Donald Trump will ask Rupert Murdoch to end negative Fox News ads

During a prolonged performance on Fox & Friends On Friday morning, former President Donald Trump blurted out that he is “the most stable human being” and doubled down on his criticism that the network is not solely boosting his re-election campaign and allowing ads in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid. air on the network. He later outlined how he would take his complaint directly to network founder Rupert Murdoch to ask for all negative advertising to stop for 21 days.

Trump spent much of the program flanked by four co-hosts on the curvy couch of the Fox News morning show, discussing the ongoing 2024 campaign, his rival Harris and the Al Smith charity dinner in New York on Thursday evening. an event where he gave a speech with some jokes that he said were written by Fox News employees. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a fan of their writing and let everyone watching on Friday know as much when asked about the jokes he read on stage at the event.

“Well, I’ve had a lot of people helping,” Trump responded. “Lots of people. Some people from Fox. I shouldn’t say that. But they wrote a few jokes and for the most part I didn’t like them all.”

However, Fox said in a statement to The Associated Press on Friday that none of its employees or freelancers wrote anything for Trump to read Thursday evening. Instead, Trump is believed to have received the poop material from a cartoon character who occasionally tries to sell jokes to the Fox News show Gutfeld. On Friday, The Hollywood Reporter contacted a Fox Corp. representative via email. for clarification, but did not immediately hear back.

Later on the morning show, he returned to his infamous self-description of “very stable genius” during his 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton, when he blurted, “I’m the most stable human being,” while in the middle of answering a question from the hosts about attacking Harris for being “unstable” and “unhinged.”

“Every week they try something different. So far it hasn’t worked. I think that’s the offense they have this week. It doesn’t seem to work. I am the most stable person. Remember when they said, ‘a stable genius?’” Trump asked the Fox & Friends hosts.

“I’m the most stable person,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. We’ve had four years of greatness. We had the largest economy in history. We had the biggest border.”

Trump’s most surprising moment Fox & Friends came with an admission that he will ask Murdoch, the founder of Fox News parent company News Corp, to ensure no negative ads against his campaign appear in the next three weeks leading up to Election Day. Prior to admitting he wanted to censor free speech on an independent cable news network to bolster his campaign, the Queens native had been asked about another event he would attend if he was home in New York.

‘I’m going to Rupert Murdoch. That’s a big event,” Trump told the hosts. ‘I don’t know if he’s happy that I said it. And I’m going to tell him something very simple, because I can’t talk to anyone else about – don’t put on negative commercials for 21 days, don’t put them on, and don’t put on their horrible people who come and lie. I’m going to say, ‘Rupert, please do it this way and then we’ll get a win, because that’s what everyone wants.’

Earlier on the show, he said he noticed the negative ads targeting him and his campaign.

“You never used to play negative ads. In other words, if I leave here, I’m going to see five or six ads,” Trump said. “When I leave, I will have twelve people from Kamala, and virtually no opposition. I don’t think we should do that for 19 days. I don’t think you should play negative ads. It’s very tough.”

Election day is November 5, 18 days away.

Last fall, Murdoch, 93, retired as chairman of News Corp. and passed the top position to his son, Lachlan Murdoch. While Murdoch the elder has no official oversight of ad buys on his flagship network, it’s unclear what actual influence he wields; he has been named chairman emeritus on all five of the company’s boards, but it is unclear how much advisory or decision-making influence he currently has in his media empire.

Also on Friday, Fox News aired a segment in which Trump visited a barbershop in the Bronx while in New York. The GOP candidate conducted a small question-and-answer-style interview Thursday with the staff of Knockout Barbershop in the Castle Hill section of the New York City borough.

Before arriving at the store, a pro-Palestinian protester attracted some attention. He was seen in handcuffs by police after waving a Palestinian flag and attempting but failing to set fire to another flag. The president had not yet arrived, so the protester had probably committed no crime.

The segment was one of Fox News correspondent Lawrence Jones’ caper series, in which he visits locations across the country to discuss the key issues impacting the Black community and what’s driving the vote this election season. The interview with the former president will air on Monday, according to a news release from Fox Corporation.

The Hollywood Reporter sent Fox News an email on Friday seeking comment on Trump’s statements about the network and to inquire about Murdoch’s power in his role as chairman emeritus.