In Love and War, Who Needs the Other More: Fox or Trump?
In the war like we’ve never seen before between Fox News and Donald Trump, ask yourself these two questions:
1) Who needs the other more?
2) Did you ever think the two frontrunners from the Republican and Democratic party would not be appearing on Fox in the (many) months leading up to the election?
First, let’s tackle the second person in the second question: Hillary Clinton may not have publicly commenced battle on Fox, but let’s face it: Outside of maybe (maybe) Greta Van Susteren (whom she’s sat down with before), Clinton isn’t going near the likes of Chris Wallace (the toughest/fairest interviewer of either party in the game), Bill O’Reilly or Megyn Kelly, whom she keeps evoking as a shining example of Trump’s misogyny against strong women but doesn’t adore her enough to even remotely entertain having a conversation with her in a live setting.
So in what has easily and already has been the most entertaining campaign cycle in the history of American politics thanks to Trump and the other 20 or so running, we have the GOP frontrunner stating (today, anyway) that he won’t appear on Fox News because of “unfair” treatment. The network responds in kind by telling Mediaite “he (Trump) engages in personal attacks on our anchors and hosts, which has grown stale and tiresome.”
And that’s accurate. The Trump attacks on Megyn Kelly lately continuous and unwarranted. She’s handled it perfectly by not responding, and if you watch her program, is impossibly fair during any Trump story. Has Trump appeared on her program since the debate? No. Has Kelly suffered in any capacity? Not even close. When push came to Twitter shove, Fox had to take a stand here or risk showing its talent it doesn’t have their back.
Either way, add it all up, we have a Democratic frontrunner (for now) who is the opposite of Trump in terms of the decision process around doing national interviews. Trump will call into three Sunday shows in the same morning and do 15-20 big interviews a week. On the other side of the aisle and coin, Hillary once was so media shy (thinking she had the nomination in the bag and therefore didn’t need said media) that the Washington Post created a clock to mark her time between interviews. At one point, it hit 40 days. She’s relatively more active now, but the aversion is still palpable when contrasting her stage-managed self with Trump. And as of this minute anyway, both Trump and Clinton aren’t going near the #1 cable news network in the country.
Which brings us to the first question: Does Trump need Fox more? Or does Fox need Trump more? Easy answer here: Trump needs Fox more, and here’s why: Trump not doing interviews doesn’t mean Fox won’t carry his speeches live, won’t play the treasure trove of sound bites or analyze his ill-advised Tweets (the ones not involving Kelly, anyway). A Trump interview is huge, sure (just ask Stephen Colbert, who broke a nine-game-demo losing streak against Jimmy Fallon via a Trump appearance Tuesday night), but Fox can hold out longer than Trump for the aforementioned reasons: There’s more to the billionaire than just phoners and sit-downs via satellite from Trump Plaza. And lately–not so much on the late night side where skits can be written and conversation different–Trump’s cable news spots have felt used, repetitive.
Trump and Fox wage battle again.
We’ve seen this movie before.
But in a political season that is high on reality show entertainment and low on substance, expect a truce and Part III, Part IV, Part V for as long as this circus of a campaign continues.
— —
>> Follow Joe Concha on Twitter @JoeConchaTV
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
