A deepening rift between President Donald Trump and Fox News is one more sign that “the wheels are coming off” the Trump administration, according to Jim Geraghty, senior political correspondent at the conservative outlet National Review. Writing in The Washington Post on Tuesday, Geraghty argued that the president's escalating public clashes with the network reveal major cracks in his movement as his “self-pity” soars to new heights.

Geraghty opened by pointing to Trump's recent glowing appraisal of an emerging Fox competitor. “Heading to Kentucky! Will be landing soon,” the president posted. “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.”

The remarks referred to the Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), a YouTube channel that has carried nearly every Trump rally and public appearance since 2015 and has recently received no shortage of promotion from the president, even as he has vented growing frustration with Fox.

“If you want one more sign of how the wheels are coming off the Trump administration as the midterms approach,” Geraghty wrote, “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.”

Examples of the budding breakup between Trump and Fox are plentiful. The president has complained about the network's occasional hosting of Democratic voices, declaring, “This is why MAGA, and REAL Patriots, will never like Fox!” He has also lashed out over Fox's decision to fire Trump-loyalist Maria Bartiromo, who was reportedly dismissed after informing the White House that anchors had been instructed to stop platforming his lies. At the same time, Fox has pushed back with a growing willingness to criticize the president and his officials.

Fox, for its part, has nearly a billion reasons to distance itself from the president. As Geraghty explained, “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.” The reference is to the defamation lawsuit that penalized the network for promoting Trump's election lies and resulted in a noticeable programming shift.

“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,” Geraghty wrote.

“The relationship between Trump and Fox News may not end in a full-on acrimonious divorce,” he concluded. “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.”