President Donald Trump took a noteworthy stance Friday morning, defending two Fox News anchors from a fan who lobbed an insult at them by name.
“Brett and Martha are batting outside of their league, trying to play gotcha with President Trump!” tweeted a presidential fan account with over 400,000 followers, referencing Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum’s hosting of his town hall on the network Thursday night. (Note Baier spells his first name with only one “T.”) “Our President is in great form!”
“Thanks Linda, but they were really good last night!” replied Trump.
The exchange may not seem like much, but it comes after months of attacks on individual Fox News anchors and talent, including MacCallum herself.
Wednesday night, during a phoned-in interview on the network, Trump also identified Fox News talent he trusted while dismissing the hosts he didn’t.
“You have some great people,” Trump said at the time. “You have Rush [Limbaugh] — who’s doing, I hear, really well; he’s doing much better — and Mark Levin. We have a lot of support. You’d be amazed. We have a lot of support: The great Lou Dobbs. So many people we have as supporters outside of just our Fox News, which, you know, I have my own little difficulties with if you want to know the truth. They put people on that I think are inappropriate and say very, very false things and people don’t challenge them. I think they’re trying to be very politically correct or ‘fair and balanced,’ right, is the term? ‘Fair and balanced.’ But I think they hurt themselves, if you want to know the truth.”
Note conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh does not work at Fox News, though Levin and Dobbs do.