White House trade adviser Peter Navarro accused Fox News and other major media outlets of shutting out economic news that would be favorable to President Donald Trump, calling the network “RINO TV.” Navarro said reporters skipped an official briefing where he presented the administration’s economic case. He pointed to manufacturing and urged voters to remember the conditions under former President Joe Biden.
Navarro described a press briefing held in the Executive Office Building, where he said the press pool and Fox reporters failed to appear. Speaking to Steve Bannon, he discussed the administration’s efforts to get its economic message before the public. The conversation covered factory employment, persistent price pressures and the comparison Navarro wants voters to make when casting their ballots.
“I had a press conference, official press briefing, in a beautiful room in the EOB, which is used for press briefings,” Navarro said. He accused Fox of joining the other reporters who stayed away, labeling it “RINO TV.” Navarro accused the media of refusing to report the administration’s economic message, saying, “It’s the death of journalism here.”
In the exchange shared on his X account, Navarro said the resistance also affected the new press secretary and economic officials Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett. He looked directly to the economy’s performance. “You look at this economy, Steve. Just let me make this point. You look at this economy just as data, and you’re happy.”
Navarro acknowledged that particular costs remained a problem, including meat and diesel prices. On efforts to address concentration in the meat industry, he said, “We’re doing everything we can to bust the cartel there.” He attributed elevated diesel prices to Iran, then continued: “But if you look at the data itself, I mean it’s solid, and particularly compared to what we saw in the Biden regime.”
Additional details appear in Navarro’s own briefing publication dated October 11th, 2026. Navarro said manufacturers had added 72,000 jobs since December 2025, with payrolls increasing in each of the four months through September. He also cited nine consecutive months with the ISM Manufacturing Index above 50, the dividing line between expansion and contraction.
Watch Navarro criticize Fox News and discuss the administration’s economic message here:
"*" indicates required fields
The briefing also presented an inventory of more than $380 billion in announced investment across over 500 manufacturing projects, associated with more than 160,000 announced direct jobs. Navarro said nearly two-thirds of the projects had backing from foreign-owned companies. Almost half involved new factories on new sites, while the others involved existing facilities being expanded, modernized or renewed.
Returning to voters’ decisions, Navarro urged them to compare the current economy with Biden’s record. He cited a loss of 230,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s final two years and condemned the former administration’s fiscal management. “The message we have to express here, Steve, is like when you go into the ballot box, you, you got to have a memory,” he said. “Okay, you have to remember what happened during four years of Biden.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.