title:  Fox News Yuks It Up, Taunts The Donald Over The Reason For His Iowa Loss
text: Donald Trump has been gallivanting across America for months now talking about his own popularity and boasting about poll numbers. He gave the impression that he was invincible and his bid for thew presidency infallible. There s one thing you can t take from Donald Trump: He s extremely confident.Regardless of how he performed in the polls up until about a week ago, Trump made a mistake that an unlikely enemy to a Republican, Fox News, couldn t help but gloat over. Whether you call it ego, narcissism, pride or the delusional rantings of a bloviating blowhard, Trump s decision to boycott the last GOP debate may have just jumped up and bit him on the ass.It was just the Donald missing in South Carolina. It was his supporters; the idiots who will clap and shout for him no matter how stupid he sounds, creating a mob mentality and increasing his popularity among the fools who vote Republican in this country. In his absence, Ted Cruz and his supporters were able to steal the show, catapulting his campaign to a win in Iowa Monday night.Fox wasted no time gloating about the fact that trump s little bout of butcher is most likely what handed him his first taste of defeat. Fox correspondent John Roberts told anchor Bret Baier that Marco Rubio s surge with people who were later in deciding who to vote for showed that Trump s refusal to be in the same room with Megyn Kelly probably cost him the win.Baier, being the good little puppet that he is, ran with that theory and began polling other Fox actors and actresses how they felt. Charles Krauthammer was hesitant to give all the credit to the skipped debate, adding that Rubio s performance was worthy of a bump, meaning he was watching a different debate than people who live in the real world. Rubio did nothing but yell generalities at the crowd in an attempt to seem less timid.Other Fox hosts were more eager to give their network at least some of the credit. According to Talking Points Memo:Baier floated the idea to conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, asking her to look  at the numbers and the surge that perhaps other candidates, Ted Cruz, Rubio had,  and weigh in on  the debate had any effect on these numbers? Baier presented the question to Fox News contributor Stephen Hayes as well, asking him if  can we definitively say that not going to the debate hurt Trump, a strategic error, that close? Pundit Kirsten Powers suggested that  Trump missed an opportunity to make his closing arguments  and  it looks like he s paying a price for it here. Fox News commentator Dana Perino argued that two polls that showed Rubio gaining traction were a  direct result  of the debate, comparing it to the last cycle, when  45 percent of people decided after the last debate in 2012. I think that looks like it could be true this time as well,  she said.While skipping the doom and gloom of a Fox News debate may not seem like a big deal to normal people, It certainly doesn t seem to have helped Donald Trump out at all.Featured image by Media Matters screen capture 