“They forgot the Golden Goose”: Trump slams Fox Information after election loss

President Donald Trump spent a part of Thursday fixated on considered one of his favourite grievances: media protection he perceives as being unfair to him. On this case, Trump’s goal wasn’t the standard suspects on MSNBC or CNN. It was Fox Information.

The string of tweets and retweets the president posted appeared tantamount to a declaration of struggle on a community that’s accomplished a lot to assist him over time.

Trump started the day in any other case dominated by protection of file ranges of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations by retweeting a string of random replies to a tweet posted by Fox Information character Greg Gutfeld selling further-right alternate options to Fox — issues like “#foxnews is lifeless,” “Left Fox four NewsMaxxxxx,” and “Newsmax and Oann are nice alternate options.” He then supplied a tweet of his personal through which he referred to himself as “the Golden Goose” and lied about Fox Information’s scores. (The community nonetheless enjoys the very best scores in cable information.)

“.@FoxNews daytime scores have utterly collapsed. Weekend daytime even WORSE. Very unhappy to look at this occur, however they forgot what made them profitable, what received them there. They forgot the Golden Goose. The most important distinction between the 2016 Election, and 2020, was @FoxNews!” Trump wrote.

Trump fastidiously exempted Fox Information’s primetime lineup expertise — Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham — from his ire. Certainly, hours after attacking the community, Trump tweeted out clips from Sean Hannity’s present spreading baseless conspiracy theories about votes being switched from him to Joe Biden that had been debunked simply hours earlier by his personal authorities.

Hannity’s phase was not an aberration. As Peter Kafka detailed for Recode in a put up about how Fox Information helps Trump unfold election fraud conspiracy theories, Hannity, Ingraham, and Carlson have all accomplished segments — typically collaborating with Republican Celebration officers — through which they’ve prompt with no proof that it’s believable that Trump “is a sufferer of huge voter fraud that price him the election whereas concurrently defeating Democratic Home and Senate candidates.”

For Trump, nonetheless, just a little bit isn’t sufficient. He expects complete loyalty from Fox Information, and the truth that the community’s information facet gained’t give it to him is an unforgivable sin.

Fox Information’s name of Arizona for Biden was a serious turning level

Trump’s frustrations with Fox Information have been constructing since a minimum of the early days of the 2020 marketing campaign. He’s routinely lashed out over Fox polls that confirmed Biden beating him and about the truth that the community would often interview Democrats.

However a flashpoint within the Trump-Fox relationship got here on election night time, when Fox Information’s name of Arizona put the primary nail within the president’s political coffin.

As Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman of the New York Instances reported, Fox’s name — which can have been untimely however was finally vindicated by Biden’s victory in Arizona — despatched Trump right into a tailspin:

What ensued for Mr. Trump was an evening of offended calls to Republican governors and recommendation from marketing campaign aides that he ignored, resulting in a middle-of-the-night presidential briefing through which he made a reckless and unsubstantiated string of remarks in regards to the democratic course of. Standing within the East Room at 2:30 a.m., he dismissed the election as a “fraud” and claimed he wished to cease the counting of votes and depart the outcomes to the Supreme Courtroom.

Finally, after all, Fox Information’s name performed no function in Trump’s eventual defeat — the votes that sealed Trump’s destiny had already been forged by election night time. But it surely has nonetheless turn out to be grist for a “stab within the again” narrative.

Alongside comparable traces, when Fox Information referred to as all the election for Biden final Saturday, community information anchors had been fast to begin referring to Biden as “president-elect” — a designation indicating they weren’t going to indulge Trump’s baseless claims in regards to the election being stolen from him.

This isn’t to say that Fox Information’s protection of Trump’s defeat has been a mannequin of journalistic integrity. Daytime anchors have allowed Trumpworld company to unfold conspiracy theories about election fraud with out pushing again in any respect, and Fox Information White Home correspondent John Roberts has repeatedly given oxygen to Republican fantasies in regards to the 2020 election taking part in out like 2000 or Trump invalidating the election outcomes with assist from GOP state legislatures.

If this all sounds a bit incoherent, that’s as a result of it’s. As CNN media reporter Brian Stelter advised my colleague Sean Illing in a brand new Q&A, Fox’s protection because the election was referred to as has tried to string the needle of acknowledging Biden’s victory whereas not alienating Trump supporters who purchase baseless conspiracy theories in regards to the election being stolen from him:

They’re overlaying Biden, the president-elect, in a single breath, after which they’re imagining voter fraud within the subsequent breath. And bear in mind, Fox is a group of reveals that hardly speak to one another. There’s some cross-pollination, however a lot of the opinion reveals have superior autonomy. Information anchors like Neil Cavuto will maintain doing reality-based journalism, and Sean Hannity or Mark Levin will maintain doing what they do.

However “reality-based journalism” is an affront to the president when it engages with a actuality he doesn’t like. And so Trump has turned to selling retailers that absolutely indulge his MAGA fantasies.

Trump TV may nonetheless turn out to be a factor

Whereas Trump refuses to publicly acknowledge that his days within the White Home at the moment are numbered, Mike Allen of Axios on Thursday reported that privately, he “has advised buddies he desires to begin a digital media firm to clobber Fox Information and undermine the conservative-friendly community.” Maggie Haberman confirmed that reporting however added that Trump might finally “be a part of forces with an current property like OANN or Newsmax.”

Fox Information’s often reality-based post-election remedy of Trump has appeared to alienate among the MAGA base. Rankings for Newsmax have been surging whereas that community refuses to even acknowledge that Biden is president-elect. My colleague Emily VanDerWerff immersed herself in two days of Newsmax protection after the election and detailed how its rising programming mannequin is to place itself as a fair Trumpier various to Fox Information:

The race to win over the Trump diehards is the true battle Newsmax finds itself in. The community is unlikely to overhaul Fox Information within the scores, but when it might chip away on the Fox Information viewership, it might simply turn out to be a reputable various amongst an viewers who merely desires to listen to extra about how Trump is doing, with occasional check-ins on inventory costs. (Covid-19 was barely talked about in any respect within the Newsmax protection I watched.)

On a deeper degree, after all, it’s tragic that the president is spending his final days within the White Home fixated on media grievances and his future plans as an alternative of taking fast motion to confront the worsening coronavirus pandemic. But it surely’s extraordinarily on model for Trump.

It’s additionally extraordinarily corrosive for democracy. By fanning the flames of the concept the election was stolen from him, the president is delegitimizing US elections. And whereas enabling that effort could be a bridge too far for the Neil Cavutos and Chris Wallaces of Fox Information, the most-watched personalities on the community, like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, stay consistent with Trump.