Donald Trump and senior editorial executives at Fox News Channel intend to meet to work out their differences, according to a statement released Thursday by the 21st Century Fox-owned cable-news outlet.
"Fox News Chairman & CEO Roger Ailes and Donald Trump spoke this morning and plan to have a meeting next week to discuss their differences of opinion regarding Fox's coverage of Mr. Trump's presidential campaign. Ailes will be joined by senior Fox editorial executives. Mr. Trump believes he has been treated unfairly in certain instances," said a Fox News spokesperson via a statement released to media outlets.
"Fox News has held every candidate in this race to the highest journalistic standards throughout our coverage. We believe a candid meeting about our differences is required and that any misunderstandings can be handled without compromising those standards."
The statement marks the latest bout of to-and-fro between the man who is at present the leading Republican candidate in the 2016 race for president and the cable news outlet that counts Republicans as a significant part of its audience base.
The meeting will be the second during three rounds of spats between Trump and Fox News. A previous meeting between Ailes and Trump after the first GOP debate, which was hosted by Fox, seemed to end with a truce, but then Trump later continued his attacks on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.
Ailes demanded an apology.
Trump refused.
Trump was interviewed on Fox by Greta Van Susteren on Monday, but he was unhappy with pundits who talked about him on the following two programs, "The O'Reilly Factor" and "The Kelly File," hosted by Megyn Kelly, whom he accused of asking him tougher questions than the other candidates at the first debate.
He announced on Twitter he would not be appearing on any further Fox programs for the foreseeable future. But Fox shot back that Trump had made the announcement only after it had canceled Trump's scheduled Thursday appearance with Bill O'Reilly.
Van Susteren wrote a blog post telling Trump to "give it a rest," arguing she had just given him a fair interview right before the other two shows aired and that balanced coverage required them to talk to his detractors.
O'Reilly made no mention of the latest developments on his show on Wednesday other than to ask in jest at the end of an interview with one of his rivals, Carly Fiorina, if she was going to tweet mean things about him afterward.
Kelly didn't discuss the spat either, but did talk about Trump. National Review editor Rich Lowry got Trump's attention when he told Kelly that Trump isn't happy because Fiorina emasculated him in the second debate. Lowry actually
used a much cruder phrase, and Trump immediately noted it on Twitter, suggesting the FCC should fine him.
Lowry was unshaken, saying on Thursday morning of Fox that he was talking about Trump's "persona" – a reference to Trump saying he really mean Fiorina's persona when he was quoted saying "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?"
Though many of Trump's rivals have stayed out of the spat, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been a vocal Trump critic, and has been accusing Trump of whining.
Some media pundits have said Fox should apologize to anyone for how it covers Trump or anyone else.
Michael Reagan warned that if Trump is elected he will likely follow President Barack Obama's lead and put a moratorium on Fox News interviews.
Thomson/Reuters contributed to this report.