Editorial: No Show, No Win

Donald Trump blew off the final GOP debate before the Iowa caucuses over a tiff with Fox News. Maybe Fox should not have sent out that release mocking Trump’s eminently mockable attacks on Megyn Kelly, but his response seemed petulant if genuine. If it was a calculated political move to avoid the media hot seat, it didn’t pan out.

For those who missed it, and for the sake of accuracy, that Fox News memo read: “We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”

Trump skipped the debate and lost the race in Iowa. Even he admitted there was a possible link between the two events.

Trump’s blasting of the media has gotten old, but if his reputation is wounded by his interactions with the media, the wounds are generally self-inflicted.