There’s no love between Frank Luntz and Donald Trump as new reports indicate that Trump has now called for Roger Ailes to fire Luntz. Trump made it perfectly clear that he was not a fan of Luntz during a recent interview on Fox News.
.@FrankLuntz is a low class slob who came to my office looking for consulting work and I had zero interest. Now he picks anti-Trump panels!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2015
.@FrankLuntz, your so-called “focus groups” are a total joke. Don’t come to my office looking for business again. You are a clown! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2015
So what was behind the attack? What gave Trump enough cause to attack Luntz publicly? According to Politico, Luntz was critical of Trump at a recent Koch Brothers’ seminar.
Monday’s war of words, another chapter in a series of Trump vs. Luntz moments, was touched off when POLITICO asked Luntz about private comments that seem to call into question his objectivity as the man who facilitates the focus groups that appear on Fox News.
Luntz has insisted in an interview with Business Insider that he has nothing against Trump, and he is only interested in accurately assessing the race.
But sources told POLITICO that, in the days before the Aug. 6 Fox News presidential debate , where a Luntz-run focus group panned Trump’s performance, the pollster told a closed-door gathering of major conservative donors in Southern California that Trump is dangerous to Republicans and was “turning what we believe into a joke.”
Trump was so incensed by Luntz’s comment that he called the network on Monday and demanded that Luntz be fired. Luntz has had no love for Trump either, when describing Trump’s success with the Republican party.
Again, Politico:
In an interview with POLITICO, Luntz said Trump – and Democratic presidential insuragent Bernie Sanders – are “delivering a big ‘f— you’ to the elites in America.
“And that resonates on both sides,” Luntz said. “But ‘f— you’ doesn’t solve anything. ‘F— you’ doesn’t make life any better. ‘F— you’ makes you feel good, but it doesn’t get you where you need to go. ‘F— you’ doesn’t make America strong. ‘F— you’ doesn’t solve anything.
Trump responded by accusing Luntz of harboring a long-held vendetta because Trump refused to do business with Luntz’s polling firm.
“I caught him cold,” Trump told POLITICO. “And frankly, if I was [Fox News President] Roger Ailes, I’d fire that guy so fast for that his head would spin.”
