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Former President Donald Trump has criticized Fox News for showing "horrible and untruthful" adverts about him.
"What good is it if FOX News speaks well of me when they continually allow horrible and untruthful anti-Trump commercials to be run—and plenty of them," Trump said in a statement. "In the good old days, that would never have happened and today it happens all of the time."
Trump then condemned the "forces" working against him.
"Ratings-challenged CNN and MSNBC would never run a positive Trump ad—never," he said. "With so many forces against us, Big Tech, the Fake News Media, the Radical Left, the RINOs, and more, we are at such a disadvantage, but we will win anyway!"
He didn't mention which ad or ads had riled him, but several anti-Trump groups have recently bought airtime on Fox, with the purpose of provoking a reaction from the former president.
PAC group MeidasTouch, which was founded in March 2020 with the purpose of stopping Trump getting re-elected, claimed its ad upset Trump. The PAC tweeted late on Sunday that "we just broke Trump."
"We didn't think we could break him any more than we already had," MeidasTouch wrote. "But we did. After we put our ad on the air at Mar-A-Lago that is humiliating him for not coming to Virginia. He wants to come so badly."
The group shared an ad ridiculing Trump for not being involved in the Virginia gubernatorial election on November 2, where Republican Glenn Youngkin is near neck-and-neck with Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
"Donald why are you so scared to go to Virginia?" the ad says. "Is it because you know Glenn Youngkin wants nothing to do with you? Or is it because your loser stench rubs off on everyone you touch?
"If you aren't too weak or scared or washed up, you would get to Virginia fast," the ad says later on, calling Trump a "coward."
The Lincoln Project, a group of conservatives that oppose Trump, said one of their adverts might have got to the former president. Co-founder Rick Wilson told Mediaite that the group regularly runs adverts that are meant to be seen by Trump on Mar-a-Lago area cable, hoping to provoke a reaction.
Newsweek has contacted Trump's team for further comment on the adverts that provoked him.
Trump's attack on Fox comes only days after launching a new media platform himself. On October 21, Trump announced TruthSocial.com, which he vowed would promote free speech after he was banned from most major social media platforms following the January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., that was carried out by some of his followers.
Yet despite the website being "founded with a mission to give a voice to all," it forbids anyone from criticizing the site or those behind it.
About the writer
Jack Dutton is a Newsweek Reporter based in Cape Town, South Africa. His focus is reporting on global politics and ... Read more