Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire claimed that President Trump has started attacking Fox News over their unfavorable coverage of him because he feels like they should support him considering he receives foreign policy advice from Fox News anchors.
Lemire, also a political analyst for MSNBC, argued that the president’s relationship with the network has “soured in recent weeks” and explained why during a Friday morning appearance on Morning Joe.
“He still speaks to a number of these anchors off air. You know, private conversations, Lou Dobbs in particular has become his top informal adviser but he still, according to our reporting, he stil speaks to Sean Hannity quite a bit, he speaks to Tucker Carlson quite a bit and he’s leaned on them particularly on foreign policy advice if that’s to be believed,” Lemire began.
[Related: Fox personalities hit back at Trump for saying the network doesn’t work ‘for us anymore’]
“But he’s grown concerned and he feels like Fox should be on his side, that they should be part of the party apparatus. They should be part of the White House communications office,” he continued. “He grows upset when he feels like, you know, commentators are criticizing him or when even the polling department’s polls don’t reflect kindly upon him. He has been elevating time and time again OAN, which is the other conservative network as an alternative to that.”
The president most recently attacked the network on Wednesday. He hit Juan Williams, Donna Brazile, and Shep Smith, all regular targets of Trump’s ire, as well as Sandra Smith for what he described as a failure to push back against Democratic National Committee communications director Xochitl Hinojosa in an interview. Trump went on to claim that “The New @FoxNews is letting million of GREAT people down! We have to start looking for a new News Outlet,” because “Fox News isn’t working for us anymore!”
Just watched @FoxNews heavily promoting the Democrats through their DNC Communications Director, spewing out whatever she wanted with zero pushback by anchor, @SandraSmithFox. Terrible considering that Fox couldn’t even land a debate, the Dems give them NOTHING! @CNN & @MSNBC….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2019
A number of Fox News personalities, most notably Neil Cavuto, fired back at the president arguing that, “My job is to cover you.”
