With Ailes likely behind the tough line of questioning toward Trump, it shows he might not be as on board with a Trump nomination as many of his anchors, who’ve covered Trump favorably to date-have been.
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The other Republican to watch this morning: Carly Fiorina, who’ll lead on Wallace’s program and appear on “State of the Union” and “Face the Nation”.
Trump also got the boot from the RedState Gathering.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio defended Kelly on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, but said he won’t comment on what Trump said because if he weighed in every time the real estate mogul made a controversial remark, “my whole campaign will be consumed by it”.
Trump was promptly dumped from a keynote speaking role on Saturday night in Atlanta at an important gathering of conservative activists put together by the RedState organization.
Trump’s comments didn’t sit well with RedState.com editor-in-chief Erick Erickson.
Politico reported that people close to Stone had told them he was quitting the campaign hours before Trump’s announcement. In a statement, Trump’s camp wrote that “only a deviant would think anything else”. He later issued a statement saying he had misspoken and was referring only to the “hard-to-fathom $500 million in federal funding” for Planned Parenthood. From Jeb Bush and Ben Carson to Chris Christie, Republicans have often postured themselves as the truth-telling alternative to PC liberals who won’t just say it like it is, even when the “truth” in question is dubious. “I want to help women”.
“She hit it out of the ballpark”, said Penny Nance, the president and CEO of Conservative Women for America, a Republican advocacy group.
As for Donald Trump, his camp responded to the revoked invitation with as much grace and civility as has been typical of his camp during this presidential run.
A Fox spokeswoman said Kelly and her boss, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, have no comment on Trump’s “blood” remarks.
“I think women of all kinds are really sort of horrified by this”, she told CBS, saying there is a difference between being politically incorrect and “hurling personal insults at all kinds of people”. You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her… wherever. “Little @MacMiller, I’m now going to teach you a big boy lesson about lawsuits and finance”. But it once again says more about Fox’s calculus for the evening and our own low expectations than it does about Trump himself. “I wish her well”. She was very angry. I think we kind of rumbled last night. “I might not, to be honest”, he said. “It’s not common decency to accuse a reporter of being, well, on her menstrual cycle because she asked him a tough question”. He asked the candidates to pledge, by raising their hands, not to launch an independent campaign if they lost the Republican party. “The G.O.P. needs to fight for women votes because it believes our policies are better for women”, Republican consultant Margaret Hoover told the Times.
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“I have many women who work for me”.
