White House senior counselor Peter Navarro says Fox News is a subtler, more damaging threat to President Trump than CNN or MSNBC, slamming the network as RINO on borders and tariffs.
Peter Navarro did not soft-pedal the charge. On Newsmax’s “Bianca Across the Nation” on Wednesday, the White House senior counselor said Fox News is quietly undermining President Donald Trump and poses a greater risk to the president’s agenda than networks that attack him in the open.
He framed the fight in plain terms: not left versus right, but establishment Republican media versus the Trump coalition that wants secure borders and tough trade policy.
Navarro told Newsmax the split is fundamental.
"Basically, it's the RINO versus the Trump Republican,"
He went further on what he sees at the network’s core.
"If you look at what Fox is at its core, it's much more RINO Republican, which is to say it likes the open borders, which is to say that it hates our tariffs and trade,"
And he argued the danger is worse precisely because it does not look like a full-frontal assault.
"But within Fox, it's more subtle and therefore more damaging,"
That is the heart of his case. CNN and MSNBC, he said, openly oppose Trump. Fox, in his view, undercuts the agenda from inside the conservative lane, on borders, tariffs, and the coverage voters rely on before they cast a ballot.
The Wednesday appearance followed two columns he published in quick succession. On Sunday, a Newsmax column reviewed Fox’s daily programming. Navarro accused much of the Fox Business lineup of opposing Trump’s tariffs and argued that only a few hours of Fox News prime-time programming consistently support the president’s agenda.
On Monday, a Washington Times column turned to corporate power. Fox Corp. announced an approximately $22 billion deal for streaming platform Roku in June. Shareholders of both companies approved the deal last week. The acquisition still requires antitrust clearance and is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
Navarro warned that the deal would put content and viewer access under one roof. He argued Fox could promote its own networks while making competitors such as Newsmax harder to find. For a White House that wants alternative platforms to reach voters, that is not a small concern.
He also said Trump shares the worry, pointing to the president’s posts on Truth Social. The specific post text was not detailed in the reporting of the appearance, but Navarro used those posts to show the president is not indifferent to how Fox covers the agenda.
The criticism did not appear out of thin air. Navarro has been in a weeks-long dispute with the network. In September, he accused Fox of retaliating against Maria Bartiromo after she shared with him an internal directive limiting coverage of a Trump address. On Sept. 3, Fox announced Bartiromo was no longer with the network. Fox has not publicly linked her departure to that incident.
Readers following the network’s turmoil have already seen how that fight spilled into public view, including reporting on how Fox News sidelined Maria Bartiromo after disputes over Trump speech coverage.
Separate coverage has tracked the personnel fight in more detail, from claims that Fox pushed Bartiromo out after internal guidance reached the White House, to later questions raised when Bartiromo’s lawyer disputed the firing. Navarro’s latest remarks put that earlier clash back in the frame: a senior White House official telling conservative viewers the network is not a reliable ally.
Navarro tied the media fight to the calendar. He called the Nov. 3 midterm elections “the most important election, in my judgment, probably in the last five decades.” Voters, he said, need “truth” and “fair treatment,” not the “bad polling” he accused Fox of producing.
He has urged administration officials to reconsider appearing on Fox. That is a practical pressure campaign, not just a cable-news rant. If senior officials limit sit-downs, the network loses access it has long treated as routine.
Fox, for its part, continues to reshuffle talent and programming in public view, from new contributor moves such as Karoline Leavitt’s Fox role after her White House exit to brand extensions like an all-female Fox podcast aimed at rival daytime talk. Navarro’s point cuts against the marketing: lineup changes do not answer a charge that the network soft-pedals tariffs, borders, and the president’s core agenda.
Navarro’s “RINO” label was not abstract. He tied it to two concrete fights that define the Trump program for millions of voters: illegal immigration and trade.
In his telling, a network that “likes the open borders” and “hates our tariffs and trade” is not a neutral referee. It is a participant. When that participant sits in the living rooms of Republican voters every night, the damage compounds, especially if the dissent is delivered in a friendly package rather than a progressive attack ad.
That is why he called the Fox problem more damaging than CNN or MSNBC. Open hostility is easy to discount. Soft resistance dressed up as conservative programming is harder to spot and harder to punish at the remote.
The Roku deal lands in the same bucket of incentives. A company that controls both shows and the gateway to the living-room screen can steer attention. Navarro’s Washington Times warning was that competitors get buried while Fox properties get the push. Antitrust clearance still stands between announcement and closing. Until regulators finish, the structure Navarro flagged remains a live issue, not a closed chapter.
Strip the cable feud down to the ask. Navarro wants airtime that treats Trump’s borders and tariff agenda as the main event, not the inconvenience. He wants polling he does not view as “bad” product aimed at shaping the race. He wants administration officials to think twice before feeding a network he says undercuts the boss.
He is making that case from inside the White House, on a rival network, in columns on Newsmax and in the Washington Times, and with a direct contrast to CNN and MSNBC. The Nov. 3 midterms are the deadline he put on the table.
Conservative voters can judge the programming for themselves. What they cannot ignore is a senior counselor saying the friendliest logo on the dial is the one doing the quieter work against the agenda they voted for.
When a White House official says the real problem is the network that smiles while it undercuts borders and tariffs, the audience has a choice: keep rewarding the brand, or demand coverage that matches the coalition that won.
