Fox News and Fox Business barely talked about the one thing every American feels right now: the cost of groceries. As off-year elections approached in October, the two networks devoted just 1 hour and 23 minutes to discussing rising grocery prices—less than a minute and a half per day on average, according to a review by Media Matters.
The limited coverage came as President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that food prices were actually dropping during his second term, a statement that isn’t backed by facts. The lack of attention also stands in stark contrast to Fox’s intense, sometimes alarmist coverage of grocery prices before the 2024 election.
Media Matters found that most of Fox’s food price coverage focused narrowly on beef. Out of 26 total segments about rising grocery costs, 22 mentioned the price of beef or cattle. The network highlighted soaring beef prices as Trump approved more imports of Argentinian beef—a move that angered some of his supporters in right-wing media, Congress, and the cattle industry. But while Fox zeroed in on beef, the network largely ignored other staples that have gone up in price because of Trump’s tariffs and deportation policies.
Even more striking, Fox occasionally put a positive spin on higher prices. One segment celebrated a spike in sales of Hamburger Helper, with hosts reminiscing about eating it as kids. That tone marked a big shift from the network’s pre-2024 coverage, when anchors frequently blamed Democrats for rising food costs—even during times when inflation was slowing or wages were outpacing price increases.
Trump, meanwhile, kept insisting that “grocery prices are way down.” According to Factbase, he repeated that line at least ten times in speeches and interviews throughout October, even as grocery inflation climbed. When CBS’s 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O’Donnell confronted him about it on November 2, Trump didn’t budge. “No, you’re wrong,” he said flatly.
At the same time, Trump’s administration was accused of making life harder for families struggling to afford food. In early November, the administration initially refused to release Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds, leaving more than 40 million Americans without their expected food benefits. Fox News backed the move.
Two federal judges intervened on October 31, ordering the government to restore the funding, and by November 3, the Agriculture Department announced it would use a contingency fund to pay partial benefits. This came after earlier cuts of nearly 20 percent to SNAP as part of the Republicans’ “Big Beautiful” budget bill.
Media Matters said its team analyzed every original Fox News and Fox Business broadcast in October using the SnapStream database, tracking any mention of “food,” “beef,” or “supermarket” near words like “cost,” “price,” “spike,” or “rise.”
Segments were only counted if rising grocery prices were discussed by more than one speaker. In the end, Fox’s total attention to food costs—less than 90 minutes in a month—was a tiny fraction of the airtime spent on Trump’s political rallies and election coverage.
For millions of Americans watching their grocery bills go up, Fox’s silence on the issue might say as much as its words.