First, Colbert joked about Trump skipping the debate because he thought Megyn Kelly would be an unfair moderator.
Advertisement
In the lead-up to the debate, Trump blasted Fox News and claimed that a forum without the billionaire businessman would garner “no ratings”.
Fox’s Trump-less debate had 12.5 million viewers between 9 and 11 p.m., according to Nielsen.
Republicans began arguing Friday over who won the latest GOP debate, or whether Donald Trump triumphed in abstentia. “Did you plan that?”
Republican presidential candidates just before the Republican presidential primary debate on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa.
Trump may not have been present, but he was mentioned numerous times.
On Thursday evening, Fox News hosted a Trump-less debate, while other cable news stations aired Trump’s event.
Trump said he chose to boycott the debate after Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes penned a tongue-in-cheek statement that jokingly questioned how the candidate would handle President Vladimir Putin of Russian Federation or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran if he couldn’t handle questions from Kelly. Ted Cruz, calling the Texas Republican an “anchor baby” during a campaign stop here on Friday. But I said give five million dollars, make a donation of five million dollars to the vets and I’ll come and do your debate. He held his own debate pitting Trump versus, well, Trump.
“This way we made our point”, Trump added.
While Donald thinks Hillary Clinton was “the worst Secretary of State in the history of the United States”, Mr. Trump once called the Democratic candidate a “terrific woman” who “really works hard” and “does a great job”.
On the plus side for Fox, CNN and MSNBC combined – the two channels that carried most of Trump’s improvised event Thursday night – drew less than a quarter of the debate audience. “I say, hasn’t it already started?” he mused. “Iowa was awesome last night”. There’s been a half dozen of them in the run up to next week’s caucuses in Iowa.
Advertisement
Evening news shows spent the large majority of their time talking about Trump’s absence rather than the actual debate.
