J.D. Vance Warns Fox News Not to ‘Go to War’ With MAGA Base: ‘I Hope They Stay Loyal’:

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) warned Fox News not to “move away from the MAGA movement” and called on the network to “stay loyal” to its conservative audience on Tuesday in the wake of its decision to fire host Tucker Carlson.

During an appearance on Newsmax’s The Balance, Vance said Fox News made a “huge mistake” by firing Carlson and expressed concern over the network potentially moving away from its conservative audience.

“I don’t like this idea of having Fox move away from the MAGA movement. I think it would be a huge mistake if the network chose to do that,” said Vance, who argued that while the network still had “some great people” like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, it could lose its viewers if it “went to war” against the Republican base:

If they decide to try to go to war against the base of the Republican Party, they’re going to alienate their audience and they’re not going to acquire, like, CNN and MSNBC viewers in the process. They’re never going to go to Fox News. So I don’t know what editorial decisions are being made at Fox, but I hope that they stay loyal to the base of the movement that actually made them such a successful business in the first place. We’ll see if that actually happens in the next few weeks.

During the interview, Vance also said he was “surprised” by the announcement that former President Donald Trump would hold his first 2024 presidential campaign town hall with CNN on May 10 and said that it “goes to show that Trump the man is frankly bigger than any particular media network.”

Vance criticized “any media network, whether it’s Fox or anybody else, who thinks that they can alienate half the country and still maintain a viable business,” and pointed out that many media companies had experienced bankruptcy in recent years.

“It is not a viable business model to condescend and hate on half of the country. Unfortunately, that’s where far too many people are going, but I hope… I hope that Fox doesn’t go in that direction,” the senator concluded.

Former Fox News host Eric Bolling, who hosts The Balance, has been a frequent critic of his former employer. On April 24, just after the announcement that Carlson had been fired, Bolling accused Fox News of “moving to the center” and becoming “CNN lite” in an effort to gain liberal viewers.

Watch above via Newsmax.

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