Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:43 pm
The Republican Party is in the midst of a huge meltdown. After Fox News sent out a press release mocking Trump for whining about Megyn Kelly, the billionaire held a press conference and announced that he is pulling out of the Fox News debate.
The Fox press release stated, “We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”
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Trump held a press conference in Iowa and hit the roof.
According to The Hill:
“Most likely I’m not going to do the debate,” Trump said. “I didn’t like the fact that they sent out press releases toying, talking about Putin and playing games. I don’t know what games Roger Ailes is playing or what’s wrong over there. But when they sent out that press release talking about it – I said what are these people, playing games? So most likely I won’t be doing the debate.”
Trump said he had told Fox that he’d do the debate if they donated the proceeds to Wounded Warriors, and so instead on Thursday night, he’ll hold his own event simultaneously that will raise money for the group.
“We’ll do something else where we raise money for the veterans and Wounded Warriors,” he said. “We’re going to do something simultaneously with the debate.”
On her show, Megyn Kelly told Trump that he doesn’t get to control the media, “While he’s made his position clear about me, after that first debate, Roger Ailes made his position clear, too. When Trump started it up again this past Saturday and resumed it again and again and again, he was told repeatedly our debate team is settled and then came that Instagram video he put out today. Trump is not used to not controlling things as the chief executive of a large organization. But the truth is, he doesn’t get to control the media.”
Kelly’s message is true, but she needs to tell that to all of the Republicans. Every Republican thinks that they control the media. Trump is nothing more than the most extreme example of the kind of thin-skinned retreat that exists in the conservative bubble.
Outside of the curiosity factor, debate ratings will certainly decline without Trump. Republican viewership of their debates was already shrinking, so the Fox News debate is likely to continue this trend.
The media has been fed up with Trump’s incessant complaining for a long time. Fox has also been dying to get rid of Trump. By making it seem like Trump is afraid of Fox and Kelly, Roger Ailes has given the rest of the Republican candidates the ammo that they need to crush the myth of the billionaire as a tough guy.
The Republican Party is in full meltdown mode. The conservative network is at war with the Republican frontrunner as Fox News is trying to force Donald Trump out of the Republican race.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
