Donald Trump Pressures ‘Fox & Friends’ to Remove His Unflattering Big ‘Orange’ Image

Former President Donald Trump thinks Fox News needs to show more flattering images of him. The one-term president and 2024 presidential candidate took to social media early August 17 morning to protest about the conservative network, claiming that individuals in charge of the morning news show Fox & Friends “purposely show the absolutely worst pictures” of him, per HuffPost. “Especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back,” Trump wrote, lambasting the platform on his Truth Social account. “They think they are getting away with something, they’re not.”

“And then they want me to debate!” he said in reference to the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate which Fox News will be hosting in late August. Trump is yet to confirm whether he will be participating.

It's also unclear which chinless photo Trump was referring to. During the August 17 Fox & Friends program, a picture that appeared to meet his description was shown at least twice. It shows Trump speaking at a conference of the America First Policy Institute in Washington last summer.

Earlier this summer, Trump took issue at Fox News' photographic choices, alleging that “three people in New Hampshire” had questioned him “why Fox News uses such ‘horrible’ pictures” of him in their broadcasts. “The coloring, distortions, everything is just so bad,” Trump wrote on social media. “They must sit and look at 100 different shots, and then take the 10 absolute worst. My staff has even complained about it for months but to no avail.”

But it's difficult to determine what Trump does and does not find acceptable without a concrete example of what Trump considers a “bad” image. Trump also claimed that Fox & Friends did not highlight "all of the Polls where I am beating (Joe) Biden, by a lot," despite the fact that most polls in the 2024 race show Biden with a slight but consistent advantage. Of course, Trump has far more serious issues than unfavorable images, since he has already been indicted four times in four different jurisdictions. Despite unparalleled legal difficulties and criminal allegations brought against him, surveys suggest that he is the pick for president next year from the Republican party, per Raw Story.

Republicans have argued that the party needs to pick a new standard-bearer because Mr. Trump's popularity with the general public has declined since the 2020 election as a result of the Capitol riot and the chaos that has surrounded him, particularly in relation to his mounting legal issues and the plethora of felony charges he is facing, per Independent.

An anti-Trump Republican strategist, Sarah Longwell said, “There is a meaningful number of voters who have voted for Trump twice and can’t vote for him again after all of this.” Longwell added, “Trump needs to embody the voters’ grievances and not his own grievances. Anytime he’s talking about 2020 he’s looking backward and the voters get more excited about looking forward.”