By JONATHAN J. COOPER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Someone inside Fox News gave Donald Trump’s presidential campaign the questions he would face ahead of a town hall the network produced in January 2024, a forthcoming book alleges, according to excerpts reported by CNN.
The claim appears in “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power” by Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, which is set to be published in March.
Isenstadt reports that about 30 minutes before the town hall was scheduled to begin in Iowa, “a senior Trump aide started getting text messages from a person on the inside at Fox…They were images of all the questions Trump would be asked and the planned follow-ups, down to the exact wording.”
“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,” a Fox News spokesperson said.
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Trump’s team was divided about whether he should agree to the town hall with Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum and that Trump wasn’t “taking prep for the telecast seriously. He’d basically be winging it.”
The list of questions showed that the anchors planned to ask Trump if he would divest from his businesses if he won and whether he would be a risky Republican nominee because of his indictments, according to the book. Trump also would be pressed to “disavow political violence” and whether his White House “would be focused on retribution.”
Trump was not happy with the questions, Isenstadt reports, but the early peek at questions gave his team a chance to talk through answers.
Giving a presidential candidate an advance look at questions would represent a breach of journalism ethics. Networks hosting events like debates and town halls generally go to great lengths to limit access to their planned questions and prevent leaks.
Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, did not address the allegation. Said Cheung: “President Trump was the most accessible and transparent candidate in American history, and it’s a big reason why he won in historic fashion.”
