In an interview with Marisa Guthrie of The Hollywood Reporter, Fox News boss Roger Ailes played his cards close to the vest on whether Fox will give oxygen to “fringe candidates” on the Republican side who could “torment” Jeb Bush. But he did crack wise that “Hillary is going to do whatever she wants, and the press is going to vote for her.”
As the country enters a presidential campaign season with dynastic implications, Ailes has a dilemma: How much oxygen does he give the fringe GOP candidates who could torment likely frontrunner Jeb Bush and potentially aid Hillary Clinton in the process. It's not a question he answers directly. "I just don't think I should weigh in on it, even in the press because people will think, 'Well, that's the way he's making the network go.' But it looks like Hillary is going to do whatever she wants," he says, "and the press is going to vote for her."
Guthrie clearly was putting Sen. Ted Cruz on the “fringe” in her mind:
Asked if he thinks Ted Cruz, the intransigent Texas tea party candidate, has a chance of securing the GOP nomination, Ailes deflects: "Listen, we elected Warren G. Harding. Anybody has a chance. You don't know who you're going to be running against. If the other guy falls on his rear end, you could win."
Social conservatives might raise their eyebrows when Guthrie brought up Fox News contributor Ellen Ratner, a liberal lesbian with a partner who's a retired Air Force pilot. Ailes demonstrated the libertarian streak that Fox News also generally takes on the LGBT agenda:
She has promoted gay rights on our air. She's a sweet woman, and her partner is a f—ing bomber pilot. So I don't care. It's not my business how people live. I don't try to tell them what to do. I've hired and promoted gays all my life. I just don't get involved. It's not my business. And it's not their business what I like.
Now 74, Ailes is only under contract through 2016, so Guthrie imagined out loud what Fox would be without the Ailes touch:
Perhaps the better question is, what would Fox News be without Ailes?
"It's his creation. He built it," says CBS News president David Rhodes, who got his start as a production assistant at Fox News in 1996. "I'm not sure anyone else can run it."
Ailes always has been in the trenches, and that hasn't changed. He's known to call the control room if he sees his anchors straying into territory over which he objects. "I say, 'Tell them to cut this s--t out, but don't tell them I called because that will raise the level too high.' " He participates in the 8 a.m. executive meeting (usually by phone), makes all programming decisions and sometimes even negotiates directly with talent (Megyn Kelly, who is a lawyer, negotiates her own contracts directly with Ailes).
"I tell him he needs to work less," says anchor Shepard Smith. "Go be with his kid and take time off. That's not Roger's way. I don't know what else he can accomplish. He's done everything there is to do. He's got this place pretty damn well-built. It's not as if there will be problems. But like no other place I've ever worked, it's all about him. Everything you see and feel about, it is from him. The truth is, he loves this place."
Bill O'Reilly won't even speculate on Fox News without Ailes. "I have no idea how the network would shake out if he wasn't here."
Speaking of O’Reilly, Shepard Smith touted his “News Desk” that Ailes built him (after cutting his hour in prime time to make room for Greta van Susteren) and worked in a little dig at Bill: "We're paying a lot of people in case something happens. It's an enormous commitment, and nobody else is making it. But those things don't get talked about. What gets talked about is O'Reilly bloviating about something."
This segment was also interesting:
Fox News has 19 liberals on the payroll, though they're often dismissed as straw men. When I put this to Juan Williams, a veteran commentator who wrote a well-regarded biography of Thurgood Marshall, he laughs. "Can you get a witness? I'm a witness.
"Clearly the audience likes the kind of tilt that exists [at Fox News]," he says. "But they're not stupid. They want to hear a real, honest conversation. I am allowed to make substantial, critical arguments. And that never gets stepped on."
Williams, in fact, has known Ailes since 1984, when Williams was covering the White House for the Washington Post and Ailes was a campaign advisor for Ronald Reagan.
"Part of the struggle of being a skinny black kid with an afro covering the Reagan White House is that a lot of people [there] basically thought I was the enemy. Ailes' response to me was, 'You're an underdog in this situation, aren't you? I got your back; I'm going to help you.' And he became a key source for me."
