One of President Donald Trump’s favorite shows, “Fox & Friends,” is pulling up stakes after just days of promoting his Great American State Fair, a 16-day event to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday.

According to The Daily Beast, the conservative morning TV show “is back in the studio” after two days, which “it spent talking up over live shots of empty grass.”

The Fox News cameras “kept beaming out the bare lawns and thin crowds” that undercut Trump’s “boasts that the event was ‘packed.'”

On Monday, The Independent reported that Trump’s “MAGA-themed event has been beset by problems,” and was a “ghost town.”

On Truth Social, Trump asked, “Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it?”

Wednesday morning, the “Fox & Friends” studio was packed with “an audience of first responders, veterans, and their families” as the hosts returned to the indoor set, The Daily Beast noted.

“We’ve been away for 48 hours. They’ve been waiting for us to return. We appreciate it,” co-host Brian Kilmeade declared.

Trump had claimed that 45,000 people turned out for his kickoff speech, but Fox News’ cameras “blew apart the president’s boasts.”

As did photographs from Reuters, The Daily Beast reported, with them “showing nowhere near the numbers the president had touted.”

“The network’s live shots from the Mall repeatedly framed wide stretches of empty grass behind its anchors, The Daily Beast added. “On other mornings, the walkways and booths behind the set sat all but empty. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, 28, turned up on the show Monday to gush about the fair with a bare lawn.”

On Tuesday, USA Today opinion columnist Rex Huppke wrote, “I love President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair. I love its emptiness. It’s expensive food. Its ability to confound Trump-friendly media outlets that keep pretending it’s going great.”

“I love seeing Fox News broadcasting from the fair, its hosts claiming the place is filled with excited patriots while the scenes behind them show a vast expanse of untrod-upon grass with an occasional few humans milling along the fringes.”

Huppke said it was “like watching your high school bully host a party that no one attends. It’s a daily humiliation for a wildly unpopular president who coopted what should be a unifying national celebration and turned it into repellent schlock.”

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Arkansas voters haven’t elected a Democratic governor in over a decade. Same with its two U.S. senators. And with all four of its U.S. representatives. Donald Trump won the state in the 2024 presidential election with nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the vote — even more than he took in 2020. For more than a decade, Republicans have controlled both chambers in the state legislature — now with a veto-proof supermajority. And as of the 2024 election, more than eight out of 10 Arkansans live in solid Republican counties.

So perhaps it’s surprising to see an anti-Trump letter to the editor in one of the state’s top newspapers.

“Is that patriotism?” asks Doug Barber in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the state’s paper of record.

“I recently read an article that stated Republicans are more patriotic than Democrats or independents. I question that assertion,” Barber argues.

“How can someone claim they are patriotic when they support a president who regularly ignores the U.S. Constitution?” he asks. “For example, in 2021, Donald Trump did everything in his power to prevent the duly elected president from taking office.”

“Under the Trump administration, freedom of the press and freedom of speech is only as long as you aren’t too critical of the president (CBS News is an example),” Barber continues. “How about the separation of powers? Trump tried to appoint his Cabinet without the approval of Congress. He threatens judges who decide against him with impeachment. He regularly uses executive orders to bypass Congress and impose his will.”

Barber scorches Trump’s pardons of January 6 rioters.

“And let’s not forget how he treats protesters,” he posits. “If you violently protest for Trump, you get pardoned and possibly get financially rewarded (if Trump gets his way). If you protest against the president, you get harsh sentences (see Minnesota) or perhaps even killed.”

“If supporting this kind of president is what it takes to be patriotic,” Barber concludes, “count me out.”

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A tense Oval Office meeting last week put President Donald Trump in the middle of a clash between Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team and a top agriculture lobbyist over pesticides, farmers’ health, and the U.S. food supply.

“The confrontation, which one attendee called ‘shocking,’ exposed a sharp fault line in Trump’s coalition — the push by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement to reduce conventional pesticides vs. farming interests determined to preserve them,” Axios reported.

Secretary Kennedy and his MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement see pesticides as a product that is making Americans sick, while the farmers largely warn that restricting the use of pesticides would make food prices more expensive for consumers and cost farmers — who are already struggling — billions of dollars.

Trump had planned to sign an executive order later that day to promote alternatives to conventional pesticides and to study their effects, Axios reported. American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall opposed the signing of the order, expressing concern that it would send a signal that would undermine Americans’ confidence in the safety of the U.S. food supply.

Duvall represents more than 5 million farming and ranching members.

South Dakota farmer and former USDA official Jonathan Lundgren was also present at the Oval Office meeting and supported the president’s executive order.

“One of the take-home messages I really wanted [Trump] to understand is that the farmers were sick right now,” Lundgren told Axios. “We’re literally killing our farmers with these food systems.”

“It was intense in there,” Lundgren told Axios. “They were arguing. It was back and forth.”

Axios added that “Lundgren said Duvall’s decision to forcefully confront Trump was ‘shocking,’ and that the president appeared concerned and ‘wanted to understand why Zippy was so worried.'”

“Several other farmers at the meeting echoed Lundgren’s support for regenerative agriculture, a farming approach focused on improving soil health and reducing reliance on pesticides.”

Trump asked aides for their advice on signing the executive order. Ultimately, he decided to sign it. Later, Duvall agreed to support it.

“Mike Tomko, an American Farm Bureau Federation spokesperson, disputed the idea Duvall wasn’t in favor of exploring pesticide alternatives,” Axios reported. “He said Duvall’s concerns about the executive order centered on the ‘insinuation that our food supply is not safe.'”

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