'More dissent is coming' as Fox News hosts turn on Trump: analyst

Donald Trump's latest honeymoon with Fox News may be coming to an end as the struggling economy is taking another hit due to his on-again, off-again tariff threats that have businesses paralyzed and investors watching their portfolios taking daily dives.

According to New Republic analyst Greg Sargent, there were warning signs for the president this week as various Fox News hosts openly expressed a dour view about the direction of the country during Trump's second term.

As Sargent noted, the network has always been overly pro-business and Trump's antics have put the network's featured personalities in an awkward spot as the economy tanks.

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Noting that hosts are still laying off most of the economic malaise on former President Joe Biden, Sargent suggested they are running out of excuses.

"It turns out there are limits. One topic Fox personalities are not quite as willing to run interference for Trump on is the economy. And with signs mounting that Trump’s economy is hitting the skids, they are beginning to sound the alarm," Sargent wrote before pointing out, "It’s the latest indication that Trump’s political project is suddenly looking quite fragile. And it’s a sign that more dissent is coming."

Case in point, he noted, was host Maria Bartiromo, whose specialty is reporting on Wall Street, excitedly complaining on Friday morning “the jobs picture is weakening!”

The New Republic analyst also cited Fox's Charles Payne glumly reporting, “I think the boom times are over,” which Sargent characterized as "implicitly admitting that the economy under Trump’s predecessor was a lot better."

"A big part of the dynamic here is surely that Fox News is, at its core, allied with the corporate, plutocratic wing of the GOP. Tariffs are such an obvious affront to those interests that Fox figures will struggle to sugarcoat them," Sargent wrote. "This is why you see the Wall Street Journal editorial board brutally attacking the tariffs. And it’s why you see Bartiromo practically pleading with Trump to reassure the plutocrats about them. She’s basically channeling those interests."

The end effect, he pointed out will be "debilitating over time." to Trump's presidency.

"Perceptions of Trump’s economic prowess are the scaffolding that holds up the rest of the edifice. If the public continues to sour on his economic performance, the deep cuts to government will look less about efficiency and instead appear maliciously, dangerously incompetent," he suggested before predicting, "Trump’s celebrations of his own impunity won’t come across as the mere rhetorical trash-talking of the strongman who was needed to whip the economy into line. Instead, they’ll sound like what they truly are—the rantings of a genuine wannabe dictator."

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