Trump tells Tucker Carlson 'good old days' at Fox News are long gone

Former President Donald Trump sat down for an exclusive interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday – video of which was released just as the first GOP primary debate was set to kick off in Milwaukee, and during the chat, he took aim at the cable news giant, saying that its credibility is effectively shot, as Breitbart reports.

Carlson broached the subject by asking Trump whether he believes television – in a broad sense – is currently in a state of decline.

Trump did not hesitate to weigh in on the topic, first targeting one of Fox News' competitors.

“I think cable's down because it's lost credibility. MSNBC, or as they say MSDNC is so bad. It's so wrong. What they write, and what they do, and what they say, it's fake news,” the current Republican primary frontrunner declared.

From there, Trump gave his opinion on the rest of the cable news landscape, turning his attentions in part to Fox News.

“So, you have MSNBC, and you have CNN, who's absolutely doing no ratings at all. I mean, they're dead, but they're doing none because they don't have credibility, they really don't have credibility,” he explained.

Referencing Carlson's tenure and abrupt April exit from his prior primetime network home, Trump said, “Fox is way down, as you know, and the good old days are long ago.”

Rendering harsh judgment on Fox News' decision making as it related to Carlson, Trump added, “I think it was a terrible move getting rid of you. You were number one on television, and all of a sudden, we're doing this interview, but we'll get bigger ratings using this crazy forum that you're using than probably the debate, our competition.”

Trump's perception of Fox News' hostility toward him and his presidential campaign was likely reinforced by actions the network took during and after its presentation of the aforementioned GOP debate on Wednesday night – in which the former commander in chief chose not to take part.

As the New York Post noted, although Donald Trump did not travel to Milwaukee for the debate, his son Don Jr. – along with fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle – attempted to offer customary post-debate commentary in the spin room after the on-stage event concluded but were turned away by security guards on instructions from Fox News.

The former first son told assembled reporters, “I'd been told by others that I would be able to go in. Fox won't let me into the spin room.”

Don Jr. went on, “Because the candidates that they've been boosting while trying to cut down Trump for the last, what, two years didn't perform as they had hoped. So, they can't have someone who can maybe be a representative of my father.”

Speaking to his father's decision to eschew the night's events and the family's subsequent treatment from the network, Don Jr. added, “It shouldn't surprise any of us, and it's also why Trump was 100% right to not go to this debate.”

Regardless of whether one believes the former president – and current GOP frontrunner – should have been allowed representation in the post-debate spin room, it is clear that the network's decision to block Don Jr.'s entry will only deepen the candidate's feelings of animosity toward its executives.