Why has Fox News been Donald Trump s cheerleader, even while he viciously attacks its employees? The answer may be as simple as blackmail.While much of the Republican establishment has turned on Donald Trump (conservative newspaper National Review published an entire issue bashing Trump, recall), Fox News has been conspicuously on the sidelines. It s certainly not because they want to remain neutral to the political process. This is the network, remember, that has no problem criticizing Obama for, say, eating at a nice restaurant or doing a comedy show. They ve never shied away from wearing their hack-y opinions on their sleeves.But even as Trump goes after one of Fox News  biggest stars, Megyn Kelly, with sexist, disgusting digs at her, the network has repeatedly bent over backwards to accommodate the Republican front-runner.An explosive report in New York magazine may reveal a clue as to why:An odd bit of coincidence had given him a card to play against Fox founder Roger Ailes. In 2014, I published a biography of Ailes, which upset the famously paranoid executive. Several months before it landed in stores, Ailes fired his longtime PR adviser Brian Lewis, accusing him of being a source. During Lewis s severance negotiations, Lewis hired Judd Burstein, a powerhouse litigator, and claimed he had  bombs  that would destroy Ailes and Fox News. That s when Trump got involved.Trump has often bragged about this encounter, citing it as an example of his superior negotiating skills. But he also got something out of it. When Roger was having problems, he didn t call 97 people, he called me,  Trump said. Burstein, it turned out, had worked for Trump briefly in the  90s, and Ailes asked Trump to mediate. Trump ran the negotiations out of his office at Trump Tower.  Roger had lawyers, very expensive lawyers, and they couldn t do anything. I solved the problem.  Fox paid Lewis millions to go away quietly, and Trump, I m told, learned everything Lewis had planned to leak. If Ailes ever truly went to war against Trump, Trump would have the arsenal to launch a retaliatory strike.Information that Fox News head Roger Ailes paid millions to keep quiet is floating around Trump s brain somewhere, just ready to come out of his mouth should the network really provoke him. It s no wonder Ailes has freaked out each time Trump threatened to go nuclear on the network. In a telling moment, when things had come to a head between Fox and Trump, Ailes   the man behind the most watched news network in America   rolled over and showed his belly. Unconditional surrender. Trump won.Roger Ailes just called. He is a great guy & assures me that  Trump  will be treated fairly on @FoxNews. His word is always good!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2015In another example, after Trump went after Kelly, the Fox host opened up to Charlie Rose about how bad for the network Trump s animosity would be:Speaking for herself and Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, Kelly told Rose,  Neither one of us wanted any sort of a war with Donald Trump. We didn t think that benefited the channel, we didn t think it benefited me, and we don t think it benefited Donald Trump,  adding that she believes Trump would agree.Kelly said they just wanted to  forge forward and put it behind us and not pour anymore fuel on that fire. The result is some cringeworthy segments that feature Fox pundits twisting themselves into pretzels to defend Trump s nonsense. When Trump recently changed his position on abortion three times in two days, with each new stance more nonsensical than the last, Fox s reliably dim-witted Andrea Tantaros found a way to blame his gaffes on a  trap  set by Hillary Clinton to make Trump look stupid.For years, Ailes had exploited Trump s star power to take shots at Obama. The billionaire was a regular guest on the network, and Fox no doubt introduce Trump s brand of egocentric conservatism to millions of viewers. When they had a common enemy in Obama, things were fine. Ailes never seemed to anticipate being placed in a position where Trump would use the dirt he had on Ailes against him. Like the GOP more broadly, Fox helped create the Trump Monster and now seem shocked to find that he has wrested control away from them and is on the warpath. It would almost be funny, if it weren t so scary.Featured image via ThinkProgress screenshot