Donald Trump Says He’ll Ask Rupert Murdoch to Direct Fox News to Halt Negative Ads Against Him
During a lengthy appearance on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, former President Donald Trump blurted out that he is “the most stable human being” and doubled down on his gripe that the network is not exclusively bolstering his re-election campaign and allowing ads supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid to air on the network. He later outlined how he would take his complaint directly to network founder Rupert Murdoch to ask that all negative ads cease for 21 days.
Trump sat flanked by four co-hosts on the Fox News morning show’s “curvy couch” for a large portion of the program where he discussed the ongoing 2024 campaign, his rival Harris and Thursday night’s Al Smith charity dinner in New York, an event where he gave a speech with some jokes he says were written by Fox News staff. Unfortunately, he was not a fan of their writing and let everyone watching on Friday know it when asked about the gags he read from the event’s stage.
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“Well, I’ve had a lot of people helping,” Trump replied. “A lot of people. A couple of people from Fox. I shouldn’t say that. But they wrote some jokes and, for the most part, I didn’t like any of them.”
However, Fox said on Friday in a statement sent to The Associated Press that none of its employees or freelancers wrote anything for Trump to read on Thursday night. Instead, it’s believed that Trump had received the poo-pooed material from a comic who occasionally tries to sell jokes to the Fox News show Gutfeld. On Friday, The Hollywood Reporter reached out via email to a Fox Corp. representative for clarification but did not immediately hear back.
Later on the morning show, he delivered a throwback to his notorious “very stable genius” self-description during his 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton when he blurted, “I am the most stable human being” in the middle of answering a question from the hosts about attacks from Harris that he is “unstable” and “unhinged.”
“Every week they try something else. So far, it hasn’t worked. I guess that’s the attack they have for this week. It doesn’t seem to be working. I am the most stable human being. Remember they said ‘a stable genius?’” Trump asked the Fox & Friends hosts.
“I am the most stable human being,” he stated. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. We had four years of greatness. We had the greatest economy in history. We had the greatest border.”
Trump’s most surprising moment on Fox & Friends came with an admission that he will ask Murdoch, the founder of Fox News parent company News Corp, to ensure that negative ads against his campaign will not run for the next three weeks, which would run up to Election Day. Ahead of the moment when he admitted wanting to censor free speech on an independent cable news network to bolster his campaign, the Queens native had been asked about another event he’d be attending while back home in New York.
“I’m going to see Rupert Murdoch. That’s a big event,” Trump told the hosts. “I don’t know [if] he’s thrilled that I say it. And I’m going to tell him something very simple because I can’t talk to anybody else about — don’t put on negative commercials for 21 days, don’t put them on, and don’t put on their horrible people that come and lie. I’m going to say, ‘Rupert, please do it this way and then we’re going to have a victory, cause everyone wants that.’”
Earlier on the show, he mentioned he’d noticed the negative ads directed at him and his campaign.
“In the old days, you never played negative ads. In other words, when I leave here, I’ll then be hit by five or six ads,” Trump said. “When I leave, I’ll have 12 people from Kamala on, and pretty much unopposed. For 19 days, I don’t think we should do that anymore. I think you shouldn’t play negative ads. It’s very tough.”
Election Day is on Nov. 5, which is 18 days away.
Last fall, Murdoch, 93, retired as chairman of News Corp. and passed the top position to his son, Lachlan Murdoch. While Murdoch the elder has no official oversight of ad buys on his flagship network, what actual influence he wields is unclear; he has been appointed a Chairman Emeritus title on all five of the company’s boards, but it’s unclear what amount of advising or decision-making influence he currently has at his media empire.
Also on Friday, Fox News aired a segment wherein Trump visited a barbershop in the Bronx while in New York. The GOP candidate held a small Q&A-style interview on Thursday with the Knockout Barbershop staff in the Castle Hill section of the New York borough.
Ahead of his arrival at the shop, a pro-Palestinian protestor drew some attention and was seen being handcuffed by police after flying a Palestinian flag and attempting but failing to light another flag on fire. The president had not yet arrived so the protester had not likely committed any crime.
The segment was one of Fox News correspondent Lawrence Jones’ barbershop series, which sees him visit locations across the country to discuss the major issues impacting the Black community and what is driving votes this election season. The interview with the former president will air Monday, according to a Fox Corporation press release.
The Hollywood Reporter emailed Fox News on Friday seeking comment on Trump’s statements about the network and inquiring about Murdoch’s power in his Chairman Emeritus role.
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