Good news, everybody: Fox News chairman Roger Ailes and top-shelf bottle of pure distilled Republican essence Donald Trump have made up. Ailes called Trump on Monday to clear the air, and the net result is that Donald Trump has decided he will continue to grace Ailes's various so-called news shows with his presence, despite being asked rude and not-at-all-classy questions
in the Fox-hosted debate.
“Donald Trump and I spoke today,” Ailes said in a statement released by the network Monday night. “We discussed our concerns, and I again expressed my confidence in Megyn Kelly. She is a brilliant journalist and I support her 100 percent. I assured him that we will continue to cover this campaign with fairness & balance. We had a blunt but cordial conversation and the air has been cleared.”
This is good news for both parties, because money. The first debate was the most-watched primary debate in history; Trump's presidential run is, for Ailes, a money-making machine. And despite Trump's bluster he can't afford to unilaterally boycott the network with the hands-down largest audience of dumb and conspiracy-minded Americans, the exact sort of low-information, always-angry voters Trump seeks as his base. If it weren't for the idiot box none of those people would even know who Donald Trump
was.
So the de-escalation is, in the end, expected. It was big of Ailes to be the one to make the call, since there's no way in hell Donald Trump was going to.