President Trump went after Fox News publicly on Tuesday, calling Martha MacCallum’s Monday interview with Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed a “softball” session. That’s a pretty stinging word coming from a guy who normally considers Fox a friendly neighborhood.
“Fox is promoting the Dumocrats, not the Republicans and MAGA. They have totally lost their way!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. White House officials also called the network Tuesday to complain about the interview, per Axios. So it wasn’t just a social media vent, they actually picked up the phone.
Republicans in Michigan have been quietly fuming about this for months. El-Sayed, who’s running a tight race against GOP former Rep. Mike Rogers, has turned Fox airtime into a one-man marketing operation. His campaign ads ran 129 times on Fox News from October 1 through October 6, roughly double his buys on ESPN, according to ad tracking data on the Michigan Senate race. He’s essentially renting out conservative living rooms to sell himself as a reasonable guy.
“It’s not just that he is doing interviews with Fox. It’s that he is on Fox every commercial break,” Michigan Republican strategist Dennis Lennox told Axios. That’s a lot of Abdul for people who tuned in for Tucker reruns and pillow ads.
The trouble started back in August when host Jesse Watters praised El-Sayed after his primary win, saying “You gotta respect Abdul because he beat the machine.” Republicans warned Fox producers that El-Sayed would weaponize the compliment. Sure enough, his campaign slapped it in a TV ad and called Watters an “unlikely validator.” Watters then went a step further after a follow-up interview, saying “I actually like Abdul. I probably shouldn’t like him, but I do.” Republicans were not thrilled.
Fox News isn’t exactly apologizing. The network said Watters’ August interview with El-Sayed drew nearly 3.4 million viewers, making it the highest-rated prime-time cable news telecast of the month. Fox News Media President Jay Wallace defended MacCallum’s interview, telling Axios the network will broadcast things its core audience might not love. “Someone didn’t necessarily like that,” Wallace said, apparently referring to Trump. “But that’s what we do.”
Michigan Republican strategist Jason Roe summed up the bind pretty well. “They are doing him a favor. It’s only helping him reach center-right voters. But they are in business to make money, and he attracts eyeballs.” Hard to argue with the math, even if the math stings.
El-Sayed, for his part, is leaning into it. “I am going to have conversations with all kinds of folks,” he told MacCallum on Monday. Polls show the Rogers-El-Sayed race is close, and Republicans worry the Fox exposure is muddying their case that El-Sayed is too liberal for Michigan. Watch for more pressure from the White House and GOP operatives on the network as November gets closer. And maybe watch for Watters to start liking El-Sayed even more, just to keep things interesting.
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