Ann Coulter: Trump Is Wise to Walk Out on "Trivial," "Self-Important" Fox News

by Ann Coulter 1/28/2016 7:00am PST

The RNC "decided to add a seventh debate to the schedule, not because six wasn't enough but to throw some advertising money Fox's way," says Coulter.

Republicans have already had six debates — so many debates, in fact, that the moderators finally got around to asking Marco Rubio about the "Gang of 8" amnesty bill, also known as his one legislative accomplishment — at the sixth debate.

What hidden delights are awaiting viewers that haven't already been asked, asked again and then rehashed six times already? (Except perhaps a thrilling follow-up question to Rubio on his sole legislative accomplishment!)

So far, polls show Donald Trump has been the resounding winner of every debate. He's also the only reason these debates are drawing 20 million viewers.

Still, the Republican National Committee decided to add a seventh debate to the schedule, not because six wasn't enough — the Democrats have only had four — but to throw some advertising money Fox's way. And the only reason a debate is worth a lot of money to a network is because Trump is there.

So when Fox issued a smart-ass press release yesterday, Trump walked. He decided to do a charity event for veterans instead — which will have a lot more viewers than any debate sans Trump.

Here is the press release an allegedly professional news organization put out a few days before presiding over a debate this week:

"We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings."

Imagine NBC issuing a press release like that after Republicans complained about the moderators at the CNBC debate! If any other news organization had published such a sophomoric attack on a Republican candidate — any candidate, but especially the candidate who happens to be 1) the frontrunner and 2) responsible for about 15 million of the 20 million debate viewers — all Republicans would be up in arms.

And look who's in the driver's seat now. Fox is desperate to get Trump back, so they pretend they never issued a trivial and self-important press release — while accusing Trump of being trivial and self-important.

They should have thought of that before sending the snippy press release.

He may complain, but Kelly's "war on women" question during the first debate about the un-P.C. remarks Trump has made, gave him the biggest laugh line of that debate ("Only Rosie O'Donnell.") as well as the biggest applause line ("I don't frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn't have time either.").

The problem wasn't the question, per se, but that so many of the questions to Trump were these silly "gotcha" questions, while the other candidates were given softballs.

Consider that the Fox News team actually spent time poring through old reality TV clips for spicy quotes from Trump, but didn't bother to ask Rubio one question about the amnesty bill he pushed through the U.S. Senate just two years earlier — a bill that happens to be detested by Republican voters.

It would be the equivalent of the debate moderators in 1980 fixating on petty Hollywood gossip about Reagan's divorce from Jane Wyman — while neglecting to ask President Carter anything about the Iranian hostage crisis.

Fox News had their opportunity to ask Trump any question they liked at the first debate they moderated. They could have asked him:

- how he'll get our wounded warriors in to see a doctor before the VA kills them with scandalously long waits;
- how he'll end the scourge of illegal immigration;
- how he'll keep America safe from radical Islamic terrorism; or
- how he'll create jobs for the millions of unemployed Americans who have been out of work so long that Obama's Labor Department no longer even counts them as jobless.

No, instead of any of those questions, Trump was asked why he's not nicer to Rosie O'Donnell.

Someone is definitely being trivial and self-important here, but it's not Trump.

By my count, this makes it the 14th time that Trump has shown he has more balls than the other 15 candidates combined. (16? Who cares!)

Every other candidate, in both parties, for decades now, has wanted to do the same thing Trump is doing with this walkout: end this media circus, benefiting no one but the cable networks, and return the debates to substance.

But only Trump did it. Once again, the other candidates look like conventional cookie-cutter politicians, desperate for a pat on the head from Fox News. Only Trump takes principled stands, regardless of the risk to his popularity.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...is-wise-860014