U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Fox News and The Five co-host Jessica Tarlov during coverage of the midterm elections. In a post on Truth Social, he said he could not stand her voice and called her “stupid as a boot.”
“I’m watching the early results on Fox News, but I can’t stand Jessica Tarlov’s voice—she’s stupid as a boot, and her voice simply annoys me,” Trump wrote. He added that he would switch to another channel until she was off the air. The quote and the content of the post were reported by Mediaite.
Another attack on Fox News
Later, the president directed his criticism at the television network itself. Trump attacked Fox News’ polling, describing it as the worst and saying that the questions in the polls represented a “hit” against him.
In a subsequent post, he claimed that Fox News’ ratings had fallen by 27 percent because the network was devoting too much airtime to “confused Democrats who hate Trump.” The president also said that the decline would continue and that the reason was not his behavior, but the fact that the network had taken a position against him. These figures and explanations were presented as Trump’s claims, with no independent data cited in the posts to confirm them.
According to The Daily Beast, Trump continued attacking Fox News on election night, including in a text message to host Greg Gutfeld that was read on air. In it, the president again criticized Tarlov and linked the network’s coverage to issues such as prices, inflation and Iran.
The conflict with Tarlov continues
Tarlov is frequently criticized by Trump because of her positions on The Five, where she is among the voices opposing the dominant conservative commentary on the show. In early October, the president called her “another loser” and accused Fox News of giving Democrats too much airtime.
Tarlov had previously responded to similar attacks with a brief remark on social media: “Thank you for highlighting my good work.”
Sources: mediaite.com, thedailybeast.com