Trump Calls Into Fox News on Election Night, Blasts Network's Polling to Hosts' Faces
Key Takeaways
- •President Trump phoned into Fox News on Election Night and confronted its anchors on air over their midterm coverage as Democratic wins rolled in.
- •Trump displayed a notably harsher tone toward Fox than toward other outlets, where he congratulated the opposition and said he would accept the election results.
- •During the call, Trump cited a CNN poll claiming 99 percent approval among Republicans, though no such poll appears to exist.
- •Anchor Bret Baier pushed back against Trump's criticism by pointing out that the election results closely matched Fox's own polling.
- •Trump attacked Fox's polling operation and pundit Jessica Tarlov in a series of Truth Social posts, while asserting that the network's ratings had dropped 27 percent.
Fox News anchors were left squirming live on the air on Election Night, as President Donald Trump called into the network and attacked its midterm coverage to their faces while grappling with significant losses at the ballot box. The results tracked a long-standing pattern in American politics: in the modern era, the president's party has lost congressional seats in nearly every midterm election.
According to a report from Mediaite, Trump phoned into Fox News as Democratic wins rolled in on Election Night. While the president struck a more measured tone with other outlets — congratulating the opposition party and saying he would accept the night's results — he was far more combative with the Fox hosts, going after their polling and their coverage.
At one point, Trump claimed that a recent CNN poll showed he had "99 percent approval in the Republican Party," even though no such poll results appear to exist. Leaning on that alleged polling, he proceeded to attack the network's own surveys and to accuse its coverage of helping sway the midterms away from Republicans.
"And then I read on Fox, I'm not popular," Trump said. "The Fox polls are terrible. You ought to get yourself a good pollster because your pollster is the worst."
Anchor Bret Baier pushed back: "But tonight, actually, the results are pretty close to what the Fox polls showed."
"I don't know about that," Trump continued. "I can just say, speaking for myself. The results with Fox with me were wrong for 12 years. They have gotten me wrong for 12 years, but I don't care. It doesn't matter."
Trump was largely unsparing toward the conservative network throughout the night, repeatedly attacking its hosts and coverage on Truth Social. In one post, he took aim at pundit Jessica Tarlov, ridiculing her voice.
"Watching the Pre-Election Results on FoxNews, but I can't stand Jessica Tarlov's voice — DUMB AS A ROCK, but it's the voice that gets me," Trump posted. "Have to go somewhere else until that LOSER is off the air — I'll be back later!"
In another post, he again attacked the network's polling, arguing that it was "always the worst." Trump has frequently targeted Fox's polling outfit — known to be more neutral and down-the-line than the network's conservative reputation would suggest — whenever its surveys have shown Democrats performing well. The polling unit operates separately from the network's opinion programming, and its surveys have periodically produced numbers at odds with that conservative reputation.
"The FoxNews Poll, always the worst, is so insulting with the questions they ask," the post read. "Every question is a hit job, and every answer is 'BULLS——!' This has been going on for years."
He added in another post: "FoxNews Ratings are way down (27 percent!) because they're spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats! All of those people who used to watch Fox, and no longer do, get it. It's them, not me — my numbers are better than they have ever been."
