Fox News host Bret Baier called Donald Trump to discuss the Democratic National Convention, definitely not the other way around, Trump insisted via Truth Social on Sunday morning. “I don’t have to make calls to go on TV, or anything else — They call me!” Trump exclaimed. “It’s called Ratings, I guess, and I’m the ‘Ratings Machine!’”
A phone call that had been reporter elsewhere as being from Trump to Fox News aired on the network Thursday night following Kamala Harris’ speech at the DNC. Throughout the 10-minute phone call, Trump alternated between offering rageful comments about Vice President Harris and the Democratic Party, and apparently accidentally pressing different buttons on his phone.
“Bret Baier of FoxNews called me, I didn’t call him, just prior to the Kamala Convention speech, and asked me if I would like to critique her after she is finished,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“I agreed to do so! — I thought [Harris’ speech] was nonspecific and weak, with no fracking, crime, inflation or anything else of interest even mentioned. Delivery was a C+, with far too many and speedy ‘thank you’s’ at the beginning. It was ‘WEIRD!’”
“Likewise, I didn’t call other media outlets that asked me to go on, they called me. The Fake News, like often ‘gilted’ Maureen Dowd of the failing New York Times, wrote incorrectly that I was making the calls. WRONG!!! I don’t have to make calls to go on TV, or anything else — They call me! It’s called Ratings, I guess, and I’m the ‘Ratings Machine!’” Trump concluded.
Trump’s digital outburst seemed to be in response to Maureen Dowd’s Saturday column titled “Daffy Donald, Turning Pea Green With Envy,” detailing Trump’s seeming increased frustration via social media posts and media appearances on Thursday.
“If you need more evidence that Trump is flummoxed about how to counter Kamala Harris, just check out his daffy reaction to her dynamite convention,” Dowd wrote. “He followed up the posts with a scream-of-consciousness call to Fox News, filibustering Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum for 10 minutes until Baier abruptly cut him off to throw to the Greg Gutfeld comedy show.”
Trump’s outrage continued Friday, Dowd noted, with Trump turning defensive about his policies around women and reproductive rights. “Friday morning, Trump crowed on Truth Social: ‘My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights.’”
“Friday evening, Trump crowed, ‘The Republican Party is charging forward on many fronts, and I am very proud that we are a LEADER on I.V.F.’ Yeah, a leader in trying to get rid of it.”
