Chris Wallace, anchor of “Fox News Sunday,” said Friday that even though the conservative National Review magazine created buzz with a lengthy salvo against Donald Trump, it likely won’t make any difference.
Wallace said the magazine’s influence, which has greatly diminished with most other print publications, isn’t strong enough to have an impact on Trump’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s a big deal,” Wallace said. “The National Review, which was the kind of Bible in the early days of the conservative movement under [founder] William F. Buckley, is not what it once was, nearly. I think most people … a lot more people are going to see our coverage of it than are actually going to see the magazine.”
National Review on Thursday night published an editorial attacking Trump as “a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”
The magazine also published blurbs from several leaders within the conservative movement denouncing Trump, including from radio host Glenn Beck, columnist Cal Thomas and Edwin Meese, a former adviser to President Reagan.
But Wallace said that Trump’s endorsement this week from former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who is still popular among many grassroots conservatives, has already “blunted” criticism that the candidate is insufficiently conservative.
“I think Palin’s endorsement means a lot,” he said. “Largely I think this is going to do more for the National Review reminding people that it exists than it’ll do to hurt Donald Trump.”
