'Serious breach of journalism ethics': Fox News reportedly texted Trump questions before town hall

08 January

Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify Fox News' position, and to include an additional statement from the network.

President-elect Donald Trump was reportedly planning to dodge a televised town hall hosted by Fox News last year, until an insider at the network fed him questions ahead of time.

That's according to a CNN report about a forthcoming book by Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, entitled "Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power." Isenstadt's book is based on hundreds of interviews with sources, internal memos, records and regular trips to Palm Beach, Florida. CNN reported that if Isenstadt's claim about Fox secretly helping Trump ace his town hall appearance is true, it would amount to a "serious breach of journalism ethics."

The Iowa town hall, which was scheduled for January of 2024, came in the heat of the GOP primary, when Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis was at his peak of popularity and Trump's campaign was angry with the network over the tone of its reporting. Even though town hall moderator Bret Baier was "golf buddies" with Trump, the 45th president was reportedly planning to skip the town hall due to Baier and co-moderator Martha McCallum's penchant for asking tough questions, namely about Trump's threats of retribution against his political enemies.

"About thirty minutes before the town hall was due to start, a senior aide started getting text messages from a person on the inside at Fox. Holy s–t, the team thought. They were images of all the questions Trump would be asked and the planned follow-ups, down to the exact wording," Isenstadt wrote. "Jackpot. This was like a student getting a peek at the test before the exam started."

Then-former President Trump was reportedly "pissed" about questions being "designed to put him on the defensive." Moderators were reportedly planning to ask him if he would "divest from his businesses if he won, and whether the party was taking a risk nominating him given his indictments." But the Trump campaign then reportedly "workshopped answers" after they obtained the questions and follow-ups.

CNN reported that while Isenstadt didn't name the Fox employee in question, he wrote that excerpt based on conversations with "multiple people with direct knowledge" and that he was confident in the credibility of his sources. Fox News pushed back in a statement, saying: "While we do not have any evidence of this occurring, and Alex Isenstadt has conveniently refused to release the images for fact checking, we take these matters very seriously and plan to investigate should there prove to be a breach within the network."

“If there was a breach, it was not from Bret or Martha or the top editorial levels of the network and there is a sophisticated and extensive digital footprint of all editorial material," an unnamed Fox News source familiar with the inner workings of the network told AlterNet in an email.

Click here to read CNN's report in full.

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