If this sounds like a war between Mr. Trump and Fox News, it is an unconventional one. It is not mutually assured destruction; it is mutually beneficial combat.



Handling of Trump Puts Fox on the Spot
By JONATHAN MAHLERAUG. 11, 2015

It started with Megyn Kelly’s interrogation of Donald J. Trump at Thursday night’s debate on Fox News. Mr. Trump wasted no time responding, in less than presidential terms. The network’s chief executive, Roger E. Ailes, intervened, placating Mr. Trump while also defending his star anchor, Ms. Kelly.

If this sounds like a war between Mr. Trump and Fox News, it is an unconventional one. It is not mutually assured destruction; it is mutually beneficial combat.

With his committed and blatant disregard for the rules of politics and public discourse, Mr. Trump has become a runaway train that no one can stop — or stop watching. “The Apprentice” might be over, but “Trump the Campaign” is a 24-hour reality show that even the most sober-minded media outlets ignore at their own risk.

Mr. Trump has single-handedly beaten back the August news doldrums, and no one is benefiting more from his unhinged outbursts and behavior than Fox News. The network’s telecast of the Republican debate, with Mr. Trump occupying center stage, was the highest-rated presidential primary debate ever. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump phoned in to “Fox and Friends,” and on Tuesday night, he sat for a one-on-one interview with Sean Hannity.

Yet as tantalizing as Mr. Trump’s continuing relevance may be for Fox, his improbable candidacy is also more than a little perilous.

To demonstrate its seriousness about vetting the Republican candidates, the network has to subject Mr. Trump to rigorous questioning, as Ms. Kelly did Thursday night. At the same time, Fox cannot afford to alienate Mr. Trump — or, more important, the network’s core audience. Fox News viewers view the channel as an alternative to a media they see as leaning left. If the network pushes too hard against Mr. Trump, it risks being seen as part of the mainstream media, rather than the antidote to it.

In this sense, Fox is facing the same dilemma as the G.O.P. establishment with respect to the party’s current front-runner.

“The big question mark is how sensitive do Republicans have to be about criticizing Trump or about reining Trump in,” said Jonathan Klein, the former president of CNN. “I don’t think anyone knows. There seems to be a lot of confusion about that, and for good reason.”

The question for Fox News comes down to whether to hold Mr. Trump accountable for the things he has said and done, or whether its viewers would prefer to bask in “Trumpism,” at least while it’s ascendant.

Complicating the matter further for Fox News is a history of enmity between Mr. Trump and Rupert Murdoch, the founder of 21st Century Fox, which owns the network. Most recently, Mr. Murdoch criticized the candidate for mocking Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, for being captured by the enemy during the Vietnam War. “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?” Mr. Murdoch wrote on Twitter.

Fox News has been tough on Republican presidential candidates in the past. At a debate in 2011, the network’s Bret Baier put the entire G.O.P. field on the spot, asking the candidates if they would accept a debt-reduction deal in which they would receive $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. (None of the eight candidates said they would.)

During the same campaign, Mr. Baier grilled the Republican front-runner, Mitt Romney, on his Fox show about changing his stance on a wide range of issues, from climate change to gay rights. Mr. Romney later described the interview as “overly aggressive” and “uncalled for.”

But the battle between Mr. Trump and Ms. Kelly has been something else altogether. To begin with, Ms. Kelly was pressing Mr. Trump not on his political positions but on his character, and more specifically his treatment of women.

“You’ve called women you don’t like fat, pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals,” she said during the debate. It seems safe to say that Mr. Trump’s response, in an interview the following night on CNN — that she had “blood coming out of her wherever” when questioning him — brought us into uncharted political waters. (Mr. Trump says his comments were not a reference to menstruation.)

Mr. Trump may still be gaining in the polls — in no small part because of all the attention he is getting from the media — but he has also picked a fight with a formidable opponent in Ms. Kelly.

Even before the debate, Ms. Kelly was the fastest-rising star at the network, twice surpassing the longtime ratings leader, Bill O’Reilly, in the monthly competition for younger viewers. She has been approached by rival networks and could easily find a prominent perch at a less perceptibly partisan outlet. The debate has not only raised her nightly ratings but also added to her growing popularity among a new set of fans. Hillary Rodham Clinton called Ms. Kelly’s performance “incredibly impressive.”

Historically, a compliment from a source like that would have tarnished a Fox News host. “There is always a danger for Fox News when it gets too much praise from the establishment media,” said Tim Graham, the director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group. “It ends up ruffling feathers among the Fox News base.”

But in the context of Mr. Trump’s rise, the rules of engagement may be different. In her broadcast Monday night, Ms. Kelly refused to give in to Mr. Trump’s demand for an apology. In assuming such an aggressive posture toward the Republican front-runner, Ms. Kelly is either expanding the idea of what Fox News can be or bumping up against its ideological constraints.

For now, with such an unusual presidential candidate, it is impossible to know. “I think the Republicans are torn,” Mr. Graham said. “Some of them want interviewers to set fire to Trump’s hair, and others want him to be treated as the potential nominee — don’t destroy him.”

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