A Republican presidential primary debate to be hosted by Fox Business next week will not be subject to a new list of debate demands laid out by several GOP candidates over the weekend, according to a new report.
The reason for excluding the Fox debate from any format alteration requests, the Washington Post reported Sunday, citing an anonymous source who was present for the discussion, is because “people are afraid to make Roger [Ailes] mad.” Ailes is the CEO of Fox and a former GOP strategist.
The Republican campaigns met after several of the candidates and the RNC were highly critical of the format of last week’s debate hosted by CNBC. The candidates, including Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, complained that the moderators were overtly hostile in their questioning and did not provide equal time for all of the contenders on stage.
Among the things the candidates agreed to ask for at the rest of the debates after Fox’s are opening and closing statements of at least 30 seconds and equal number of questions per candidate.
Monday on CNN, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer did not dispute the report about some of the campaigns being “afraid” of Ailes.
“I read it in the Washington Post,” Spicer said. “I wouldn’t say that that means it happened. But I also think that if the candidates collectively talked about that, if they agree that the criteria and the format for this upcoming debate is something that they’re all amenable too, then that’s great.”
This isn’t the first time Fox has avoided certain demands by the RNC.
When the RNC announced the schedule for its debates in January, it said that each of the hosting networks were required to add a “conservative media element” for the events. The idea was to ensure political balance, as Republicans and conservatives widely perceive the mainstream media to have a liberal bent.
Fox News, however, did not adhere to the requirement.
“We didn’t like that stipulation from the beginning, and so we pushed back pretty hard because we wanted what we used [in 2012] to be our template,” Fox anchor Bret Baier, who co-moderated the debate, explained in an interview with Time magazine in July. “I’m surprised that the other networks went along with it,” he admitted. “We wouldn’t.”
A spokesperson for Fox did not return a request for comment from the Washington Examiner media desk.
