When Donald Trump was elected — thanks Electoral Participation Trophy Vestige of Slavery College! — people jokingly started saying that meant Fox News would become the new state media outlet. Over the course of Trump’s presidency, that has pretty much shown itself to be the case. In the interest of fairness, we have to note that when the White House ripped away Jim Acosta’s press credentials for asking questions like reporters do, Fox News did publicly stand behind Acosta in journalistic solidarity. For the most part though, Fox News’ hosts — particularly Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson, and Pirro — have been forceful, transparent, unabashed Trump cheerleaders and mouth pieces.
As unsurprising as it is that Fox has been carrying Trump’s water during his tenure, over the last couple of weeks, the relationship between the president and his favorite propaganda outlet has seemingly gotten stronger. I wrote a piece in August of 2017 called “Trump Replaces Entire Cabinet With “Fox & Friends” Hosts,” for one of my satirical websites, The Political Garbage Chute. But now I realize I’m going to have to update and re-run that story and instead of replacing his cabinet, Trump will be handing over control of his Twitter account to Fox News, because other than all-caps bumper sticker blasts like, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” or “WITCH HUNT!” that literally seems to be all he tweets now. And when he’s not tweeting Fox News video clips, he’s tweeting at one of their hosts or shows.
It’s pretty easy to figure out the early morning tweets like these. Obviously these are sent during morning “Executive Time” and he’s basically live-tweeting Fox News. Whatever they’re talking about, he reflexively grabs his phone and tweets some kind of response. It reminds me of when my eight year old is feeling like we’re not giving him enough attention, so he just walks into a room and belches as loudly as he can, or hops in one of our laps, just to make sure that we are aware of his presence.
Except, you know, my son is adorable and Trump is a carbuncle.
Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace: “The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science. There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life.” @foxandfriends Wow!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2019
Super-glad Trump took the time to use the power of the office of the presidency to signal-boost once-relevant late night talk hosts who were such pluperfect Boomers that they couldn’t even stay retired from a show they willingly left, and then stole back from Conan O’Brien, a much funnier and more talented human being and all, but….it seems like maybe there are other things he could put his focus on?
Just more live-tweeting Fox News. No big deal. It was in his oath. “Uphold and defend the Constitution and tweet stream of consciousness nonsense about cable news programming.”
“Jay Leno points out that comedy (on the very boring late night shows) is totally one-sided. It’s tough when there’s only one topic.” @foxandfriends Actually, the one-sided hatred on these shows is incredible and for me, unwatchable. But remember, WE are number one – President!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2019
And of course just more mindless tweeting and @ing Fox so they know when to retweet him, I guess.
“Double Standard – Former FBI lawyer (Lisa Page) admits being told to go easy on Clinton.” Very unfair! @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2019
“Democrats are frantic to throw something else at the President. That’s why you saw those 81 subpoenas. It’s ridiculous. Just because your still upset over an election that happened 2 1/2 years ago, you should not be allowed to ruin people’s lives like this.” Lara Trump, @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 14, 2019
Aaaannnddd here he is tweeting the Fox & Friends hosts again…
The three very weak and untalented late night “hosts” are “fighting over table scraps. Carson did a great job, it wasn’t political. I don’t know what they’re going to do in 2024 when he’s no longer President? Will be wacky in the unemployment line.” Michael Loftus @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 14, 2019
Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that he made sure to not only tag Fox & Friends and another right-wing news outlet, he made sure to tweet about a non-thing. Apparently Trump and his GOP pals want us to believe that there’s a mass exodus of Jewish people leaving the Democratic Party. It’s beyond wishful thinking; Clinton got a huge majority of the Jewish American vote in 2016, but Donny Trump won’t let that stop him from pushing a totally baseless and non-existent thing for the sake of his foamy mouth faithful, will he?
The ‘Jexodus’ movement encourages Jewish people to leave the Democrat Party. Total disrespect! Republicans are waiting with open arms. Remember Jerusalem (U.S. Embassy) and the horrible Iran Nuclear Deal! @OANN @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2019
Lately, and I don’t know if this is laziness, or what, but Trump has started to just post whole clips from Fox News. I guess that’s easier than re-typing, often times horribly, what the fawning hosts say. He can just post the clip and his fans can envision him straddling the tweet, his tiny thumb raised in approval. At first, Trump would retweet videos posted by the Fox hosts, like Lou Dobbs.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019
But now, he’s just straight up posting the video clips to his own Twitter feed. I’d like to thank whoever taught him how do to this, but I’m sure it’s just some low-level social media boy doing this for him. Can you imagine if Barack Obama had just spent all day tweeting at MSNBC and posting their video clips? I’m not saying this is impeachable. It’s laughable. And stupid.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019
And another clip from Fox.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019
Followed by him tweeting at Fox & Friends again…
Mark Morgan, Former Border Patrol Chief with great experience in Law Enforcement, really understands the subjects of Immigration and the Border. Thank you Mark! @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019
These tweets are some of my favorites though. Because they not only show the unapologetic, completely synergized connection between the White House and Fox; they also show he’s willing to bully private companies in ways that would have gotten Obama or Bill Clinton hung in effigy and impeached. Trump goes to bat for one of his loudest lap dogs, Judge Jeanine, who was suspended by Fox News for her Islamaphobic remarks.
Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox …..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
….must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
Now we’re right back to just posting Fox News clips.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
Apparently King Trump wasn’t pleased with the weekend hosts Fox had on, and decided to opine about it.
Were @FoxNews weekend anchors, @ArthelNeville and @LelandVittert, trained by CNN prior to their ratings collapse? In any event, that’s where they should be working, along with their lowest rated anchor, Shepard Smith!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
Then we got back onto familiar ground — tweeting Fox News videos.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019
So many Fox News videos…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2019
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2019
And then some more tweeting directly at Fox News hosts.
“You can’t dispel this mood of positive energy.” @Varneyco The Economy is Great!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2019
Followed-up by yet another Fox News video without any commentary of his own.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2019
Then a Fox News video with a little commentary thanking the host.
Thank you @JesseBWatters, could not have said it any better myself! pic.twitter.com/HirL10zwZl
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2019
Then another video without commentary.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2019
After which he tweeted at a couple of hosts again…
“The reason we have the Special Counsel investigation is that James Comey (a dirty cop) leaked his memos to a friend, who leaked them to the press, on purpose.” @KennedyNation Totally illegal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2019
“John Solomon: As Russia Collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges.” @seanhannity @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2019
And then today, back to tweeting videos from Fox News.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2019
Oh, but first another tweet at the hosts.
“Our own Benjamin Hall is doing fantastic reporting on ISIS right on the from line (True). ISIS was willing to die but now, because of big pressure, save for a few people in caves, most have surrendered. A testament to our President.” Thank you Pete Hegseth @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2019
Then some more videos.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2019
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2019
In just over 14 days, Trump tweeted about Fox News, or straight-up posted Fox News clips about 30 times. How are we not supposed to take them as his personal propaganda outlet? Again, just imagine if Barack Obama had spent the majority of his time in office just watching MSNBC and tweeting what he saw? It’s truly infuriating that we had to listen for eight years to people calling Obama lazy, and they elect a rage-tweeting Grampa to give us the world’s worst TV guide synopsis of the channel we want to watch the least.
So all of this leaves me with this very real, sincere question:
Why doesn’t Trump just hand control of his Twitter account to Fox News? Just cut out the middle man. Think of all the extra time he’d have for golfing, or eating KFC. You know, the stuff the Constitution says a president should do?
Just a thought.
Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook and Instagram, but not Twitter because he has a potty mouth.
James' newest satirical compilation is out now and available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and soon at WalMart.com.
