«He bears the primary responsibility for what happened on Tuesday.»
It shouldn’t feel amazing that Fox News let a top host from their own network get some airtime today to talk about a presidential debate he just hosted. But it does feel amazing, because Wallace places blame on the president, accurately, for the battery of interruptions that derailed Tuesday’s debate. We all know how Trump’s going to react to this clip. And more importantly, Fox management knows. Maybe Fox feels they have him over a barrel. For all the complaining he does about the network, there’s never any sustained effort on his part to punish it. He’ll tweet about OAN once in a blue moon, or he’ll whine about Fox’s polling, but ask him what he watched on TV last night and he’ll say, ”I watch Liz McDonald; she’s fantastic. I watched Fox Business. I watched Lou Dobbs last night, Sean Hannity last night, Tucker last night, Laura. I watched ‘Fox and Friends’ in the morning.” He’s not going anywhere. And even if he wanted to, right now may be the moment in his presidency where he can least afford to alienate Fox. Media critics have been looking ahead to next month lately and noting that Fox is destined to play an outsized role in deciding whether Trump’s inevitable “I was cheated!” cries gain purchase on the right in the event that he loses. A few days ago the Times profiled Arnon Mishkin, the head of Fox’s “decision desk.” He and his staff will be responsible for “calling” states for Biden or Trump on Election Day — or the days following. The nightmare scenario goes like this: It’s a close race, and Mr. Trump leads in the early vote count in Pennsylvania, and needs just that state to win the election.
