Day 850: Trump reveals — again — that he thinks Fox News exists only to do GOP bidding

After yet another round of golf — his second of the weekend and his 189th visit to a golf property since his inauguration — Donald Trump sat down to watch his favorite programming: the one that consistently gives him positive coverage. So upon turning on Fox News, Trump was disappointed to see them covering Democratic presidential nominee Pete Buttigieg’s town hall.

And he said out loud what everyone knows, but the GOP rarely admits: that Fox News is anything but a standard news network.

Trump’s line that Fox is “moving more and more to the losing (wrong) side in covering Dems” is particularly telling for what he thinks the network is there for: to prop up the GOP. Fox would like everyone to believe that they’re merely providing real news with conservative commentary instead of savaging Democrats for the sole purpose of enticing viewers.

The very idea that Fox could give airtime to a Democrat while not bashing them is disdainful to Trump because he sees Fox as an important ally, not a media organization. And the truth is, Fox enjoys the symbiotic relationship as much as he does. They give overwhelmingly favorable news coverage and he hypes their programming to his followers, sometimes dozens of times per day.

Trump’s anger followed similar reasoning as it did during Bernie Sanders’ town hall on Fox, which he called “strange” and seemed to use “we” to refer to him and the network. That’s not particularly surprising considering he is known to rank the loyalty of Fox’s commentators.

Sunday, his tweets revealed yet again that he is looking exclusively for attention and positive affirmation from the network. That’s dangerous when he watches Fox to shape his domestic and foreign policy decisions and talking heads know he’s tuning in.

850 days in, 612 to go

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