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Nearly eight years ago, as his Republican presidential campaign faltered, Sen. Ted Cruz shifted his focus a bit. The Texan had already spent months criticizing Donald Trump, who had already effectively locked up his party’s nomination, but in early May 2016, the far-right senator also took some time to criticize Fox News and the role it played in the GOP’s process.
“There is a broader dynamic at work, which is network executives have made a decision to get behind Donald Trump,” Cruz said at the time. “Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes at Fox News have turned Fox News into the Donald Trump network, 24/7.” The Texas Republican went on to say Trump would be “a horrific choice for this country,” before again lamenting “the media echo” that favored the then-frontrunner.
It was around this time that he exited the race, and four months later, Cruz endorsed Trump and re-embraced Fox. But the sentiment was memorable: While seeking national office, the senator grew so frustrated with the network aligned with Republican politics — its influence, its reporting, its role in helping Trump, etc. — that he couldn’t help but express his aggravation publicly.
This came to mind late last week, watching Gov. Ron DeSantis on the campaign trail in Iowa. NBC News highlighted the Florida Republican comments about conservative media and the role it plays in helping shield the former president from criticism.
“He’s got basically a Praetorian Guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the websites, all this stuff. They just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers and they don’t want to have their ratings go down, and that’s just the reality. That’s just the truth,” DeSantis said.
The governor added, as part of the same impromptu comments, that he was “not complaining.”
No, of course not. Heaven forbid.
What made DeSantis’ rhetoric so notable had less to do with the accuracy of his assessment, and more to do with his willingness to tell the truth out loud. Most fair-minded observers, including those in Republican politics, would agree with everything the Floridian said on Friday, but they’re generally reluctant to present such an indictment on camera.
As New York magazine’s Jon Chait explained, “In public, Republicans will pretend that conservative media is fair and balanced, or maybe is just finding stories the liberal media ignores. They won’t admit that Fox News will never admit to its audience when Republican leaders lie and cheat. Maintaining that pretense is a core element of conservative-movement discipline. It’s a measure of DeSantis’s anger and humiliation that he finally broke the Republican omerta.”
But let’s also not brush past the fact that the Florida Republican was only too pleased to take advantage of the dynamic he no longer likes when it was suiting his own purposes. As a New York Times report noted, “When Mr. DeSantis was a House member, he became a star among conservatives through appearances on Fox News. He soon built a supportive network with other conservative news outlets.”
What’s more, when he first ran for governor in 2018, and polls showed him trailing badly in the GOP primary, DeSantis was only too pleased to take full advantage of the relationship between Fox News, Republican politics, and Trump.
It’s that same relationship that’s working against him now.