Brian Kilmeade Presses Trump On Past Use of Social Media: ‘Did It Hurt You More than Help You?’

Brian Kilmeade pressed former President Donald Trump on his past use of social media Thursday morning, asking if his currently high numbers are tied to his absence from Twitter and Facebook. Trump called into Fox & Friends to discuss his new picture book, which he insisted is a “happy book” with “pictures of a lot of great things.”

While the Fox News morning show failed to ask Trump about reports of his positive Covid test days before he debated Joe Biden, and his later hospitalization with Covid-19, there were some relatively pointed questions directed at the former President and longtime friend of the show.

Towards the end of the half-hour appearance, Kilmeade asked Trump if his social media absence has helped him more than hurt him in his public standing.

“Now that you’re off social media — even despite January 6 and the investigation, everything that happened since, the impeachment that followed — your ratings, according to friendly pollings for you, are higher than they’ve ever been,” Kilmeade noted. “Did you overrate the impact of social media, and in retrospect, will you need it if you want to run again?”

“I think that people are seeing the great job that we did,” Trump replied, before going on a tangent about the economy and Hispanic support.

But Kilmeade pushed back. “What about social media, Mr. President? But what about social media? Did it hurt you more than it helped you and now that you’re off it and you see that nothing’s really changed with your numbers except actually going up, do you think that you overemphasized social media?”

“It’s strange because my numbers now are the best they’ve ever been and I think that’s because maybe they look at the opponent and they look at what’s happening to our country,” Trump replied. “Look, I think social media is important,” he added, largely ignoring the question. “So I think social media is fine if it’s used properly, and I think we’re going to have a platform that’s going to be incredible and that’s what’s being developed right now.”

“Will you change your approach?” asked Ainsley Earhardt, evoking a segment from a month ago in which Fox & Friends openly cautioned Trump that he needed to change his tone if he were to run in 2024.

“You know, I really, it’s such an interesting question,” Trump replied in a manner that suggested self-reflection for the first time since color television was introduced. “I had to move fast. Our country was in bad shape. I had to move fast. Some of the things like let’s sit down and let’s talk very calmly, I had to get things going fast,” he continued. “I think I’m a nice person, but we had to move quickly,” he said. “I had to break a lot of eggs.”

The “egg-breaking” is a clear reference to Robert Moses’s famously saying “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs” as a rationalization for his use of the eminent domain to build highways throughout New York City in the 50s and 60s.

Kudos to Kilmeade for noting that the high poll numbers came from a respected polling outlet but the Trump camp paid for.

Watch above via Fox News.