Neil Cavuto ended his show today with a scorching monologue reminding Trump that, as president, fair criticism of his words and actions come with the territory and that Fox News doesn’t ‘work for him’:
I really can’t disagree with much of what Cavuto said there, to be honest. Trump isn’t the kind of president where you can only say nice things about him or, on the flip side, only criticism him. Trump needs to be more careful as he criticizes news organizations like Fox News, which I do think for the most part treat him fairly.
Here at TRS, I like to think we’re fair to Trump. It hasn’t always been easy though, especially in the early days. Trump certainly isn’t a conventional president and has said a lot that hit people the wrong way.
But as we’ve seen how badly the media has mistreated Trump over the first couple years of his presidency, making what they did to George W. Bush look like a cakewalk, it’s become harder to criticize him for the same stuff we would have criticized him for in the first year of his presidency. As Cavuto suggested, Trump is not wrong to point out how the media prefers to report the bad instead of the good with respect to him and his presidency, how they prefer scandal almost entirely to just good old fashioned fair and balanced reporting.
Much of the media has indeed become the enemy with their constant attacks on Trump, and while Trump likes to rail against them, I think he should be more even handed with Fox News. After all, he has great friends on the network who are fully in his corner. And yes there are a few like Shep Smith who are definitely not in his corner. But for the most part, I think the newsy side of Fox News does try to keep it fair and balanced and Trump should stop attacking them, lest it appear he’s really just looking for a propaganda news network to drink his bathwater.