Donald Trump’s favorite morning show Fox & Friends bristled Tuesday over the president’s new TACO insult, which stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
“Democrats are really off-kilter, they’re kind of on their back feet here, so they’ve come up with this really cringey response,” said co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy—who is married to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Calling Trump “the bravest man in the world,” she continued, “And so they’re thinking that using TACO and the word ‘chicken’ on Trump somehow is going to damage or put a dent in that teflon image he has as a very brave person.”
In fact, the mocking acronym was coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong and first adopted among Wall Street traders, who have come to learn that Trump’s word is often worth very little—especially when it comes to his many tariff threats.
“The Wall Street Journal started it, actually,” interjected co-host Brian Kilmeade. The paper was among the first to report on stockbrokers’ use of the term. “The Wall Street Journal was at war with the president when it comes to tariffs.”
The Journal—which, like Fox News, is owned by Rupert Murdoch—has repeatedly hammered Trump’s erratic trade wars.
“Respect to them,” co-host Lawrence Jones said, “but they’re also wrong when it comes to this.”
He added that Trump is “getting the best deal for Americans right now,” echoing the administration’s claims that Trump’s frequent flip-flops are all part of the “art of the deal.”
“I chicken out? I’ve never heard that,” Trump told a reporter who asked him last week what he thought of the TACO moniker. “It’s called negotiation!”
But a deal with China has slipped further out of reach this week, as both sides accused each other of breaching the 90-day truce on their tit-for-tat tariffs.
