Marco Rubio's path to the Republican presidential nomination just got a little narrower, as Fox News employees and guests have been instructed to stop giving the freshman senator favorable coverage, says New York's Gabriel Sherman, citing "three Fox sources." Sherman, who wrote a book about Fox News and its boss, Roger Ailes, quotes Ailes as telling a Fox host recently: "We're finished with Rubio.... We can't do the Rubio thing anymore."
The reasons, Sherman says, include Ailes' waning confidence in Rubio's electoral prospects, tension with Rubio antagonists like Sean Hannity, and, most proximately, an article in The New York Times this week detailing a private 2013 dinner at which Rubio persuaded Ailes to back his "Gang of 8" immigration bill. "Roger hates seeing his name in print," a longtime Ailes associate told Sherman. "He was appalled the dinner was reported." The Fox News chief is now searching for a new candidate to champion, Sherman said; read his entire report at New York.
Update: After this article was published, Fox News' Michael Clemente, the cable network's executive vice president of news, issued a statement denying all aspects of the New York report, saying "there is no credence to this narrative."