Tonight, Donald Trump’s months-long war with Fox News entered a chaotic and — for both sides — perilous new phase when Trump called Roger Ailes’s bluff and announced he was boycotting Fox’s debate to protest Megyn Kelly's aggressive coverage of his campaign. Instead, Trump said he would host his own Iowa town hall to raise money for veterans and let other networks cover it.
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For Ailes, the risks are less immediate, but potentially as consequential to maintaining his power. No matter how loudly GOP candidates complained about Fox’s loutish politics in private, none risked taking Ailes on in public for fear of losing access to this crucial constituency — until Trump, that is. Even if Trump's boycott backfires, he's already achieved a historic victory: exploding the myth that a Republican candidate can't openly challenge Fox.