Heads Will Roll

"Why do you think Rupert [Murdock] attacks me so often?"

"Rupert always tells me to my face that he loves me, but I guess he doesn't."

U.S.President Donald Trump

 

"[While the president has for many years considered launching 'Trump TV', he often underestimates costs and infrastructure involved, along with opposition of] liberal [cable operators."

"The president has been a fantastic media personality ... but if he does [Trump TV] he's gonna have a super hard time."

"[Could Trump partner with Newsmax? I] never closed the door [on the option]."

Christopher Ruddy, founder, conservative media group Newsmax

It was a useful collaboration benefiting both parties while it lasted. Fox News got the inside source for its support of a president who loathed mainstream press and media sources because they were all irremediably biased against him, unable to recognize the fine qualities he brought to the Oval Office, while Fox News was amenable to join its less staid, conservative bent to the unorthodox comportment of a president whose coarse demeanor and questionable values and behaviour failed to strike the right chord with the mainstream.

"The president's going to — he's very transparent in terms of what he wants. And he's been very clear about his views … I'm not trying to make anybody happy."

"What I'm trying to do is, fulfill what he wants — I mean, he's the duly elected commander in chief — and make the best out of it."

"My frustration is I sit here and say, 'Hmm, 18 Cabinet members. Who's pushed back more than anybody?' Name another Cabinet secretary that's pushed back."

"Have you seen me on a stage saying, 'Under the exceptional leadership of blah-blah-blah, we have blah-blah-blah-blah'?"

"I serve my country in deference to the Constitution, so I accept your decision to replace me."

(former) Defence Secretary Mark Esper

President Donald Trump is in a mean, rip-raging mood. And there will be consequences. Some have already surfaced. The President of the United States of America, dignified as always, respectful of those who have served the American people well and who have managed to stifle their sense of equanimity in the face of unorthodox interference in their service to their country, took to Twitter today  to 'terminate' an important member of his Cabinet; a not-unusual state of affairs with this president.

 

Defence Secretary Mark Esper sacked by Trump, Reuters

He had the unmitigated gall, after all, of refusing a presidential order to intervene militarily in the protests that took place across from the White House months earlier in contravention of his duty to a president who feels that national law applies only to others. When Defence Secretary Mark Esper demurred over using the military for an action that local police should be called upon to monitor, the stage was set for a future come-uppance. Which arrived when a brooding, offended president unwilling to accept that enough Americans voted against a second four-year term for a flawed, petulant, egotistical ignoramus to make way for a semblance of normalcy in the White House decided that in the time left to him before he proved without a doubt that his Democratic rival would not sit in the Oval Office come January to clean house.

 

And among others who will soon fall to the Twitter guillotine-in-waiting, there is Fox News which chose to declare on Tuesday election night that the state of Arizona had voted in the majority for Joe Biden, thus giving the Democrat the first 'flip' victory in a state Donald Trump felt certain would continue to support him. The first response was from that considerable portion of the public that supports Mr.Trump, shouting "Fox News sucks!" And then the Associated Press followed and the Trump prospects began to waver leading the president to glower over 'betrayal'.

 

Fox News became the premier media organization to watch because it was Donald Trump's media voice aided and abetted by loyal presenters including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson who have doubled as counsellors and advocates for the Trump presidency. The president had the inside track with the channel and Fox News had coveted access directly to the White House. Its new style of coverage has wildly displeased Trump, however; little perceived slights here and there, ticking  him off, engendering Twitter reprisals.

 

Fox News Channel and radio talk show host Sean Hannity (L) interviews U.S President Donald Trump before a campaign rally at the Las Vegas Convention Center on September 20, 2018. 

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Fox and Rupert Murdoch were resistant to an intervention by Jared Kushner on behalf of his father-in-law to defer to the inescapable reality that the election was being 'stolen' from the estimable Donald Trump. Within the Fox network itself there is dissension with Republican senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham brought to testify on air by Hannity to support the unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud as a deliberate attempt to diminish support for the president's second term of office. 

 

Similarly the most popular personality on Fox, Carlson openly defied his network's Arizona call informing viewers he couldn't be certain "how the decision was made", but was sure that "people are concerned". Print titles clarified nothing other than that there appeared to be a fissure between Fox and Trump which the New York Post headline reading "Downcast Trump makes baseless election fraud claims" further infuriated the good man. Horror of horrors! Trump's most favourite print source for news.

 

The collaboration over the course of four years between the president and the conservative news media that Fox represents allowed it to attain unforeseen heights of influence and commercial success. Since Trump won office in 2016 Fox News became the most-watched cable channel sweeping American television in prime time -- and for the 2020 election unfolding last Tuesday a memorable 13.7 million watched Fox News in contrast to CNN's 9 million and MSN-BC's 7 million, according to Nielsen. 

How events turn in upon themselves ... Fox is now nervous about an idle thought Trump once expressed about starting his own channel. Fox profited by over $12 billion in revenues in the last fiscal year reflecting operating profits at its cable news division which climbed 8 percent to $2.7 billion even while facing a structural decline in cable television in the face of hyper-charged news cycle transitions. With the loss of entree to Trump-insider-news the prospect that an ex-president may begin a media network of his own on leaving the White House must send  shivers down the spine of Fox.

The merest suggestion of that coming to fruition saw Fox shares fall over four percent, underperforming its peers and the broader market. Fox Corp's investors are now concerned with the prospect of Trump TV but in the opinion of media analyst Michael Nathanson, investors are "overestimating the impact of a potential new entrant", even though Trump is considered the biggest crowd-puller in cable news history. 

Dozens of protesters converged at Fox News headquarters, as the corporation held an “emergency” meeting to court nervous brands to continue advertising on the network, on March 13, 2019.  Photo: Michael Nigro/Sipa USA/AP