Donald Trump has a customer-service complaint about Fox News: sometimes it lets the other candidates appear on the television.

The Guardian reports that Trump and his allies have been attacking the network for insufficiently helping Republicans before the midterms. Not insufficiently explaining policy. Not failing to ask a particular factual question. Helping.

It is refreshing, in a bleak sort of way, when the performance review finally names the job.

Trump has objected to interviews with Democratic candidates and demanded more attention for his rallies. Peter Navarro has described Fox as belonging on their side and urged supporters to turn it off. The grievance is not that the network has become an impenetrable fortress of adversarial journalism. It is that the fortress occasionally opens a window.

Consider what the Guardian found alongside the complaints. Fox sends reporters to Trump’s rallies, has carried recent rallies on television and streams them on Fox Nation. On Sunday, Larry Kudlow, Trump’s former economic adviser, conducted an almost 25-minute interview in which he largely let the president promote Republicans, attack Democrats and celebrate his record.

Kudlow also suggested campaign themes. At that point, the microphone is edging toward a consulting invoice.

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None of this means every Fox employee does the same work. The Guardian distinguishes the network’s nonpartisan polling operation, a longtime target of Trump’s displeasure, from the favorable coverage and personal relationships he enjoys elsewhere in the organization. That distinction is important. A poll does not become disloyal because it refuses to improve the numbers before breakfast.

The political expectation on display is broader than one cable feud. If interviewing an opponent counts as betrayal, the proposed standard is not favorable coverage. It is exclusive use of the room.

Viewers are allowed to compare candidates. A network can interview someone without endorsing them. These are not especially radical propositions, but apparently they now require their own resistance movement and possibly a tote bag.

Trump’s criticism also coexists with continued access to friendly hosts. The Guardian notes that the relationship is mutually useful, even during the public tantrums. This is not necessarily a breakup. It can be a demand for better service from a supplier that is already delivering an enormous amount.

The useful thing about the complaint is what it reveals. No amount of friendly airtime can satisfy a standard under which the opposition’s mere appearance is a failure.

Fox can keep filling the glass. The customer is complaining that somebody else has been allowed a cup.