President Donald Trump and his campaign are reportedly furious over Fox News' projection that Democrat nominee Joe Biden had won Arizona and flipped a state the president took in 2016 and every other GOP candidate has won since 1996.
"Trump advisers say campaign is furious with Fox for its Arizona call for Biden, an indication of how much was riding on the state. 'Words cannot describe the anger,' the adviser said," CNN's Jim Acosta tweeted after Fox News called Arizona for Biden, notes The Week.
Fox News' John Roberts reported that the Trump campaign was "livid" over the Arizona call, noted The Wall Street Journal's Ben Mullin, writing on Twitter that Roberts had reported that "frankly, there have been public calls for Fox to take back that call."
Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller tweeted shortly after the call that "we pushed our people to vote on Election Day, but now Fox News is trying to invalidate their votes!"
He also called for Fox to retract its call, tweeting that "we only need 61% of the outstanding, uncounted Election Day votes in Arizona to win. These votes are coming from 'our counties,' and the 61% figure is very doable based on what our other Election Day votes are looking like."
The New York Times reported that Fox News' decision desk head Arnon Mishkin, at just after 12:30 a.m., was standing by his team's call.
Trump himself also dismissed Mishkin during an early morning appearance as "the gentleman that called it."
But Mishkin, a management and polling consultant who has been the head of the decision desk since 2008, stood firm, telling the network's anchors that the Trump campaign's insistence that it could still win Arizona was incorrect.
"I'm sorry, the president is not going to be able to take over and win enough votes," he said. "We're not wrong in this particular case."
At 2:15 a.m., about three and a half hours later, The Associated Press also called Arizona for Biden.