From the August 16 edition of CNN's Wolf:
CNN's Byers: Trump Campaign's Denial Of Working With Roger Ailes “Seems Like Too Much Of A Full-Throated Denial” Based On Reports
Dylan Byers: Trump Finds Roger Ailes' Advice “Invaluable”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
Video file
BRIANNA KEILAR (HOST): What do you know, Dylan, about the role that [Roger] Ailes will play?
DYLAN BYERS: Sure, Brianna, what we know is that Roger Ailes who was ousted from Fox News amid sexual harassment allegations is now talking with Donald Trump. The two have been in discussions, the two talk frequently and of course the great thing on the horizon for Donald Trump and his campaign is of course those three presidential debates which are going to take place in September and October. If you know Roger Ailes, Roger Ailes is someone who has advised presidential candidates in their debates going back to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, the first George H. W. Bush, and so of course this is something in which he brings a great deal of expertise. The two of them talk frequently, have talked frequently, since even before Roger Ailes left Fox News and so of course what they are discussing is debate prep. Now I want to be very clear, formal debate prep has not started for Donald Trump and the Trump campaign issued a very forceful denial of this report which originally appeared in the The New York Times. That denial if I can just read it to you now, “This is not accurate, he is not advising Mr. Donald Trump or helping with debate prep. They are longtime friends, but he has no formal or informal role in the campaign.” I think what we can say confidently is that there is a sort of gray matter there, where the two are are talking, they are discussing the upcoming debates and I do think Mr. Trump, based off the sources we have spoken with, finds Mr. Ailes' advice on that front to be invaluable.
KEILAR: But how does that square, if they're saying there's no formal or informal -- how does that square with the facts that we know, that The New York Times was the first to report?
BYERS: It almost seems like too much of a full-throated denial, based on both The New York Times reporting and on our own reporting. There's no denial there that the two of them do talk regularly and that the two of them are indeed close friends. Again, this is Roger Ailes -- this is Roger Ailes' bread and butter. This is what he does. He is a master of messaging. He is credited with some of the most famous lines coming out of some of the great presidential debates for the various presidential candidates and presidents that he worked for. When the two of them get together and talk, there's no question that the debates are on the horizon. The debates are seen as, especially for Mr. Trump, as the one area that he has left to truly salvage a campaign. And we've seen those poll numbers. He's slagging in those poll numbers. Those are his last few moments on the national stage by which to sort of advance his campiagn and once again make his case to the nation that he's fit to be President of the United States.
KEILAR: Real quick, before I let you go, Dylan. Are you getting the sense from people who are close to Donald Trump, or backing Donald Trump, that there's some discord about whether this is a good idea?
BYERS: Well, sure, discord in the Donald Trump campaign is sort of the name of the game. There's a lot of disagreement about how he should handle these things. Certainly, Donald Trump is someone who's always sort of flown off the cuff and done things his own way, but that doesn't mean that there aren't certain people who he trusts and certain people whose advice he takes seriously and one of those people certainly is Roger Ailes. Again, no one knows this better than he does. Roger Ailes, whatever you want to say about his tenure at Fox News, his tenure in terms of advising the media strategies of previous presidents and presidential candidates, that's a very solid record in terms of the wins and the gains that he's made. On the whole, I think there's an agreement that this is probably going to help Donald Trump and certainly there are a lot of people in the Trump campaign that believe Donald Trump needs to sort of sharpen his message and get a little bit more serious -- start running a little bit more of a general election campaign as opposed to this sort of primary season campaign that he still seems to be running.
Previously: