Every morning, Donald Trump sets aside several hours for what aides have dubbed “executive time”. But he isn’t reading policy papers or intelligence briefings. He’s glued to the TV: specifically, to Fox News. And the president of the United States begins his day not only by watching the channel’s morning show, Fox & Friends, but by live-tweeting the stories covered on it and lavishing praise on the presenters. Is it any wonder, then, that the US news website Mediaite dubbed the Fox & Friends hosts, Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, “three of the most influential media people not just in the United States, but in the entire world”?
Trump is “the Fox News president”, as another Fox News host, Greg Gutfeld, once bragged live on air. “Everything that he says, we’ve said.” This isn’t an exaggeration: Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at the progressive media watchdog Media Matters for America, has documented how often and how brazenly the president repeats almost word for word what he has just seen or heard on the channel.
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