“Frankly, I think the number is so small – if you’re going to do it, do it”, he said at a campaign rally in Manassas, Virginia.
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“I’ve been talking to them”, Trump said Thursday.
As more details about the attackers were made public through the day, GOP candidates – almost all of whom spoke at a Washington forum hosted by the hawkish Republican Jewish Coalition – issued increasingly harsher attacks on what they said was the Obama administration’s unwillingness to come to terms with the true threat posed by Muslim extremists.
But on Thursday, the GOP presidential frontrunner told the Post that if he doesn’t participate, he would look like a “chicken” and that CNN will make “a fortune” because of him. Zucker shot back. “I think what you’re referring to is when I was at NBC Entertainment, I am the one who put The Apprentice on the air…” (I use quotes only because we haven’t reached any actual primaries.) And just like Happy Gilmore, Trump now has a scene where he signs a woman’s chest. It’s our role to report what he says, what he does, to fact check what he says, what he does.
“We do not pay candidates to appear”, Mr. Zucker told BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith. “Every single person”, he said, “doing the debate would knock the hell out of me and say I’m afraid to be there”.
When asked about Trump’s musing about a fee, Zucker said he would not entertain the idea.
Initially, around 100 pastors were scheduled to attend, but some confusion over whether the meeting was a discussion or an endorsement prompted many to cancel.
Trump drew scattered boos toward the end of his appearance after refusing to say that Jerusalem should be the undivided and recognized capital of Israel.
Trump has stirred a number of campaign-trail controversies related to Muslims, including his apparent openness to a database of American Muslims and his disputed claim that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered as the World Trade Center buildings collapsed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
I agree with this well-argued letter that “siding with a political candidate whose rhetoric pathologizes black people” sends a questionable message. (Then Trump wanted $10 million).
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He blamed Obama for dividing the country.
