Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich thinks the on-again, off-again feud between Fox News and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is something of a staged event that is helping both parties.
“I think it’s a game,” Gingrich said in an interview with the Washington Examiner media desk on Tuesday. “Their ratings go up, his poll numbers go up. They’re both having fun.”
Trump has engaged in a mild fight with Fox ever since the network hosted the first GOP presidential debate in August. At the time, Trump was confronted by Fox anchor Megyn Kelly for past disparaging comments he had made about women. Trump said the line of unquestioning was unfair.
After Trump fired a series of insults at Kelly on social media and in other news interviews, Trump and Fox had a brief falling out and the real estate developer did not appear on the network for several days.
Thereafter, the two appeared to mend the relationship after Fox CEO Roger Ailes and Trump reportedly spoke by phone, only to have Trump resume attacks on Kelly.
Last week, Trump wrote on social media that he was boycotting Fox over unfavorable coverage, a protest that is supposed to end Tuesday night with an interivew on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor.”
“You’ve got people getting into an argument about it,” said Gingrich, who once was a Fox contributor. “I don’t think it hurts anybody. And, frankly, you have so many people watching that first debate that there’s an enormous windfall for Fox.”
Gingrich was in Washington, D.C., to celebrate a merger between public affairs firms McKenna Long & Aldridge and Dentons, where he is now an associate.
