Wednesdayās Iowa town hall rankled staffers who see the networkālike most of the GOPāfalling in line behind the 2024 front-runner. As one correspondent acknowledged afterward, āTrump is the monster we created.ā
With less than a week until the first votes are cast in the 2024 Republican primary, front-runner Donald Trump blew up Fox Newsā prime time schedule on Wednesday. The former president and de facto programming executive booted his longtime ally Sean Hannity out of his 9 p.m. time slot and held a town hall with Iowa voters to compete with CNNās debate between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.
Baier had been wooing Tump for quite a while, and Trump suddenly agreed to participate after the CNN debate details were locked. āThey would only do it if it was at that time,ā he said. āWe offered a number of different times. That was their stipulation.ā
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The history between Trump and Fox is so fraught, and the relationship is so convoluted, that writers typically spend several paragraphs explaining the complexities. But it is also, at a gut level, quite simple. The Fox brand and the Trump brand are both about defeating Democrats and exploiting the levers of power.
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ā¦Rupert Murdoch really did try to make him a ānon person,ā as Murdochās own emails (also obtained by Dominion) revealed. āFox News very busy pivotingā away from Trump, Murdoch remarked to a former Fox executive in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 insurrection. At the time, Murdoch and almost everyone else thought that Trumpās political life was over. But Foxāand then host Tucker Carlson in particularāalso helped revive Trump by recasting January 6 as a government plot to entrap poor Trump voters. As the base warmed back up to Trump, so did Fox. And Lachlan Murdoch didnāt stand in the way.
They support the man.