Donald Trump insulted two Fox News anchors in a rant-filled, rambling post-debate appearance on the network.
Trump called into Fox & Friends on Tuesday night after wrapping up his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. During the call, Fox News host Steve Doocy told Trump the network offered to host a second debate moderated by Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to have Martha and Bret. I’d love to have somebody else other than Martha and Bret,” the former president said. “I’d love to have, frankly, Sean [Hannity] or Jesse [Watters] or Laura [Ingraham], you know, somebody else. Let’s give let’s give other people a shot. But I didn’t think Martha and Bret were good last night.”
Trump explained that he preferred Watters because he said he won the debate.
“But I didn’t think Martha and Bret were so good last night,” Trump said. “Jesse was fantastic last night. What he said, Jesse, really got it. Jesse said, ‘Trump won that debate.’ We won that debate by a lot. And I wouldn’t want Martha involved.”
Brian Kilmeade went on to defend his colleagues: “I will say this, I think that Bret and Martha would do a phenomenal job.”
The former president then channeled his own debate performance, launching into a rant about ABC News and Project 2025.
“We won the debate,” he said. “We had a terrible network. I think they were terrible, and they should be embarrassed.”
“And Project 2025, they know it has nothing to do with me,” he continued. “She mentioned it all night long, and they refused to correct it. And everybody — I haven’t, I have nothing to do with Project 2025, but I am not inclined to do it because I won the debate by a lot.”
Trump was referring to the multiple times the moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, fact-checked him during the debate.
When the former president falsely claimed that Democrats support “executing” babies after they are born during the abortion segment of the debate, Davis stepped in.
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” she said. Davis went on to see a flurry of racist and sexist abuse online for fact-checking the former president’s lie.
Trump also peddled the since-debunked racist conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating household pets in Springfield, Ohio.
Harris’s comments about Project 2025 also got under Trump’s skin.
Trump claims he had nothing to do with Project 2025, a blueprint for the next conservative presidency that includes plans to expand his executive authority, replace civil servants with loyalists, crush abortion rights, attack civil rights for LGBTQ+ people and impose an anti-immigrant agenda, among other policies.
However, Project 2025 is led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and more than a dozen former Trump administration officials.
Trump, despite distancing himself from the project, praised the Heritage Foundation and their “plans for exactly what our movement will do” two years ago.
“Heritage does such an incredible job, this is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America,” Trump said in 2022.
This article was amended on September 11 to correct the spelling of Bret Baier and to clarify that Brian Kilmeade defended Baier and MacCallum