Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused the hosts of Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” of paving the way for GOP front-runner Donald Trump, and explained in an interview Monday morning that they are largely responsible for the political ascent of the billionaire businessman.
“Donald Trump gets up in the morning, tweets to the entire planet at no cost, picks up the phone, calls you, has a great conversation for about eight minutes, which would have cost him a ton in commercial money, and meanwhile his opponents are all out there trying to raise the money to run an ad,” the former House speaker said.
Trump used to be a constant fixture on the Fox News morning show. Dating back to 2011, he used to appear every Monday morning for a segment titled “Mondays With Trump.” The segment was canceled in 2015 after Trump launched his presidential campaign, the Daily Beast’s Andrew Kirell reported.
Despite the cozy nature of “Fox & Friends'” relationship with Trump, and despite the fact that several shows on the right-leaning cable news network continue to give the casino tycoon hours of free airtime, hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade marveled Monday at the fact that the front-runner has spent practically nothing on his campaign.
“Well, that’s because of you guys,” Gingrich said.
Kilmeade disputed the assertion, and argued that Trump gets so much free airtime merely because he makes himself available (unlike past GOP candidates, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush).
“Look, you could say that Trump is the candidate ‘Fox & Friends’ invented,” Gingrich persisted. “He was on your show I think more than any other show.”
Though some of Fox’s news personalities, including Brit Hume, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace, have appeared less than enthusiastic about Trump’s campaign, much of the network’s on-air talent, including Doocy, Kilmeade, Bill O’Reilly, Andrea Tarantos, Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Jesse Watters, have fawned over the billionaire businessman’s candidacy.
Hannity, who alone has dedicated hours of airtime to hosting Trump for “exclusive” interviews that serve more as campaign stump speeches, is giving the real estate mogul a solid hour of primetime coverage on the eve of the Republican Nevada caucus:
Coming up on ‘Hannity’ TONIGHT: A full hour with @realDonaldTrump. Tune in at 10p ET! @seanhannity pic.twitter.com/xTW1MeqFJD
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 22, 2016
Gingrich is no stranger to media criticism.
In 2012, during the GOP presidential primary, Gingrich scored one of the most memorable debate moments of the election cycle when he torched CNN’s John King for asking him to respond to allegations regarding the former speaker’s ex-wife.
“I think the destructive vicious negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. I’m appalled you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that,” he said in response to the debate’s opening question.
Gingrich went on to win the South Carolina Republican primary two days later.
