Donald Trump’s Newest Enemy: Fox News

New York News & Politics ^ | August 7, 2015 | Gabriel Sherman

[onyx]

Having spent the past six weeks rhetorically slashing at his Republican rivals, it makes perfect sense that Donald Trump would eventually run out of targets and find himself in a war with the party’s media arm: Fox News. At the GOP primary debate Thursday night in Cleveland, Trump’s onstage clashes with the Fox moderators, and his postdebate complaints about the network’s treatment of him, were among the most talked-about story lines to emerge from the Quicken Loans Arena. What makes the confrontation all the more dramatic was that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes has, until this point, been a booster of the Trump candidacy, even to the chagrin of his boss, Rupert Murdoch. Whether Murdoch succeeded in turning Ailes against Trump, or not, the two-hour debate leaves little doubt that the relationship between the improbable front-runner and Fox has been upended.

It was a breakup days in the making. Over the past week, Ailes and his executives had been strategizing about how to deal with Trump. The prospect that the Donald could hijack the debate presented programming and political perils for both Ailes and his star anchors. What if Trump started insulting his GOP rivals onstage? Or broke the debate rules? During a meeting at Fox late last week, according to a source, senior Fox executives discussed a more worrisome scenario: What would happen if Trump won over the audience and moved the crowd to boo moderators Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace on live television? What if Trump was able to direct his base of supporters to stop watching Fox? To prevent that from happening, Ailes needed a way to keep the audience firmly on the side of his moderators.

This political calculus might help explain why Baier opened the debate by asking all of the candidates to raise their hands if there was a chance they would not support the eventual Republican nominee or run as a third-party spoiler. After a beat, Trump’s hand was the only one to go up. The packed crowd inside the Quicken Loans Arena instantly started booing him. Baier then tightened the noose by laying out all the implications for the audience.

“Mr. Trump, to be clear, you’re standing on a Republican primary debate stage,” Baier said.

“I fully understand,” Trump replied.

“The place where the RNC will give the nominee the nod.”

“I fully understand.”

“And that experts say an independent run would almost certainly hand the race over to Democrats and likely another Clinton. You can’t say tonight that you can make that pledge?”

“If I’m the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. But — and I am discussing it with everybody, but I’m, you know, talking about a lot of leverage.”

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The audience howled and hissed. Trump glared back like he was negotiating a thorny contract dispute. Whether Ailes scripted this or not, it was a triumph. While Trump may see politics as a negotiation, Ailes surely knew that the thousands of Republicans packed into the stands do not. So far, Trump has succeeded by presenting himself as the anti-politician who would save the country. Tonight, he looked like a spoiler. It could be that the visual of Trump being denounced onstage will prove to be every bit as devastating as Rick Perry’s “oops” or Mitt Romney “self-deportation” gaffes from the 2012 primaries.

It continued downhill from there. A short while later, Kelly asked Trump about his history of calling women he didn’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” Baier came back at him about his onetime support for a single-payer “Canadian” health-care system. Chris Wallace invoked his multiple bankruptcies. “Why should we trust you to run the nation’s business?” Wallace asked. Trump did his best to parry the questions and fought admirably. But to Ailes’s loyal audience, the message stood out as clearly as Trump’s hair: Fox was through with Trump.

And Trump, for his part, seemed to be through with Fox. “I thought the questions were not nice,” he told a crush of reporters after the debate. “I don’t think they were appropriate, and I think Megyn behaved badly.”

It’s not like the aggressive Fox questioning should have been a surprise. In the days leading up to the debate, Trump’s advisers expected Fox to be tough, especially Kelly, whom Trump has tangled with in the past. Earlier this week I reported that Trump’s friend Rudy Giuliani reached out to Ailes to ask that Kelly be fair to Trump. (Giuliani denied this.) In a phone call with a friend the other day, Trump grumbled about Fox's on-air treatment of him. But even Trump’s campaign was taken aback by the intensity of the debate questions. Campaign lawyer Michael Cohen tweeted that it was a “total setup” designed to “lower #Trump2016 high poll numbers.” Another Trump adviser told me that the debate was “vicious” and a “hit job.”

It’s unclear what, ultimately, convinced Ailes to let his moderators go after Trump. He may have wanted to shoot first to prevent Trump from damaging Fox in a live situation, as they say in the business. Perhaps Murdoch got to Ailes. Or, perhaps, Ailes just wanted good television. (Fox did not respond to a request for comment.)

For Trump, whether this is a flesh wound or something deeper is also unclear. He’s surged to the top of the polls by winning every fight he’s picked so far. But for Trump's troubled campaign, Ailes could prove to be a tougher opponent than any he’s faced. After all, no other candidate controls the television network that reaches the biggest block of primary voters. Those are the kind of poll numbers that are tough to beat.

[AdaGray]

“What if Trump was able to direct his base of supporters to stop watching Fox?...”

Trump does have to say a word. The exodus has begun.

[DoughtyOne]

That is strange. I saw another count on that and it showed Trump getting the most.

[867V309]

And Rosie O'Donnell is a big, fat pig

You left out "disgusting animal," the best one.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

The difference is that one was recording “time,” this one recorded number of questions.

[miss marmelstein]

Don’t tippy toe: women are a voting disaster!

They want free healthcare, free birth control (never mind you can buy a condom for 2 bucks at the local Walgreens), a rape-free world although they want to go bare-breasted in NYC - it’s legal and my husband has seen them - free childcare, free pre-K, free schooling and a gun-free world and then want to be taken seriously by accomplished and smart men.

[Jim W N]

Even Coulter says the country would be a better place if your sex couldn't vote. It's sad but true.

That's not sad. What IS sad is our popular culture and convoluted conventional wisdom which has confused women into thinking ROLE equals VALUE. Women know intuitively that isn't true, but the devil has once again deceived them into taking the apple from the Performance Tree. She's now like a cat trying to be a dog and thinks she has to perform and compete with men to be happy. She has never been unhappier.

God made women to love and care for people, especially their families, children and husband. THAT is where her happiness is. She is designed make a happy, beautiful home, raise her children, emulate her husband as her head, and be loved by him. Generally, she is not designed to run things except for her family. Her value is measureless and her great value is not in her performance but in who she is.

[GoneSalt]

“Personal attacks are what leftists do.

Trump defenders are acting just like them.”

Good grief. You cry like the only comfort goat in a Turkish prison.

[DoughtyOne]

Okay, perhaps so. I read and view so many things that once in a while it becomes a jumble.

[Dick Bachert]

Someone ran the numbers and found that the friggin’ “moderators” hogged 31%+ of the time with their insanely long, convoluted SPEECHES.  I guess we should be grateful that most of them ended in a question.

And because Trump’s business/show business experience has conditioned him to believe he owns the room, he doesn’t do well in a setting like last night.  And that AMBUSH by Kelly seemed to indicate to me that they were following Murdock’s order to Ailes to “knock off the Trump coverage” (at which time Ailes politely told Murdock to go to hell).  Watch for FOX to list further to port as lefty little Jimmy Murdock takes over for the old man.  

Trump HAS put forth specific solutions in “Time To Get Tough”. He might want to pay for another printing and cut the price to a buck a copy and put them out here among the folks. Hey, Donald, how about PUTTING IT UP ON-LINE?

[GoneSalt]

That picture got me where I live. Great post.

[Mr. N. Wolfe]

Thanks for posting the graphics. Very informative.

[Jim W N]

I’ll re-post this to you. I wish more ladies had an objective view of things as you seem to...

It is sad that our popular culture and convoluted conventional wisdom has succeeded in confusing women into thinking ROLE equals VALUE. Women know intuitively that isn’t true, but the devil has once again deceived them into taking the apple from the Performance Tree. She’s now like a cat trying to be a dog and thinks she has to perform and compete with men to be happy. She has never been unhappier.

God made women to love and care for people, especially their families, children and husband. THAT is where her happiness is. She is designed make a happy, beautiful home, raise her children, emulate her husband as her head, and be loved by him. Generally, she is not designed to run things except for her family. Her value is measureless and her great value is not in her performance but in who she is.

Running the world including voting should generally be left to men who are designed to do so. The men and women are designed for different roles but they are of equal value.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Good post!

[palmer]

nice graphic:

Red means self-important turd. In first place we have the Huckster, followed by Kasich and Jeb. In the middle tier we have Rubio, Carson and Cruz all trying to make a name for themselves. Trump and Christie were both able to cut off the monologues and Walker and Paul were comparatively quiet. It doesn't mean the latter are the right candidates but they seemed to both have a concise vision. Same with Christie, some very specific policy statements. Trump is the outlier and that's as it should be. It's very early and we need Trump to say what needs to be said.

[Rappini]

There was a rumor that FNC was going to the left, well I think they made it.

[Hugin]

I thought the first question was fine, but they shouldn’t be asking gotcha questions aimed at individual candidates. They have plenty of time in individual interviews to ask those. They should ask 10-12 broad policy questions (What would you do about ISIS, immigration, etc.?) and give each candidate a minute to answer. Of course that would make the role and face time of the moderators negligible, while Fox wanted to make the debate about Fox.

[Enlightened1]

I think Megyn Kelly should have wore her “Jeb 2016” button last night.

Fox News clearly showed who they liked based on their questions.

[Enlightened1]

Now that’s a great photo that should go viral.

[Enlightened1]

Fox news via Megyn Kelly = Jeb Bush 2016 political hacks

[fr_freak]

What you describe is tyranny.

Ha - so you're under the impression that what we had in this country before the early 1900s was tyranny? The right to vote was limited because the Founders knew that letting irresponsible, incompetent, or otherwise unreasonable people vote would LEAD to tyranny immediately, where people would vote for whomever promises them the most free stuff, necessarily taken out of the pockets of their neighbors. Letting unproductive men vote was not allowed, and letting women vote was not allowed because women instinctively expect to be taken care of, and will tolerate being controlled in order to achieve that. Thus, they tend to support a powerful government full of freebies for women.