Ron DeSantis and Fox News, Old Friends, Hit Turbulence
When Fox News host Laura Ingraham urged Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday night to “step aside and support Trump,” it was the latest sign of a sharp deterioration in relations between the Republican presidential candidate and the network that made him a star. .
Ms. Ingraham's exhortation, in the wake of Mr. DeSantis' second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, was met with derision and derision from two of the governor's most prominent aides.
“Why would DeSantis seek advice from the opposing campaign?” Christina Pushaw, the campaign's rapid response director, wrote to X, to which Mr. DeSantis' spokesman in the governor's office, Jeremy Redfern, agreed.
“The Fox News PAC,” He wrote.
It was the latest attack from Mr. DeSantis' inner circle against the cable network, which until recently was one of the loudest supporters of his candidacy.
But Mr. DeSantis lashed out last week, accusing Fox News of bias against his rival, former President Donald J. Trump. Speaking to reporters in Iowa, Mr. DeSantis said conservative media, including Fox, had acted as “a Praetorian guard” for Mr. Trump. “They're just not holding him accountable because they're afraid of losing viewers,” Mr. DeSantis said, “and they don't want the ratings to drop.”
The governor's campaign manager denounced Fox as “full Trump TV, honesty thrown overboard.” On caucus night, Ms. Pushaw attacked Fox News for predicting a victory for Mr. Trump just half an hour after Iowans began caucusing. 'Corporate interference in the media during elections' she wrote on X.
Mr. DeSantis' campaign and Fox News declined to comment.
Despite apparent bad feelings toward Fox from some of his aides, the candidate has continued to appear on the network. On the day of his “Praetorian Guard” comments, he appeared on Ms. Ingraham's show. He later sat for interviews with “Fox News Sunday” and Monday's edition of “Fox & Friends.” He taped an informal interview with a Fox correspondent, Alexis McAdams, in New Hampshire on Wednesday, and he will appear on Neil Cavuto's program on Friday.
Still, the dynamic is a far cry from the days when Mr. DeSantis relied on admiring the network's reporting, throwing a softball in Florida with Brian Kilmeade and promoting his memoir in prime time to numerous hosts, including Ms. Ingraham. At the same time, he shunned CNN and the major broadcast networks.
On Thursday, as he fought to save his candidacy heading into the New Hampshire primary, Mr. DeSantis openly regretted that early media strategy and said he should have tried to reach out to news sources outside of Fox News.
“I should have just blanketed, I should have gone to all the company shows, I should have gone to everything,” he said the radio host said Hugh Hewitt. “We had an opportunity, I think, to come out of the gate and do that and reach a much broader population.”
Mr. DeSantis had turned a blind eye to much of Florida's local press as he was on his way to becoming a popular governor of the state. But political experts had long warned that a presidential race, especially against a rival as high-profile as Mr. Trump, could require a wider opening.
“The DeSantis campaign should be studied by future presidential campaigns as a 'how not to' of press relations,” said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist who oversaw Pete Buttigieg's victory in Iowa four years ago. “His unnecessarily hostile attitude toward the press reinforced his weaknesses as a candidate.”
“He was given no mercy,” Ms Smith added. “By the time he changed strategy, it was too late.”
In planning his election campaign, Mr. DeSantis may also have misjudged Mr. Trump's staying power with the Republican electorate.
At the time, the governor enjoyed hours of Fox News coverage while Mr. Trump was virtually banished from the network, an absence that lasted from November 2022 to March 2023. A series of criminal charges thrust Mr. Trump back into the headlines. and helped revive his popularity within the Republican Party.
Mr. DeSantis continued to appear on Fox News, including a one-on-one debate with Governor Gavin Newsom of California in November that drew as many as 5.4 million viewers. But by the time the caucuses began, Mr. Trump was again a regular presence on the channel. When the network hosted Mr. DeSantis for a live town hall-style event in Iowa last week, it aired at 6 p.m.
Mr. Trump's town hall, under the Trump campaign's terms, received star billing in prime time at 9 p.m., opposite a CNN debate in which Mr. DeSantis participated.