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Why Chris Wallace won't take Trump's call

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace stands apart from his colleagues and competitors on Sunday mornings in at least one regard: He won't take a phone call from Donald Trump.

The Republican front-runner has shown a strong preference for calling in to shows like "Fox & Friends," "Morning Joe" and the Sunday morning public affairs shows. Last Sunday, Trump phoned into four shows -- all but "Fox News Sunday" -- to discuss his feud with Fox News host Megyn Kelly. Wallace has repeatedly informed viewers that he won't allow that.

In an interview with Fox News Radio on Thursday, Wallace gave the most compelling argument yet for that decision: “The idea you would do a phoner with a presidential candidate where they have all the control and you have none, where you can’t see them and they may have talking points in front of them... we are not a call-in radio show, we are a Sunday talk show and he is a presidential candidate, you do an interview on camera," Wallace told Kilmeade & Friends.

Wallace has repeatedly tried to book Trump for a sit-down interview, but to no avail. Earlier this week, we reported that Trump would instead be giving a one-on-one interview to NBC's "Meet the Press" -- his first in-person Sunday show appearance since he sat with CNN's Jake Tapper on June 28, back when he was a distant eighth in the polls. (We've since learned that NBC is currently planning to shoot a portion of that interview on Trump's private plane.)

"As far as Trump doing Chuck Todd and not me, we invited him, they said he wasn’t available, I guess he was available to someone else, we’ll survive," Wallace told Kilmeade & Friends.

That wasn't the only knock Wallace took at Trump: “I don’t think he particularly likes tough questions," Wallace said of the candidate's complaints about the first Republican primary debate, which Wallace co-moderated. "They were tough questions and I don’t apologize for anything I asked.”