NEW YORK - JUNE 26: Producer Roger Ailes attends a cocktail party hosted by Harvey and Bob Weinstein and Miramax Books to celebrate Peter Bart's new book ''BOFFO'' on June 26, 2006 in New York City.
Peter Kramer/Getty ImagesRoger Ailes seems to be as surprised as anyone else by Karl Rove‘s surreal election night challenge of the Fox News call that Ohio would be won by President Obama.
In an interview with TV Newser, the Fox News chairman explained that when he arrived home he saw Republican strategist Rove questioning the validity of the cable news network’s decision desk call.
VIDEO: Karl Rove Argues With Fox News Experts, Says Ohio Call for Obama Win Was ‘Premature’
“I turn on the TV and the first thing I see is Rove saying something like ‘you called Ohio too early.’ And I thought, ‘What the? What is this?’” Ailes said to the media website.
In an account by New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman after Karl Rove’s argument with the Fox decision desk occurred on live TV, sources stated that Ailes had warned the network’s election team that “if things don’t go your way tonight, don’t go out there looking like someone ran over your dog.”
In Ailes latest interview with TV Newser he was asked how Fox News coverage would continue during the president’s second term.
“It’s day to day for us,” Ailes told the website. “We don’t — I know no one believes it — we have no agenda. If he runs into a burning building tomorrow and saves four kids, he’s gonna be the biggest goddamn hero Fox News ever saw. But if he leaves four guys behind on the battlefield but can’t explain it, then he’s gonna have a problem with Fox News.”
In October, Ailes signed a new four-year deal that give him continued oversight over Fox News.
