“For CNN to also throw in the towel and announce they’re out of the news business is quite interesting,” he continued. “That means Fox has won the cable news war.”
Fox News chairman Roger Ailes pulled no punches with his cable news rivals during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday, claiming he’s “thrilled” that CNN and MSNBC have now “thrown in the towel” and are “out of the news business.”
The cable news chief — whom The Hollywood Reporter described as “warm and droll for a man often vilified by Hollywood liberals” — still manged to work in a few zingers during the wide-ranging interview. Those who criticized Megyn Kelly’s claim that Santa Claus is white are “pathetic,” Ailes said. “She was joking. She’s talking about Santa Claus, for Christ’s sake,” he claimed. “But the people who are jealous of her, who want to bring down or hurt Fox News, they see an opportunity.”
Ailes also had harsh words for ex-MSNBC’s Alec Baldwin, fired for calling a photographer a gay slur off the air. “He appears to be angry and explosive, so that was essentially bound to happen,” he remarked. “He’s sort of a ready-fire-aim kind of guy as opposed to ready-aim-fire.”
But he had surprisingly kind words for MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “On a personal level, I like her,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt her career, so I won’t say we get along, but I’ve had dialogue with her, and she’s very smart.”
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