The day has come. Donald Trump returned to Facebook. Elon Musk has invited him to come back to Twitter, and we can only assume he will do so as imminently as his Truth Social agreement allows. And, now, the big man is making his Fox News comeback.
He’ll be appearing on Sean Hannity’s show on Sunday, the network said this week. Mark Levin said he too has an upcoming interview with Trump on Fox.
Trump hasn’t exactly been banned from Fox — not formally, at least. But the network and the ex-president have given each other a little bit of a cold shoulder since he tried to overthrow the government in a self-coup after losing a democratic election, a gambit Fox belatedly, half-heartedly, and perhaps in consult with its lawyers decided wasn’t a good look. Trump appeared on Fox in September 2022 — also on Hannity — in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid, for an interview during which he memorably explained that he could declassify documents “by thinking about it.”
But as of late, there hasn’t been the same kind of morning-cell-phone-call-to-Fox-and-Friends appearances he became known for in friendlier times. Semafor reported earlier this month that some close to Trump believe the network has some kind of “soft ban” in place on the former president.
If it did, it appears to have ended. And what timing! Fox is currently facing a massive defamation suit over the lengths to which it went to entertain the former president’s election lies pre-insurrection in what plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems says was a bid to keep his fans’ watching and conspiracy-theory-prone pillow magnate Mike Lindell advertising.
Trump, meanwhile, appears to be on the cusp of being hit with between one and three indictments. He claims to think he’s about to be arrested. And as he rolls into the Republican presidential primary, he’s taken his already-often-apocalyptic rhetoric to ever greater decibels, saying things like “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”
We’re sure Fox hasn’t bitten off more than it can chew, though.
The Best Of TPM Today
Here’s what you should read this evening:
DeSantis Reveals He Can Be Bullied
Arizona Supreme Court Just Barely Keeps Limping Kari Lake Election Lawsuit Alive
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
North Carolina’s Lt. Governor Is A Facebook Brawler Whose Posts Railed Against Gays, Blacks, And Jews — Hunter Walker
What We Are Reading
Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O’ — Politico Magazine
Nobody Likes Mike Pence — The Atlantic
Ron DeSantis Is Building a State Where Media Criticism of Him Is No Longer Allowed — New Republic
