'Wheels are coming off': Conservative spots sign of Trump's end in Fox News 'tantrums'

Donald Trump’s increasing irritation with Fox News hosts for inviting on critics of his administration is a “sign” that he knows his influence is waning as fast as his approval numbers plummet.

That is according to National Review writer Jim Geraghty, who argued in a column for the Washington Post that the complaints are another sign “the wheels are coming off” Trump’s administration as the midterms approach.

Geraghty wrote that the president’s “tantrums” reflect his belief that a network “usually more than fair — some would say generous and gushing — in its coverage” is somehow betraying him and his party.

On Sept. 30, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Why does Fox News always put Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Jessica Tarlov, and every Democrat on, saying bad things about the Republican Party and, of course, me? I actually think they get more airtime than Pro Republicans. This is why MAGA, and REAL Patriots, will never like Fox!”

Less than a week later, on Oct. 4, he wrote that “Fox spends more time talking to Communists, Socialists, and Dumocrats, often without rebuttal, and MAGA is not, to put it mildly, happy.” On Monday, Trump again criticized Fox on Truth Social and urged followers to watch his Kansas rally on the Right Side Broadcasting Network.

Geraghty described Fox as “the biggest of the big dogs in the world of cable television news,” with weeknight prime-time audiences of more than 2 million, far ahead of Newsmax, One America News or any web-based streaming rival.

He also wrote that Trump “has already cost the network a fortune,” arguing that without Trump’s 2020 “stolen election nonsense,” Fox “would never have had to shell out that $787 million payment to Dominion Voting Systems.”

“You get the feeling that Fox News executives, talent and staff are getting tired of the president’s endless whining and attacks when they’ve offered coverage that any of his predecessors would envy,” Geraghty wrote.

The relationship may not end in a “full-on acrimonious divorce,” he wrote, but it is “definitely frostier, and less amenable, than at the start of Trump’s second term.” Geraghty concluded that “when the president keeps whining that even Fox News is being unfair to him, his self-pity has hit an amazing new height.”