Fox News chief Ailes says ‘air has been cleared’ with Trump
Fox News Channel Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes says all is well between himself and Donald Trump after the real estate mogul spent days lambasting the network and anchor Megyn Kelly for the questions he received at the first Republican debate.
Ailes said in a memo obtained by CNN that he had a “blunt but cordial” conversation with Trump on Monday.
“Donald Trump and I spoke today,” Ailes said in the statement. “We discussed our concerns, and I again expressed my confidence in Megyn Kelly. She is a brilliant journalist and I support her 100 percent.”
“I assured him that we will continue to cover this campaign with fairness & balance,” Ailes continued. “We had a blunt but cordial conversation and the air has been cleared.”
The memo is in line with a tweet Trump sent out earlier in the day saying he and Ailes had smoothed things over.
Trump is scheduled to return to the network for the first time since the debate on Tuesday morning’s edition of Fox & Friends.
Trump has been railing against Fox, arguing that he was mistreated and asked unfair questions at the first Republican presidential debate on Thursday. He has singled out anchor Megyn Kelly as treating him particularly unfairly.
Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric on Friday night, calling in to CNN to say: “You could see there was blood coming out of [Kelly’s] eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”
One by one the Republican presidential contenders lined up to admonish Trump over the remarks, and he was disinvited from a GOP cattle call hosted by conservative activist Erick Erickson in Georgia over the weekend.
Kelly is expected to address the controversy on her show at 9 p.m. EST on Monday night.
Trump has refused to apologize.
Polls show Trump is maintaining the lead he held over the Republican field going into the debate.
A new poll from Reuters found Trump with a 2-to-1 advantage nationally over the next closest Republican contender. He takes 24 percent support in the poll over Jeb Bush, who takes 12 percent.
Trump also grabbed the lead in a new Public Policy Polling survey of Iowa, taking 19 percent support over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ben Carson, who are tied for second place at 12 percent support.