Report: Roger Ailes Wanted Petraeus To Run For President In 2011
The Washington Post reports FOX News chairman Roger Ailes wanted then-General David Petraeus to run against President Obama in the 2012 general election.
The above audio clip is of a conversation between General Petraeus and FOX News contributor K.T. McFarland, who was sent to Afghanistan in spring 2011 to interview him. Reportedly, Ailes directed McFarland to ask Petraeus if he would be interested in running.
The Washington Post reports:
The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.
McFarland also said that Ailes — who had a decades-long career as a Republican political consultant, advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — might resign as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign. At one point, McFarland and Petraeus spoke about the possibility that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., which owns Fox News, would “bankroll” the campaign.
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