Roger Ailes To Meet With Trump Next Week to Resolve "Differences of Opinion" Over Fox Coverage

“Fox News Chairman & CEO Roger Ailes and Donald Trump spoke this morning and plan to have a meeting next week to discuss their differences of opinion regarding Fox’s coverage of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. Ailes will be joined by senior Fox editorial executives.

Mr. Trump believes he has been treated unfairly in certain instances. FOX News has held every candidate in this race to the highest journalistic standards throughout our coverage. We believe a candid meeting about our differences is required and that any misunderstandings can be handled without compromising those standards”

The assumption on Twitter is that it was Ailes who caved to Trump and begged him for the meeting, not vice versa. That’s my assumption too. Partly it’s a matter of Trump’s “no apologies” persona: You can’t imagine him groveling to any media platform for airtime, especially when competitors are happy to turn over half-hour blocs of their morning programming to him to ramble on the air about whatever. Partly it’s the fact that Fox felt obliged to put out this press release at all. Any other candidate who whined about boycotting the network would probably either be ignored or would have a private phone chat with Ailes that you and I would never know about.

As it is, Fox wants to make sure all the Trump fans out there know that they’re going to give him a respectful hearing despite the fact that he continues to publicly describe their brightest new star as an overrated lightweight who might have been bleeding out of some unspecified hole when she asked him tough questions at the debate. Clearly they’re worried enough about alienating his supporters that they’re willing to give him endless second chances no matter how many hard shots he takes at Fox on social media or on other cable news channels.

On the other hand: If it’s Fox that’s instigating this meeting, why didn’t they propose it yesterday in that press release announcing that they had canceled Trump’s appearance on O’Reilly’s show tonight? That would have been the perfect time to say, “We need a summit to discuss our differences.” The fact that the meeting only came up today would fit with a timeline in which Fox dumps Trump, Trump quietly panics overnight, then calls up Ailes this morning to see if they can work something out.

Then again, it would also fit with a timeline in which Fox dumps Trump, Ailes sees MSNBC and CNN give huge chunks of exposure to Trump this morning, and suddenly Ailes decides that he doesn’t want to cede Trumpmania to the competition entirely. (The fact that Trump made sure to appear on the two other cable news nets this morning was a smart way to create more leverage with Fox.) So he picks up the phone and begs Trump for a meeting.

Note too that Fox doesn’t claim in today’s press release that Trump asked them for a meeting, only that Ailes and Trump agreed it should happen. Is that because Trump asked for it and Fox didn’t want to piss him off by mentioning that, or is it because Ailes asked for it and Fox didn’t want to admit it?

Here he is on CNN this morning talking with Alisyn Camerota on topics various and sundry for nearly half an hour. After he was done with this, Scarborough gave him another 17 minutes on “Morning Joe.” Forty-three minutes of airtime on cable news is what the average presidential candidate gets over a few good weeks, I’d guess. Your move, Fox.

I love the way you express yourself! I DO want Trump to say just THAT!

Did you read the hotair.com link comments? Absolute wild fire, and hilarious!

There’s been concerted media black out on anything POSITIVE about Trump. The only black they are giving him on FOX and the Left is a black eye. But, the news on Trump is extremely good, if you can just find it, lately.

There are Trump power tweet everywhere, power programming on CNN and Morning Joe, at msnbc, and GOBS of Trump supporters who have already dumped FOX, but the news is all about, as Trump says, the bottom tier “surging” over one another, while he is the one who maintains the HUUUUGE lead.

He is treated as if he were not even in the race. And it all started with Me-again Kelly. To be fair, we can throw in Brett Baier, who threw in the FIRST obnoxious question right out of the gate about the loyalty oath focused solely at Trump. Baier did the dirty work of the RNC.

Sorry, I can’t post articles on this computer, or it would be endless. Hotair and lucianne and Daily Caller are all over this news stuff on Trump. Some of it is VERY positive. lol.

It is a Trump movement out here, in the hinterlands.

Where are those stories? They used to be here, on FR.

I agree. So many oldsters can’t or won’t fool with anything more complicated than the TV remote, and can not hear on cell phones, so they still keep landlines.

The reviews are mixed, for ROKU and Oann, and all these other options come with draw backs, so not everyone wants to fool with it.

I think you are right that Kelly stays, but she has become a problem. Kelly has unnecessarily cost FOX.

Her audience wants her sails trimmed back, that’s become apparent. Those of us boycotting FOX feel it is due to Kelly and Brett Baier (whom I loved) that we left FOX. Evidently, there are enough of us who made a difference? Maybe?

Also, I wonder if some of the advertisers have leaned on FOX. Who knows, Trump has supporters among the big money crowd too, and it’s entirely possible they may not have appreciated the box canyon Trump was led into, in the first FOX debate. Advertisers may well have been affected by the hostility and given Ailes a large push.

The Murdoch boys are said to be Hillary supporters, but they are also into profit and not easily avoidable losses.

This is going to get very interesting.

I am into Trump’s attitude with the powers running our government. No one else can face off with these bandits because they are not in the position to face off anyone with force.

“Imagine a next FoxNews debate, sans Trump, and only 3 million viewers.”

It would be especially nice if he were to hold a competing event that aired at the same time as the debate on FOX.

“Imagine at the next Fox debate, Trump counter-programs his own event on another network LOLOLOLOLOLOL”

I just posted that, but I see you beat me to it. Great minds think alike :-)

YES, YES, YES, I agree with both of you smart, beauties!

Megyn is the YUGE problem for Fox News but she’s also one of its biggest draws next to O’Reilly and I’ve noticed that her show is now getting the 3:00AM Central replay instead of Bret Baier’s which gives her show THREE plays per night!

I have completely stopped watching Megyn’s show, but I know from FaceBook that she leads and bleeds with Trump! She is obsessed with Trump slashing and bashing and always has her anti-Trump pals to assist her and pile on.

I sometimes still watch Greta, almost always watch BOR and Hannity but that’s all.

I watch Morning Joe and usually Don Lemon.

Mr Trump holds a weak hand in that CNN and PSMNBC are not fans of him either. Fox News had great potential, but overrated dipwads like Krathhammer, Will, Goldberg and Steve WhatsHisName are Establishment Lovers and therefore they couldn’t force their sorry, arrogant, prideful selves to praise Trump at all.

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