President Trump on Sunday lashed out at a trio of Fox News anchors, suggesting they should work at competitor CNN instead.
Trump tagged Arthel Neville and Leland Vittert in a tweet and asked whether the weekend anchors were “trained by CNN prior to their ratings collapse.”
“In any event, that’s where they should be working, along with their lowest rated anchor, Shepard Smith!” Trump added.
{mosads}It was not clear what prompted Trump’s criticism. A rerun of “Fox News Sunday” was airing at the time the president tweeted the message.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shepard Smith, who anchors “Shepard Smith Reporting” on weekdays at 3 p.m., has gone viral multiple times for pushing back against the president’s inaccurate claims and for a brief spat with the network’s opinion hosts, including Trump confidant Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
Trump’s penchant for watching Fox News is well-known. He frequently tweets out quotes from various network programs, most regularly “Fox & Friends.”
Earlier Sunday, he urged Fox News to “keep fighting” for embattled opinion hosts Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson, who have faced criticism in recent days for incendiary comments.
“Fox must stay strong and fight back with vigor,” Trump tweeted. “Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true to the people that got you there.”
Pirro’s regular Saturday evening show did not air this week after she questioned on air whether Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is loyal to Sharia because she wears a hijab.
Several advertisers pulled their ads from Pirro’s show last week in the wake of the Omar controversy.
Carlson, host of Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” also lost advertisers after a left-leaning blog resurfaced comments he made during appearances on a radio show between 2006 and 2011.
Trump often chastises news outlets for coverage he deems unfavorable, though he has rarely targeted Fox. The president routinely labels NBC, CNN and The Washington Post as “fake news” and has called The New York Times an “enemy of the people.”