CHRIS CUOMO (HOST): Do you think this is about Trump against the media or Trump against Fox News and the infight within the GOP?
DYLAN BYERS: Well, fundamentally, it's about Trump doing what's best for Trump. But what he's doing -- the fact that he can do this, the fact that he can go up against Fox News, which historically has been the network for Republican candidates, is because there's actually a great deal of sort of antipathy and anger toward Fox News among some ultra-conservatives. You know, when we think about the sort of American political media landscape, we very often think about Fox News being the network for Republicans. We confuse that with Fox News being the network for conservatives. For a lot of ultra-conservatives, the sort of folks in talk radio land, the folks who read Breitbart and sites like that, they don't necessarily identify with Fox News. That's why you've seen Donald Trump have his feuds with various Fox News pundits and why that's helped him in the polls.
CUOMO: Do you see that the same way as Dylan that, you know, you can say, oh, it's about him and the media. The media is not nice to him. Fox News is different when you come to this analysis. And it's certainly different for a Republican. And do you see this, this kind of internal war playing out in these two opponents right now?
LARRY HACKETT: I think that people we're talking about who Trump is fighting over, who Trump and Cruz and the other candidates are fighting over in Iowa, don't see Fox the way you and I, people here in Manhattan see Fox. They see Fox as being an established media organization. They don't necessarily see it as being a Republican arm. So I think Dylan's right. I think they think that he's being treated somewhat unfairly and I think absolutely, his idea that I'm doing this because I need to stand up to this is going to be very effective. I really do. The idea that anybody who is undecided about Trump or Cruz right now would tip to the Cruz camp because of the idea of their belief in the idea of unfettered ideas at a debate, I just don't see that being significant.
[...]
BYERS: I was talking to Steve Deace who's a very influential conservative radio voice here in Iowa and nationally. And you know one thing he pointed out to me is that your average Iowa caucus goer is not your average Fox News viewer. There's a huge disparity there. And for a lot of those guys, they look at Fox News and they see a lot of sort of Bush era pundits. They see a lot of establishment Republicans. They see Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Brit Hume. Look, all great guys, but they aren't the guys who are speaking to the conservative base. The people speaking to the conservative base are largely on talk radio, largely on some of these new conservative sites that have proliferated in the last five to ten years. And so we're just dealing really with two different sides of the GOP. And which side wins is what we're going to see on Monday.
