Trump 'boycotts' Fox News

Donald Trump

Donald Trump, the front-runner in the Republican primary run for the White House – and one of the most massive media draws of the political season – announced on Twitter Wednesday he's not doing any more Fox News interviews because he's been badly treated by the cable hosts.

"Fox News has been treating me very unfairly & I have therefore decided that I won't be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future," he wrote on his Twitter account.

Within two hours of posting, the message received more than 4,500 favorites, and more than 2,300 re-tweets.

But Fox News has a different narrative. The cable outlet responded to Trump's noontime tweet with a statement that says the tables were actually turned the other way.

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"At 11:45am today," a Fox spokesperson said late Wednesday, "we canceled Donald Trump's scheduled appearance on The O’Reilly Factor on Thursday, which resulted in Mr. Trump's subsequent tweet about his ‘boycott’ of FOX News. The press predictably jumped to cover his tweet, creating yet another distraction from any real issues that Mr. Trump might be questioned about. When coverage doesn’t go his way, he engages in personal attacks on our anchors and hosts, which has grown stale and tiresome. He doesn’t seem to grasp that candidates telling journalists what to ask is not how the media works in this country."

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The messaging comes on the heels of a line of negative remarks Trump has made about Fox just this week on social media.

On Monday, for example, he hit hard at Bill O'Reilly of the "O'Reilly Factor" for what he claimed via Twitter was very "negative" coverage. As WND reported, Trump wrote then: "@oreillyfactor was very negative to me in refusing to post the great polls that came out today including NBC. @FoxNews not good for me!"

Shortly after, Trump also tweeted about O'Reilly's guests, saying the host ought to "have some knowledgeable talking heads on your show for a change instead of the same old Trump haters. Boring!"

And one more, also against Fox News itself: "I am having a really hard time watching @FoxNews."

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It seemed the rift may have healed, especially after O'Reilly went on NBC with Matt Lauer to tell a "Today" audience he found Trump's criticisms more theatrical than offensive. And as he said shortly after: Trump was due for an appearance on his "O'Reilly Factor" show on Thursday.

But now Trump says that's a no-go. And it's not completely clear how long the announced boycott will remain in effect.

CNN said his campaign people did not elaborate, and Trump himself has yet to specify his demands to resume appearances on Fox News.

One Fox News source, meanwhile, said Trump was simply employing a feud with the cable outlet to draw more attention to himself.

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This isn't the first time Trump has vowed to quit appearing on Fox.

The billionaire has butted heads with one of the cable outlet's leading lady stars, Megyn Kelly, over questions she posed during the first Republican presidential debate dealing with his past remarks about women. Trump found the line of questioning biased and a blatant attack, threatened to steer clear of Fox during future campaign appearances, and took to Twitter to blast Kelly. After a discussion with Fox chief Roger Ailes – and several days' worth of public disputing with Kelly, who refused to apologize for her questions – Trump finally dropped his hard-line stance.

In a tweet in August, he summed the situation this way: "Roger Ailes just called. He is a great guy & assures me that 'Trump' will be treated fairly on @FoxNews. His word is always good!"

Interestingly, in addition to hitting at O'Reilly in recent days, Trump also reignited his Twitter criticisms of Kelly, posting an assessment of her Monday night broadcast that read: "She is the worst – all anti-Trump! Terrible show."