On Brian Kilmeade’s radio show Tuesday, Rick Santorum listed Mitt Romney’s advantages in the GOP primary, among them being favoritism from Fox News.
Via The Hill:
“He’s had a ten-to-one money advantage. He’s had all the organizational advantages. He has Fox News shilling for him every day, no offense Brian, but I see it. And yet, he can’t seal the deal because he just doesn’t have the goods to be able to motivate the Republican base to win this election.”
Kilmeade, who is also a co-host on the network’s “Fox & Friends,” pushed back against the charge. “On Fox News shilling for Mitt Romney 24 hours a day, I totally disagree with that,” Kilmeade said.
From there, a heated debate ensued:
Kilmeade: “No, you can feel the way you want, I’m just telling you, there’s no way I agree with that, and you’ve been on as much as anyone …”
Santorum: “I can tell you, we watch the coverage there, and look, you guys are allowed to cover what you want to cover — I can tell you we want to make sure a conservative is nominated, and we’re going to go out there and nominate on mathematics, we’re not going to focus on the process — ”
Kilmeade: “You don’t want us to add up delegates?”
Santorum: “We want to focus on the issues that are going to help us win, and that’s what our campaign is going to be about.”
Kilmeade: “I will say this, Mitt Romney’s people respond when we request, and we’ve been requesting you on this show for three months minimum, and we’ve gotten nothing but, ‘Yeah, we’ll see,’ which blows me away.”
Santorum has argued separately that the media is on Romney’s side because he is a weak candidate, and they want President Obama to win. He told Kilmeade he would talk to his staff about appearing more frequently on his show.
