By RYAN SENECAL
Contributing Writer
The gloves are off between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and the Fox News Channel. In a debate just four days before the Iowa Caucus, Mr. Trump he stated that he will not be attending the Fox News-Google Republican debate because of his feud with “The Kelly File” host and debate moderator, Megyn Kelly. This feud stems from a question that was asked at a Fox News-Facebook Republican debate on Aug. 6, 2015, directed to Mr. Trump from Ms. Kelly about what he has said about women in the past.
In response to Mr. Trump saying he would skip the debate, a spokesperson from Fox issued the following statement:
“We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. 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 the meetings.”
A very sarcastic, yet very true statement. However, it probably went too far when the spokesperson mentioned the Cabinet being dissolved and having Twitter take over.
Mr. Trump decided to hold an event for veterans in Des Moines, Iowa. Joining him were two Republican presidential candidates who did not make the cut for the primetime debate. They were former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.
Many people are praising Fox News, and its Chairman and CEO, Rodger Ailes, for sticking to his plan to have Fox News personalities Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, and Ms. Kelly moderate this debate, which has been in the works since the summer.
Former White House Press Secretary to President George W. Bush and current Fox News contributor and co-host of the popular opinion show, “The Five,” Dana Perino, stated that in her years at Fox News, she has never been more proud to work for the news channel. She also when onto say that she is very proud of Mr. Ailes and Fox, as they stood for “journalistic integrity.”
Not everyone in the media feels this way. Breitbart News, sometimes referred to as the Huffington Post of the Right, has been slamming Fox News since Mr. Trump announced that he would not be participating in the debate. Its Facebook timeline has been blown up by anti-Fox rhetoric.
The Washington-driven news site Politico also slammed Fox News by saying that they did a “disservice” to the country. Let’s get one thing straight: Politico is a very left-leaning publication. It hopes everyday that Mr. Trump will be the Republican nominee because it would almost guarantee four more years of a Democratic White House.
The Drudge Report, another conservative site, is saying that the real winner of the debate was Mr. Trump. Drudge went onto say that the seven on the stage were “dwarfs.”
An interesting development in the whole saga came just before the debate was about to begin. According to the Washington Examiner, Trump went on CNN and said that Fox had apologized and that they “couldn’t be nicer.”
Ms. Kelly has had many accomplishments through her life. She grew up in Syracuse, N.Y. and her family later moved to the Albany suburb of Bethlehem. She graduated from Bethlehem High School and went to Syracuse University, where she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in Political Science. After graduating, she attended Albany Law School and received her law degree.
She went to practice law for a few years but later became interested in media and submitted a tape to Mr. Ailes for a field reporting job. She was later hired and it was not until she used her law expertise in a story she was working on that she became a powerful person for the news channel. She went on to co-host a morning show, “America’s Newsroom,” and became well known for her segment called “Kelly’s Court.”
In 2010, she went solo and hosted an afternoon news program, “America Live.” She hosted that show until the fall of 2013 when she started hosting her primetime show, “The Kelly File,” which has some of the highest ratings in all of cable news. Its ratings went through the roof when Trump started this feud in August.
The debate was by far the most substantive debate we have seen for the Republicans this election cycle. The moderators asked tough questions and pointed out everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. When I think about this, I think of the segment on immigration when the moderators played video clips of Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. The videos of Mr. Rubio show that he had flip-flopped on amnesty saying he was against it, for it, and now against it. Mr. Cruz introduced an amendment to the bill that would not make citizenship possible for those who were in this country illegally. The bill I’m talking about is the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, also known as the “Gang of Eight” bill. The bill passed the U.S. Senate with strong bi-partisan support, however, the House of Representatives never took up the bill for a vote.
Since this debate was co-sponsored by Google, viewers got to interact with the debate by having an input during commercial breaks. People got to vote on such things on who has the best plan to destroy ISIS, plans for the economy, healthcare, etc. Technology is changing the way we decide who we are going to vote for. We often do not think about how great it is that we get to see what people are saying about candidates from both sides in real time.
Due to one elephant not being in the room, I believe all the candidates had a strong night. Although, if candidates do not do well in the Iowa Caucus then it is time for them to dissolve their campaign and endorse who they think can win the Republican nomination, and ultimately, the general election in November.
I believe Mr. Trump was the loser of this debate. Iowans did not seem too thrilled about not having a leading candidate on stage just before the caucus. Mr. Cruz had an okay night. I would have liked to have seen him embrace his front-runner status a little more. I believe, as well as many others, that Mr. Rubio won the debate despite his hard time explaining his stance on immigration. That is something he needs to work on if he is the Republican nominee in July.
Mr. Trump sent a message loud and clear that he did not care for Iowa or its voters by not participating in the debate. We will see if this costs him a win in Iowa.
