President Donald Trump intensified his criticism of Fox News on Tuesday, accusing the network of giving favorable exposure to Democratic and independent Senate candidates while failing to devote comparable attention to Republicans, MAGA candidates and his rallies.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
President Donald Trump launched a new round of criticism against Fox News on Tuesday, objecting to the network’s interviews with candidates challenging Republicans in two closely watched Senate races and declaring that the cable network had “totally lost their way.”
Trump first targeted Fox over its coverage of Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, specifically criticizing anchor Martha MacCallum’s lengthy interview with him and arguing that Republican candidates and his own political events receive less favorable treatment.
“FoxNews spends more time covering the Jihadist and Dumocrat candidates than they do the good old fashioned Republicans, the people that have saved America, and are making it great again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “All they talk about is Dumocrat Jihadists like El-Sayed, with his softball interview by Martha MacCallum, and the like. She never interviews me like that.”
MacCallum’s interview with El-Sayed, however, was frequently contentious rather than uniformly friendly. The two repeatedly interrupted and challenged one another during an extended discussion touching on terrorism, Iran and the ongoing Middle East war, with MacCallum disputing several of El-Sayed’s assertions.
Trump also complained that Fox was failing to adequately cover his campaign appearances.
“They don’t show my record breaking Rallies the morning after, but others do, and that’s what MAGA is watching,” he wrote. “Fox is promoting the Dumocrats, not the Republicans and MAGA. They have totally lost their way!”
The president returned to the subject shortly afterward when Fox aired an interview with Dan Osborn, an independent candidate challenging Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts in Nebraska.
“FoxNews is long form interviewing the sleazebag, Dan Osborn, right now, who is running against our GREAT Republican Senator, Pete Ricketts, from Nebraska,” Trump wrote in a second Truth Social post. “Why are they doing this??? The ‘other side’ doesn’t give our people any positive exposure or airtime.”
“It is a miracle that I won, the last by a landslide, three Presidential Races!” Trump added.
Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 and 2024 but lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. His statement reflected his continued insistence that he prevailed in 2020, a claim rejected by certified election results, courts and election officials.
The criticism comes as both Michigan and Nebraska figure prominently in the battle for control of the Senate.
El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee in Michigan and is running against Republican Mike Rogers. His appearance with MacCallum Monday developed into an extended confrontation in which the two sparred over whether U.S. policy toward Iran had made the country safer. At one point, MacCallum told him, “I’ll jump in now, I can’t let you filibuster!” after El-Sayed accused her of favoring the war.
Fox continued discussing the Michigan contest Tuesday morning, airing portions of the interview before bringing on political analyst Byron York to discuss the midterm environment.
Osborn, meanwhile, is running as an independent against Ricketts in Nebraska. He previously mounted an independent challenge for Nebraska’s other Senate seat in 2024 and has sought to build support among voters dissatisfied with both major political parties.
Fox News itself has published critical reporting about Osborn during the current campaign. A Sept. 30 report examined more than $500,000 in campaign payments to members of his family and entities associated with them. Osborn’s campaign has maintained that the payments covered legitimate campaign services, and paying relatives is not itself prohibited when compensation is for bona fide campaign work.
Trump’s complaints Tuesday therefore centered primarily on Fox’s decision to provide airtime to opposing candidates rather than an absence of critical reporting about them.
The episode represents another chapter in Trump’s complicated relationship with the network most closely associated with conservative cable news.
Trump has repeatedly praised individual Fox personalities and appeared on the network throughout his political career, while at other times attacking its polling, election coverage, commentators and interview decisions when he believes they disadvantage him or Republican candidates.
His latest complaints come at a particularly consequential point in the political calendar, with the Nov. 3 midterm elections less than a month away and control of Congress at stake.
Trump has been campaigning extensively for Republican candidates and has argued that his rallies help mobilize GOP voters. Earlier this week, he also attacked The New York Times over its coverage of attendance at his political events, insisting that his rallies were “MAXED OUT.”
The president’s criticism of Fox reflects a broader frustration he has voiced for years: that conservative-oriented media organizations should not, in his view, provide political opponents with exposure he believes those organizations would not receive from left-leaning outlets.
Fox News operates as a news organization rather than an arm of the Republican Party, however, and regularly interviews candidates and elected officials from both parties as well as independents.
Trump’s frustration with the network has periodically intensified around elections. He sharply criticized Fox after its early projection that Biden would win Arizona in the 2020 presidential election, and he has repeatedly attacked individual anchors, analysts and contributors whose coverage or commentary he considers unfavorable.
Tuesday’s dispute differed in that Trump targeted two specific candidate interviews within hours of each other.
His first post focused on El-Sayed and MacCallum. His second arrived as Osborn was receiving an extended Fox interview, prompting Trump to question why the network was giving airtime to an opponent of Ricketts.
Together, the posts amounted to one of Trump’s broadest recent attacks on the network’s political coverage, with the president accusing Fox not merely of conducting unfair interviews but of directing its institutional attention toward Democratic and anti-Republican candidates.
“Fox is promoting the Dumocrats, not the Republicans and MAGA,” Trump wrote.
The confrontation also illustrates the increasingly important role television interviews can play in the closing weeks of Senate campaigns. Candidates can use national appearances to reach voters, raise money and establish themselves beyond paid advertising, while opponents frequently object when they believe a media outlet is giving a rival favorable treatment.
For Trump, the issue is particularly sensitive because Fox remains one of the largest media platforms reaching Republican and conservative audiences.
His message Tuesday was unmistakable: With the midterms approaching, the president wants that audience hearing more from Republican candidates — and considerably less from the people trying to defeat them.
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