It's not the first time Trump has clashed with a Fox News personality, but this latest outburst against Shannon Bream shows the relationship between the president and the network he once championed keeps getting rockier. The flashpoint was Sunday's interview with Attorney General Todd Blanche, where Bream didn't go easy on the administration's newest cabinet member.
During the sit-down, Bream pushed Blanche on two touchy subjects: the controversial $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate people Trump's team says were unfairly targeted for political reasons, and the ongoing construction of a White House ballroom that never went through the usual congressional approval process. Neither topic is new territory for criticism, but hearing them raised on a network Trump considers friendly territory apparently didn't sit well.
The Truth Social Meltdown
Within hours, Trump was venting on Truth Social, comparing Bream's show unfavorably to CNN and suggesting she consistently chooses guests, data, and polling that paint his administration in a bad light. He claimed she never highlights what he considers the wins of his time in office, framing her coverage as one-sided against him.
He didn't stop at Bream, either. Trump also went after regular Fox contributor Juan Williams, dredging up his past departures first from PBS, then later from The Five and taking a swipe at his former co-host Jessica Tarlov in the process. Trump wrapped up his post by predicting Bream's audience numbers would slide now that, in his words, the MAGA base has caught on, and he even compared her unfavorably to former Fox anchor Chris Wallace, who left the network back in 2021. He signed off by saying the whole episode wouldn't slow him down, since he was heading back to the Oval Office to keep racking up what he called wins for the country.
Blanche's Rocky Road to Confirmation
The interview that sparked all this came just days after Blanche formally took his oath as Attorney General on August 10, in a fairly understated Oval Office ceremony following his Senate confirmation. Blanche, who previously served as Trump's personal defense attorney, had already been running the Justice Department in an acting capacity since April, stepping in after Pam Bondi departed the role.
Getting him confirmed wasn't smooth sailing. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle raised red flags during the nomination process, worried that having someone so closely tied to Trump personally running the DOJ could undermine the department's independence. Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina were among those holdouts, and they only agreed to let the nomination move forward after getting written assurance from the Justice Department that it would drop the $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization fund proposal entirely.
That fund had originally been pitched as part of a broader settlement, designed to compensate Trump supporters who claimed they'd been unfairly singled out for political reasons. But the idea of setting aside that much money in a pool that critics feared could be used for partisan purposes set off alarm bells well beyond the halls of Congress, making it one of the more contentious sticking points in Blanche's path to confirmation.
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