June 18, 2019

Trump Labels Fox News “Fake” and Claims “Something Weird Is Going on” at Network

Is the president turning on his favorite news source?

Ron Sachs/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump on Monday accused one of his favorite media outlets of spreading “fake news” after Fox News anchor Bret Baier reported on the network’s own polling that showed the president trailing or tied with a number of top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

That survey, which showed Joe Biden leading Trump by 10 points, was the latest in a wave of negative polling for Trump ahead of the president’s official reelection launch event in Florida on Tuesday. 

While lashing out at Baier, Trump complained that Fox polls “are always bad for me” and that they had been in the 2016 election, as well. “Something weird going on at Fox,” he wrote.

After weeks of seething over the Mueller report, Trump was faced with new frustrations last week after the New York Times reported that the president’s internal numbers showed him trailing Biden in several key states. Despite denying the existence of the poll, the Trump campaign later fired the pollsters whose survey data had apparently leaked.

General election polls, this early in the game, are pretty meaningless. But then again, few things mean more to Trump than his own popularity. His fixation continued into Tuesday morning when he claimed, without evidence, that the media was purposely ignoring the large crowds gathering outside his upcoming rally in Florida. “People have never seen anything like it (unless you play a guitar),” he tweeted.

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That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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