Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are preparing to face off one last time at tonight’s third presidential debate in Las Vegas. The Republican presidential nominee is facing a steep uphill battle in the next three weeks, having seen his poll numbers plummet since his first face-off with Clinton last month.
Through the campaign (and despite frequent cries that “the media” is against him), Trump has surrounded himself with powerful friends from the conservative press. Former Breitbart chair Stephen Bannon serves as the campaign’s CEO, and after Fox News founder Roger Ailes was ousted from the network in July, it was widely reported that he would come aboard the Trump outfit. Until now, these close allegiances have helped shore up the GOP nominee’s support among conservatives. But it appears that Ailes, Trump’s longtime pal, will no longer be one of those advisors.
On Tuesday, New York Magazine reporter and Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman revealed onstage at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit that the former Fox News CEO is no longer advising Trump’s presidential run. It was reported in August that Ailes would be helping the Republican presidential nominee with debate prep after his ouster from Fox News. “Ailes’s camp said Ailes learned that Trump couldn’t focus — surprise, surprise — and that advising him was a waste of time,” Sherman told an audience of leaders in technology, media, entertainment, and politics. “These debate prep sessions weren’t going anywhere.”
However, according to Vanity Fair contributing editor Sarah Ellison, Trump might not have been the only one who had trouble staying on task. “Even for the second debate, Ailes kept going off on tangents and talking about his war stories while he was supposed to be prepping Trump,” she said.
(Via Vanity Fair)