| | | Trump Has Weekend Freakout Over 'Horrible' Fox News Ads
Ed Mazza
Sun, October 24, 2021
Donald Trump spent at least part of his weekend yelling at the TV, releasing a new rant calling out Fox News for running ads critical of him.
“What good is it if FOX News speaks well of me when they continually allow horrible and untruthful anti-Trump commercials to be run—and plenty of them,” Trump said in a statement. “In the good old days, that would never have happened and today it happens all of the time.”
It’s not clear which ad triggered the former president, but several anti-Trump groups have been running spots critical of him and his supporters in Congress, often airing them on Fox News in hopes he’ll see them.
The progressive PAC MeidasTouch said it was one of their spots, airing on the right-wing network in the market where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is located:
“We just broke Trump,” the organization crowed in another tweet. “We didn’t think we could break him any more than we already had. But we did.”
The Lincoln Project, a group of never-Trump conservatives, said it could’ve been one of their spots.
“We’re always running ads on Fox News in Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago area cable,” cofounder Rick Wilson told Mediaite, adding it’s part of their “audience of one” strategy.
The group has long run spots specifically meant to be seen by that audience of one ? Trump ? and cause him to react.
Other groups, including the conservative Republican Accountability Project, have also run strategic ads against Trump and his congressional enablers, so there are no shortages of suspects.
Whatever the cause, Trump’s attack on Fox News also comes days after he unveiled a new company that could ultimately pursue the same viewers ? and the same subscription money.
Trump’s newly announced Truth Social will first attempt to be a right-wing rival to Twitter.
But the company is also planning online streaming services, including one with a subscription tier that may be positioning itself as a rival to Fox News’ own subscription streaming service, Fox Nation.
He’s reportedly been looking to take on Fox for some time, with Axios reporting last year that he wanted to “wreck” the right-wing network with his own competing service, which he believes hasn’t been supportive enough.
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