Cruz Conservatives Rip Fox News’ Trump Coverage

Conservative media figures who support Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) have continued to criticize Fox News’ coverage of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, claiming the network is “in the tank” and acting as a “pimp” for the Trump campaign.

Conservative Media Figures Blast Fox News Over Its Support Of Trump

Mark Levin: Fox News Has Become The “Trump News Channel.” Radio host and Conservative Review editor Mark Levin, who endorsed Cruz in March, tweeted that Fox News has become the “Trump News Channel.” Levin also claimed that Fox reporter Carl Cameron was “in the tank” for Trump and shared a video of the reporter saying the Trump campaign was confident it could clinch the nomination on the first ballot during the Republican convention.

[Conservative Review, 3/10/16; Twitter, 4/26/16; Twitter, 4/26/16]

Glenn Beck: Fox News Is Using Production Tricks To Present Trump As More Presidential Than Cruz. Former Fox News host and Cruz endorser Glenn Beck claimed Fox has been portraying Trump as more presidential by providing favorable lighting and camera shots for Trump but not Cruz. [The Hill1/23/16; Glennbeck.com, 3/10/16]

Steve Deace: “Trump Apologists Like [Bill] O'Reilly Insist On Anti-Republican King Making.” Conservative radio host and Conservative Review contributor Steve Deace, who has endorsed Cruz, bashed Fox’s Bill O’Reilly on Facebook, calling him a “Trump apologist” for warning of potential backlash if Trump does not receive the GOP nomination.

[The Washington Times8/19/15; Facebook, 4/26/16]

Deace: “Here Lies Fox News … Cause Of Death: Shilling For Donald Trump.” Writing in Conservative Review, Deace claimed “Trump’s cancer [has spread] to Fox News” and declared the network’s “death” was a result of “shilling for Donald Trump.” Deace also claimed several Fox personalities including Sean Hannity and Greta van Susteren have Trump biases. [Conservative Review, 4/2/16]

Deace’s “Fox Watch” Chronicled Fox Becoming “A Defacto Super PAC For The Donald Trump Campaign.” Deace has created a “Fox Watch” campaign, claiming to expose the channel’s bias for Trump. Deace claimed Hannity has “remov[ed] all pretense of objectivity,” and that Fox had a “Trumpgasim over New York primary results”:

So many of you have complained to me that Fox News has abandon any pretense of “fair and balanced” to become a de fact Super PAC for the Donald Trump presidential campaign, that I feel compelled to temporarily dive back into the cable news world I abandoned on behalf of my own sanity to see for myself.

Which means starting today, and continuing every weekend until the Republican Party has its 2016 nominee, I'm going Rudy Martzke on what many consider to be the king of all conservative media.

Welcome to the debut of Fox Watch.

Hannity Removes All Pretense of Objectivity

In case you've been missing the media coverage during the long quest to rediscover Ann Coulter's lost integrity, Sean Hannity loves him some Donald Trump like Bill Clinton loved White House intern pools (42 “interviews” and counting, by the way). Still, up until this week's contentious interview with GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, Hannity was still claiming objectivity. That's all out the window, especially with Hannity now helping to publicly single out delegates so they can be, um, “encouraged” (for lack of a better word) to support Hannity's Mr. Trump.

[...]

Fox has Trumpgasm over New York Primary Results

New York, a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan’s landslide in 1984, is now suddenly a bell-weather in the minds of some Fox News hosts for how the country could rally around Trump.

[...]

Fox and Friends' Brian Kilmeade may as well have been holding guest Eric Trump’s hand and stroking his hair when he moped that “people are thrown off by the delegate system...it seems corrupt.”

Shepard Smith, who has a history of disparaging conservatives on the air, said “Donald Trump wiped the floor with Ted Cruz and his New York values.” Except the one question Cruz actually bested Trump on in the New York exit polling was ”shares my values." Go figure.

Finally, Eric Bolling opined that Trump's primary win could turn New York from “blue to red” in November. Yeah, except for the part where Bernie Sanders received a quarter of a million more votes than Trump did in New York on Tuesday, and he lost to Hillary Clinton by double-digits. So, just a bit outside there, Mr. Uecker.

O'Reilly Declares the Voting Over

Bill O'Reilly had good news this week for voters in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Indiana, Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon, Washington, California, New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico, and South Dakota. See, these are all states scheduled to close out the GOP primary calendar, but their services will no longer be necessary according to O'Reilly. Now that liberal New York has spoken, O'Reilly says conservatives in those states still to come need not vote, because it's all over. So save yourselves the time. Sure, Trump is still nowhere near the magical 1237 mark, but the “no spin zone” has spoken.

So say we all. Or not. [Facebook, 4/23/16]

Michael Berry Claimed Fox News Was Protecting Trump From “A Treasure Trove Of Negative” Stories That Democrats Will Use Against Him. Texas radio host and Cruz supporter Michael Berry tweeted on April 26 that Fox was protecting Trump from negative stories that Democrats will use against him in the general election. The host claimed Fox’s defense of Trump “will elect Hilary (sic)”: 

[Twitter, 4/26/16]

Berry: Fox News “Has Become A Sad, Pathetic Embarrassment. Their Sellout To [Trump] Is Sickening.” Radio host Michael Berry tweeted on April 12 that Fox News had become “pathetic” for selling out to Trump: 

[Twitter, 4/12/16]

RedState’s Jay Caruso: Fox News “Has Been The Biggest Pimp To Trump’s Whoredom Since He Got Into The Race.” RedState’s Jay Caruso, who endorsed Cruz in an April 17 column, wrote on March 16 that Fox News, “above all other television stations, including cable and network stations, has been the biggest pimp to Trump’s whoredom since he got into the race.” Caruso continued that Fox News personalities “were happy to throw out any pretense of fairness they had, instead becoming Fox News groupies in the process,” concluding that the channel “became the very caricature liberals and others on the left claim they’ve been for the last 20 years”:

Donald Trump appeared on The O’Reilly Factor tonight in what must have marked appearance (including all of the times he has dialed in) number 9,374,384 since last June when Trump announced he was going to seek the GOP Presidential nomination. The Fox News Channel, above all other television stations, including cable and network stations, has been the biggest pimp to Trump’s whoredom since he got into the race.

Fox News didn’t just provide Donald Trump a lot of coverage. The personalities who host Fox News shows were happy to throw out any pretense of fairness they had, instead becoming Fox News groupies in the process, fawning over him the way girls did The Beatles when they were on the Ed Sullivan show. What’s more hilarious, is Trump would actually complain about Fox News and in fact, at one point, boycotted the network for several weeks.

Did that help? Not at all. Fox News welcomed him back like the mother who insists her crack addicted son who just murdered three people in cold blood is a “good boy.” In doing so, Fox News became the very caricature liberals and others on the left claim they’ve been for the last 20 years. [RedState, 4/17/16; RedState, 3/16/16]