Donald Trump's Wall Of Insults Has Fox News Anchors Turning On Him

During his first term as president, Donald Trump said that Fox News was his favorite channel. Fox, in turn, has largely promoted and supported Trump — so much so that they even had to pay a multi-million dollar settlement over promoting conspiracy theories around the 2020 election. And Trump has tapped more Fox News staffers than you think to work for his second administration. So when Fox News starts to break with what Trump has to say, you know that he's really crossed a line. Two things that Trump has done recently have gotten some backlash on Fox. There was Trump's tacky update to his "Presidential Walk of Fame," along with Trump's response to the news that Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Reiner, were murdered.

Trump's second term has seen some tacky changes to the Oval Office, but perhaps nothing as petty as the plaques he had installed along the "Presidential Walk of Fame." Trump's childish behavior started when he put a photo of an autopen in place of Joe Biden's portrait, and he amped it up by including antagonistic comments about previous presidents that seem to echo his Truth Social posts, with some words randomly in all caps alongside immature insults. It came up on "The Five," and Jessica Tarlov, who is the one Democrat on the panel, was fairly predictably unimpressed by the plaques. But when she asked Brian Kilmeade, a staunch Trump supporter, even he wasn't a fan.

"I'm not for this at all," Kilmeade said (via Instagram). "I'm not for the autopen. If he's going to do it ... Just put the profiles out there ... I'm not for the trolling."  Kilmeade also theorized that this could be setting a precedent with future presidents possibly installing derogatory plaques about Trump.

The late Rob Reiner made it very clear that he didn't like Donald Trump, and when news of his death broke, Trump posted "condolences" on Truth Social. In the post, he essentially said that it was "Trump derangement syndrome" that caused Rob's death. People weren't impressed about this attack on Reiner, but Trump didn't apologize. Instead, Trump doubled down with his attacks on Reiner. And panelists on the Fox News show "Special Report with Bret Baier" denounced Trump's handling of the situation, and Baier included the clip on Instagram. Howard Kurtz from Fox said of Trump's response: "I thought [it] was well beneath him and beneath the office. And I think it would have been better if the president had made no comment."

In contrast to Trump, other Fox News personalities gave actual condolences. Laura Ingraham, host of "The Ingraham Angle" on Fox News, noted that she disagreed with Reiner politically in her post on X, but she also said, "ROB REINER WAS A LEGEND." And Trump supporter James Woods spoke with Jesse Watters about it on Fox News, saying, "When people say horrible things about Rob right now, I find it infuriating and distasteful."

Overall, Trump's response to Reiner's death exposed his own flaws. As one commenter put it, Trump is "a small man, when given the choice, will consistently choose not to be the bigger man." It seems Fox News hosts may be slowly realizing that.