Mary Altaffer/AP
Signs that FOX News could be pushing back on Donald Trump have emerged as the Republican squares up for a rematch with Joe Biden in November.
Trump clinched the presidential nomination with decisive victories in several primaries, setting up a general election rematch that many American voters do not want.
The outcome of contests across Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state was never in doubt. Neither Joe Biden, a Democrat, nor Trump, a Republican, faced major opposition.
However, the magnitude of their wins gave each man the delegate majority he needed to claim his party’s nomination at the summertime national conventions.
Trump has emerged as the favourite to win the election with some bookmakers, but he will have several obstacles to overcome in order to do so.
The first is the sheer volume of lawsuits.
In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.
He has already lost a civil suit in New York that could hobble his business empire, as well as a pair of large defamation judgments.
Trump could also be crippled by the lack of support within political circles, which could make forming an effective administration almost impossible.
Former Vice President Mike Pence became the latest in a series of senior Trump administration officials who have declined to endorse their former boss’s bid to return to the Oval Office.
He has since been vocal about his reservations about Trump’s actions and his policy stances.
The other major issue he faces is the support (or lack thereof) of broadcaster FOX News.
According to Dr. Louis Perron, a political scientist, consultant and TEDx speaker based in Switzerland, the channel has been cutting away from Trump rallies to immediately correct statements about the last election being stolen, and in interviews, anchors confront the former President.
This is no small thing. Former President Barack Obama, for example, was said to have estimated that FOX News cost him 5 per cent of his approval rating.
On Fox Business, Stuart Varney recently challenged Trump’s campaign press secretary, whether is appropriate for the former president to call the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, “New-scum”.
Perron said this is a sign of a “concerted effort by FOX News of pushing back against Trump”, which has started since the Domonion lawsuit, when FOX News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million USD.
