Trump Claims He Has Info That Would Destroy Ailes and Fox News

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, seen in reflection, poses for a portrait following an interview with the Associated Press at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Trump’s tentative relationship with Fox News has been the topic of much discussion across the conservasphere. Many argue over whether the “fair and balanced” network, that gives Trump more airtime than any other candidate, loves or hates him. Indeed, the network seems to be unable to take the camera off of him for too long, despite there being rivals within the network.

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There’s speculation as to why, but this recent excerpt from Sunday’s New York Magazine article on Trump’s unorthodox campaign will likely add fuel to an already raging fire.

According to writer, Gabriel Sherman, Trump did some intelligence gathering prior to the election that helped his shape his campaign strategy. One of the bits of intelligence he stumbled upon, came to him in 2014, when Sherman published a book on Fox News CEO, Roger Ailes. The biography upset Ailes, and as a result, he fired his PR advisor, Brian Lewis, as Ailes believed that Lewis was the Sherman’s leak.

Lewis hired a “powerhouse” litigator by the name of Judd Bernstein, and claimed that he had information on Ailes that would destroy he and Fox News. As Sherman writes, “that’s when Trump got involved.”

““When Roger was having problems, he didn’t call 97 people, he called me,” Trump said. Burstein, it turned out, had worked for Trump briefly in the ’90s, and Ailes asked Trump to mediate. Trump ran the negotiations out of his office at Trump Tower. “Roger had lawyers, very expensive lawyers, and they couldn’t do anything. I solved the problem.” Fox paid Lewis millions to go away quietly, and Trump, I’m told, learned everything Lewis had planned to leak. If Ailes ever truly went to war against Trump, Trump would have the arsenal to launch a retaliatory strike.”

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Whether Ailes is subject to Trump’s whim on dropping said knowledge, and their friendship is more out of fear than mutual respect, or not, many may take this news as a large reason Trump is seeing so much favorability by the network.

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