Bookers at the traditional late-night shows are no doubt working overtime to score the first post-nominaton interview with Kamala Harris, but Fox News’ late-night styled show scored a surprise booking of its own Thursday night when Donald Trump called Greg Gutfeld on his cell phone—while the host was live on the air.
Trump apparently called Gutfeld during a commercial break, and remained on the line as the show returned.
“Mr President, I’m live now.” Gutfeld told Trump. “So don’t say anything that’ll get you in trouble.”
Trump, on speakerphone, could be heard responding “At this point what difference does it make? We’re doing well. We’re leading in the polls…”
You might think that a call from the former president might take precedence over whatever was on Gutfeld’s rundown, but just a few seconds into their on-air conversation Gutfeld told Trump, “Okay Mr. P, I gotta go. I’ll see ya! Bye bye.”
Gutfeld, of course, has been a champion of Trump’s on his show. Given his close relations with others on the Fox News payroll, it’s probably not surprising that Trump and Gutfeld would have each other’s phone numbers.
Thurday night capped off a week of live shows for Gutfeld!, marking only the second week in the program’s history that it’s gone live. (The first was earlier this summer during the Republican National Convention in July, which ended up breaking a new ratings record for the show as it drew an impressive 3,253,000 total viewers, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data.)
Trump’s brief conversation with Gutfeld Thursday night came minutes after he’d called into the network’s coverage of Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention only to be awkwardly cut off as anchors Martha McCallum and Bret Baier tossed to the start of Gutfeld’s show.
Gutfeld reacted in real time, addressing the camera at the top of his show to say, “That wasn’t my fault, Donald Trump.”
Later, after hanging up with Trump, Gutfeld told his panel, “I told you he was gonna call!”
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