President Donald Trump sat down for an interview, and when Martha MacCallum asked him to respond to a poll about views on the economy — where 52% said they feel the economy is worse under Trump — he immediately went on the offensive.
MacCallum hosts the Fox News segment The Story with Martha MacCallum. The fact that Trump is still willing to appear on multiple Fox News shows, even while carrying out an ongoing onslaught against media companies and comedians alike, is proof that Fox News has been unusually kind to the MAGA cause.
Trump began boasting about his upcoming “numbers” that, in his words, nobody has ever seen before — routine claims for the president. However, MacCallum surprisingly pushed back, showing him the poll indicating that only 18% of Fox News viewers actually believe Trump has improved the economy while 52% said that he has tanked it worse than ever. As recently as 2023, CNN reported that 85% believed Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election, including the insurrection, were simply examples of him exercising his rights. For a majority of those viewers to now question Trump — that is a noteworthy development.
The president, however, dismissed the poll, even announcing that “Fox polling is the worst polling.” He said he has been telling Rupert Murdoch — the outgoing chairman of Fox Corp — to hire a new pollster. Trump added that although Fox News predicted he would win the 2024 election, they failed to predict the scale of his victory. That response caused an uproar online, with some critics pointing to the Kimmel situation as a precedent for what Trump might do if Fox News ever started openly criticizing him or highlighting aspects of his presidency that were not working out.
In reality, Fox News has previously gone so far in boosting Trump’s election numbers that they announced him as the victim of election fraud. The network ultimately settled for $787.5 million and is still facing another lawsuit of the same amount from Governor Gavin Newsom. Fox News has not just favored Trump in its reporting — it has often put money behind its Trump favoritism.
Yet Trump has recently been on bad terms with Rupert Murdoch. Although Murdoch appeared beside the president at the awkward final of the FIFA Club World Cup — where Trump joined Chelsea Football Club and reportedly even received a winner’s medal for himself — a lot has changed since then. Murdoch doesn’t just own Fox News; he also owns The Wall Street Journal, which published the strange birthday messages to Jeffrey Epstein that allegedly implicated Trump himself.
On X, one user remarked that Trump has always had 100% support from Fox News, suggesting this must be a joke. Another user quipped that Trump will probably push for MacCallum’s job next, just like he supposedly did with Kimmel’s show.
Uh oh Trump might try to have Martha MacCallum fired next.
— Vince Wilson (@VinceWilsonShow) September 18, 2025
the jokes always write themselves …
— Seán
denigrating the most biased news source that supports him 100%.TTPD
*
Karma
Midnigh⸆⸉
1989*
(@MountOlympus818) September 18, 2025
Trump has always treated the press as a tool to advance his personal agenda, a habit dating back to his days as a property developer. His pattern is well known: it begins with criticism, escalates to legal threats, and, if given the chance, ends with him trying to eliminate his adversaries in the press.
