This week, the White House adviser Stephen Miller used an appearance on the Fox News Channel to criticize Fox News. Asked by the anchor John Roberts about Donald Trump’s plummeting poll numbers, Miller offered a testy reply: “I don’t want to make things awkward for you, John, but it is our opinion that Fox News needs to fire its pollster.”
The comment was classic political spin—when you don’t like the score, go after the refs. And it briefly changed the subject, media-chatter-wise, from the national news to the interpersonal tension, as headlines proliferated about Miller and his MAGA-versus-Fox moment. But Miller’s comment was not exactly news. For starters, it was one more version of the same anti-polling talking points the White House has been issuing in response to the president’s ratings. It was also simply the latest twist in one of the longest-running stories in American politics: the love-hate relationship between Fox and Trump.
That relationship, because of its historical import and turbulence, is a matter of frequent speculation among the media and the public. Questions about its status have taken on the kind of close-reading-from-a-distance that is typically reserved for celebrity couples. (Are Trump and Fox together? Are they taking a break? Have they gone Instagram-official? Is he seeing other people?) Trump might seem to be the one making the decisions. “FOX NEWS IS NOT OUR FRIEND,” he announced in the days leading up to the 2024 election. But the bond between the president and the network is thoroughly symbiotic, and as such thoroughly stable.
Fox is not state media. But Trump still acts, as MSNBC’s Steve Benen wrote on Wednesday, as if Fox is “a political instrument instead of a news organization.” When, in the run-up to the 100-day mark of Trump’s second term, Fox and many other outlets released polls suggesting new extremes of public dismay, Trump complained. “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,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years.” In that, the president was effectively expanding his duties from “American president” to “Fox news director.” Likewise, when Miller shared the administration’s “opinion” on air that the pollster should be fired, he was appointing himself as an HR consultant.
Miller and Trump were suggesting that the president, in his relationship with the network, has the upper hand. Yet the two were obfuscating the reality. Trump may decry “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS” and assert that “these people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD.” He may imply that his emotions carry weight, that his anger will bring consequences. In relationships that are purely transactional, though, love and hate are nullified by mutual need.
On Tuesday, the same day that Miller used Fox’s air to criticize Fox, the CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane published a detailed accounting of the ties between the White House and the morning talk show Fox & Friends. The show, with its journalistically murky blend of news and casual banter, serves the administration’s needs in a few ways, the report suggested. It offers White House representatives a platform for friendly interviews. Its first-thing-in-the-morning timing means that its content is well situated to set the news agenda—or to relay the administration’s spin. Its high ratings mean that anyone who appears on the show can speak directly to many, many Americans.
But the show is useful in another way, MacFarlane suggested: Fox, in addition to serving as a media outlet, also serves as an in-house communications organ. Officials in Trump’s second White House, like officials in his first, use their appearances on Fox & Friends to grab the attention of the chief executive. Attorney General Pam Bondi did that on Monday. (“Good job on television this morning, Pam,” Trump said during an event in the afternoon.) “Often, there’s an audience of one,” a former government official told MacFarlane. Asked by CBS to comment on the administration’s “evolving media strategy,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, responded with a statement: “We are flattered that CBS is asking the Trump White House how to make good TV. Clearly they need the advice!”
Trump may tryst with other networks, but he always comes home to Fox. He does so whether he claims to be angry with the network or not. That’s the thing about a marriage of convenience: It writes emotions out of the equation. As long as the Trump-Fox relationship retains its baseline utility for both parties, it will be, effectively, indissoluble.
This may help explain why Trump’s latest attacks on the network, for all their apparent explosivity, are nonetheless carefully calibrated. In criticizing Fox’s polling numbers, Trump has directed his ire not at Fox News as a body but merely at one of its arms: its polling operation, and more specifically, at one employee within it. His rants may hint at rupture; at their heart, though, they offer assurances of repair. Trump is positioning his anger against the broader needs of harmonious partnership: While his own numbers have been plummeting, Fox’s have been rising. As The Wrap reported this week, “Fox News just enjoyed the highest-rated first 100 days of any presidency in cable news history.”
Fox’s numbers, like Trump’s feelings, are fickle. The partners are faithful to each other both despite and because of that. The microdynamics might change; the broader commitment is steady. As long as Trump treats attention as currency, he will be, to some extent, in Fox’s thrall. This week, the White House released a new platform it calls the White House Wire. The website—Drudge Report in its aesthetic and propagandistic in most other ways—appears to be the administration’s latest effort to circumvent traditional media sources. But the platform thus far contains mostly social-media posts and articles aggregated from, among other sources, Fox News.
The network, ever constant, will continue to play its part as well. On Tuesday, Fox & Friends marked the 100th day of Trump’s second term with a lengthy video claiming to summarize its noteworthy events—a supercut compilation of out-of-context “accomplishments,” fast-paced and set to jazzy music, resembling what marketers call a “sizzle reel.” The package was studiously upbeat. It sold the presidency it claimed to summarize. It looked like a campaign ad. It also looked like a peace offering.
When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
#Fox #Frenemy
Thanks to the Team @ The Atlantic Source link & Great Job Megan Garber
