Donald Trump Rejects Critics of Fox News Call: ‘I’m the Ratings Machine’

Former President Donald Trump has hit back at critics of his live interview on Fox News on Thursday night, where he reacted to Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech accepting her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
Trump, the Republican nominee, wrote dozens of posts on his Truth Social platform during Harris’ speech. He followed that up with the interview on Fox News, which host Bret Baier abruptly ended after about 10 minutes while Trump was still speaking.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump denied reporting by The New York Times that said Trump “picked up the telephone and called Fox News” so that he could weigh in on Harris’ speech.
He insisted that he did not have to “make calls” to appear on television, adding that he is a “ratings machine” for networks and media outlets.
“Bret Baier of Fox News called me, I didn’t call him, just prior to the Kamala Convention speech, and asked me if I would like to critique her after she is finished. I agreed to do so!” Trump wrote.
“Likewise, I didn’t call other media outlets that asked me to go on, they called me. The Fake News, like often ‘gilted’ Maureen Dowd of the failing New York Times, wrote incorrectly that I was making the calls. WRONG!!! I don’t have to make calls to go on TV, or anything else—They call me! It’s called Ratings, I guess, and I’m the ‘Ratings Machine!'”
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, told Newsweek: “President Trump is 100 percent correct, he is a ratings juggernaut and the media needs him.”
Fox News has been contacted for comment via email.
In an opinion essay published on Saturday, Dowd wrote that Trump’s “daffy reaction” to the Democratic convention was “more evidence that Trump is flummoxed” about how to counter Harris.
Harris’ criticism of Trump during her speech “set off a meshuga meltdown on Truth Social, with Trump maniacally capitalizing any piffle that entered his head,” Dowd wrote. “He followed up the posts with a scream-of-consciousness call to Fox News, filibustering Bret Baier and Martha McCallum for 10 minutes until Baier abruptly cut him off to throw to the Greg Gutfeld comedy show.”
Some critics said Trump sounded “panicked” and “rattled” during the Fox News interview, claiming that beeping sounds indicated Trump was pressing buttons on his phone’s keypad during the call.
“Trump is so rattled that he keeps hitting the buttons on his phone while he’s talking,” Acyn, a senior editor at the left-leaning MeidasTouch, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, alongside a video featuring some of the beeping sounds.