Fox News hilariously defends Trump over ‘TACO' insult: ‘He's the bravest man in the world!'

Independent

2 days ago

The code that Wall Street traders are now using to describe Donald Trump's tactic of backing out of his trade policy threats whenever they cause the stock market to tumble has not only rattled the president, but has his most loyal sycophants at Fox News scrambling to defend him against the insulting nickname.
With investors now engaging in 'TACO' trades, which is shorthand for 'Trump Always Chickens Out' when it comes to actually imposing his massive tariffs, Democratic lawmakers have now taken to social media to mock the president by filming themselves munching down on tacos.
Amid the widespread mockery of the president by Democrats and liberal media figures, not to mention the president's own complaints about the 'nasty' term, a number of hosts and commentators at Fox News – which essentially serves as the White House's unofficial communications arm – have circled the wagons to blast the 'cringey' insult.
And one way they have done that is to insist that there's no way that Trump can be seen as cowardly because there is nobody alive who has more courage than the president.
'The word chicken – one of the problems that the Democrats have had with Donald Trump is the fact that after 'fight, fight, fight,' everyone knows he is the bravest man in the world,' Fox & Friends co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy, referencing last year's assasination attempt on Trump, breathlessly declared on Tuesday.
Campos-Duffy, whose husband serves as the president's transportation secretary, claimed this was all 'propaganda' to make the American people forget that Trump was 'shot in the head' at a Pennsylvania campaign rally. At the same time, though, she insisted the nickname won't stick because the public knows how courageous and unafraid the president is.
'Every man that saw that knows he is brave,' she continued. 'Bravest man in the world. They are thinking using 'taco' and the word 'chicken' on Trump somehow is going to damage or put a dent in that teflon image he has as the very brave person. Frankly, he is brave to take on tariffs!'
The former Real World star was far from the only Fox News personality to fume over the acronym that Democrats and anti-Trump influencers have gleefully embraced.
Specifically, the network's conservative stars have recently taken issue with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who posted a video on his TikTok account of a staffer asking him: 'Hey, Congressman, what the f*ck is up with Trump always chickening out on tariffs?' The California lawmaker, who has long been a vocal critic of the president, merely responded by biting into a Taco Bell crunchy taco.
'The Democrats have become so lame,' Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones groused in response to the video, while Campos-Duffy called out Swalwell for his 'cringey response' to Trump. Their colleague Brian Kilmeade, meanwhile, blamed the whole 'TACO' acronym on Fox's corporate cousin The Wall Street Journal, which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch.
'The Wall Street Journal was at war with the president when it comes to tariffs,' he claimed. While the Journal did eventually report on the ''TACO Trade' that has Trump fuming,' the paper wasn't the first to cover the cheeky term, which traders had been using for weeks and was initially coined by a Financial Times columnist.
Elsewhere on the president's favorite morning show, former Speaker of the House and current Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich also rejected the nickname because, in his view, Trump never loses.
'This whole recent thing about 'TACO,' you know, Trump always caves. That's nuts,' Gingrich huffed. 'Here's a guy with the courage to endure the CIA and the FBI with the Russia hoax. He endures two impeachment attempts, a rigged election, two assassination attempts, four efforts to put him in jail, and his critics think that he always caves. My experience is, he almost always wins.'
(Separately, it is notable that Gingrich outright called the 2020 presidential election 'rigged,' considering that Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million in 2023 to settle a defamation lawsuit that alleged the network parroted Trump's baseless election fraud conspiracies.)
The conservative cable giant's top opinion hosts, meanwhile, seemingly took turns the night before to find different ways to sneer at Swalwell's video while insisting that the derisive epithet is not gaining any traction.
'I want to point out that we like tacos. That's why this doesn't work. We like tacos,' Fox News resident 'comedian' Greg Gutfeld exclaimed on The Five before referencing Swalwell's alleged ties to a Chinese spy.
'Eric Swalwell should have been doing Chinese food — his chopstick was found in a wonton,' Gutfeld snarked. The FBI never accused the lawmaker of any wrongdoing, and a House Ethics probe concluded without taking any further action against the congressman.
Gutfeld wasn't the only pro-Trump Fox host to invoke the Chinese spy allegations while blasting Swalwell's video.
'I wonder if Fang Fang likes the burrito bowl,' Laura Ingraham chuckled on Monday night.
'The left's weird moment goes to Fang Fang Swalwell, who posted this video on TikTok on Trump's tariffs,' Trump confidant and 'shadow White House chief of staff' Sean Hannity proclaimed before airing the clip. 'Maybe somebody needs to tell Mr. Fang Fang that the Atlanta Fed is predicting 4.6 percent growth in the second quarter.'
Still, while Fox's top Trump loyalists were going out of their way to talk about how much they 'like tacos' and therefore the sobriquet won't actually hurt the president, other voices on the channel pointed out that this is something that could break through with the public.
'It's totally fair game,' National Review editor Rich Lowry said on the Sunday broadcast of MediaBuzz. 'And apparently Trump was irritated in part because he hadn't heard it, and afterwards was irked with his aides not telling him about this.'
Lowry added: ''TACO,' it's catchy, kind of funny, and gets to a real phenomenon with the tariffs, which he's backed off them.'