Donald Trump’s power is waning. The signs are apparent. Take the summer’s ongoing GOP primaries, for example. Trump’s endorsement no longer equates with victory. In Georgia, Idaho, Nebraska, North Carolina, and South Carolina – Trump endorsees have lost their primary race. Or, consider polling data. New polls show that Trump is losing ground to Governor Ron DeSantis in a prospective 2024 match-up. A Detroit News poll found that Trump was tied with DeSantis. The University of New Hampshire found that Trump and DeSantis were tied amongst voters in New Hampshire, which hosts the nation’s first primary each season. And now, the conservative media seems to be shying away from Trump, too.
“Has Fox News finally had enough of Donald Trump?” Slate asked. It appears so. “It’s been more than 100 days since Donald J. Trump was interviewed on Fox News,” Jeremy W. Peters wrote for The New York Times. “The network, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and boosted Mr. Trump’s ascension from real estate developer and reality television star to the White House, is now often bypassing him in favor of showcasing other Republicans.”
For several years, Trump has dominated Fox News coverage. But clearly, as of recently, Fox has recalibrated their strategy, omitting Trump. On July 22, Trump held a rally in Arizona, where he suggested he may run for president in 2024. Fox did not cover the rally – or any other Trump rally. Rather than broadcast the Arizona rally, Fox “aired Laura Ingraham’s interview with a possible rival for the 2024 Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis.” The tide is turning; Ingraham’s interview was DeSantis was “the first of two prime-time interviews Fox aired with Mr. DeSantis in the span of five days; he appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show shortly after talking to Ms. Ingraham,” Peters wrote.
DeSantis is not the only one displacing Trump on Fox. When Trump “spoke to a gathering of conservatives in Washington this week, Fox did not air the speech live. It instead showed a few clips after he was done speaking. That same day, it did broadcast live – for 17 minutes – a speech by former Vice President Mike Pence.”
Fox’s snubbing of Trump is neither imagined nor coincidental. Several people with knowledge of Murdoch’s decision-making, speaking under anonymity, confirmed that Trump was being purposefully omitted from coverage. Simultaneously, other Murdoch entities, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, “published blistering editorials about Mr. Trump’s actions concerning the Jan.6, 2021, riot on the Capitol.”
Murdoch’s decision to limit Trump coverage is not necessarily personal. Murdoch, like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, are concerned about “the potential harm Mr. Trump could cause to the party’s chances in upcoming elections, especially its odds of taking control of the Senate,” Peters wrote. Trump’s ability to harm the GOP results mostly from his unwillingness to concede defeat in the 2020 election – a point of contention between Trump and Fox dating all the way back to the election itself.
Just after 11 p.m. on the night of the 2020 election, Fox News decided to call the election for Joe Biden. The decision “infuriated Mr. Trump and short-circuited his attempt to prematurely declare victory.”
Trump has not been pleased with Fox’s more recent decision to limit his coverage, either. In Trump’s view, “according to two people who have spoken to him recently, Fox’s ignoring him is an affront far worse than running stories and commentary that he has complained are “too negative.””
Regardless, Trump is still mentioned on Fox News frequently. “A new study by the liberal group Media Matters found that, through the first seven months of 2022, Trump was mentioned at least 8,556 times on Fox News,” Slate reported. “In comparison, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was mentioned at least 1,083 times, while former vice president Mike Pence was mentioned at least 589 times. That’s basically an 8:1 ratio of Trump mentions to DeSantis mentions.” And, the largest disparities occurred in the last three months. “Trump received 1,757; 1,664; and 1,381 mentions in May, June, and July, respectively,” Slate reported. “By contrast, DeSantis received 125, 96, and 179 mentions in those months, and Pence received 86, 218, and 140 mentions in the same time period.”
Clearly, Donald Trump is not entirely out of the picture yet; if he announces a 2024 run, expect his Fox coverage to ramp up significantly.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, he joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. He lives in Oregon and listens to Dokken. Follow him on Twitter @harrison_kass.
