Thursday on CNN’s “New Day,” CNN’s senior media and politics reporter Dylan Byers reacted to Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s decision to skip the GOP presidential debate hosted by Fox News that is scheduled for tonight in Des Moines, IA.
Byers explained to host Chris Cuomo that Trump’s move to take on the Fox News Channel has resonated with what he deemed to be “ultra-conservatives” and has proven to be a winner for Trump in the polls.
“Well, fundamentally, it’s about Trump doing what’s best for Trump,” Byers said. “But what he’s doing, the fact that he can do this, the fact that he can go up against Fox News, which historically has been the network for Republican candidates, is because there’s actually a great deal of sort of antipathy and anger toward Fox News among some ultra-conservatives. When we think about the sort of American political media landscape, we very often think about Fox News being the network for Republicans. We confuse that with Fox News being the network for conservatives. For a lot of ultra-conservatives, the sort of folks in talk radio land, the folks who read Breitbart and sites like that, they don’t necessarily identify with Fox News. That’s why you’ve seen Donald Trump have his feuds with various Fox News pundits, and why that’s helped him in the polls.”
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