Boycotting FNC’s broadcast of the last Republican debate before next week’s Iowa caucuses, Trump plans to hold his own veterans-benefiting event at 9 PM ET tonight.
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And he had a major announcement to make: Trump promised to donate $1 million of his own money to veterans during his speech.
If several Donald Trump’s Republican rivals have any thoughts about the GOP frontrunner’s decision to skip Thursday’s debate in Iowa to hold a fundraiser for his charity foundation, they aren’t speaking up about it. Rand Paul. The candidates participating in the undercard debate are former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen.
While the Republican candidates for president were fighting it out, Donald Trump was chickening out.
It says that 100 percent of donations will go directly to veterans’ needs.
Among those attending will be Joel Arends, chairman of Veterans for a Strong America, which has endorsed Trump.
The move places Trump, a former reality TV star, more squarely in the spotlight even as he shuns the stage.
“I’m delighted to join with Donald Trump in an effort to salute veterans and, you know what, I didn’t have anything going on at 8:00 tonight”, Huckabee joked to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Joining Kelly as moderators during Thursday debate are Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace and Special Report host Bret Baier.
“He has brought the debate, the presidential debate, the tenor of the debate to an historic low”, Paul told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota Thursday on “New Day”. Trump was in the middle of this meeting with these other powerful executives, and the other executives expected him to blow off the daughter, Ivanka, but he didn’t. “He’s not scared of absolutely anything”, said Ratcliffe, who has signed up with his wife to call New Hampshire voters on Trump’s behalf next week.
Trump had objected to Megyn Kelly serving as a moderator for the debate; Fox responded with a tongue-in-cheek press release (widely believed to have been written by Roger Ailes) that mocked Trump for being a coward.
Progressive advocacy group VoteVets.org said in statement that Trump should not “hide from Megyn Kelly behind us”.
Trump supported the idea of Fox giving Kelly the boot if he threatened to not show up.
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By dodging the debate, and trying to run out the clock on the Iowa caucus, trump revealed – once again – how unpresidential he is. He also appeared to take a swipe at his rivals on stage for not taking on Trump as aggressively as he has. I suppose he feels he doesn’t need to be at the debate.
