With His Campaign Stumbling, Donald Trump Tries To Start Yet Another War With Fox News
It looks like the reality TV show known as Donald Trump’s run for the White House is already airing repeats. After a rough few days which saw The Donald struggle through the latest GOP debate, deal poorly with an anti-Muslim birther at a town hall and see his national poll numbers tumble to latest Republican shiny object Carly Fiorina, he decided to go into his little bag of tricks and use Twitter to try to start another feud. This time around, he went after Fox News, rehashing actions he took numerous times over the summer.
While The O’Reilly Factor was broadcasting Monday evening, Trump took shots at Bill O’Reilly and the network over how unfairly he thinks they are treating him. This is a common refrain from him and speaks to both his narcissism and insecurity. Also, if taken at face value, one can see fascistic leanings from Trump, as he feels the media should only exist to feed his ego and show him in a positive light.
.@oreillyfactor was very negative to me in refusing to to post the great polls that came out today including NBC. @FoxNews not good for me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 22, 2015
.@oreillyfactor, why don’t you have some knowledgeable talking heads on your show for a change instead of the same old Trump haters. Boring! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 22, 2015
After retweeting numerous fans who reiterated his hot takes on Fox and Bill-O, Trump then attacked the channel some more.
I am having a really hard time watching @FoxNews.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 22, 2015
.@RichLowry is truly one of the dumbest of the talking heads – he doesn’t have a clue! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 22, 2015
However, you can only cry wolf so much, and that seems to be the way Fox News and its personalities are seeing it. While O’Reilly had some nice things to say about Trump’s campaign in an interview on NBC’s Today Tuesday morning, he summarily dismissed any concerns he has with the real estate mogul’s tweets. The Fox News host called it “theater” and said the whole thing was just an extension of Trump’s old reality show. This is a far different reaction than the previous times Trump went after Fox and anchor Megyn Kelly after he felt he was treated unfairly at the first GOP debate.
The cable news networks are noticing diminishing returns on the Trump Show and don’t feel the need to say “how high” whenever Trump says jump anymore. The Donald appears to have reached his peak in the GOP polls and others are starting to gain momentum beneath him. Eventually, the Twitter stunts, the whining, the shitty stump speeches, the rambling interviews…they will all be covered less and less by mainstream media as they finally decide to cover this upcoming election like actual news. The Summer of Trump was bound to come to an end.
And therein lies the reason why Trump is doing this. He noticed that he suddenly wasn’t the top story on Monday. Scott Walker’s stunning early exit from the Republican race took up quite a bit of space. Also, Ben Carson’s Islamophobic comments on Sunday was still a major story through the day. The only news on Trump was about how his campaign seemed to be struggling after numerous negative hits. So, why not go back to the well and see if it works, right? Sadly for the Trumpster, it doesn’t look like Fox is going to play ball this time. They’ve moved on.
