Erick Erickson Claims Roger Ailes Took Him Off Fox News Over Pressure From Mitch McConnell’s Wife

Conservative pundit Erick Erickson has a bone to pick with Mitch McConnell, his wife, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, and the late Roger Ailes.

Erickson wrote in an op-ed for The Resurgent that beginning in 2014, his appearances on Fox News were limited by Ailes, then-chairman and CEO of the network, because his criticisms of McConnell drew the ire of his wife:

“Roger Ailes had [former Fox News co-president] Bill Shine reach out before he himself reached out. Roger had a problem and the only way he could resolve the problem was to take me off the air,” Erickson explained. “Elaine Chao was on the Newscorp board of directors and, according to Roger, Elaine was “riding [his] ass” about me being on Fox.”

“I was supporting Matt Bevin in the 2014 Republican primary in Kentucky against McConnell,” he continued. And it didn’t matter why I was on television and on what topics I was or was not talking, Chao had told Roger I was an unwelcome presence on Fox and not a team player. Roger had not only told me, but conveyed to my boss at RedState that I was becoming a problem for him with Elaine.”

Erickson said that Ailes later called him up to say that he was impressed by his move to continue to write about McConnell instead of changing his tune.

“He said most people would have shut up to be on TV,” he wrote.

“I had long dismissed the idea that Fox really was tied in some way to the GOP,” he concluded. “But the wife of the Senate GOP leader was able to get the head of a TV network to take me off air for writing about her husband at an unrelated website.”

There’s not much of a way to verify Erickson’s claims, as Ailes passed away in 2017, less than a year after he resigned from Fox News amid sexual harassment allegations. Erickson has written about his departure from the network in the past.

[image via screengrab]