Was it coincidence, or something else?
Former President Donald Trump was speaking at a rally in Summerville, South Carolina, on Tuesday, and Fox News was covering the event.
That is, until Trump mentioned Fox News’ ratings and the number of people who watched his interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson about 22 minutes into his speak. At that point, Fox suddenly cut away.
“We had 271 million people listening to the Tucker Carlson interview; that’s an all-time record,” Trump said. Immediately, Fox cut away.
“So here we are, back in the thick of campaign season,” Fox host Martha MacCallum said as the network aired her face instead of the rest of Trump’s speech. “We are now just four months away from the Iowa primaries.”
Donald Trump says the last debate was the lowest rated in history and talks about his interview with Tucker Carlson.
*Fox News cuts away* pic.twitter.com/ivUY0lfcrT
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 25, 2023
If Fox was concerned that the former president was going to spend the next several minutes disparaging the network, its concerns were misplaced. According to the YouTube transcript of the remarks, Trump never mentioned Carlson again after that comment and never even referred to Fox by name at all.
In late April, Fox let Carlson and the executive producer of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” go without public explanation. He then launched “Tucker on Twitter,” followed closely by “Tucker on X” when the social media platform changed its name.
On August 23, Carlson had Trump on his X show at the same time that the first Republican presidential primary debate aired. The Trump-less debate garnered about 13 million views, according to The Hill.
Fox called that number “healthy,” as more people watched the debate than anything else on regular television.
It was also in the top third of all presidential primary debates for ratings, despite Trump’s claim that “their last debate was the lowest-rated debate in history.”
Barely a week after that interview, Carlson had Barstool Sports founder David Portnoy on his show, and agreed with him that both Trump, 77, and current President Joe Biden, 80, are “too old” to be president and that it would have been better for the country if Trump had participated in the Republican debate rather than appear on his show.
“I think it was the right move not to do it, but for the betterment of the country, I think he should be on the debate,” Portnoy said.
“I kind of agree,” Carlson responded. “I like the debates, personally.”
You can watch the entirety of Trump’s comments below.
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The second Republican presidential debate is scheduled for Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California. Trump has announced that he will skip that debate also, choosing instead to give a speech to striking autoworkers in Michigan like Biden did earlier this week.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
