Donald Trump faces a critical last debate against Hillary Clinton Wednesday night, but will once again face a moderator with whom he’s had a rocky relationship in the very recent past.
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The choice of Wallace to be the middle man is one that might seem designed to favor Trump and hurt Clinton, given Fox’s reputation for being friendlier toward Republicans and conservatives. In September, Clinton ally David Brock wrote a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates to protest that choice.
Brock argued that former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, reportedly an unofficial but close adviser to Trump, presented Wallace with a conflict of interest. But the commission maintained that it was “pleased” with its selection of Wallace for the final debate’s moderator.
Over the last 16 months, however, it’s been Trump who has had a rough relationship with Wallace.
Just days after launching his campaign in June last year, Trump went on Twitter to take a swipe at Wallace, invoking his father, the late CBS newsman Mike Wallace.
“The great Mike Wallace covered me in a much more professional manner than his son, Chris Wallace of Fox News,” Trump wrote. “Mike was a total pro!”
The great Mike Wallace covered me in a much more professional manner than his son, Chris Wallace of @FoxNews. Mike was a total pro!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2015
Trump made a similarly caustic remark after the first GOP primary debate in April 2015, which was hosted by Fox and co-moderated by Wallace.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where host Chuck Todd asked Trump about saying that Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her — wherever,” the candidate defended himself by saying he had said the same thing about Wallace.
For months into the campaign, Wallace’s “Fox News Sunday” was the only Sunday morning news program Trump wouldn’t do. Whether on camera by satellite, in studio or by phone call, Trump had a regular Sunday presence on CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN (MSNBC doesn’t have a traditional Sunday interview-style show).
Last October, Trump’s spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s neglect for Wallace wasn’t personal and only a matter of not having room in his schedule. But Wallace, in interviews, indicated that it was something else.
“The idea you would do a phoner with a presidential candidate where they have all the control and you have none, where you can’t see them, they may have talking points in from of them,” Wallace said in August 2015. “We are not a call-in radio show, we are a Sunday talk show and he is a presidential candidate — do an interview on camera.”
Wallace also has a history of taking a more aggressive posture toward Trump. At the first GOP primary debate in April 2015, Wallace singled out Trump by preparing pre-designed graphics made to dispute Trump’s comments about balancing the federal budget, comments that Wallace anticipated Trump would say.
Twice Wallace called on Fox producers to display graphics that showed Trump’s “numbers don’t add up.” No other candidate was challenged with such graphics.
Wallace later told the Washington Post, “I think it’s literally the only time a graphic has gotten an ovation at a debate.”
Their relationship did eventually thaw. Sort of.
Trump granted Wallace an in-person interview in December. But the candidate was not entirely happy with it.
“I did interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News in order to be fair,” he wrote on Twitter after the interview. “He then puts on [Karl] Rove, [Washington Post writer Charles] Lane and [Conservative columnist George] Will, three Trump bashers, to discuss.”
