Ahead of what will be a pivotal week, Donald Trump is lashing out at some of his most valuable resources: Fox News and Republicans.
In a Thursday morning meltdown on Truth Social, the ex-president demanded Republicans “get tougher and smarter, FAST!” in defending him against the four major criminal indictments, including 91 felony charges, he is now facing. And he attacked Fox News, claiming they don’t “show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot,” while complaining about the photographs of him they use on TV.
Next week Trump says he will hold a “major” news conference on Monday where he will release a report that, he claims, will exonerate him in the cases surrounding his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Thursday morning reports suggest his attorneys are trying to talk him out of doing so. Trump’s former White House attorney, Ty Cobb, on Wednesday said the report may turn out to be evidence that could be used against him.
On Wednesday, the Republican Party’s first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle will be held in Milwaukee, hosted by Fox News. Trump has refused to sign the required GOP pledge to support whichever candidate Republican primary voters choose as their nominee, and is strongly hinting he will not participate. Some speculate he might hold a concurrent event to draw attention toward himself and away from Wednesday’s debate, perhaps even showing up in Fulton County for his arraignment on 13 felony charges, which he legally is required to do by next Friday.
NBC News on Wednesday reported, “it’s not at all hard to imagine Trump turning his jailhouse arrival into an O.J.-Simpson-in-the-Bronco-level spectacle at the same time Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is telling the debate audience about how he lowered the state’s pension assumptions.”
“Remember,” Trump also said on Thursday, “all of these Indictments, Federal, State, and Local, were conceived and generated by Crooked Joe Biden and his staff of Radical Left Lunatics and Thugs for purposes of interfering with the 2020 Presidential Election.” Trump possibly meant the 2024 election.
“None of these trials should be allowed to begin prior to the Election,” he declared. “Republicans must get tougher and smarter, FAST!”
Separately, he ranted: “Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot. They just won’t do it! Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not. Just like 2016 all over again…And then they want me to debate!”
It was his second attack on Fox News in as many days.
“FoxNews is going all out, just as they did in 2016, to figure who in this very large, but failing, Republican field, can beat your favorite President, Donald John Trump,” he wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “They use only the most negative polls, which are still great for me, and do everything possible to show that they still have a chance. They even pull out nice guy Marc Thiessen to do contortions with numbers that just don’t exist. On top of all that, I am the only one beating, by a lot, Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST ‘P’ EVER!”
An NCRM examination found no recent poll listed on either RealClearPolitics or FiveThirtyEight that shows Trump beating Biden “by a lot.”
On FiveThirtyEight for the month of August most Biden vs. Trump national (not state) 2024 election polls show President Biden beating Donald Trump by low single digits.
And at RealClearPolitics every August Biden vs. Trump national 2024 election poll shows Biden ahead of Trump, again by low single digits.