As Democrats steamrolled Republicans in Tuesday’s midterms, President Donald Trump called into Fox News to brag about his popularity with the GOP and take a swipe at anchor Bret Baier — a performance one prominent critic branded a “mental breakdown.”
“Donald Trump just had a mental breakdown on Fox News over the midterm elections. MAGA, this is what ‘cope’ and ‘crying harder’ looks like,” wrote Ed Krassenstein, a prominent liberal influencer, in a social media post on X to his more than 1 million followers.
Baier asked Trump whether he had any regrets about his handpicked candidates such as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), both of whom lost their respective Senate races. Trump said that he “had no choice” but to endorse some of the candidates that he backed, and then lashed out at Baier for not supporting him when “it wasn’t fashionable” to do so.
The president then went on to boast about his supposed popularity among Republican voters.
“CNN had a poll, I’m at 99% approval in the Republican Party, the highest ever,” Trump falsely claimed, likely conflating the results of an NBC News poll discussed on CNN that showed Trump with a near-100% approval rating among self-identified MAGA Republicans, not all Republicans.
“I shouldn’t say this, but Abraham Lincoln was at 8%, Ronald Reagan was at 13% and Trump was at like 54%, and then I read in Fox that I’m not popular. You know, I mean… the Fox polls are terrible, you oughta get yourself a good pollster because your polls is the worst.”
Baier pushed back, telling the president that the election results were “pretty close to what the Fox polls showed.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, I can just tell you about speaking for myself,” Trump said.
Reactions to Trump’s remarks were swift.
“Trump’s interview with Fox is proof that the most powerful man in the world has serious mental problems,” wrote Brazilian journalist Erick Bretas, according to a Grok translation from Portuguese.
New Jersey-based marketing executive Paul Brown joked that he was “drinking MAGA tears while listening” to Trump’s call with Fox News, and Andrew Chesnut, a religious studies scholar, author and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, called Trump “absolute scum” for his outburst.
Donald Trump just had a mental breakdown on Fox News over the midterm elections..MAGA, this is what “cope” and “crying harder” looks like. https://t.co/V4XdXXAqYs
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) November 4, 2026