GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania this week, courting voters in what could well be the state that decides the 2024 presidential election. A Google search on ‘Trump Pennsylvania’ on Tuesday morning turned up two Fox network stories among the top five results featured in ‘Top Stories’.
Both of these — one at Fox News and one at Fox Business — draw attention to Trump giving a “mom of three $100 at a grocery store checkout.”
Fox’s stories about Trump’s Pennsylvania visit both clearly shine a positive light on the former President, portraying him as generous — though the billionaire did not cover the woman’s entire bill — and allowing Trump to highlight inflation at the grocery store, a critical element in his campaign’s appeal to undecided voters.
Pennsylvania woman who was present at President Trump’s grocery store stop yesterday: “Inflation on groceries has definitely affected us… I don’t even know how to budget for groceries anymore because it’s like every time I go to the store they just go up, and up, and up.” pic.twitter.com/dYE7kAEIdq
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 24, 2024
Yet Trump remains unhappy with Fox News, and publicly laments the end of the tenure there of the late Roger Ailes, the controversial chairman and CEO of Fox News who ruled conservative cable news and was a friend to Trump.
[The New York Times obituary of Ailes included Fox owner Rupert Murdoch’s ultimate decision to dismiss Ailes: “Although an Ailes admirer, Mr. Murdoch reluctantly concluded in the summer of 2016 that his news chief had to go after a former network anchor, Gretchen Carlson, brought a lawsuit charging Mr. Ailes with sexual harassment. Her action set in motion a cascade of allegations from women, who reported unwanted groping and demands for sex by him.” Ailes died in 2017.]
Trump told his rally crowd that Fox News in the post-Ailes era frustrates him, and that he believes the network tries to seek an undesirable balance by having people on who aren’t MAGA people — and by airing “horrible” commercials that contradict and criticize him. “All lies,” Trump says.
(NOTE: Fox, which paid a $787 million settlement concerning dubious stories asserting the 2020 election was compromised, needs to make money through advertising, as Trump knows well.)
Trump is mad that Fox News is airing some anti-Trump commercials.
The wannabe dictator demands that Fox interview only Trump supporters on its channel. pic.twitter.com/DB8m6NcKe5
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 24, 2024
“They put me on, I do a great job, then they follow me with a horrible commercial…Roger Ailes never allowed bad commercials,” Trump said. “They put somebody on that’s good and then they always have to put someone on that’s bad so the net result is neutral…Fox should put just the good people on, the people that want to make America great again.”
He added: “The shouldn’t put the guys that are professional scammers on.” It’s rhetoric designed to rile up his base and also infuriate his opponents, as Trump — whose companies have gone bankrupt six times — has been accused of multiple scams throughout his professional career.