Trump is enjoying an upswing in the polls, and has surpassed Cruz to become the Iowa front-runner.
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“If it comes down to a two-person race, Donald Trump would be happy to debate him”, Lewandowski told ABC’s “Good Morning America” programme.
If Cruz, for example, shines – and wins on Monday night – Trump’s gambit is sure to be second-guessed. “Or does it cement the fact that he is someone who beats to his own drum and just kind of dictates the terms of this nomination process?”
O’Reilly repeatedly encouraged Trump to attend. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ben Carson, and Rand Paul are slated to step onto the Fox News stage at 9 p.m. ET, though they won’t have primetime all to themselves: Donald Trump, who has vowed to boycott the Des Moines debate, is planning his own campaign counterprograming a few miles down the road at Drake University.
Additionally, the DCCC argued that Trump and Cruz have already played an important role in motivating the Democratic base. “That’s what I stand for and hopes that’s what you stand for and he tells it like it is and that’s what I like”.
Trump said that was what “made me not do the debate”.
“I want people to know that I’m interested in what they have to say when I’m not running for re-election as I am when I’m running for re-election”, he said. “It’s time to be adults about this”.
Trump has been feuding with Fox News since the network hosted the first Republican debate in August, in which Kelly asked Trump about his treatment of women, prompting a stream of insults from the candidate and complaints he was not being treated fairly.
Cruz had occasionally been mentioning Trump by name and criticizing him obliquely; he continually hammered on him by name Tuesday night, telling the crowd at an events space here that Trump supports government funding for Planned Parenthood, the Affordable Care Act and painting him as a member of the Washington elite who will cut deals and capitulate to their demands.
That move could cement Cruz’s position as the billionaire businessman’s primary opponent and give the Texas senator a chance to shine.
There’s some risk for Trump in not going to the debate. Additionally, Miringoff said it could serve to “put Cruz center stage to be the substitute front-runner for that evening and take the incoming [attacks] from the others”.
Trevor Noah defended the “fearsome” Fox News anchor against “asshole” Donald Trump.
In 2016, that conservative base is coming to believe that Fox News is more in line with the increasingly despised Republican establishment than with the ultraconservatives who support insurgent candidates like Trump and Ted Cruz. Trump’s disdain for fellow candidates, particularly Bush, has been a staple of previous Republican debates.
“The other candidates don’t have to worry about going after Trump because they won’t get smashed with a comeback”, said Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. “Donald Trump has written new rules on how to campaign”.
So it’s possible that Thursday night’s debate could be a more civilized, policy-heavy affair on big questions – including tax policy, the war against ISIS and the wisdom of “boots on the ground” interventions overseas. The media will be all invited and we’ll see how Fox does in its ratings with no Trump on stage.
“Iowa voters, they decide late, and people who don’t think they do have not read history very carefully and looked at the caucuses”, Huckabee said on Fox News earlier this month.
Trump’s move not only could prevent last-minute attacks that hurt his standing, but also could keep the campaign buzz primarily about him and not his many rivals, experts said.
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On Wednesday, taking as he so often does to his Twitter account, Trump insisted that his decision to pull out of the debate was not due to the presence of Megyn Kelly, but rather to a “childishly written” press release issued by Fox after the Trump campaign on Tuesday made the initial announcement that the real estate tycoon and former reality TV personality would skip the debate in protest of Kelly.
