The rumored truce between Donald Trump and Fox News may be on shaky ground.
The former reality TV star continued criticizing Fox’s Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace Friday, blasting the two anchors for their handling of the first GOP primary debate. His comments came after he appeared to kiss and make up with Fox News.
“I was asked some very inappropriate questions,” he said Friday in a phone interview with Newsmax’s Steve Malzberg.
Trump said he was particularly upset by Kelly’s questions about his past remarks aimed at women. But it’s “okay,” he added in his Friday interview, because he “won” the debate.
“[T]he main reason I’m okay is, very simply, everybody said I won the debate. You know, they did the polls at Drudge, who’s a fantastic man, but you know the Drudge site did the poll and Time magazine did the poll and they did many, many polls,” he said. “Even the front page of the New York Times — they had Trump dominated the debate.”
“So, you know, they were really tough questions and, I think, inappropriate,” he added. “But you know, who am I to say?”
Trump launched a war or words against Fox last week, accusing the network of “unfair” treatment. He focused the brunt of his anger on Kelly, who he called “unprofessional.” The tension between Fox and Trump looked like it was about to explode. Luckily for both parties, the network’s president, Roger Ailes, called Trump and reportedly hammered out a truce.
“We resolve this now or we go to war,” Ailes allegedly told Trump, according to CNN.
It seemed the phone call worked, initially. Trump tweeted praise for Fox, and the cable news network lifted its momentary blackout on his campaign. Trump soon landed several softball Fox interviews.
But now the real estate mogul disputes parts of the CNN story, and he’s still bitter about the debate.
“That story was a false story,” Trump said Friday, referring to the CNN report. “Roger couldn’t have been nicer. He called me up and he actually said, ‘Is there any way we can get this thing done?’ Because, frankly, he could not have been nicer.”
The 2016 presidential candidate was careful to note that Ailes called him, not the other way around.
Trump added, “And Roger knows that’s not the way to talk to me. Because people talk to me that way, you know what happens.”
He was then asked to comment on Kelly announcing this week that she is taking a break from her nightly newscast. If there is a connection between her vacation and the post-debate dustup, “I wouldn’t know about it,” Trump said.
He originally demanded that Kelly apologize for her debate questions. She refused Monday, saying during her newscast that she would never “apologize for doing good journalism.”
“I hope she’s well and I hope she’s feeling fine,” he said Friday. “And I hope she comes back and she’s going to be fair and good, and I’m sure that will happen. And I’m sure Roger will make it happen because he’s a fair guy, and he wants things to run smoothly.”
Trump then addressed why he accepted an interview request to appear Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” but not on Fox’s “Fox News Sunday.”
“Well, I had some major issues with [“Meet the Press” host] Chuck Todd and, frankly, he’s been very fair to me over the last four or five weeks and I respect him. And they asked me to do it and I’m doing it,” Trump said.
He said he turned down the request to appear on “Fox News Sunday” because he’s bitter about things Wallace has said about him.
“I don’t think that the tone that Chris asked the question was appropriate. I like Chris. But, you know, Chris said that he didn’t think I was going to run and all of these things. And I’m not saying that he was wrong in saying that, but I did feel I was going to run, so I was a little bit insulted,” he added.
Asked if he would ever sit down for an interview with Wallace, Trump said, “I [will] go back on with Chris at the appropriate time.”
He added that he found “the level of hatred in Chris’ [debate] questions” disturbing.
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UPDATE Aug. 17: Fox News responded this weekend to Trump’s Newsmax interview.
“The conspiracy theories about Megyn Kelly’s vacation rank up there with UFO’s, the moon landing and Elvis being alive. Megyn is on a pre-planned, annual summer vacation with her family, which is much deserved. To imply otherwise as Donald Trump and his campaign operatives have is not only wildly irresponsible, but downright bizarre,” read a statement authored by an anonymous Fox employee.
“Perhaps Mr. Trump thinks it’s advantageous to his poll numbers to keep talking about Megyn, but that doesn’t change the fact that Roger Ailes has fully supported her and her tough journalistic questioning since day one and is thrilled with the added exposure from the debate which resulted in even higher ratings of The Kelly File this week,” the statement added. “Anyone who knows Roger is aware of how historically and consistently loyal he is to all of his talent and how he protects them at all costs.”
Fox spokeswoman Carly Shanahan would not say who wrote the network’s response to Trump’s remarks. Pressed for a source, she said only that other news websites had agreed to publish the statement without attribution, adding that the Washington Examiner should link to these newsrooms.
The statement concluded: “As Governor Terry Branstad said today, ‘when you’re a candidate, you’ve got to basically answer the questions. You can’t just attack the person asking the questions. That doesn’t work.'”
