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| Marco Rubio with Benefactor Norman Braman behind his Right Shoulder |
New York Magazine reports:
"In his role as the donor class's darling, Marco Rubio has enjoyed support from the Republicans' media arm, Fox News. Throughout the primary, Fox provided Rubio with friendly interviews and key bookings, including the first prime-time response to Barack Obama's Oval Office address on ISIS. Many of the network's top pundits, including Stephen Hayes and Charles Krauthammer, have been enthusiastic boosters. Bill Sammon, Fox's Washington managing editor, is the father of Rubio's communications director, Brooke Sammon.
But this alliance now seems to be over. According to three Fox sources, Fox chief Roger Ailes has told people he's lost confidence in Rubio's ability to win. "We're finished with Rubio," Ailes recently told a Fox host. "We can't do the Rubio thing anymore."
So what's the "unfair and unbalanced" news network to do? And, Rubio?
Ailes was already concerned about Rubio's lackluster performance in GOP primaries and caucuses, winning only one contest among the 15 that have been held. But the more proximate cause for the flip was an embarrassing New York Times article revealing that Rubio and Ailes had a secret dinner meeting in 2013 during which the Florida senator successfully lobbied the Fox News chief to throw his support behind the "Gang of 8" comprehensive immigration-reform bill. "Roger hates seeing his name in print," a longtime Ailes associate told me. "He was appalled the dinner was reported," the source said.
Already, there are on-air signs that Fox's attitude toward Rubio has cooled. This morning, anchor Martha MacCallum grilled Rubio about his poor Super Tuesday performance. "Is that a viable excuse at this point?" she asked, when he tried spinning his second-place finish in Virginia.
Fox's corporate support of Rubio has also been a growing source of tension with the network's more conservative talent. Sean Hannity was furious that the Times article reported how he went along with Rubio's immigration proposal. During an interview with Trump on Monday, Hannity barely defended Fox while Trump trashed Rubio backers like Hayes. "He shouldn't be on the air," Trump said. The best Hannity could muster was to change the subject. "Have you ever watched MSNBC?" he said. "They suck."
Ailes is now back to searching for a candidate the channel can rally behind. "He's thinking, What do we do about the whole damn thing?" one of the news executive's friends said. Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti did not return a call for comment.
No one in the GOP hierarchy or Fox, its media arm, anticipated Donald Trump could scramble the established order more thoroughly than any Democrat could ever aspire to do. For Trump, March 15th could be the 18th hole of the Republican primary competition.
8 comments:
Miami herald endorsed Rubio today.
Note how it never occurs to Fox that they could just report news instead of trying to make it.
Never underestimate the Herald's ability to be irrelevant. It should have used the opportunity to slam the entire gop'er party for embracing such dangerous right wing extremism from top to bottom.
Really excellent comment.
Maybe Marco will get a job in education when he is done. For now he has Fresen's vote.
Erik Fresen @ErikFresenFL
My family & I proudly offer our support and endorsement to our long time friend, D#114 resident & Miami brother @marcorubio for President!
Rubio I the best we have this year. The has my vote
The Miami Herald hasn't been relevant in decades. Their endorsement of Rubio is appalling and won't affect a single voter's opinion of who to vote for. Perhaps the Herald is in bed with Big Sugar? Perhaps the Herald is in favor of polluted Lake Okeechobee waters being dumped down rivers to both coasts killing all kinds of aquatic life, fish and mammals? When I think of Rubio I envision all the environmental damage that he ignores because of all the Big Sugar political contributions. When I think of climate change and the rising sea water that will destroy this county and most of South Florida in less than a century I think of a big rock that must be in Rubio's head because he doesn't care one iota about the topic. Many thanks to the Herald's management and editorial team for endorsing such a slimeball who is only Senator because of Big Sugar's backing. The awful endorsement reveals the Herald's true character and the reason why respect for the Herald is so low and why their circulation is the pits compared to decades ago.
He lost ALL the men with little hands. . .
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