Shortly after noon on Saturday, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “Heading to Kentucky! Will be landing soon. Big Crowd. I’m watching it now on RSBN. The coverage is spectacular. In fact, it’s so good, that I don’t want to leave Air Force One.”
It’s a free country, and the president can watch whatever coverage he wants. If you haven’t heard of “RSBN,” that stands for Right Side Broadcasting Network, a YouTube channel and website that has hosted feeds of almost every single Trump rally, town hall or public appearance since July 2015.
The YouTube video of the full Kentucky rally on RSBN has, as of this writing, a bit more than 60,000 views, with the 7-hour livestream getting 344,000 views. (YouTube counts a view from the moment the video starts playing; there is no minimum amount of time for it to play to qualify as a view.) That’s nothing to sneeze at, but a video of riots on the streets of France posted around the same time on the Fox News YouTube page has 723,000 views. Interestingly, a short video about Trump’s rally in Kentucky on the Fox News YouTube has 56,000 views; maybe there’s just less interest in Trump rallies on a Saturday afternoon than in dramatic images of French cities ablaze.
Either way, Fox News is still the biggest of the big dogs in the world of cable television news, with weeknight prime-time audiences of more than 2 million, dwarfing those of Newsmax, One America News or any web-based streaming rival. Trump may want to hype and build up the competitors, but his complaints about Fox News reveal who has the most viewers.
If you want one more sign of how the wheels are coming off the Trump administration as the midterms approach, examine the president’s increasingly frequent public tantrums about Fox News and his belief that the network, usually more than fair — some would say generous and gushing — in its coverage, is somehow betraying him and his party.
On Sept. 30, Trump asked on Truth Social, “Why does FoxNews always put Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Jessica Tarlov, and every Democrat on, saying bad things about the Republican Party and, of course, me? I actually think they get more airtime than Pro Republicans. This is why MAGA, and REAL Patriots, will never like Fox!” (As you know, the Democratic Party is led by three figures: the leader in the U.S. Senate, the leader in the House of Representatives, and whichever Democratic consultant is representing the left on Fox’s “The Five.”)
Less than a week later, Trump raged again, “Fox spends more time talking to Communists, Socialists, and Dumocrats, often without rebuttal, and MAGA is not, to put it mildly, happy. We don’t like stupid Jessica Tarlov, and all of the others, that are forced down MAGA’S throats. These Rallies are the hottest things out there, tremendous love in those sold out arenas, and nothing shows up on Fox!” (The president is much angrier at Tarlov than, say, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping or Kim Jong Un.)
Trump also referred to the recent departure of Maria Bartiromo, former host of “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News. Fox didn’t publicly elaborate on the reason for her sudden exit, but reporting indicated she had violated company policy by telling the White House about the network’s guidance to senior staff to avoid validating Trump’s inaccurate claims during a July prime-time address.
“Who makes these decisions at FoxNews? Probably the same loser that fired the great Maria Bartiromo because she complained about not being allowed to cover “TRUMP.” She’ll end up bigger and better than ever — watch!” But the allegations were that Bartiromo had shown greater loyalty to the president than to her own employer; clearly, in Trump’s mind, that’s the proper priority for a news reporter.
One of the odder aspects of the exceptionally short-lived tenure of former White House press secretary Katie Zacharia was her surprisingly difficult interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, usually about as friendly an interviewer as the White House could want.
Hannity’s first question: “You had your first moment as press secretary. It’s been widely panned, I’m sure you’re aware. It only lasted 14 minutes. You only took three questions. Questions about your legal background, calling yourself a lawyer. You went to Pepperdine Law School but you did not pass the bar exam, correct?” Even the late Alan Colmes, Hannity’s old debating partner, would have said “ouch.”
You’ll probably never see Fox News act like a pro-Democrat news network. But Trump has already cost the network a fortune. Without his 2020 stolen election nonsense, Fox would never have had to shell out that $787 million payment to Dominion Voting Systems. You get the feeling that Fox News executives, talent and staff are getting tired of the president’s endless whining and attacks when they’ve offered coverage that any of his predecessors would envy.
The relationship between Trump and Fox News may not end in a full-on acrimonious divorce. But things are definitely frostier, and less amenable, than at the start of Trump’s second term. And when the president keeps whining that even Fox News is being unfair to him, his self-pity has hit an amazing new height.
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