President Donald Trump is once again attacking Fox News host Jessica Tarlov — but this time, he’s publicly calling for her to be removed from the air.
In a post on Truth Social published Monday night, Trump accused “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream of failing to oppose Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), a guest on her show, of “spreading Democratic propaganda and lies.” He then turned his sights on Tarlov, the resident Democrat on Fox News’s “The Five,” by calling her a “real loser” and demanding that Fox executives get rid of her.
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“For Fox executives only, please take Jessica Tarlov off the air,” Trump wrote. “She, from her voice, her lies, and everything else about her, is one of the worst ‘personalities’ on television, a true loser!”
Trump, who has a history of attacking the press and berating female journalists, has targeted Tarlov before.
When Trump called “The Five” for an interview last month, he told her co-hosts that he was not a “fan” of Tarlov, who was absent that day. He said he was “glad” she wasn’t there and accused her of using “fake” polling numbers that reflected that a majority of Americans disapproved of Trump’s job performance.
“I think your show would be better without her, but who am I to say that?” he said as Tarlov’s co-hosts smiled and laughed. “I think it’s going to be a lot better.”
Jessica Tarlov, photographed at Fox News Channel Studios on March 5, 2024, in New York City. Roy Rochlin via Getty Images
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Trump also complained about Tarlov after she covered his unfavorable vote last June, calling her “a disgrace to television broadcasting” in a post on Truth Social. He called her “a real loser” a few days later.
While Trump’s latest attack on Tarlov is not surprising, it is still disturbing, Jacob Neiheisel, an associate professor of political science at the University of Buffalo Arts and Sciences, told HuffPost.
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“What is worrying is that Trump repeatedly calls for journalists to be fired because it shows a lack of respect for the free press,” he said.
Experts say Trump’s call for Tarlov’s removal speaks volumes.
Neiheisel said that Trump’s call for Fox executives to take Tarlov off the air “demonstrates that he thinks very little, at least on the surface, about protections for the press.”
“What is troubling is the fact that the media ecosystem, as currently configured, has probably encouraged him to think he has power in a place like FOX,” he said.
“We have seen some evidence of this effect before (such as the text messages between media figures at FOX and the administration that emerged during the Dominion case), but the more partisan or ideological media that exists today are all too well aligned with the political parties at the moment,” he continued.
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While “every president is disappointed with the press at some point,” said Peter Loge, associate professor of communication and public affairs and director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University’s School of Communication & Public Affairs, the press “will not do its job well if the president thinks they are always on his side.”
“This is what President Trump has repeated throughout his time in office, both in his first and second terms: He mocked the press, despised the press, called them the enemy of the people. [and] “He’s been particularly demeaning to women in journalism,” he said. “This is part of his MO and a lot of voters support it.”
“The important thing is that if the press reacts, if the press then gives in to his whims, then that will be a problem because then the free press is not doing its job of holding the power to account,” he continued.
Loge emphasized that being challenged by the press is part of the job of a public servant. “If you don’t want to be criticized by the press, don’t run,” he said.
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“President Trump’s tweet about Jessica Tarlov is another example of Trump’s belief that he has a role in shaping news coverage, especially in punishing those who express views critical of him or his administration,” said Andrew Geronimo, director of the First Amendment Clinic at the Milton and Charlotte Kramer Law Clinic Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Geronimo told HuffPost that Trump’s choice to mention “only Fox executives” in his post could suggest that the president, who has a history of finding ways to pick and choose reporters who cover him, is “slowly learning” that it is “a textbook First Amendment violation for a government agency to use the power of government to target speakers according to their views” — and that he may have been trying to frame his post as a violation of the First Amendment. opinion against the threat of government use of power.
However, Geronimo said that Trump’s criticism of Tarlov was “typical of Trump’s obsession with being portrayed only in a positive light.”
Experts stress it is important to draw attention to Trump’s attacks on journalists.
With so many alarming issues both at home and abroad to worry about, experts stress, it is important to continue to criticize Trump’s attacks on the press – otherwise we risk normalizing this behavior.
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Neiheisel said it was important not to “normalize” comments like Trump’s recent attack on Tarlov, because it could be “too easy to accept such rhetoric as the new normal in American politics.”
But he cautioned that “it is important not to consider all violations of democratic norms in the same category.”
“Some things happening now are certainly more disturbing than others, and we risk making noise to ordinary Americans if every violation of the norm is seen as equal in nature,” he said.
“With so much going on, it seems hard to know what to respond to or how to respond,” Loge said. “I think it’s important to hold power, regardless of what the power is doing and whether you tend to like the people in power or not.”
“If the president calls for a reporter to be fired [whom] he doesn’t like it, the press should state that,” he then continued.
Loge noted that many Trump supporters like the fact that he is not “polished” or “overly scripted.”
“That said, a lot of his actions and behavior — especially over the last two weeks — have been truly unpresidential, unprofessional, demeaning to his office and not the type of behavior we would expect from the commander-in-chief of the world’s oldest democracy,” he said.
Geronimo said we should not “normalize the government’s attacks on fundamental First Amendment protections of free speech and freedom of the press.”
He said that whether the president directly or indirectly threatens to punish media organizations for “expressing adverse views,” it is important to remember that “our constitutional system is designed so that the government lacks the broad censorship powers to control content and editorial decisions that Trump often asserts.”
The original version of this story was published on HuffPost the day before.
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