There is a striking development buried inside the administration’s escalating confrontation with the press that’s turned a familiar Donald Trump-versus-the-media fight into a potentially consequential rupture inside the right-wing media ecosystem. By banning CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO, the president tried to extract a cost for challenging coverage. The move backfired. Instead, it united competitors behind a press-freedom principle, prompting Fox News — the biggest booster of Trump’s political ascent — to participate in an unprecedented pool-coverage stoppage.
Fox’s own Washington bureau chief, Bryan Boughton, who happened to be chairing the pool this week, sent the note announcing the shutdown. Now Peter Navarro, one of the president’s most loyal foot soldiers, is on a crusade against “the back-stabbing Fox News Corporation” and pushing the White House toward a punitive boycott of the outlet.
