Since launching his presidential campaign in June, Donald Trump has done interviews on every national Sunday politics show except one: He hasn’t granted an interview to Chris Wallace, anchor of “Fox News Sunday.”
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign told the Washington Examiner media desk on Monday that the businessman simply hasn’t had an opening in his schedule. But Trump has had room in his schedule for multiple interviews with Wallace’s competitors.
In June, Trump gave an in-person interview to CNN’s “State of the Union.” In July, he called in to ABC’s “This Week.” In August, he gave two interviews to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” one of which was in person, and he also called twice into CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Trump did three phone interviews in September with “This Week,” “Face the Nation” and “State of the Union.” And on Sunday, Trump gave two separate in-person interviews with “Meet the Press” and “This Week.”
Wallace has said he is working to do an interview with Trump, but has specified that he will not allow the candidate to call the show.
“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. “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.”
In recent weeks, Trump has jousted with Fox over the network’s coverage of him. In September, he engaged in a week-long Fox boycott, writing on social media that its reporting has been unfair and that it was “not good” for him.
Trump has also specifically targeted Wallace. “The great Mike Wallace covered me in a much more professional manner than his son, Chris Wallace of Fox News,” Trump wrote on Twitter in June, just days after launching his campaign. “Mike was a total pro!” he said, referring to late CBS newsman Mike Wallace.
Wallace and Trump did, however, come face to face at the first national Republican presidential debate, which was hosted by Fox News in early August.
Trump complained afterward that some of the questioning from the moderators, one of whom was Wallace, was unfair. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” three days after the debate, Trump called Wallace “a small shadow of his father.”
Asked if Trump hasn’t granted an interview to Wallace because he felt the anchor had been unfair to him, Trump’s spokeswoman said, “Nope.”
