Donald Trump furiously attacked Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Wednesday after the anchor dared to criticize Trump’s debate performance against Kamala Harris.
“He had six prior presidential debates to this one,” Cavuto said on Fox Business Network while talking to Bob Cusack, editor-in-chief of The Hill. “But this one, at least in my liking—and you’re the expert here—he decisively lost it. He might have made some very good presentations on where the economy was, but it was all over the map.”
“This was that first occasion where it wasn’t just a close call,” Cavuto continued on his Fox Business show, Cavuto: Coast to Coast. “It was a lopsided one.”
The damning assessment did not escape Trump’s attention.
“Neil Cavuto, Fox’s Lowest Rated Anchor, is one of the WORST on Television,” the Republican nominee thundered in a post on his Truth Social platform Wednesday. “I actually prefer the losers at CNN and MSDNC!”
Cavuto’s analysis was backed up by multiple polls indicating that viewers thought Trump’s performance—which included pushing false claims about dogs being eaten and his opponents supporting the “execution” of babies after birth—was not a success.
A YouGov poll found 54 percent of registered voters thought Harris won the debate compared with just 31 percent for Trump. A separate CNN flash poll of people who viewed the debate had Harris winning 63-37.
The former president, however, has argued that different surveys show that he was clearly the victor. In one Truth Social post, he shared results from a series of unscientific surveys—including X polls and one by Newsmax in which 93 percent of respondents said Trump won the debate—and claimed Harris is seeking a second debate “because she lost so badly.”
“Just look at the Polls!” Trump wrote. “It’s true with prizefighters, when they lose a fight, they immediately want another.”