Trump-less debate proves point
Fox News honcho Roger Ailes recently learned the same lesson the entire GOP field has come to understand in this campaign: When you fight with Donald Trump, you lose.
Trump flirted, yet again, with the idea of skipping the presidential debate on Fox, citing past “unfair” treatment from moderator Megyn Kelly. He even put up a Twitter poll asking his millions of followers what they thought he should do.
Then Fox did this: “We learned froma secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president,” said a news release, apparently written by Ailes. “A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”
Trump does not like to be mocked. He abruptly canceled his plans to attend the debate and instead scheduled a counterrally, billed as a fundraiser for veterans, just a few miles fromthe Iowa debate hall. In typical Trumpian fashion, he dismissed the debates without him as “low-rated afterthoughts.”
The Trump-less debate proved the Donald right. It was, in the main, a vanilla affair with few memorable moments as the seven candidates onstage played it safe. The ratings, too, were decidedly un-Trumpian. While more than 24 million peoplewatched the first GOP presidential debate on Fox, just 12.5 million tuned in for this one.
Roger Ailes, for becoming the latest victim of the Trump juggernaut, you had the worst week in Washington. Congrats, or something.
This weekly column offers an entertaining and opinionated look at people in the nation’s capital who have fallen from grace.