As the war between Fox News and
Donald Trump ratchets up, Roger Ailes is fighting off criticism from his senior
executives over his handling of the crisis. According to one highly placed
source, last night, Ailes sent out the now-famous statement mocking Trump as
being scared to meet with the “Ayatollah” and “Putin” if he became president. “That
was Roger 100 percent,” the source explained. “A lot of people on the second
floor” — where top Fox
executives work — “didn’t think it was a good idea.”
Fox executives are also troubled
that Ailes’s principal adviser right now is his longtime personal
lawyer and Fox & Friends contributor Peter Johnson Jr. “He
wrote the statement with Peter,” the source explained. “Peter is running the
war room,” another Ailes friend told me. Fox executives are worried that Ailes
is relying on an attorney with scant communications experience as the network
is reeling from the biggest PR crisis in recent memory. Historically, during a
crisis like this Ailes would have huddled with
his veteran communications guru Brian Lewis. But Ailes fired
Lewis in 2013 over his concerns that Lewis had been a source for my 2014 Ailes
biography. Since Lewis’s ouster, Johnson has taken on the role of
media counselor.
Fox spokesperson Irena Briganti did
not return a call. When asked about his role advising Ailes, Johnson
responded to me with an ad hominem statement. “If you were ever actually fair,
any semblance of integrity was swamped by your reaction to the failure of your
critically panned hit job on Fox and Ailes,” he said. “Just like your latest
tweets and articles, your questions today are based on your own malicious
fabrication.”
New signs emerged today at just how
frantic Ailes has become to get Trump back to the table. The two men have not
spoken since yesterday, sources told me. This morning, Joe Scarborough reported
that Ailes called Trump’s daughter Ivanka and wife, Melania, to get through
to the GOP front-runner. But Trump is saying he’ll only talk to Rupert Murdoch directly. In
a further challenge to Ailes’s power, Bill O’Reilly is scheduled to
host Trump. Last night, Ailes directed Sean Hannity to cancel Trump’s interview.
O’Reilly’s refusal to abide by a ban adds a new dynamic to the clash of egos.
For O’Reilly, this is an opportunity to take back star power from Kelly.
Sources say O’Reilly feels he made Kelly’s career by promoting her on his show,
and he’s been furious that Kelly surpassed him in the ratings.
Meanwhile, Fox producers are
scrambling with the practical matter of how to program the
debate without Trump. “Right now, it is about how the moderators handle Trump,”
one producer said. “They do not want to be seen either directly criticizing him
since he’s not there, and they don’t want to seem like they are drumming up
criticism by letting the candidates attack Trump rather than stake out their
own positions and debate one another. For all the talk of the optics right now,
the bigger issue is how to program a debate without the front-runner. Remember,
Fox may be a political machine, but it is still a damn good television
programmer.”
For Ailes, the internal dissent
over his handling of the crisis would seem to only weaken his grasp on the helm
of Fox News. Rupert Murdoch has become more
hands-on at Fox since questions about Ailes’s faltering health have been
raised. Now Murdoch has to wonder why Ailes, who runs the most valuable asset
at parent company 21st Century Fox, is getting PR advice from a lawyer Ailes
personally pays.
A spokesperson for Murdoch did not return a call.
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