President Trump and Fox News have a complicated relationship. Election Day did not help.
The cable news channel that kick-started Donald J. Trump’s political career was suddenly in the position of signalling its potential end. The network’s early call of Arizona on Tuesday night for Joseph R. Biden Jr. infuriated Trump and his aides, who reached out publicly and behind the scenes to Fox News executives about the call.
The network held firm — even as two of its biggest stars, Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro, attended Trump’s defiant early-morning speech in the East Room of the White House.
The election-night split screen underscored the fine line that Fox News’s anchors and opinion hosts have walked in the past 24 hours. By Wednesday night, Fox News was the closest of any major network to calling the presidential race for Biden — not the outcome that many fans of its pro-Trump programming may have wanted.
Fox News was also the only major cable network to carry a news conference on Wednesday held by the President’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was making baseless claims of election fraud. But the channel promptly cut away to announce a major development: It projected a win in Michigan for Biden, placing him at the doorstep of the presidency, according to Fox’s projections.
And shortly after Bret Baier, the network’s chief political anchor, emphasised to viewers on Wednesday that Mr. Trump’s threatened litigation could throw the race into doubt — even if Biden was projected to win 270 electoral votes — Fox News’s politics editor, Chris Stirewalt, threw cold water on some of the Trump campaign’s baseless claims.
Stirewalt said: “We haven’t seen any evidence yet that there’s anything wrong.”
Fox News has long occupied an unusual position in the Trump orbit. The network is home to some of the President’s most vociferous defenders, including Sean Hannity, Ingraham, and the hosts of Fox & Friends. But Trump frequently takes potshots at its news division and polling operation.
“Fox has changed a lot,” Trump said on Tuesday morning on Fox & Friends. “Somebody said, ‘What’s the biggest difference between this and four years ago?’ I say, ‘Fox.’”
The President is a vociferous viewer and constant critic, praising preferred hosts by first name at rallies (“Jeanine!” “Tucker!”) and dialling up the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, to complain about coverage.
He has hired (and fired) former network personnel; belittled its hosts while also agreeing to interviews; and relied on Hannity’s political advice while bashing news anchors like Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith, who left the network for CNBC. In the wake of Tuesday’s Arizona call, a mixed view of Fox News had spread to some of Trump’s allies.
Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican who rose to fame on the strength of Fox News guest appearances, bashed the network for what he deemed an insufficiently swift projection of a Trump win in his home state. “For Fox to be so resistant to calling Florida and yet jumping the gun on Arizona, I just thought was inexplicable,” DeSantis told reporters in Tallahassee on Wednesday. “I don’t think that that was done without some type of motive, whether it’s ratings, whether it’s something else.”
In fact, members of Fox News’s decision desk said repeatedly that the network’s polling team — which reports to the news division and is sequestered on election night — was merely adhering to a rigorous analysis. The network’s data team, led by Arnon Mishkin, relies on a proprietary model that draws on data from Associated Press.
Still, some Fox News personalities speculated whether Arizona would remain in Biden’s column. “There may be some tightening there,” Baier said on Wednesday, summarising arguments from the Trump campaign.
New York Times News Service
