Roger Ailes wanted to redirect Donald Trump’s ire from Megyn Kelly to Fox News Channel as a whole so that he could take some heat off his star anchor without removing her as moderator of this week’s Iowa Republican debate, writes Hadas Gold in Politico.
From Politico:
Fox News chairman Roger Ailes chose Megyn Kelly over Donald Trump.
That’s the key to understanding the dispute that led to Trump’s withdrawal from the network’s Thursday night debate, according to a source familiar with the situation.
In the face of Trump’s blustering and his campaign’s reported threats toward Kelly, the Fox News anchor and co-moderator of Thursday’s debate, Ailes decided to redirect the heat, the source said.
The network’s facetious statement Tuesday about how Trump might deal with the Iranian ayatollah and Vladimir Putin? It was meant to redirect Trump’s fire from Kelly to Ailes and the network, the source said.
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