Tag: fox news
Rupert Murdoch

Declining Polls On Fox News Enrage President

President Donald Trump has never liked when pollsters say he’s doing worse than he thinks he is. But now he’s escalating his war on polls and the press, suggesting that even right-wing media outlets should scrap their polling arms if the results don’t flatter him.

According to a Fox News poll released Wednesday, Trump’s approval rating is officially lower than it was during his first term, just as he approaches the 100-day mark of his second term.

The survey found his rating underwater at 44% approval and 55% disapproval—down five points from the previous month. Even worse, Trump’s 100-day rating lags behind Joe Biden’s (54%), Barack Obama’s (62%), and George W. Bush’s (63%) at the same point in their presidencies.

Even Republicans aren’t exactly brimming with optimism. Just 38% of voters overall—and 75% of Republicans—say they’re “encouraged” about the next four years. That’s a drop from his first term in 2017, which showed 45% and 84%, respectively.

The same poll gave Trump poor marks across the board—on the economy, foreign policy, guns, immigration, you name it. His economic approval in particular sank to a record low at 38%, with 55% of respondents saying conditions are getting worse for their families.

So how did Trump respond to this news? By calling for Fox News to kill its polling unit.

“Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so. This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years. Also, and while he’s at it, he should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday.

Of course, this isn’t some isolated poll. An April Ipsos survey for Reuters put Trump’s approval at just 42%, with only 37% backing his handling of the economy. A new Pew Research Center poll had him even lower, at 40%, with negative ratings across every major policy area. And a YouGov poll for The Economist wasn’t any better, with Trump clocking in at 41% approval, with every issue underwater there, too.

In other words: reality bites. But rather than face it, Trump’s trying to pressure outlets like Fox News and The Wall Street Journal into becoming full-time propaganda machines.

His push to kill off Fox’s polling arm is especially alarming given that it routinely produces some of the highest-quality polling in the business. If Fox caves, it would be a scandal—but not entirely shocking. Media executives have buckled to Trump before, afraid of the blowback if they don’t stay in his good graces.

Trump’s already suing CBS News’ “60 Minutes” for $10 billion, and he’s gone after ABC News, which recently settled a defamation suit and agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s future presidential library. The Washington Post has also drifted rightward under Trump, winning plaudits from the administration for its “balance.”

And while polling isn’t perfect, Trump has a habit of going after those who publish anything he doesn’t like.

In December, he suedThe Des Moines Register and veteran pollster Ann Selzer for a pre-election poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa. Trump ended up winning the state by more than 13 points, and now he’s trying to make it a courtroom issue.

Trump’s latest tantrum makes his vision clear: Any outlet that doesn’t treat him like a demigod should be silenced, sued, or shut down. What he’s building isn’t just a cult of personality; it’s a MAGA-approved echo chamber where the “truth” is whatever he says it is.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Susman Godfrey order

Law Firm That Won Fox Defamation Case Files Suit Against Trump

Susman Godfrey, the firm that won a $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News for spreading lies about Dominion Voting Systems, is now suing the administration over President Donald Trump’s executive order “penalizing firms that employed his enemies or engaged in work he opposes,” the Daily Beast reports.

“No administration should be allowed to punish lawyers for simply doing their jobs, protecting Americans and their constitutional right to the legal process,” the firm wrote in a statement about the suit.

As the Beast reports, “On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order barring Susman Godfrey from federal contracts held by the firm’s clients, removed its employees’ security clearances, and banned them from accessing federal buildings.”

According to the suit, Trump has made “no secret of its unconstitutional retaliatory and discriminatory intent to punish Susman Godfrey for its work defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.”

“But this goes far beyond law firms and lawyers,” Susman Godfrey said in a statement, “Today it is our firm under attack, but tomorrow it could be any of us. As officers of the court, we are duty-bound to take on this fight against the illegal executive order.”

According to the Beast, “Four firms—including the two largest firms in the country, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins—cut deals on Friday to avoid falling victim to one of Trump’s executive orders. They agreed to provide a total of at least $500 million in pro bono work for the current administration.”

“Susman Godfrey joined the handful of firms—including Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale—that have taken action against the president, calling the president’s spree of executive orders ‘so obviously unconstitutional,’” the Beast reports.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Brilliant Tariff Strategy Or Market Manipulation? We Report, You Decide

Brilliant Tariff Strategy Or Market Manipulation? We Report, You Decide

Does anyone believe that Donald Trump brilliantly planned the abrupt reversal of his “recriprocal” tariff barrage? Leaving aside the most zombified MAGA cultists, and those who are paid or otherwise induced to pretend to believe whatever the president says, the answer is no.

But that may not be the right question to ask in the wake of his vaunted policy’s overnight collapse.

The most obvious tell was dropped by Trump himself, who often says the quiet part very loud while his minions and publicists play deaf. When a reporter asked yesterday afternoon whether the scary drop in the market for US Treasury bonds had affected his tariff policies, he replied: “I was watching the bond market. It's very tricky. If you look at it now, it's beautiful. The bond market right now is beautiful. But I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.” People, he admitted, “were getting yippy," meaning terrified.

Indeed Trump was watching the bond market as prices spiked sharply upward, a signal that traders were losing faith in what has traditionally been viewed as the world’s safest investment. The danger that would represent for the US dollar, the nation’s economic stability, and even the world economy were far too profound to ignore – even for Trump.

Telltale signs of what actually happened in the White House are not difficult to see. Several days ago, as the chaotic tariff schemes driven by Trump and his wayward adviser Peter Navarro dominated the news, a story spread on cable news that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent -- whose advice they had reportedly ignored and whose personal credibility had cratered -- was “looking for an exit.” Whether that was accurate or not, the possible resignation of the treasury secretary threatened a ruinous blow to the administration.

On Wednesday, Bessent had been scheduled to speak behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, addressing the House Republican Study Committee – an appearance he canceled. He sent his deputy instead, according to Politico, because he was “called into a meeting with Trump.”

And soon enough, instead of quitting, Bessent went before the cameras, accompanied by the ever- belligerent White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, to announce the tariff turnabout. He dutifully recited the rehearsed claim that this shift had been “the president’s strategy all along,” presumably even while stooges like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were sent forth to proclaim that trade is “a national security issue” and no way would he drop the new import duties.

Among those who expressly reject the latest MAGA fairy tale is Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino, who told viewers yesterday that market conditions had dictated Trump’s actions, not “the art of the deal.” His analysis was direct and unsparing:

“I mean, let's be clear what happened, who capitulated here, and why? And, you know, I don't want to say this, because I am a patriot, I'm an American, but it is the White House who capitulated, based on everything I hear, and all of my sources. And the reason why is because of the bond market and what happened last night.

“You know, Bessent knows this better than anybody, when you have yields on the 10-year rising to five percent, stuff starts shutting down, when you have the lending market screwed up. By the way, who's dumping the bonds? Somebody asked him if it was China, right? It wasn't, it was Japan. While he was negotiating with Japan, Japan, according to my sources, were running major money management firms that are involved in the bond market, without giving up names. Japan was dumping bonds because they believed this was not a great place to do business. That forced their hands.”

When one of the MAGA bootlickers on Fox, longtime correspondent David Asman, claimed that Trump had calculated the pullback “right up to the edge,” Gasparino corrected him with blunt certainty.

“David, he had no choice, he had no choice. Unfortunately, no choice…the gun was at his head. What happened last night was very bad.”

The real question is whether Trump or anyone acting on his behalf – or others inside the White House privy to his decisions, such as Lutnick or Bessent – made a killing in the stock market by shorting stocks -- or going long when the market was way down. Despite the sharp rise in stock values late on April 9, the recovery on Wall Street hasn't come close to erasing the losses of recent weeks, except for those who might have known what Trump was about to do and acted illicitly to exploit that information.

But we can hardly expect the compliant Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an insider trading investigation of this crooked White House. She’s too busy abusing her powers to harass Trump’s critics.

Joe Conason is founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo. He is also editor-at-large of Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization formerly known as The Investigative Fund. He is the author of several books, including The Raw Deal: How The Bush Republicans Plan To Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal. His latest book is The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism.

Fox Vs. Fox: Trump Toadies Defend Tariff Chaos While Experts Freak Out

Fox Vs. Fox: Trump Toadies Defend Tariff Chaos While Experts Freak Out

Following days of historic stock market chaos after President Donald Trump's so-called “Liberation Day” announcement of massive global tariffs on April 2, financial professionals and market analysts have warned Fox News and Fox Business audiences about the dire consequences of a global trade war. Meanwhile, Fox’s roster of professional Trump apologists and sycophants have continued to spew their pro-Trump and pro-tariff propaganda, assuring audiences that the short-term pain will be worth it in the long-term.

Bloomberg explained that “the market crash Trump has stoked is one for the history books,” pointing out that the “Nasdaq 100 has plunged into a bear market. More than $5 trillion was wiped off the value of all US shares in two days.” CNN reported that “the awfulness of the past two days of trading were matched only by the 1987 crash, the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid crash of 2020,” reporting that “the S&P 500 had lost 15 percent of its value since Inauguration Day as of Sunday night.”

Comparing the current sell-off to the 2001 market crash caused by the dot-com bubble the year before, CNN noted: “Trump, on the other hand, inherited a bull market. … Indeed, it is quite easy to say that Trump is directly responsible for the dive under his presidency given how much of it occurred since Liberation Day.”

Finance professionals on Fox expressed alarm over Trump’s tariffs and warned of recession

  • Fox Business guest Brad Gerstner: “These were not reciprocal tariffs, right? This was a Navarro nuclear-style assault on American business.” Gerstner, a hedge fund manager, reserved special condemnation for Trump’s Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro, labeling the White House’s trade war “The Navarro nuclear approach to tariffs” that “is going to land us squarely in a recession.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/7/25]
  • Fox Business guest James Iuorio: “I think we're going into recession now.” Iurio, the managing director of a financial services firm, continued: “So, do I think recession is coming? Yes, I think we're probably already there. If you take the buying power out of the people's hands who were driving inflation, who are driving the expansion, let's say, of course it's gone away.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/7/25]
  • Fox Business guest Ryan Payne: “Talk to any economist in the country, and you’re definitely going to slow the economy, and you’re definitely looking at a possible recession.” When asked directly by host Stuart Varney if he was worried about a recession, Payne, an investment planning strategist, responded, “Yeah, I think 100%,” but later hedged his prediction by saying, “There's going to be some backtracking, and there’s going to be negotiations.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 4/7/25]
  • Fox Business guest Dennis Gartman on the negative effects from the tariffs: “This is going to get much worse. I am really quite fearful that things are coming apart.” On the stock market, economist and long-time investment analyst Gartman added: “I think we're going to go down quite a good deal further before this is over.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/4/25]
  • Fox Business guest Ken Mahoney: Trump has “put us in a really bad situation” with his tariffs. Mahoney, an asset management CEO, pointed out that Trump voters are being hurt by the crash as well, saying: “Those same people that voted for him, played by the rules, put away money for taxes, put money away for retirement, are really feeling the brunt of collateral damage of this.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/4/25]
  • Fox Business guest Ed Yardeni: Trump's tariffs have “a real potential ... to add up to at least stagflation, if not outright recession.” Yardeni, an economist and financial investment strategist, added: “It's very likely for the next few months we'll see higher inflation” as a result of Trump's “ridiculous” tariffs and “disastrous trade policy.” [Fox Business, Making Money, 4/3/25]
  • On Fox Business, former GOP Sen. Pat Toomey warned Trump's tariffs will be “probably the largest tax increase on American consumers in the history of the country.” Toomey, who worked in banking before his tenure in Congress and now sits on the board of Apollo Global Management, added: “I think taxing American consumers when they buy imports is going to do much more harm than good.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/3/25]
  • Fox Business guest and financial analyst Darius Dale said he would “absolutely not” buy stocks the morning after Trump's tariff announcement. [Media Matters, 4/3/25]
  • Fox Business guest and hedge fund manager Jay Hatfield: Trump’s tariffs are “really too much, too soon” and “we’ll almost certainly have a recession” without Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/3/25]
  • Steve Forbes on Fox Business: “You've got a lot of small companies with small margins that are going to be hurt by this, put out of business.” Forbes, the editor-in-chief of the business magazine Forbes and a long-time conservative economic commentator, later warned of the upward pressure Trump’s tariffs would have on domestic automobile prices. [Fox Business, The Bottom Line, 4/2/25]

Fox hosts dismissed stock market crash, defended tariffs, and said it's a good time to buy

  • Fox host Jesse Watters: “These tariffs are for the children.” Watters described Trump’s “vision” for his extreme tariffs as turning “the country into a place with thriving main streets and hometowns where American workers make American products sold to the American public. Doesn't that give you a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling inside?” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/4/25]
  • Fox host Laura Ingraham dismissed the stock market collapse over Trump’s tariffs: “You have to think beyond the short run.” During the segment, Ingraham aired a graphic advising viewers to “ignore the Dow doomsdayers.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/4/25]
  • Fox host Greg Gutfeld: Trump’s tariffs are “already a win. We are already getting results.” Co-host Jesse Watters added: “Vietnam called and they want to drop their duties down to zero.” [Fox News, The Five, 4/4/25]
  • On his radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity urged listeners to wait out the “minor pain” caused by Trump’s tariffs. Hannity continued: “For whatever short-term, minor pain that may be inflicted on us, the long-term benefits are going to be massive.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 4/4/25]
  • Watters: “If you're worried cars are going to cost more, buy American.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/3/25]
  • Ingraham: “I personally know a lot of people who are buying into this market. That's how people always make money. The panicked sellers always regret it.” Ingraham added: “I'm waiting to see how things play out in the next 3 to 6 months. That'll tell us a lot more than one day.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/3/25]
  • Fox host Jeanine Pirro: “I don't really care about my 401(k) today. You know why? ... I believe in this man.” Pirro also told viewers “don’t look” at the stock market “for the next few weeks.” [Fox News, The Five, 4/3/25, 4/3/25]
  • Hannity on Trump’s tariffs: “My level of confidence is pretty near 100% that this is all going to work out fine.” Hannity also said: “I am absolutely a thousand percent confident that things are going to work out in the end for everybody.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 4/3/25, 4/3/25]
  • Watters on Trump’s tariffs: “It's an exciting time to be alive.” Watters continued: “We've rewired the entire world in a way we haven't seen in 100 years. And it's great. And hopefully, it works out. I haven't looked at my 401(k) today. I'm going to look at it tomorrow — actually, maybe not, I won't look at it for another month.” [Fox News, The Five, 4/3/25]
  • Fox host Will Cain: “We should see” Trump’s tariffs “as a potential restructuring of the American spirit, the purpose of America.” Cain suggested that work will set us free from a “a depression of purpose”: “Americans need a reason to get up and work has been our primary purpose, and work has been destroyed for middle class Americans.” [Fox News, The Will Cain Show, 4/3/25]
  • Fox host Kayleigh McEnany: “These are enormous, they're historic, they're going to reset the American economy.” McEnany added: “I would not be surprised if the great negotiator has an endgame in mind here.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 4/3/25]
  • Hannity: Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs “will be remembered as a turning point and the start, I hope for every American, of a new golden age of American wealth and exceptionalism.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/2/25]
  • Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo: Trump’s tariffs are “brilliant.” She continued, “I would be buying this market with both hands.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/2/25]

Economists also warn of enormous economic damage from Trump’s tariffs

  • Tax Foundation: Trump’s cumulative tariffs will shrink U.S. GDP by 0.7% and lead to the equivalent of 605,000 fewer jobs. The Tax Foundation also calculated that “the Trump tariffs will reduce after-tax income by an average of 1.9 percent and amount to an average tax increase of more than $1,900 per US household in 2025.” [Tax Foundation, 4/4/25]
  • Yale’s Budget Lab: “The price level from all 2025 tariffs rises by 2.3% in the short-run, the equivalent of an average per household consumer loss of $3,800 in 2024$.” The analysis added: “Annual losses for households at the bottom of the income distribution are $1,700.” [The Budget Lab, 4/2/25]
  • Budget Lab: “US real GDP growth is … -0.9pp lower from all 2025 tariffs.” The analysis continued: “In the long-run, the US economy is persistently … -0.6% smaller,” the equivalent of “$180 billion annually in 2024$.” [The Budget Lab, 4/2/25]
  • Peterson Institute for International Economics President Adam Posen: “US recession risk is going up, but expect inflation either way growth goes, up or down.” Posen added: “This will not generate a fraction of the rise in employment in US manufacturing that the administration claims. In fact, it will reduce US companies' share of global auto sales.” [Peterson Institute for International Economics, 4/3/25]
  • PIIE Executive Vice President Marcus Noland: “These tariffs are regressive, tilted toward low-income countries from which we source clothes and footwear, and will have a profoundly regressive impact on the US.” Noland continued: “They will contribute to slower growth, higher prices, and greater unemployment.” [Peterson Institute for International Economics, 4/3/25]
  • UCLA Law School tax policy professor Kimberly Clausing: Trump’s tariffs “risk economic catastrophe.” Clausing continued: “The largest tax increase in more than fifty years will burden US consumers, generating thousands of dollars in tax increases for the median household. Retaliation and the tariffs on intermediate goods (a majority of US imports) will harm US investment, production, and growth. Trump may wager that tariffs will return us to a better economic time but, in reality, they will leave behind only broken partnerships and economic devastation.” [Peterson Institute for International Economics, 4/3/25]
  • University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers: If Trump “sticks with the tariffs: 75% chance of recession within 12 months.” Wolfers added: “If he abandons the tariffs: 25% chance.” [Bluesky, 4/7/25]
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst economics professor Arindrajit Dube on the stock market crash: “At some point expectations will take over - and a combination of wealth loss and psychological shock will lead to drop in capex and consumer purchases, triggering a downturn.” Dube added: “At that point reversing the tariffs won't be enough, and we will be in deep trouble. We may be crossing the Rubicon soon.” [Twitter/X, 4/6/25]
  • Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi: “Unless sentiment recovers quickly, a recession is dead ahead. Indeed, I would put the odds of a downturn now at 60%.” [Twitter/X, 4/6/25]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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