For decades now, Fox News has been a transformative factor in propping up the Republican agenda, with no shortage of criticism for its conservative spins and for the bigoted screeds of its primetime hosts.
The network has largely continued this tradition throughout the era of President Donald Trump, but for a commander in chief with increasingly totalitarian tendencies, nothing but unyielding submission and flattery will do.
Fox News fell short of that order in the eyes of the President, who went on a Sunday night Twitter rant against the network.
Trump railed against employees of the network and called for an alternative outlet designed to parrot his viewpoints and justifications.
Like many of Trump's tweets, the rant may seem like his typically erratic, random anger.
But this time, there's a theory for the source that sparked it.
The Never Trump PAC Republicans for the Rule of Law released an ad skewering the President for his recent comments about the viability of injecting disinfectant as a potential cure for the virus that's killed over 50 thousand Americans.
Watch below.
Beginning with a reminder of the death toll wreaked by the virus and the Trump administration's bungled response to it, the ad replays Trump's comments about the possibility of ingesting disinfectant as a cure, zooming in on Dr. Deborah Birx—one of the response directors on Trump's team—as she looks on with concern.
The ad reportedly aired on Fox News Sunday night—around the time the President began railing against the network.
Regardless of whether the ad was the source of Trump's anger towards Fox, it certainly reflected the people's anger towards Trump.
Trump has since claimed he was being sarcastic—a justification that Fox's own Bret Baier disputed.
For a deeper look into Trump's incompetence, check out A Very Stable Genius, available here.
Ash Stanton/Facebook
Laura Sprinkle/Facebook
Akira Karasu/Facebook
Cevanna Gilbert/Facebook
Troy Adam/Facebook
@GovPressOffice/X
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social