During a Monday night campaign rally in Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump got the crowd to boo Fox News, The Daily Beast reports.
Echoing his recent remarks about the conservative network, the president suggested that Fox News is changing into a pro-Democrat channel, suggesting that they are giving more airtime to Democrats than Republicans.
Trump explained that he watched the town hall of Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg — who he has nicknamed Alfred E. Neuman, after the Mad Magazine mascot — because he has to “watch the competition,” and concluded that “something very strange” is happening at the Rupert Murdoch-owned channel.
“What’s going on with Fox, by the way?” the president asked.
“They’re putting more Democrats on than Republicans,” he said, prompting the crowd to boo Fox News.
“Something strange is going on at Fox, folks! Something very strange!” Trump added, proceeding to observe that Buttigieg had criticized prominent conservative hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham during his appearance.
“He was knocking the hell out of Fox. Someone’s going to have to explain the whole Fox deal to me.”
Trump’s criticism of Fox News may come as a surprise to some, given that the president has frequently and publicly praised the traditionally right-wing news organization, but in the context of his recent remarks, it is all but surprising.
Ever since Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ Fox News appearance, the president has grown increasingly critical of the network frequently accused of uncritically covering his administration.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr , Sanders’ appearance was a smash hit in the ratings, and the Democratic presidential candidate was able to deliver his populist message effortlessly. This not only prompted other Democrats to consider going on Fox News — despite the fact that the DNC had officially blacklisted the channel — but also appears to have immensely irritated the president.
In recent weeks, as the Daily Beast notes, Trump has been quite critical of his favorite news channel, accusing some of the network’s best-known hosts of bias and hostility.
Anchor Chris Wallace and legal analyst Andrew Napolitano have, it seems, become the president’s favorite targets. This hardly comes as a surprise, given that both have broken with the overall sentiment at Fox, openly criticizing the president.
As The Hill reported, echoing House Democrats, Wallace accused Attorney General William Barr of protecting the president and “advocating his point of view.”
Fox News hosts have reportedly been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars at GOP events https://t.co/gVJDl6eqyQ pic.twitter.com/H0TqLJmG48
— Splinter (@splinter_news) May 21, 2019
Napolitano went as far as alleging that Trump had obstructed justice, prompting the president to allege that the judge is angry and hostile because he had been denied a Supreme Court seat.