Donald Trump calls Fox News ‘dead’ as he steps up feud with network

‘They played right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats & now are floating in limbo-land,’ says Trump

File image: Trump takes a swipe at Fox News again calling it ‘dead’ (AP)

President Trump has taken another dig at the right-leaning network Fox News calling it a “dead” news channel and claiming its ratings are falling, without any data to back this up.

Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday: “Can't believe how badly @FoxNews is doing in the ratings. They played right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats & now are floating in limboland. Hiring fired Donna Brazile, and far worse, allowing endless negative and unedited commercials. Fox News is dead. Really Sad!”

Mr Trump did not provide any data to back up the claims of falling ratings of Fox News. The ratings of Fox News have been in line with their overall viewer share and their primetime continues to retain its audience. However, a little impact of his calls to ditch Fox News and go for other conservative news networks was visible when Newsmax for the first time beat Fox News on ratings last week in a key demographic during the 7pm programme slot. 

This is not the first time Mr Trump has complained about a political commentator on the network. Donna Brazile, an ex-Democratic National Committee chair, used to be a commentator for CNN and now appears on Fox News. 

But the president has intensified his attacks against the right-leaning network from the time it called Arizona in favour of Joe Biden ahead of all other networks. The channel also called the presidential race as a whole in favour of the Democrat, alongside all other major networks, while Mr Trump continued to deny and allege fraud and rigging in the elections.

Mr Trump’s complaint about “unedited commercials” was likely in reference to several adverts run on the network on Wednesday criticising him and his administration.

While Mr Trump has launched a tirade against anyone not supporting his claims of voter fraud that so far remain unsubstantiated, the president also wants to make Fox News “pay”, according to a recent report published by Axios.

In another jibe at Fox News, Mr Trump tweeted: “Perhaps the biggest difference between 2016 and 2020 is @FoxNews, despite the fact that I went from 63,000,000 Votes to 75,000,000 Votes, a record 12,000,000 Vote increase. Obama went down 3,000,000 Votes, and won. Rigged Election!!!”

The officially certified results of the 2020 presidential election declare Joe Biden as the winner with 306 college votes. Even if Mr Trump’s legal cases and his refusal to concede continue, the president-elect is set to be sworn in on 20 January.