A Rightward Tilt and Big Ratings at Fox News<br />The Moore scandal has become a proxy battle of sorts between bomb-throwers like Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist<br />and the executive chairman of Breitbart News who has vehemently defended Mr. Moore, and establishment Republicans like Senators Mitch McConnell and John McCain, who have called on Mr. Moore to withdraw.<br />And when Mr. Trump attacked Ms. Kelly in sexist terms — suggesting her tough questions to him were a result of “blood coming out<br />of her wherever” — the channel’s then-chairman, Roger Ailes, denounced Mr. Trump’s comments as “unacceptable” and “disturbing.”<br />Two years later, the prime-time Fox News lineup is a Trump safe space, with a dose of Bannonist populism once considered on the fringe.<br />“You understand this was 40 years ago,” Mr. Moore replied, “and after my return from the military, I dated a lot of young ladies.”<br />Sean Hannity, who conducted the interview for his syndicated radio show on Friday,<br />seemed unsure about how to proceed on his Fox News show later that night.<br />Ben Shapiro, a conservative writer and former editor at large at Breitbart, noted<br />that Fox News was forced to remake its prime time after Ms. Kelly defected to NBC News and Mr. O’Reilly was fired amid a sexual harassment scandal.<br />On Saturday, the president said of Mr. Moore: “I’d have to look at it and I’d have to see.”<br />In the past, conservative lodestars like Fox News’s prime time hosts<br />and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal would most likely be in lock step with Republican Party leadership in denouncing a candidate with such serious allegations against him.
