SAVANNAH GUTHRIE (HOST): What do you know? What does your reporting say about how this went down this week? Did Roger Ailes fight this or did he more or less accept that this was a fait accompli?
GABRIEL SHERMAN: Initially his instinct was to fight. He rallied Fox News employees, especially women, to speak out against Gretchen Carlson, but inside the Murdoch empire, that was seen as an overreach, and they conducted an outside legal investigation into the sexual harassment claims, and as the evidence mounted, I think Roger Ailes -- from what I'm hearing -- saw the writing on the wall, and his lawyers quickly prepared to negotiate his exit.
GUTHRIE: There is a lot of cocktail chatter and curiosity, Gabe, about what Roger Ailes’ next move would be, whether he would go back into politics, perhaps work for Donald Trump, whether he might start a new network and take some of the big Fox talent with him. What are you hearing?
SHERMAN: Well, I think it's, basically an open -- he can't start a rival network. As part of his severance agreement, he has a non-compete clause with Rupert Murdoch which bars him from entering the news business after leaving Fox. Now to the Trump question, that's an interesting point. Roger Ailes got his start working for Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, and Donald Trump has really been running a Nixonian, silent majority, law and order campaign, so there is a lot of talk. There's no deal in place, but I think the two men know each other. The question for Trump though is, considering his issues with women, does he want to hire a media adviser who has just come out of a very public sexual harassment scandal?
