CNN’s Stelter Details Talks With Fox Newsers Venting Frustrations in Trump Era

CNN’s Brian Stelter broke down the dynamic between Fox News and President Donald Trump on Sunday as he promoted his new book: Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.

Alisyn Camerota interviewed Stelter about the book during a portion of his Reliable Sources show, where she spoke at length about the symbiotic nature between the president and the network. Stelter said “a lot of people [from Fox] wanted to talk to me” as he was writing the book because many of their journalists are growing increasingly concerned that they’re being “suffocated” and “squeezed out by pro-Trump blowhards.”

At one point, Camerota asked Stelter to elaborate on how Fox changed since the late Roger Ailes was forced out in 2016 amid numerous accusations of sexual harassment. Stelter answered that it sounds “crazy,” but “most of the people I talked to wish Roger Ailes were still there. They wish he were still in charge.”

“I hate even saying that out loud because he harassed so many women, abused his powers but what all these sources at Fox said to me was ‘at least we knew who was in charge, at least we knew who the boss was, and at least he stood up to Trump’…When Ailes was still in charge, he challenged Trump. He put out statements saying ‘you need to learn how journalism works.’ And I think a lot of staffers there feel like Trump wouldn’t have been able to take over if Ailes hadn’t left a leadership vacuum.”

Stelter said it was “partly Ailes’ fault” for the leadership vacuum, and he offered his hypothesis that Trump could sense that vacuum and seized on it.

“I had a host say to me ‘The network was also produced for an audience of one: Roger Ailes,” Stelter recalled. “‘And once Ailes was gone, it was still produced for an audience of one, but that audience became Trump. That the channel started to be produced for Trump.'”

Watch above, via CNN.