There’s nothing Donald Trump likes more than being proven right, and so when debate viewership numbers for Thursday night’s showdown on Fox News Channel came out, the Republican presidential frontrunner must have been skipping around his hotel hallways.
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“Anger alone will not solve our problems”, Rubio said, turning it into a pitch to caucus for him. Chris Houck pointed out on Twitter: “Network evening news shows spent 9 mins, 47 secs on the Trump GOP Debate boycott, but only 1 min, 29 secs on the actual GOP debate”.
Colbert then took questions from “everyday Americans”, including one from a Megyn K. “who lives in 2011” and had interviewed Trump after he criticized debate ditchers in 2011.
“Did you have any inside information before the debate that they were going to be using these sort of attack videos on the other candidates, and were you concerned that there might be an attack video in their arsenal they were going to use on you?” We both made the identical promises.
Huckabee, who participated in the undercard debate, contended that Cruz changes his opinions based on geography and lacks conviction. Once a candidate references your period blood and calls you a bimbo, I think you have free reign to compare them to a literary villain. “Now, that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way”, said Ted Cruz, (R) presidential candidate.
He said Fox News stood by “our journalistic standards” as well as Kelly, noting that it is “proud to have her on stage as a debate moderator”.
Meanwhile, all the other cable news networks were covering Trump’s competing event in Iowa, during which Trump boasted he raised $5 million for veteran’s charities.
The prime-time event lacked some of the heat Trump often injects into debates and instead focused largely on policy.
Also during his hour-long speech, Trump hit some of his frequent targets: former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Cruz, and a local newspaper publisher.
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With each debate scoring fewer viewers than the previous one, it’s hard to say what effect Trump’s absence from the event had on the ratings. “Iowa was wonderful last night”.
