Chris Ruddy, CEO of conservative cable commentary channel Newsmax, said Tuesday night that if President Donald Trump loses his re-election bid, the blame should be placed on Fox News.
“I think — I am shocked about what Fox News has done,” he said in an appearance on “The Michael Berry Show Podcast” first flagged Angelo Carusone of Media Matters for America, which monitors conservative media. “I think if Trump loses and it’s a close election, blame Chris Wallace and Fox News.”
Ruddy, a close Trump ally and supporter, isn’t alone in criticizing Fox News’ coverage of the 2020 election. Trump himself has been doing the same thing for months.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump even attacked Fox News during an interview on the top-rated cable channel, taking time out of one of his final public appeals as Americans headed to the polls.
Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt and Steve Doocy were forced to defend their employer after Trump started talking about how frequently the network has featured Democratic politicians and shown speeches from his predecessor, Barack Obama.
“Actually, Fox puts him on more than anybody else, which is sort of shocking to me because Fox has changed a lot. Somebody said, ‘What’s the biggest difference between this and four years ago?’ I say, ‘Fox.’ It’s much different,” the president said.
Wallace, specifically attacked by Ruddy, is one of the network’s straight news anchors. He moderated the first debate between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden earlier this fall. An interview he did with Trump in July commanded nearly 6 million viewers across Fox News and a broadcast airing.
Across the political and media spectrums, Wallace was roundly cheered for his grilling of Trump on the coronavirus response and Joe Biden, as well as his willingness to correct the president’s untrue statements.
Wallace challenged the president’s boast that Biden would not do as well on a cognitive test as he did, saying he had taken the test himself and found it wasn’t very difficult.
Leave a Reply