Limbaugh scorches
Fox News in debate dispute with Trump, Rush: Network 'acting as if they had been jilted at the altar',
by Joe Kovacs, 1/27/16
In the wake of Donald Trump’s refusal to be part of Thursday night’s Republican
presidential debate on the Fox News Channel, radio host Rush Limbaugh says the
popular cable network is acting like a bride whose groom had just fled the church
on their wedding day. “Fox News was acting as if they had been jilted at the
altar,” Limbaugh said on his national broadcast Wednesday. “Donald Trump knows that by not showing up,
he’s owning the entire event. Some guy not even present will end up owning the
entire event. And the proof of that is Fox News last night.”
The network went into
spin mode, with analysts discussing what a mistake it was for Trump to not
participate in the debate. Limbaugh felt Fox’s reaction was astonishing. “Don’t devote the rest
of the night to how a candidate’s not showing up because of you, I mean the
network,” he said. “It’s very hard for me to say here. I’m stunned watching
this because everybody that’s involved has to know this is exactly one of the
things Trump is hoping to achieve.”
The radio host portrayed
Trump as an “outsider” who has never played by the rules of the game
established by the news media. “He’s outside the game. He’s breaking all the
rules. He’s exposing so much as fraud that has gone on inside the American
political process for so long,” Limbaugh explained.
And though the so-called
rules of the media’s game suggest a candidate has to appear on their airwaves,
Trump is not bowing down and paying homage to the powers that be.
“‘Screw the rules,’ he’s
saying,” Limbaugh said of Trump. “‘Why should I willingly give them another
shot at me? In a circumstance they control, why should I do it? What’s the
sense in it for me? I’m leading. I’m running the pack here. Why in the world
should I put myself in that circumstance? I’ve already seen what’s gonna
happen.'”
In response to
allegations that Trump is afraid of Megyn Kelly or the entire Fox News
conglomerate, Limbaugh said, “That is not what this is. There isn’t any fear.
What there is here, in my opinion, is a desire to control this and a purposeful
decision to not put himself in a circumstance where other people want to make
him look bad.”
He continued: “This is
what it looks like when some guy stands up to rules in the game and says,
‘Screw yours. I’m looking out for me first. … You can say whatever you want but
I am not dumb. I’m not gonna give you the gun and the bullet and stand still. You
wanna hit me? Come get me. But I’m not gonna put myself in your line of fire.” Limbaugh
made no bones about portraying Fox News and the rest of the news media as the
bad guys in this game of power:
“The media run this
game. The media are never to blame for anything that goes wrong. They have
total immunity where this all is concerned. The media in their minds and the
way everybody plays the game, you have to go through the media to get where you
want to go if you are in politics. You have to, and you have to bite your lip
along the way. And if you don’t, then you have made a perpetual enemy of people
as goes the saying, who buy ink by the barrel.”
Limbaugh channeled
Trump’s likely thoughts on how the Republican front-runner is dealing with the
princes of the airwaves, saying: “Who says I have to go through you?
Who says I have to look good according to what you say? Who says
I have to get to the American people through you? Why can’t I
just do my own event?
Buy my own microphone,
my own camera, my own time, and talk to the American people without you. It
seems to me a lot more efficient and more importantly, I control it. And I
don’t have to deal with people maybe misrepresenting me or putting me in a bad
light.”
Limbaugh added, “The
other players in the game who have always abided by these rules are shocked and
dismayed that somebody would mock the game this way.” Trump said Tuesday the
final straw was Fox News’ response to his threat to sit out the debate, as WND
reported.
A network spokesperson
mocked Trump to several media outlets, saying: “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 those meetings,” the statement read.
Trump fumed over those
remarks at the Tuesday news conference, calling it a “wise-guy press release”
that appeared to be “written by a child,” and he accused Fox News chairman and
CEO Roger Ailes of “playing games.”
“I didn’t like the fact
that they sent out press releases toying, talking about Putin and playing
games,” Trump said. “I don’t know what games Roger Ailes is playing or what’s
wrong over there. But when they sent out that press release talking about it –
I said what are these people, playing games? So most likely I won’t be doing
the debate.” The Trump campaign said that when Donald saw the statement, his
reply was, “Bye bye.”
Trump isn’t the first
top-tier presidential candidate to skip a debate. Ronald Reagan did not attend
a Republican debate ahead of the 1980 Iowa caucuses, which he lost to George
H.W. Bush. Reagan went on to the win the nomination and the presidency in a
landslide.
http://www.wnd.com/2016/01/limbaugh-scorches-fox-in-debate-dispute-with-trump/
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