Roger Ailes has responded to Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on star anchor Megyn Kelly, calling the GOP frontrunner’s latest round of critical tweets “disturbing,” “crude” and “unacceptable.”
“Donald Trump’s surprise and unprovoked attack on Megyn Kelly during her show last night is as unacceptable as it is disturbing,” the network chairman said in a statement.
“Megyn Kelly represents the very best of American journalism and all of us at FOX News Channel reject the crude and irresponsible attempts to suggest otherwise. I could not be more proud of Megyn for her professionalism and class in the face of all of Mr. Trump’s verbal assaults.”
Aides continued in his praise of Kelly’s journalism: “Her questioning of Mr. Trump at the debate was tough but fair, and I fully support her as she continues to ask the probing and challenging questions that all presidential candidates may find difficult to answer.”
The Fox News chief, who agreed to a ceasefire with Trump after his first round of Kelly bashing following the GOP presidential debate, called on Trump to apologize.
“Donald Trump rarely apologizes, although in this case, he should,” Ailes said. “We have never been deterred by politicians or anyone else attacking us for doing our job, much less allowed ourselves to be bullied by anyone and we’re certainly not going to start now. All of our journalists will continue to report in the fair and balanced way that has made FOX News Channel the number one news network in the industry.”
His statement comes after Fox News unleashed a variety of its anchors to fire back at Trump on air and on social media — a counter-assault that is now being covered by Fox News rivals CNN and MSNBC.
Trump sparked the strong response after criticizing Kelly on Monday night while she was on air, saying her show was better while she was on vacation and retweeting tweets which called her a bimbo.
And the plot thickens…