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Donald Trump has accused Fox News of purposely using unflattering photos of him during the network's coverage of the former president.
In a post on Truth Social, 2024 Republican hopeful Trump said that people have come up to him on the campaign trail to ask why Fox News uses "horrible" pictures of him.
The former president added that Fox News' apparent attacks against him, by way of picture choice, are why the network's primetime ratings have fallen.
"Three people in New Hampshire asked me why Fox News uses such 'horrible' pictures of me when doing or promoting a story," Trump wrote.
"The coloring, distortions, everything are just so bad. They must sit and look at 100 different shots, and then take the 10 absolute worst. My staff has even complained about it for months, but to no avail. Fox is just bad news, but I'm leading in the Polls by record numbers, so perhaps their bull.... is just not working. They are down 37% for a reason!" Trump added.
In May 2023, the first full month since Fox News' previous biggest star Tucker Carlson left the network, Fox News averaged 1.42 million viewers in the primetime slot, a 37 percent drop compared to the same time period last year.
It is unclear which pictures in particular Trump is referencing in his Truth Social post. Newsweek has contacted Fox News for comment via email.
Trump also recently attacked the network, which usually provides positive coverage of the Republican, as "fake news" in an interview regarding the latest update in the classified materials investigation.
Earlier this week, CNN published an audio recording that showed Trump discussing how he was in possession of "highly confidential" Pentagon paper during a meeting at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, in July 2021, and that he no longer had the authority to declassify it.
"This was done by the military and given to me," Trump said. "See, as president, I could have declassified. Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret."
Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's classified documents probe, dismissed the investigation into him as a "hoax" during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.
When asked about whether he was concerned about the audio of his own voice providing such potential crucial evidence, Trump replied: "My voice was fine. What did I say wrong on those recordings? I didn't even see the recording. All I know is I did nothing wrong.
"We had a lot of papers, a lot of papers stacked up. In fact, you hear the rustle of the paper," he added. "And nobody said that I did anything wrong other than the fake news, which is Fox, too."
A spokesperson for Trump's campaign told Newsweek that the audio recording "provides context, proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all."
"The media and the Trump-haters once again were all too willing to take the bait, falling for another Democrat-DOJ [Department of Justice] hoax, hook, line, and sinker," the spokesperson added.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more