As the lights warmed up and the cameras came into focus for the seventh GOP presidential debate, there was an air of excitement in the air as no one knew how this would play out.
The excitement quickly turned to spin for Fox News at the close of the debate.
Fox News and the GOP debates had lost their electricity due to their attack on front runner Donald Trump.
Even worse, Trump stole the show and, despite not even being present at the debate, still commanded the biggest buzz throughout the night according to Google Trends.
Thank you for your interest & support during last nights #GOPDebate! #IACaucus finder: https://t.co/ANvTcZqfOq pic.twitter.com/yadQiPC49g
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2016
In a thrown together event three miles from the debate convention center, Trump and his team put on a high energy, hour long rally where Trump announced he had single-handedly raised over $6 million for wounded veterans.
To add insult to injury to the establishment’s news outlet, Fox News, “minor” candidates Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, two previous winners of the Iowa Caucus, made an appearance at Trump’s rally.
The billionaire candidate predicted that Fox would see a drop in ratings without his presence and he was right.
What Roger Ailes tried to drum up in Don King fashion as a showdown between Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump turned into a poor performance by Ted Cruz and essentially a snooze fest featuring the seven candidates who are dwarfed by Trump.
The following morning, Fox News avoided talk of Trump and focused on the “excitement” of the previous night’s debate in their attempts to spin the evening.
But it didn’t hold water as even Fox’s own guest admitted that the debate was just a rehash of “old questions and old answers” by the candidates.
While the anti-Trump pundits will continue to say that Trump was hurt by his no-show, it’s just more spinning to limit damage of the network’s credibility.
And we’ll find out the truth on Monday as voting begins in the Iowa Caucus.
