Fox News chairman Roger Ailes plans to meet with Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump next week to iron out their “differences of opinion” about the network’s coverage of the real estate mogul’s campaign.
A Fox News spokesperson said Thursday in a statement to TPM:
“Fox News Chairman & CEO Roger Ailes and Donald Trump spoke this morning and plan to have a meeting next week to discuss their differences of opinion regarding Fox’s coverage of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. Ailes will be joined by senior Fox editorial executives. Mr. Trump believes he has been treated unfairly in certain instances. FOX News has held every candidate in this race to the highest journalistic standards throughout our coverage. We believe a candid meeting about our differences is required and that any misunderstandings can be handled without compromising those standards.”
The meeting could lead to what would be a third truce between the bombastic candidate and Fox News, which he has criticized as being unfair to his campaign. For that reason, Trump said Wednesday that he decided to boycott the network; Fox News maintains that it canceled the billionaire’s planned appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor” before he announced that boycott.
The treatment Trump considers unfair dates back to the first Republican presidential debate in August, when moderator and Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly asked him about his history of making derogatory statements about women. Trump and Ailes since have cleared the air publicly—twice—in disagreements about Kelly and the network’s treatment of Trump’s campaign.
This post has been updated.
