The stage is set for Thursday’s Fox News Channel final debate ahead of the Iowa caucuses but front-runner Donald Trump won’t be there.
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In a stunning development, the Donald Trump campaign has announced the candidate will not participate in Thursday’s prime time candidate on FOX News.
Trump was also widely seen as the candidate best able to win in November with 63 percent of Republicans saying so, compared with 16 percent who saw Cruz as best positioned to win and 10 percent who named Rubio. “He’s a whack job”, Trump said.
“So even if you’re thinking about another candidate, the simple reality is there’s only one campaign that can beat Trump in this state”, Cruz said.
The fracas escalated quickly Tuesday, but was the culminations of months of tension between the GOP frontrunner and the Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
“I have bonded with the people of Iowa…I don’t think Iowa is going to care”, Trump said of his absence from the last debate before the February 1 Iowa caucuses.
“I lived in New York City, in Manhattan all my life, so my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa”, Trump says in the ad, using Trump’s own words against him. “I’m not a big fan of hers at all”, Trump said. Political observers immediately wondered whether Trump was bluffing. Trump called Kelly “a third-rate reporter” and “a total lightweight” at a press conference in Marshallton, Iowa.
“Oh, I think it’s all hype”.
Cruz and Trump are neck-and-neck in Iowa polls and Cruz warned supporters Monday that a Trump victory won in Iowa he may be “unstoppable”.
Trump took his beef to Twitter, claiming that Kelly wouldn’t treat him fairly, and suggesting that she should be removed as moderator because of her alleged “conflict of interest and bias”.
Fox News fired back at Trump in a statement, saying: “Sooner or later, Donald Trump, even if he’s president, is going to have to learn that he doesn’t get to pick the journalists”. “I don’t want to be used”. Trump aired his grievances on CNN on Monday, telling news anchor Wolf Blitzer, “I don’t like her. She doesn’t treat me fairly”.
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He added, “Let me make the wounded warriors rich”, and the veterans – not Fox News. Here’s his explanation of what he meant when he said Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever” during the GOP debate. And earlier Tuesday, one comment the network issued slammed Trump for trying to bully it into changing the moderators.
