Trump Blames Fox News for GOP Losses as Its Hosts Shield Him

Donald Trump warned for weeks that he'd blame Fox News if his party flopped on election day. He didn't wait for the races to be called. In a flurry of Truth Social posts, he griped about Democratic pundit Jessica Tarlov getting airtime, called Fox's polls 'always the worst,' needled the network over softening year-over-year ratings and said it was 'AGAINST' him. Just before midnight he went further, writing that 'FoxNews bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.'

Then he called in. Around midnight Trump dialed into Fox's own election coverage and told its staff their polls were 'terrible,' adding: 'You ought to get yourself a good pollster, because your pollsters are the worst.' Anchor Bret Baier pushed back gently, noting the night's results had actually landed close to what the Fox polls projected. Trump also jabbed at Baier — or the network broadly — for not backing him 'when it wasn't fashionable.'

The irony landed hard. During more than six and a half hours of election night coverage reviewed by the Guardian, Fox commentators seemed to work overtime to avoid pinning the party's losses on Trump, and nobody suggested the GOP should distance itself from him. Host Jesse Watters, just after 8pm, blamed voters for being 'impatient' and wanting 'instant gratification.' Others leaned on the historical pattern of the president's party getting thumped in midterms, and plenty trained their fire on Democrats, predicting they'd overshoot and misread the win as a mandate.

The only real knocks on Trump stuck to messaging and his decision to take the country to war with Iran. Larry Kudlow, a Fox Business host and former Trump economic adviser, said the president 'was too successful in the first year and didn't sell it enough in the second year.' Ex-Bush press secretary Dana Perino said the administration 'has got too many balls in the air.' Several commentators tied voter anger to the Iran war and the gas prices that followed — Sean Hannity, Trump's loudest backer on the channel, agreed with Baier that the night might have gone differently had he not bombed the country. 'I think it's prices. People are mad,' Watters said later.

The panel's verdict, delivered by a roster stacked with former Trump staffers including recent press secretary Karoline Leavitt, was that the president shouldn't take the hit. Leavitt aimed at the press, saying Americans 'forgot about the good policy' and 'maybe listened to the lying media.' Host Will Cain said the pros of the last two years 'significantly outweigh the cons.' Laura Ingraham called the election a 'referendum on Trump' but insisted his policies had been 'phenomenal' and 'worked out fabulously.' Hannity, despite his earlier comments, called Trump's policies 'rock solid' and said Iran 'had to be done.'

Trump, unsurprisingly, shared that read. 'I don't view it as a hit on me,' he told the Fox panel, adding that 'historically, I think I'll be judged for having done the right thing.' He pointed the finger at the Republican candidates who lost, and repeated his claim that the outcome would have been different had his name been on the ballot.