Fox News head Roger Ailes might have been fired from the network he built, but that just means he has another $40 million and a whole lot of free time on his hands. He's using it to help Donald Trump.
In recent weeks, Ailes has become one of the most influential voices in the room as Trump prepares for his first head-to-head matchup with Hillary Clinton, on September 26. Ailes has attended at least two of Trump's Sunday debate prep sessions in person, sources said, and talks with Trump by phone multiple times a week.
We can presume from this that "Why don't you twirl for me, baby" will be one of Trump's new go-to debate lines.
Ailes is an old hand at Republican debate prep, having served in similar capacities for multiple past candidates. He also has an inside track into the third and most crucial debate moderator, Fox News host Chris Wallace, who stuck up for the longtime perv during the perv's darkest days.
[T]he fact that the man moderating the third debate is a self-described friend and admirer of Ailes, who in turn is helping Trump on debate prep, strikes some Clinton insiders as problematic. They worry that Ailes' familiarity with Wallace's style and methods will allow him to give Trump an edge over Clinton in preparation.
Eh ... I don't know that that's a real concern, to be honest. Wallace's style and methods are known to anyone willing to suffer through videotapes of his past interviews, and both campaigns—or at least the competent one—will have an intern tasked with doing exactly that.
The more interesting question to me is whether even Roger Ailes can tweak Trump's infamous inability to stay on topic into some momentary semblance of competence. Based on all available evidence so far, that seems exceedingly unlikely. Then again, if the "debates" are anything like the NBC candidate "forum" we were just subjected to, with the host pressing Clinton for 15 minutes about the optics of her emails before moving on to asking Donald Trump the foreign policy equivalent of if you were ice cream what flavor would you be, he may not need to appear competent. Roger Ailes may be devoting most of his attention to ensuring his candidate remembers to wear pants that night.