President Trump, a Fox News superfan, has decided what the network’s management should do with host Jeanine Pirro, who has been suspended for making Islamophobic comments about Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
“Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro,” he tweeted, arguing that the former judge has been targeted for silencing by “The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media.”
Trump said that “Fox must stay strong and fight back with vigor” against calls for the network to dump Pirro and primetime host Tucker Carlson, who has lost even more corporate advertisers after the progressive advocacy group Media Matters for America promoted bigoted comments he made during shock jock radio show appearances between 2006 and 2011.
“Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country,” he said. “Be strong & prosper, be weak & die!”
Fox News was quick to condemn Pirro’s remarks but has not criticized Carlson’s comments.
A source familiar with the network’s strategy explained the divergent approach: “They love Tucker. They do not like Jeanine Pirro. They never have.”
This happening on the same day Fox hired former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile as a commentator.
The longtime Democratic operative will offer commentary on both Fox News and Fox Business, and her move comes as some in the Democratic Party have accused the channel of functioning as state-run television for Trump, especially after an article in the New Yorker outlined how intertwined the network is with Trump’s White House.
She acknowledged that she might catch heat from members of her party for the move, saying that “my response is that, if we’ve learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we can’t have a country where we don’t talk to those who disagree with our political views.”
Response on social media to Brazile’s hiring as been fierce, with some viewers threatening to stop watching the cable network.
Trump’s fondness for Pirro has also complicated Fox News’ decision-making process.
“They were hesitant to take her off because she’s one of the president’s favorites,” the source said. (Pirro has long been close with the Trump family and has flown with them to the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in the past.)
Pirro’s future at the network is an open question.
Her show, Justice w/ Judge Jeanine, did not appear as scheduled on March 16, and the network has not said whether it will air this weekend.
Her absence on Saturday was called an “internal scheduling matter.”
“Fox is in a real bind here, basically now getting into a proxy battle with the president,” said another source who knows the inner workings of Fox News well.
The network has a very difficult decision to make, according to former executive Ken LaCorte.
“If Fox News fired an opinion host every time they offended someone, the studios would be empty,” he said. “When a host like Pirro says something patently stupid, the network needs to show it doesn’t want that kind of talk, but not overreact.”
But, network management likely chafed at the president’s attacks on Sunday on news anchors Arthel Neville, Leland Vittert and Shepard Smith.
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
Personally picking out anchors and hosts he likes and dislikes has further proven to many that Fox acts as a version of state-run TV.
“They hate that, because that’s eyeballs that they’re going to start losing,” the source familiar with the network said. “I guarantee he drove some eyeballs away from Fox, just from tweeting that stuff.”
Trump’s weekend tweets were somewhat reminiscent of his criticism of the network during the 2016 presidential campaign, when he viciously attacked then-host Megyn Kelly (“crazy,” “highly overrated”) and her “terrible show” for asking him a tough question during a debate.