Donald Trump has brushed aside criticism over his handling of Covid-19 and the economy and branded polls claiming he was trailing Joe Biden as ‘fake’ in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News.

The President was quick to remind his interrogator, veteran anchor and journalist Chris Wallace, that Fox’s recent move away from being supportive of his administration had not gone down well.

 “I’m not a big fan of Fox, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump exclaimed.

Wallace countered with the findings of a new poll, revealing Biden is 17 points ahead of Trump on the handling of Covid-19, 21 points ahead on the handling of social unrest and even one point ahead when it comes to the economy. "You’re losing," he told the President.

Trump responded: “I’m not losing, because those are fake polls,” before  saying all White House polls had him ahead of his opponent.

The President had warmed up for the encounter by accusing Biden and former President Barack Obama of spying on his campaign.

He tweeted: "So we catch Obama & Biden, not to even mention the rest of their crew, SPYING on my campaign, AND NOTHING HAPPENS? 

“I hope not! If it were the other way around, 50 years for treason. NEVER FORGET!!!!”

During the interview with Fox, he labelled Biden as ‘mentally shot’ and said he couldn’t ‘string two sentences together’.

When Wallace asked the President if he was calling Joe Biden ‘senile’, Trump replied: “I don’t want to say that. I say he’s not competent to be president.” 

Trump said Biden would cry for his mother if he were interviewed.

"Let Biden sit through an interview like this, he’ll be on the ground crying for Mommy. He’ll say, ‘Mommy, Mommy, please take me home.’”

Wallace then asked the President if he would accept the result of the election in November, to which Trump responded: “No, I'm not going to just say ‘yes’. I'm not going to say ‘no’, and I didn't last time either.”

He then asked Trump about the mortality rate of Covid-19 in the country as, statistically, it is one of the worst in the world. The US have had 3.7 million cases and 140,000 deaths.

However, the President claimed the US was 'one of the best in the world’ and called Wallace ‘fake news’ for suggesting otherwise.

Trump even called upon his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and said ‘please bring me the mortality rate’.

He added: "You have the numbers, please? Because I hear we have the best mortality rate. Number, number one low mortality rate.”

Then, waving paper in the air, he said: “I hope you show this on air, because it shows what fake news is about.”

He also said the US’ 1,000 a-day death toll ‘is what it is’ and that one of his medical advisers, Dr Anthony Fauci, is an ‘alarmist’.

Wallace then asked Trump about his assertion that coronavirus would ‘disappear’, something he has been saying for months.

“I’ll be right eventually,” he said. “It is going to disappear. I’ll say it again, it’s going to disappear and I’ll be right.”

And when asked if his previous assertion would discredit him, as it has not happened, he said: “I don’t think so, you know why? Because I’ve been right probably more than anybody else.”

Then the conversation turned to the recent Black Lives Matter protests and, specifically, the renaming of military bases.

The pentagon are contemplating renaming bases which are named after confederate leaders from the civil war.

Trump said: “I don’t care what the military says. I’m supposed to make the decision. Fort Bragg is a big deal … 

"Go to the community, say, ‘How do you like the idea of renaming Fort Bragg,’ and then what are we going to name it? We going to name it after the Reverend Al Sharpton [the civil rights activist]?”

The President has previously stoked the fires of the recent social injustice debate by suggesting more white people were killed by police in the US every year than African Americans - a reference to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.