Don’t Be Fooled By Fox News, They’re Going To Pick Donald Trump Over Megyn Kelly
Over the past few days, GOP Presidential frontrunner and Breitbart comments section come to life Donald Trump has resumed attacking Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly for some reason. It appeared Trump’s one-sided feud with the Fox host was finally over when he showed up at the network’s GOP debate that Kelly moderated earlier this month. While the debate was a trainwreck of epic proportions, Trump had no ill words for Kelly either during or after the event.
However, while the results were pouring in on Tuesday from five GOP primaries, Trump started retweeting his supporters who were attacking Kelly for her supposed anti-Trump bias. He also referred to her as crazy in a number of tweets. This all coincided with an announcement by Fox that they had scheduled another Republican debate for later in the month in Utah. It came across that Trump, who as the obvious GOP frontrunner has no reason to participate in any further debates, was trying to create a situation with Kelly and Fox to back out of the event.
Yet, even after the debate was cancelled when Trump refused to show up and John Kasich said he wouldn’t participate without Trump, The Donald kept going after Kelly. On Friday, he sent out a tweet demanding that his followers boycott The Kelly File, claiming she is a sick and overrated person who is always being mean to Trump. (Yes, he referred to himself in the third-person.)
Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump! She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2016
Just like in other instances where Trump went ‘too far’ with Megyn, Fox News released a statement criticizing the former reality TV star for going over the line. This time around, the network stated that Trump has an unhealthy obsession with Kelly and that his behavior was beneath the dignity of someone running for the White House.
“Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks against Megyn Kelly and his extreme, sick obsession with her is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate who wants to occupy the highest office in the land. Megyn is an exemplary journalist and one of the leading anchors in America — we’re extremely proud of her phenomenal work and continue to fully support her throughout every day of Trump’s endless barrage of crude and sexist verbal assaults. As the mother of three young children, with a successful law career and the second highest rated show in cable news, it’s especially deplorable for her to be repeatedly abused just for doing her job.”
Sure, this all sounds well and good, but we’ve been down this road a number of times already when it comes to Trump and Fox. The celebrity billionaire has gone to ‘war’ with the network numerous times since last summer, mostly over his treatment of Kelly and his feeling that the network isn’t covering him fairly. And each and every time, Fox News has eventually rolled over for the former reality TV star, inviting him on for more interviews and giving him loads of positive coverage.
This time won’t be any different. As CNN’s Don Lemon pointed out during a panel discussion Friday night on this latest battle, Fox has conducted numerous interviews with Trump this past week, even after he started trolling Kelly again. He also sat down with Sean Hannity on Friday for a town hall event that will air on Monday. Beyond that, a number of Fox figures, including Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Eric Bolling, Andrea Tantaros and the Fox & Friends crew, have gone out of their way to openly support Trump’s campaign.
And that is the thing most at play here. While Fox may want Kelly to know they are on her side, they aren’t going to sit down with their other personalities and tell them to stop stumping for Trump. They know that the conservative audience that they’ve pandered to for years, and fed their heads with all kinds of crazy-ass conspiracy propaganda regarding the liberal media and dangerous progressives, and those chickens have come home to roost with Trump’s hate-filled nationalist campaign.
Look, it is hard to totally feel sorry for Megyn Kelly. As a journalist, she’s peddled all kinds of race-baiting bullshit over the years to help solidify her conservatives credentials, She’s seemed to only embrace feminism whenever it’s suited her. But, that really isn’t the issue here. For more than seven months, Donald Trump and his campaign have taken to bullying her in a very public way. And they’ve reignited these attacks shortly after Trump’s campaign manager assaulted former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, leading her to resign from her job after Breitbart tossed her under the bus.
Fox has also seemingly taken Trump’s side on the Fields issue. While Fox News has denied that they’ve cut ties with the reporter, The Daily Beast reported that Fields saw her contributor role taken away from the weekend show Cashin’ In, hosted by Bolling. It was stated that it was due to her inability to be impartial on Trump. While Bolling said on air Saturday that he hoped to see Fields on the panel in the future, the whole thing just smells funny.
The fact is, Trump has no issue with forcing the media to do his bidding. And, in doing so, he apparently takes great delight in treating women like shit, especially when they have the audacity to say something not nice about the Trumpster. With Fields, she was supposed to keep her mouth shut, especially since she worked for a Trump cheerleading site. In Trump’s eyes, she brought that shit on herself.
As for Kelly, her original sin was asking him a legitimate question at a debate, when we all knew that Fox needed to be ‘fair’ to Trump. For that misstep, the real estate mogul needed to teach her a lesson. Therefore, he made sure everyone knew she was a raging bitch on the rag; a crazy, sick, obsessed female who won’t stop talking bad about him; an overrated, average, third-rate reporter.
This is how Trump feels about women, specifically women that don’t pander to him and tell him how amazing he is. Those who don’t kiss his ass are obviously fat pigs who deserve to be treated like shit. This is the worldview of the man who might be leader of the free world. It is being reported on and discussed by our so-called fourth estate uncritically and as a legitimate position. And Fox will be the leader of that type of coverage.
Image via The Wrap
