Tomorrow night, September 29th, is the first debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
So today on Now I’ve Heard Everything, I wanted to revisit an interview I did over 30 years ago with a man who played a key role in the 1984 presidential debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.
Years before he became head of Fox News — way before there even was a Fox News — Roger Ailes was a media consultant. Most prominent among his many clients, perhaps, was President Ronald Reagan. Ailes was an adviser to the President in his 1984 reelection bid, and was indrectly responsible for one of that campaign’s most memorable, and decisive, moments.
I met Roger Ailes in the fall of 1987. He’d written a book to help coach people in the art of public speaking and dealing with the media. The book promised to reveal the “secrets of the master communicators.”
So here now, from 1987, Roger Ailes:
Roger Ailes went on to become CEO of the fledgling Fox News in 1996. He held that post until 2016 when allegations of sexual harassment forced him out.
Roger Ailes died in 2017, three days after his 77th birthday.