Trump’s favorite network melts down over ‘TACO’ insult
Democrats are mocking President Donald Trump for his repeated habit of walking back from his tariff threats, and Fox News is very upset about it.
In recent weeks, Wall Street traders have adopted the acronym “TACO,” which stands for Trump Always Chickens Out, as a shorthand for the pattern of Trump pulling back on destructive tariffs after making tough-sounding announcements. Trump has done this with heightened tariffs he threatened or briefly put in place against the European Union, Canada, and China.
When he was asked about this past Wednesday, Trump yelled at a reporter for bringing it up, exposing his sensitivity to the insult.
Sensing a weakness, Democrats have begun mocking Trump, bringing up the TACO meme.
In a video posted to social media on Friday, California Rep. Eric Swalwell ate a taco while an aide asked him about Trump’s cowardly actions.
Mother Jones reported on Tuesday that the Democratic National Committee plans to hire a taco truck and distribute free tacos outside of the Republican National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to further mock the president.
Fox News isn’t having it.
At the opening of his show on Monday night, longtime pro-Trump propagandist Sean Hannity expressed his outrage and accused Democrats of using “hateful, divisive rhetoric” while consuming tacos.
On Tuesday morning’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” which is suspected to be Trump’s favorite show on the network, Swalwell’s video was labeled as “cringe-y” and evidence that the party’s agenda is failing.
Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy—the wife of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and a fellow veteran of MTV’s “Road Rules”—complained that having to explain what “TACO” means is “probably a sign it’s not the best campaign for [Democrats].”
Co-host Lawrence Jones said the mockery is inaccurate because “the president is getting the best deal for the American people” when he retreats, echoing the administration’s clumsy justifications for Trump’s actions.
Earlier in the morning on “Fox & Friends,” disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said it was “nuts” for Democrats to bring up Trump’s weakness on the issue.
On Fox’s talk show “The Five” on Monday, panelist Emily Compagno referenced the mockery, saying, “Democrats just can’t quit the cringe.”
Daytime Fox host Harris Faulkner said Swalwell’s video was a “bizarre taco TikTok” on Monday, while host Stuart Varney took up the issue on Fox Business and fumed about a “strange taco video.”
Of course, during the 2024 presidential election when conservatives took up the strange habit of wearing garbage bags in a reference to a comment by then-President Joe Biden, Fox didn’t have this much of a problem with it.
The multishow, on-air complaint session about the Democratic insult comes just a few weeks after Fox had to cobble together a laughable list of “accomplishments” for Trump on his 100th day in office, lacking concrete victories to point to. Among the network’s Trump wins? Ending federal support for paper straws and halting production of the penny.
Fox News—home of racist birther conspiracies, election falsehoods that cost the network millions, an endless stream of lies, misogyny, bigotry, and misinformation—complaining about “hateful” rhetoric is quite a spectacle.
Meanwhile, Democrats continue to enjoy their tacos.
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