After all of President Trump's attacks and counter-attacks against the news media, one cable show in particular remains pristine in his eyes: the Fox News morning chat show "Fox & Friends."

Trump started the week Monday with what has become his usual praise for the show's programming.

"Such amazing reporting on unmasking and the crooked scheme against us by Fox & Friends," Trump said on Twitter at 6:15 a.m., after apparently watching the program and referring to a segment it did on the Obama administration's surveillance of his transition team. "'Spied on before nomination.' The real story."

In March, Trump indicated again that he was watching by tweeting an endorsement of a book on immigration and tagging the "Fox & Friends" Twitter handle.

And just weeks after his inauguration, Trump granted an interview to "Fox & Friends" to preview his first joint-session address.

The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017



Trump's admiration for the show isn't new. After teasing a run for the White House in 2011, he was eventually given his own weekly segment on "Fox & Friends" where he would call in and riff on whatever news topics he wanted, with little, if any, pushback from the hosts.

The segment officially ended after Trump announced his campaign in summer of 2015, but Trump maintained a frequent presence on the show.

Even during an extended war with Fox during the Republican primaries, Trump has only had good things to say about "Fox and Friends."

On February 16, Trump at the White House hosted a lengthy and combative press conference to, in large part, face questions over ousted National Security Adviser Mike Flynn's ties to the Russian government.

For more than an hour, Trump rebuked the press. But of "Fox & Friends," he said, "They're very honorable people."

During Trump's interview with the show about two weeks later, host Steve Doocy thanked Trump for "the shout-out."

Critics have accused Trump of effectively endorsing a kind of "state-run media" by praising a program that is less critical of his presidency. His defenders say that it's not much different from how Trump's predecessor, former president Obama, operated when he and White House officials regularly attempted to discredit Fox News and conservative talk radio.

But Trump may have gone further than Obama in making his preferences in news sources clear.

While Obama may have engaged in an antagonistic relationship with Fox, Trump has explicitly named "Fox & Friends" as one of the few specific programs worth trusting.

"The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred," Trump said on Twitter in February. "MSNBC and CNN are unwatchable. 'Fox & Friends' is great!