Quotes About Ailes

I didn't give up my citizenship to create and run a news organization.

The environment at Fox has been very supportive for Mr. Ailes.

Everyone knew how powerful Roger Ailes was. I certainly felt intimidated by that; the culture of 'Fox and Friends' was intimidating to me.

Roger Ailes's effect on politics was much longer-lasting than Richard Nixon's, even though Nixon was elected president twice.

Ailes built a Kingdom of Yes. That was his genius. He understood the id of many white conservatives - their sense of constant persecution and victimization; and their existential fears of an America whose racial makeup, sexual mores and gender roles were careening in the opposite direction of the country of their childhood.

After all, Ailes was perhaps the person most responsible for unleashing the angry-man currents of Trump's victory: he had invented the right-wing media that delighted in the Trump character.

Ailes had a suggestion: "Speaker Boehner." (John Boehner had been the Speaker of the House until he was forced out in a Tea Party putsch in 2011.) "Who's that?" asked Trump.

But Ailes was convinced that Trump had no political beliefs or backbone. The fact that Trump had become the ultimate avatar of Fox's angry common man was another sign that we were living in an upside-down world. The joke was on somebody—and Ailes thought it might be on him.

What has he gotten himself into with the Russians?" pressed Ailes. "Mostly," said Bannon, "he went to Russia and he thought he was going to meet Putin. But Putin couldn't give a shit about him. So he's kept trying." "He's Donald," said Ailes. "It's a magnificent thing," said Bannon, who had taken to regarding Trump as something like a natural wonder, beyond explanation.

Donald Trump was a step up—and early in the 2016 race, Trump became the Breitbart totem. (Many of Trump's positions in the campaign were taken from the Breitbart articles he had printed out for him.) Indeed, Bannon began to suggest to people that he, like Ailes had been at Fox, was the true force behind his chosen candidate.

Many of Trump's positions in the campaign were taken from the Breitbart articles he had printed out for him.) Indeed, Bannon began to suggest to people that he, like Ailes had been at Fox, was the true force behind his chosen candidate.

Operatives knew the game, and so did most candidates and officeholders. But Ailes was pretty sure Trump did not.Trump was undisciplined—he had no capacity for any game plan. He could not be a part of any organization, nor was he likely to subscribe to any program or principle. In Ailes's view, he was "a rebel without a cause." He was simply "Donald"—as though nothing more need be said.

But Ailes was convinced that Trump had no political beliefs or backbone.

Bannon said he'd tried to push John Bolton, the famously hawkish diplomat, for the job as national security advisor. Bolton was an Ailes favorite, too. "He's a bomb thrower," said Ailes. "And a strange little fucker. But you need him.