Trumpty has had shall we say ‘issues’ with Fox News recently. He and his minions have expressed some unhappiness, most recently with some polling results. They are demanding Fox fire it’s pollster in fact. Fox is still is a key source for Trump propaganda. Elon might have visions of MAGAs spending hours on Xitter but most in MAGA land get their news and therefore info. about Trump from Fox. So when there’s a “spat” it can provoke discomfort out there, like kids hearing their parents have a loud argument. It’s confusing, even a little fearful sometimes. So this week in addition to the polling news and demands of Fox to fire their pollster we have not one but TWO instances of MAJOR ‘glitches’ in Trump TV coverage.
Rupert Murdoch still rules his empire even though son Lachlan runs day-to-day operations. It seems Lachlan, although quite conservative (they hate taxes and regulations in other countries too) doesn’t have quite the political fervor his dad has had. He just cares about profits and in the U.S. Fox News has generated plenty. It still gets good ratings and therefore boatloads of money but their advertising base has shrunk considerably. To a corporate master who relies pretty much on ad revenue (Unlike Trump Fox doesn’t have a merchandise product line) that’s a concern.
Add in how the controversy over DOGE, the backlash has cost Elon Musk a bigly chunk of his fortune and the Murdochs have good reason to be concerned. Like everyone they’re looking at a looming recession, as well as polling (including their own) and thinking Trump might not bounce back. Hell, the guy PAINTS HIS FACE ORANGE for chrissakes which is bad but for all the talk about Biden losing it mentally Trump hasn’t been all there in the head from the time he got into politics.
His often incoherent ramblings and lack of knowledge was easy to see during his first term and he’s gone downhill since. Given where this piece will head perhaps Fox is trying to protect their Trumpty who has made them so much money. Then again, they might be prepping their audience for the end of Trump. Not right away of course, but before it’s time to pick a 2028 GOP nominee.
What strikes me isn’t Fox being bold enough to announce polling that they knew would put Trump in meltdown mode. It’s two other things that if you don’t watch Fox (other than a ‘check-in’ now and then) in the space of 24 hours we had those two incidents of Fox News NOT streaming out major stuff Trump wanted his MAGA faithful to see. There are two separate stories I’ll talk about, both of which I read in The Irish Star. Let’s call them the silent news conference and the speech with corporate leaders singing backup.
In The Silent News Conference Fox suffered what the linked article described as a ‘hiccup’ but you have to wonder if there was more to it. I’ve referenced anger at Team Trump over polling and none other than the despicable Stephen Miller has led the charge to demand house cleaning at Fox. He was all set to take the stage and let er rip on this and no doubt other stuff. As time came for Leavitt to bring Miller out to answer questions suddenly Fox had “technical problems. Specifically they had audio problems, with Leavitt’s voice echoing so badly Fox was forced to cut away! The matter of an image but no sound didn’t go unnoticed and prompted some clever commentary:
“The White House is holding a press briefing right now so Trump can watch it on TV, but they audio is messed up, so Fox News has already pulled away,” a journalist reported on X.
Other X users also witnessed the brief pause on the channel and were not impressed. “White House team: “Quick, give the boss a briefing to boost his mood.” AV gremlins: pull every cable at once. Fox News: “Aaand we’re out.” Result: The only thing Trump gets to watch is the sound of silence in HD,” one X account commented.
Another said: “The ultimate broadcast: full picture, zero substance.” A third used the audio blunder to make a dig at Leavitt, saying, “This is what I hear everytime she opens her mouth.”
Look, “stuff” (another word comes to mind) happens sometimes. Someone inadvertently brushes the wrong switch on a control console, or someone steps on a cord/cable causing it to disconnect. Or maybe, just maybe knowing Miller was primed to blast Fox from the podium in the WH briefing room they decided to upstage him!
The reason I think it could very well be the latter is that the very next day Trumpty PAINTED HIS FACE ORANGE and hosted a get-together, The speech with corporate leaders singing backup. If not the vomit inducing fawning of that ‘100 days Cabinet meeting’ the idea of the event was simple enough. Trump would give an economic speech with a gaggle of corporate leaders as a backdrop and some taking the podium to give brief ‘all is/is going to be ok’ remarks of their own. Not such a bad idea, but Fox cut away and didn’t carry it. It was later suggested his WTF remarks outside earlier might have had something to do with it. That bit of rambling from Trump showed that even by Trump standards he was having a bad day!
It seems people, at least Trumpkins were less than thrilled at Fox. Accusations of the network being Anti-Trump were being hurled last night. Yawn. It’s not like Fox long ago stopped covering every event where Trump was speaking live. It’s pretty much the same old bullshit as many a MAGA goober has realized as they’ve sadly left one of his rallies early in the past few years. Still, Fox cutting away didn’t go unnoticed and I suspect they knew it wouldn’t. I also suspect they anticipated people would notice and have some fun at Trump’s (and Musk’s) expense on Xitter and other social media. Which they did:
One popular tweet read, “Fox News and The New York Post are both anti-Trump -when they feel they can get away with it,” as a multitude of users agreed with the situation.
One user wrote, “The Five gets better ratings than taking Trump live for one of his ‘reading very strongly’ speeches.” Another user added: “Because he says crazy stuff.” One more chimed in, “When even Fox News takes a commercial break on Trump, you know the ratings aren’t the only thing collapsing.”
So what we have in less than the space of a week is Fox putting out polling numbers that show his support is tanking. Then not one but TWO instances of stepping on planned “bigly” TV moments. I’m not going to say Fox is pulling the plug on Trump. We know Trump’s fallen out of Murdoch’s favor but Trump is still a cash cow in their U.S. operations. However, between the Wall Street Journal offering a string of witheringly critical articles and OpEds, you had to wonder if Fox News would start to adopt a noticeably less ‘promote Trump no matter what’ sort of coverage.
I’m treating this like being realistic about Democratic dreams of winning a Senate seat in Texas. One of those just when you think it will happen ‘poof’ it gets yanked away. I do think it’s possible though. However unless/until I see at least one of Fox “News” bigtime evening hosts openly turn on Trump, or allow guests to rip on him without pushback I’ll manage expectations. That’s where to look – the three hour white power hour on Fox every weekday evening. Anyway, all the predictions are that we are headed into a recession and perhaps worse. And we as in Trump could trigger another worldwide economic crisis.
That will hurt Murdoch’s media empire too and the question he’s probably wrestling with is IF he pulls the plug on Trump would Vance let some grown-ups into the room to deal with the mess. We will have to wait and see.
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Trump and RUpert Murdoch are in a symbiotic elationship but at this point i think Trump needs Murdochmore than Murdoch needs Trump. So yeah, I wonder of Fox could just put him out of his misery once and for all? I don’t watch Fox, never have, but they could do a good deed for a change.