With Donald Trump now almost completely eliminated mathematically from winning a second term in office, he’s looking around for people to blame, because as we’ve seen over the past four years, NOTHING is ever Trump’s fault.
According to a report from Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair, the president is blaming (at least in part) his showing in the state of Arizona on Fox News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch:
“A civil war is raging between Fox News and Donald Trump over Fox’s controversial decision to be the first media outlet to call Arizona for Joe Biden just before 11:30 p.m. last night. According to a source, Trump phoned Fox owner Rupert Murdoch to scream about the call and demand a retraction. Murdoch refused, and the call stood. Trump and Murdoch have been at odds for months over election coverage. In September, I reported that Trump complained to Murdoch about Fox’s polling. Murdoch has been telling associates for months that Trump would lose the election.
“Tensions between Fox’s pro-Trump opinion hosts and the news division are flaring over the Arizona call. ‘We called it long before MSNBC!’ one outraged staffer on the opinion side told me. ‘We were so worried about being seen as pro-Trump that we bent over backwards.'”
How ironic would it be if Fox’s call on the state of Arizona did indeed play a role in making sure Trump was a failed one-term president? It’s almost Shakespearean in its piquant perfection and dark humor.
As you’d expect, other Republicans are now jumping on the “blame Fox” bandwagon, their complaints coated in the stench of flop sweat and basted in a bouillabaisse of desperation and denial:
“Some Republicans blame Fox for setting the narrative that Trump lost, even though the Associated Press later called Arizona for Biden. (As of Wednesday afternoon, NBC News, along with CNN, still haven’t called Arizona). ‘Fox News committed news malpractice and voter suppression last night,’ former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg told me. ‘There’s got to be a change there or there will be major consequences. Chris Wallace wouldn’t shut up the whole night! I switched to CNN anytime he came on.’ The Trump campaign and a Fox Corp spokesperson declined to comment.”
Major consequences? That’s a big threat. But it’s also an empty one, because the GOP is on the verge of losing the White House and facing years in the wilderness as they seek to rebuild their brand apart from the metastatic cancer of Trump. Maybe they can start their own network and preach their hatred there 24/7. Or maybe they should just sit down, shut up, and let the adults run things.