the “Fake News” of CNN and the New York Times, is “changing fast, but they forgot the people who got them there!”
Later that day, Trump blasted Fox’s decision to hire former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Donna Brazile earlier this year, which came just as the network suspended Trump friend and defender Jeanine Pirro over comments she made about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
….their lowest rated show. 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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2019
Trump also rebuked Fox in April and May for hosting town halls with Democrat 2020 hopefuls Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Trump stays tight with Hannity, Carlson
Through it all, Trump has remained close with primetime hosts like Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson. But Carlson hasn’t shied from criticizing Trump when he feels the president hasn’t lived up to his promises, and has even guided the president as an almost informal member of his cabinet, reportedly convincing the president to call off airstrikes on Iran last month and even joining Trump on his historic visit to the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, the Associated Press reported.
Hannity, on the other hand, is one of Trump’s top boosters. Hannity blasted Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Monday as “two of the biggest political hacks” ahead of Robert Mueller’s testimony before their congressional committees.
Trump and his supporters are right to ask: what are liberals like Brazile and Smith doing at Fox? While it definitely seems like Fox is trending left, the network’s biggest names continue to support the president — and American conservatives — in their fight against the liberal media’s fake news.
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