President Trump blamed Fox News for Republican midterm losses after Democrats took Congress, tying the network’s 27 percent ratings drop to its coverage of the opposition.
As Democratic wins piled up Tuesday night, President Donald Trump unloaded on Fox News in a string of Truth Social posts, arguing the network helped sink Republicans by elevating Democratic voices while its audience shrank.
CNBC reported that Democrats seized control of both the Senate and the House, flipping seats in states including Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas, ground that usually leans Republican.
Trump did not treat the result as bad luck. He put the failure on the cable giant many conservatives still treat as home base.
In his posts, he said Fox “bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition.”
"bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition."
He went further on the ratings, tying the audience slide to what he called over-coverage of his critics.
"FoxNews Ratings are way down (27%!) because they're spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats! All of those people who used to watch Fox, and no longer do, get it. It's them, not me,"
The timing mattered. Trump had appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Monday night, ahead of the election. By Tuesday night, with the map turning blue in places Republicans expected to hold, he turned on the network in public.
Fox’s own figures lined up with the percentage Trump hammered.
A Fox News press release last week said the network averaged 1.1 million viewers in October, down about 27 percent from the same month a year earlier.
That is still a larger total-day audience than its cable rivals. But the direction is down, and Trump made that the point.
MS NOW averaged 588,000 viewers across all day parts in October, and CNN averaged 402,000, according to Nielsen data cited by Fox. Both saw primetime viewership rise by double digits from a year earlier. Neither matched Fox’s total-day average.
Viewers leaving Fox are not flocking in mass to those channels, at least not on the totals Fox cited. They are watching less, or watching somewhere else off the traditional cable meter. Trump’s argument is simpler: soft or opposition-heavy coverage drives the base away, then the party pays on Election Day.
Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch addressed the decline on the company’s quarterly earnings call Monday, the same day Trump sat for “Hannity.”
Murdoch said the drop fit a midterm cycle with a second-term president and blamed “viewer fatigue,” not a stampede to left-leaning news.
"Those viewers are not going to any other news channel. They're not switching to MS NOW or to CNN,"
He added:
"They're just fatigued and watching slightly less television overall."
That is the corporate story: people are tired of TV, not tired of Fox’s choices. Trump’s story is the opposite, that the product changed, the audience noticed, and Republicans ate the loss in Congress.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s attack.
The audience slide has not crushed the balance sheet.
Fox Corp. reported fiscal first-quarter revenue of $4.57 billion, up 22 percent year over year. Advertising revenue jumped 47 percent. Political advertising and the FIFA Men’s World Cup, which aired in part on Fox platforms in June and July, helped power the results. Murdoch called it an “outstanding start to fiscal 2027.”
So the company can post big ad growth while the news channel’s October linear audience falls more than a quarter. That split is exactly why Trump’s complaint lands with conservative viewers: money can still roll in while the core news brand drifts from the people who built it.
MS NOW is owned by Versant. CNN is owned by Skydance. Fox remains the larger cable news draw on total-day averages. Size did not stop Trump from saying the network spent too much time platforming Democrats, and that the midterm map showed the cost.
The election outcome S1 laid out is the political wound behind the media fight.
Democrats took the Senate and the House. Seat flips in Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas underscored how far the night ran against the GOP. When losses hit states that usually favor Republicans, the search for causes gets loud fast. Trump aimed that search at Fox’s booking and coverage habits, not at his own record.
He has long fought with media companies. This round was sharper because it came as the chamber gavel changed hands and while Fox’s October numbers were already public.
A photo caption in the coverage placed Trump on the White House South Lawn in Washington on Oct. 10, 2026, speaking to reporters as he departed, a reminder the clash played out with him in office, not on the sidelines.
Conservative audiences have spent years watching legacy outlets sand down Republican arguments and polish Democratic ones. When a network that markets itself to the right starts looking like another opposition stage, the base does not need a lecture on “fatigue.” It changes the channel, turns off the set, or stays home in spirit, and elected Republicans feel it when the ballots are counted.
Murdoch says viewers are not defecting to MS NOW or CNN. Trump says the people who left Fox already understand why. The ratings drop, the flipped seats, and the Tuesday-night posts put those two explanations in open conflict.
A news brand that lives off trust with half the country cannot treat that trust as optional and then act surprised when elections and ratings move together.
