Greg Sargent Podcast: Trump's Rage at Fox News over Bad Poll Hints at Coming Fiasco for MAGA

[Dennis Donovan]

Greg Sargent Podcast - (archived: https://archive.ph/FriB4 ) Trump’s Rage at Fox News over Bad Poll Hints at Coming Fiasco for MAGA

As Trump’s worsening polls force Fox News personalities to deny what the numbers are clearly showing, a shrewd observer of right-wing media explains the deeper problem all this exposes for the MAGA movement.

The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent
May 5, 2025

President Trump has recently been erupting at Fox News over its new poll finding him with 55 percent disapproval. Trump described Fox’s pollster as “Trump hating” and demanded that the firm be “investigated.” Stephen Miller subsequently called for the pollster’s firing. Guess what: Fox News has gotten the message. As Trump’s poll numbers for other news organizations have steadily worsened, Fox personalities have begun going to great lengths to deny what the numbers clearly show. This highlights a problem that is trending toward a fiasco for MAGA: As Trump’s tariffs, his newly proposed deep budget cuts, and other policies take their toll on Trump voters and everyone else, his approval will slide further, forcing Fox News to deceive the network’s own viewers about what they themselves increasingly are experiencing from Trump’s presidency. We talked to Matt Gertz of Media Matters, who has been chronicling Fox’s poll denial. He explains what Trump’s anger at Fox means for the network, how Fox personalities are coping, and why all these dynamics will get much worse. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.

[Walleye]

1. He just can't accept the fact that more than half the country hates his guts

We are all E.Jean Carroll now

[calimary]

4. I hate everything about him INCLUDING his guts.

Absolutely repulsive and un-redeemable. Can’t wait for the time when America finally gets beyond trump. But I do wonder how long that’ll take, and whether I’ll live long enough to see it.

[Walleye]

5. I wonder the same thing he's been a giant thorn our side for 10 years now

I hate when they say national security. They don’t even know what they’re talking about. Trump is the existential threat of the United States. Anybody can see that.

[newdeal2]

7. What's interesting (alarming perhaps) is he could have taken a different path

If he governed as a "moderate," meaning cut taxes/regulation but still remain socially liberal, he would have likely easily won in 2020 and his legacy would be a lot more favorable.

Instead he acts on every worst instinct and just plays to his base all the time.

[Walleye]

8. He never wanted to be an American president. He wanted to rule the world and demand retribution for his grievances.

The people that he always spends all his time, insulting and denigrating and questioning their motives, we are Americans, how is that America first? These America first people just assume the Democrats are enemies. We are Americans dammit!

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

Sargent: It sure is. Well, let’s try to bring these two strands together. Like I said at the outset, I think the real game here that you’re seeing on Fox News is that they’re really trying to keep that floor as high as possible. They know Trump is losing independence in droves right now. Cost of living crisis is huge for independence. The rule of law stuff is actually really huge for independence as well; we’re seeing large majorities of independence opposing even some of the lawless stuff on immigration. So it’s all keeping that floor high. It’s what Ari Fleischer said on Fox, The base won’t crack. That’s how they keep the numbers somewhere in the 40s, somewhere manageable for the midterms.

But now with a budget like this, you’re really seeing laid bare how badly Trump’s own voters are going to get absolutely screwed in every way. These types of cuts will absolutely slaughter Trump’s own voters. And it’s basically, OK, Elon Musk has been given his walking papers, but we’re going to try to do his cuts through Congress. So if the game is to keep the base intact, it seems as if Trump is really not acting as if that’s even necessary, which flabbergasts me. Can you talk about how Fox proceeds in this environment with those tensions?

Gertz: Yeah, it’s just a really difficult morass for them. And most of what they’re trying to do is avoid talking about it. So you saw the other day, Donald Trump came out, basically declared himself the Grinch, and said, As a result of the tariffs, instead of getting your kid 20 dolls, they might only have two dolls, and they’ll be more expensive. That’s just not a message that will sell to anyone who is not a total sycophant. Anyone who has any sense of political realities will be able to say, That’s obviously bad. And Fox basically ignored it. They just got away from it as quickly as possible. The only time there was really discussion on any of the opinion shows was when Jessica Tarlov, the Democrat on The Five, brought it up—and the Republican co-host just bolted. They did not want any part of a discussion about that. And that, I think, is what we’re going to see.

There’s going to be an effort by Fox News to avoid talking about economic issues, avoid talking about the impacts of the tariffs, avoid talking about what the impact of Medicaid cuts will be on rural hospitals and everything like that. And what they’re going to do instead is they’re going to turn up the volume on culture-war issues. They’re going to start warning their viewers that if Democrats win, criminal illegal aliens will be coming to your house to murder you. That’s the discourse they’re going to go with because they just don’t have any other options.

[progressoid]

3. RE: the highlighted portion.

I listened for a few minutes of Fox on Sirius XM last week and all I heard about was illegals committing crimes and how Democrats were flailing.

Not a thing about the party in control.

[calimary]

6. That's all they've got.

So they keep dressing it up in flashy new clothes and sending it back out to the big dance.

[Walleye]

9. All they have left is Hunter's laptop to fall back on. They've pretty much wrung that dry.

Criminal illegal aliens are gonna come to your house and steal your child’s dolls.
undocumented people are much more likely to come to your house and clean it, or mow your lawn. Geez. how do we as Democrats counter all these lies with the simple truth? Nobody believes images anymore. It’s all AI. People don’t even believe their own lives anymore. I’m sure some of these snotty racists have had foreign workers in their homes.