Former President Donald Trump must have enjoyed pointing out the obvious.

In an interview Monday with Bret Baier of Fox News, Trump reminded Baier of the network’s declining viewership.

Jack Posobiec, senior editor at HumanEvents.com, posted an 11-second clip of the interview on Twitter. In the clip, Trump and Baier exchanged very different views on the current state of Fox News.

“More independent voters watch Fox News than any other TV source,” Baier said.

“A lot less than used to watch it,” Trump replied.

“They do watch,” a chastened Baier answered. Before Baier could complete his next sentence, Trump reiterated the point: “But a lot less, Bret.”

In classic, Trump-like fashion, the former president would not allow a member of the Establishment media to mislead voters by peddling half-truths.

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The indisputable fact is that Fox News’ ratings have plummeted since network executives decided to part ways with Tucker Carlson.

As for Baier’s much-ballyhooed independent voters, one Twitter user who identifies as independent explained that Carlson’s firing was what drove her away from Fox News: “Hahaha, I’m an Independent I haven’t been back since their Tucker stunt.”

It is no wonder that the network’s boasted popularity among independents has diminished without Carlson. Both statistical and anecdotal evidence have shown that Carlson appealed to left-leaning viewers, as well.

Last October, for instance, The Wrap reported that Carlson’s show attracted a higher percentage of Democratic viewers than did competing shows on MSNBC and CNN.

Furthermore, Carlson’s anti-establishment opinions on everything from COVID policy to the Ukraine war made his show a platform for dissenting voices on the left such as Jimmy Dore, comedian and host of “The Jimmy Dore Show” on YouTube, as well as entertainer Russell Brand, host of his own daily show on Rumble.

Since the June 6 launch of his new show, “Tucker on Twitter,” Carlson has demonstrated his continued popularity by regularly attracting tens of millions of views.

Fox News’s self-immolation, which Trump noted with no small measure of glee, can be explained in only one of two ways.

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Either the network’s executives had no idea that getting rid of Carlson would cost them their top spot in the prime-time ratings, or they did not care.

Judging by Trump’s primary challengers, the leaders of the Republican Establishment seem to have no idea how intense the electorate’s anti-establishment mood happens to be at the moment.

This suggests that Fox News executives must not have expected Carlson’s dismissal to result in a mass exodus of viewers.

On the other hand, it is always possible that the network’s higher-ups knew what they were doing after all.

Would Fox News executives deliberately destroy their network to prevent Carlson from spreading anti-establishment views?

It sounds like a conspiracy theory. If so, it would not be the first such theory in recent years to be proven correct.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.