Donald Trump has warned Fox News that their "beautiful golden goose" will be "forever gone" if the network doesn't get behind him.
The former president said the network's debate, which he skipped, had attracted far fewer viewers than his interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The interview was posted on X, formerly Twitter, at the same time the debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, aired on Wednesday night.
Fox said on Thursday that its debate moderated by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum had averaged almost 13 million viewers, which is far lower than the viewership of the first GOP debate in August 2015 during Trump's first White House run.
"The Interview has, at this moment, 260,000,000 Views, the biggest of all time, whereas the Fox News Debate had only 11,000,000 Viewers. End of story!" Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform late on Saturday.
"If Fox News doesn't get on board the greatest MOVEMENT of all time, MAGA, they will continue to Hemorrhage Viewers and Ratings—They will never come back—The beautiful Golden Goose will be forever gone!"
While Carlson's post on X featuring his interview with Trump has been viewed 260 million times, view counts on the platform do not necessarily give an accurate indication of how many viewers actually watched the interview.
According to X's Help Center, anyone "who is logged into Twitter who views a Tweet counts as a view, regardless of where they see the Tweet (e.g. Home, Search, Profiles, etc.) or whether or not they follow the author."
It adds: "If you're the author, looking at your own Tweet also counts as a view."
But while it did not capture the same size audience as it did for Trump's first presidential primary debate, the debate's ratings were higher than 70 percent of all presidential primary debates in the 2016 and 2020 election campaigns.
Trump's comments came after he was booked at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on Thursday on charges that he illegally schemed to overturn the 2020 election in the state, becoming the first former president in U.S. history to ever have a mugshot taken.
As he campaigns for the 2024 Republican nomination, he is facing a total of 91 charges across four federal and state felony indictments in cases connected to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, his handling of classified documents and his role in hush-money payments. He has denied all the charges against him.
On Saturday, he also blasted Fox for promoting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who opinion polls show is trailing him in the race for the Republican presidential nomination by a wide margin.
"Fox News lies. They are still pushing DeSanctimonious, saying he can beat Biden," he wrote in another Truth Social post.
"Actually, he is losing to Crooked Joe in ALL of the Polls, and I am winning in ALL. Fox News just doesn't learn. This has been going on since 2016, saying I won't beat Beautiful Hillary, and then I did!"
Newsweek has contacted a Trump spokesperson, Fox News and the DeSantis campaign for comment via email.
