Fox News was fair but not necessarily balanced in its line of questioning to Donald Trump during the Republican presidential debate last week, said one expert.
During an appearance on
Newsmax TV's "Newsmax Prime," polling expert John Zogby noted Trump was simply asked about things he has said in the past.
"Moving to the left? No, I doubt that," Zogby told host J.D. Hayworth about the network.
"What it tried to do is show its journalistic creds by asking tough questions. Really, tough questions to all the candidates, including to Donald Trump because some of those quotes anyway were indeed on the record that he had made, and if not, very similar kinds of comments. In that context it was fair. I don't know about balanced, but it was fair."
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Trump took issue with some of the questions posed to him by debate moderator Megyn Kelley, who he later said had "blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever."
Critics blasted the comments, but Trump stood his ground and said he was unfairly targeted. On Monday, polls showed
he still leads the crowded field of 17 candidates vying for the Republican nomination.
"I didn't think that there would be [a change in the polls], certainly not in the immediate," Zogby said.
Zogby, a senior analyst at Zogby Analytics, said he doesn't think Trump's mouth will necessarily get him in trouble with voters.
"What'll get him in trouble is thin skin and the point at which the media decides, 'hey, what you say you said before, we're not going to cover it today or tomorrow,'" Zogby said.
"Once it gets to be two or three days out of the limelight, that's the sort of thing that they just undo him and undo his candidacy."
Also appearing in the "Newsmax Prime" segment was Craig Shirley, a presidential historian and conservative commentator. Shirley told Hayworth that Trump is appealing to everyday Americans who are fed up with polished politicians led around by their handlers.
"He's saying things that they wish that they had said or they want to say or they do say over coffee in the morning or over the back fence with the neighbor or over at the American Legion hall, and that in part is why he continues to surge," Shirley said.
"It's because he's saying things to the establishment, and right now Fox defines the establishment just as the Washington Post does, just as the Washington, New York political media complex [does]."
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