After its poll showed him well behind Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and former Vice President Joe Biden, Donald Trump lashed out at Fox and suggested he will refuse to appear on the network for the “really big debates.” Unfortunately for Trump, that could not be an emptier threat.
Although Fox News’ polling methods earn a rare “A” from FiveThirtyEight.com, the network’s questions and its reporting on poll results are frequently biased. Nevertheless, even though Fox buried the bad news many paragraphs into its article about its latest results, there was no way around the fact that “Each of the Democratic candidates tested in the poll beats President Trump in possible 2020 matchups -- and each makes gains compared to July.” Biden, Sanders and Warren have leads outside the margin of error, Fox reported.
But even though FiveThirtyEight.com finds early general election head-to-head polls “pretty much worthless,” Fox’s failure to cook its polls as much as it cooks its news apparently triggered Trump again.
Yesterday, before leaving his latest taxpayer-funded vacation, Trump whined about Fox, which he referred to as “we,” to reporters:
TRUMP: Fox is a lot different than it used to be, I can tell you that. Juan Williams. Then they have the wonderful woman that gave Hillary Clinton the questions [Donna Brazile]. That was a terrible thing. And all of a sudden, she’s working for Fox. What’s she doing working for Fox? Fox has changed. And my worst polls have always been from Fox. There’s something going on at Fox, I’ll tell you right now. And I’m not happy with it.
[…]
TRUMP: They have to run it the way they want to run it. But Fox is different, there’s no question about it. And I think they’re making a big mistake, because Fox was treated very badly by the Democrats — very, very badly — having to do with the debates and other things. And I think Fox is making a big mistake. Because, you know, I’m the one that calls the shots on that — on the really big debates. I guess we’re probably planning on three of ‘em.
[…]
TRUMP: Well, I’m very — I’m not happy with Fox. I’m certainly happy — I think Sean Hannity, and Lou Dobbs, and I think Tucker Carlson and Laura and Jesse Watters, and Jeanine. We have a lot of great people. Even Greg Gutfeld; he wasn’t good to me two years ago. Now he sees all I’ve done, and he said, “Would you rather have a great president or a nice guy?” I don’t know, I think I’m a nice guy. But nobody has done in two and a half years what I’ve done. And I say that a lot. And very few people can challenge it.
Unfortunately for Trump, the “really big” three presidential debates are hosted and produced by the Commission on Presidential Debates and then, presumably, aired on television networks. The only “shots” Trump will get to call is whether he wants to participate in them at all.
CNN’s edited version of Trump’s August 18, 2019 attack on Fox is below. You can watch Trump’s full remarks on YouTube, starting at 19:42.
(Trump image via screen grab)
Pence’s gang had already stated that they were intending to only debate on Fox News after the Dems sidestepped the GOP attempt to “gotcha” them into providing soundbites and ad clips for the 2020 Pence campaign. (The Dems wisely chose to avoid Fox News for any debate appearances)
Now we hear Pence’s childish spokesman saying that he doesn’t even want to go on Fox News to debate. Which means that he is too scared to debate, period. Not surprising.
I’d keep an eye on what actually comes from Pence and the people around him to be sure. The tweets from Pence’s childish spokesman are not worth anyone spending any further time examining.