“If in 96 days Trump loses this election, I am pointing the finger directly at people like [House Speaker] Paul Ryan and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and John McCain and John Kasich and Ted Cruz — if he won’t endorse — and Jeb Bush and everybody else that made promises they’re not keeping,” Hannity exclaimed, later threatening to endorse Ryan’s far-right primary challenger.
.. In fact, throughout the election season, it has appeared that Republicans have fielded more attacks from their supposed friends on the right than their political opponents on the left.
.. “The analogy that I think of is somebody who has a baby alligator in their bathtub and they keep feeding it and taking care of it,” said Charlie Sykes, a popular conservative talk show host in Wisconsin. “And it’s really cute when it’s a baby alligator — until it becomes a grown-up alligator and comes out and starts biting you.”
.. three key forces: Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Matt Drudge.
.. Simultaneously, the conservative news media sought to lock in its audience by characterizing the mainstream press as an industry comprising dishonest liberals — something with which the GOP was more than happy to go along.
.. “What it became, essentially, was they were preaching this is the only place you can get news. This is the only place you can trust. All other media outlets are lying to you. So you need to come to us,”
.. To avoid being called a RINO (Republican in name only), a Republican would have to take a hardline conservative position on nearly every issue. If, say, they were to hold conservative positions on 90% of the issues, the conservative press would focus on the 10% where there was disagreement.
.. only one candidate could be conservative enough to support for president: Cruz.
.. But something went awry. The most aggressive right-wing members of the conservative press — the members who constantly lambasted certain Republicans for not toeing the hard-right line on every issue — got behind perhaps the most unlikely candidate of all: Donald Trump.
.. “We have reached the bizarro-world point where, for all intents and purposes, conservatives are RINOs,” said John Ziegler, a nationally syndicated conservative talk show host who called Andrew Breitbart a friend. “There is no place now for real conservatives. We’ve also reached the point, I say, we’ve left the gravitational pull of the rational Earth, where we are now in a situation where facts don’t matter, truth doesn’t matter, logic doesn’t matter.”
.. “You look at someone who a few cycles might have been derided as a right-wing lunatic, now they aren’t conservative enough,”
.. he believed some conservative pundits were “just drawn to Trump’s style more than policies.”
.. “I think that some of them just like Trump and were willing to cut him some slack on his shifting of positions because he’s a fighter and they like that,”
.. Ratings may have also played a role, according to conservative talkers who refused to jump aboard the Trump train.
.. Hannity in particular has faced criticism from some colleagues in the conservative-media sphere who allege he has been too cozy with Trump. Ziegler, the conservative radio host, said there’s “there’s no question” a “monetary element” drove coverage overall.
.. “Hannity is desperate for every ratings crumb on the Fox News Channel. … It’s all about ratings,” he said. “Hannity is not particularly talented, he’s not a smart guy — he used to just be a Republican talking points talk show host who happened to be in the right place at the right time. So he’s very vulnerable at any time.
.. while there are other outlets that belong to the conservative media apparatus, they lack the influence of the hard right. The National Review or Weekly Standard might earn the eyeballs of elites in Washington, but those in the heartland seem to prefer the style of the more aggressive pro-Trump outlets.
.. That has left conservatives who oppose Trump in a tricky position when trying to get their message to supporters. No longer can Ryan or Cruz turn to Hannity for a softball interview. They can’t work with Breitbart or rely on Drudge to help with their legislative agenda.
These Republicans have effectively been exiled from the conservative news media
.. “We have taught conservatives for many years to trust nothing other than what they hear in conservative media. Yet the conservative media has now proven to be untrustworthy.”
.. it had become impossible to prove to listeners that Trump was telling falsehoods because over the past several decades, the conservative news media had “basically eliminated any of the referees, the gatekeepers.”
.. if you don’t accept that it’s likely Hillary Clinton has taken part in multiple murders, or that Barack Obama is a Muslim extremist sympathizer who was probably born outside this country — if you don’t accept those two things, it’s almost as if you’re a sellout. You’re a RINO. You’re somehow part of the liberal elite.
.. if a story comes out, and it’s not on Breitbart or endorsed by Drudge, it can’t be true
.. “We’ve created this monster.”
.. All conservative hosts have basically established their brand as being contrasted to the mainstream media. So we have spent 20 years demonizing the liberal mainstream media.
.. “I think the conservative media is the worst thing that has ever happened to the Republican Party on a national level,”
.. if you look at the presidential elections before Rush Limbaugh became nationally syndicated, I believe Republicans won five out of six,” he said. “After Rush Limbaugh became truly nationally syndicated … if you start in 1996 and what I anticipate will happen in 2016, Republicans will have lost five of the seven presidential elections once he became syndicated.”
.. The conservative establishment that needs to be gotten rid of is the conservative media establishment. Sean Hannity needs to go. Bill O’Reilly needs to go. Sadly, Rush Limbaugh needs to go,” he said.
Sexual Harassment Training With Roger Ailes
Those who win a settlement often get around $30,000. So the rare women who come forward are usually left with nothing to show for it, and employers get the message that it’s cheaper to feign ignorance or sweep complaints away. On top of that, the E.E.O.C. has found that there is no solid evidence that employers’ harassment trainings do anything to help.
.. The investigation is now reportedly moving on to look at who at Fox knew what and when about Mr. Ailes’s behavior, which could lead to more departures, although Bill Shine, named in Ms. Tantaros’s suit as an abettor of the harassment, just got picked as one of the people to replace Mr. Ailes.
.. After the Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump — who has faced accusations of sexual harassment — was asked how he would react if someone treated his daughter Ivanka the way Mr. Ailes supposedly treated these women, he said he hoped “she would find another career or find another company.”
Then Mr. Trump’s son and Ivanka’s brother Eric Trump took things further. “Ivanka is a strong, powerful woman,” he said. “I don’t think she would allow herself to be subjected to that.”
Andrea Tantaros of Fox News Claims Retaliation for Sex Harassment Complaints
“Fox News masquerades as a defender of traditional family values, but behind the scenes, it operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny,” Ms. Tantaros’s suit says.
.. “Fox News masquerades as a defender of traditional family values, but behind the scenes, it operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny,” Ms. Tantaros’s suit says.
Sean Hannity Turns Adviser in the Service of Donald Trump
one person in the mix brings more than just his political advice. He also happens to control an hour of prime time on the Fox News Channel.
That person is Sean Hannity.
Mr. Hannity uses his show on the nation’s most-watched cable news network to blare Mr. Trump’s message relentlessly — giving Mr. Trump the kind of promotional television exposure even a billionaire can’t afford for long.
.. So there was Mr. Hannity last week, devoting one of his shows to a town hall-style meeting with Mr. Trump at which his (leading) questions often contained extensive Trumpian talking points — including the debunked claim that Mr. Trump opposed the Iraq invasion.
.. he has lent his prime-time platform to wild, unsubstantiated accusations that Hillary Clinton is hiding severe health problems.
.. A simple call to the Secret Service spokeswoman Nicole Mainor, as I made on Friday, would have resulted in the answer that the “syringe” was actually a small flashlight.
.. People in Mr. Hannity’s audience of 2.5 million who are inclined to believe the health allegations, and who believe the mainstream media are covering for Mrs. Clinton, are unlikely to be impressed by the Secret Service’s explanation.
That’s the ultimate result of the hyperpoliticized approach Mr. Hannity and so many others use in today’s more stridently ideological media: A fact is dismissed as false when it doesn’t fit the preferred political narrative.
.. the last two weeks have signaled the start of a possible reckoning within the conservative media.
.. The Wall Street Journal’s deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens, who, after trading insults with Mr. Hannity over Mr. Trump, said on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe” that “too much of the Republican Party became an echo chamber of itself.”
.. Those who spend an inordinate amount of time “listening to certain cable shows” and inhaling the conspiracy theories promoted on “certain fringes of the internet,’’ he said, wind up in a debate that’s “divorced from reality.”
.. Dana Perino, a host of “The Five,” refused to go along with a colleague’s attempt to dispute the many polls showing Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump.
.. After Fox News executives shared with Mr. Hannity and others the full details of the allegations, which Mr. Ailes denies, the talk of a walkout ended.