Yahoo News Trump Details Just How Much Fox News He Watches In 1 Day (It's A Lot)
President Donald Trump on Thursday said he spent the previous night watching back-to-back Fox programming, even as the country continued to battle simultaneous health, environmental and economic crises.
He made the revelation unprompted during his White House press briefing on Thursday while discussing the probe into FBI conduct in the Russia investigation.
“These people got caught in the probably the biggest political scandal in the history of our country. They got caught,” he said.
Trump then seemed to imply he was receiving some of his intelligence about that probe from Fox News and Fox Business shows:
What the Durham report is going to say, I can’t tell you. But if they say half as much as I already know just from seeing it. You know, you have people, I watch some of the shows, I watched Liz McDonnell, she’s fantastic. I watched Fox Business, I watched Lou Dobbs last night, Sean Hannity last night, Tucker (Carlson) last night, Laura (Ingraham). I watched ‘Fox & Friends’ in the morning. You watch these shows, you don’t have to go too far into the details. They cover things that are, it’s really an amazing thing.
The president of the United States says that within the last day he's watched two Fox Business evening shows, the entire Fox News primetime block, and Fox & Friends. https://t.co/lcLf6FFluD
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) September 10, 2020
Trump’s TV binge came amid a firestorm of criticism over bombshell revelations from journalist Bob Woodward’s book “Rage,” which features 18 taped interviews with the president. In one interview, Trump admitted to intentionally downplaying the severity of the coronavirus while knowing it was deadly and airborne as early as February.
Trump’s allies on Fox News and Fox Business largely excused and defended his behavior or chose not to mention it at all. His Democratic presidential opponent Joe Biden voiced his outrage over Trump’s hourslong TV-watching binge while people were dying from COVID-19:
More than 1,000 people died from COVID yesterday.@realDonaldTrump watched eight hours of TV.
If I’m president, you might not always agree with me. But I promise you I will always show up and fight for you. pic.twitter.com/HvVJLS83TZ— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 11, 2020
In April, The New York Times reported that Trump started his day with a cable news marathon that lasted up to seven hours before arriving at the Oval Office as late as noon. Following his evening White House briefing, he then watched more television.
Trump denied those claims. However, media researchers have documented for years the apparent feedback loop between Trump’s tweets, policies and rhetoric and content that aired on his favorite networks.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
