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Donald Trump won’t participate in debate over feud with Fox News Donald Trump won’t participate in debate over feud with Fox News
(35 minutes later)
Breaking: DES MOINES — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Thursday evening that he would make good on his promise to boycott Thursday night’s main Republican presidential debate, staying away from the last face-off before the crucial Iowa caucuses because of his continuing feud with broadcaster Fox News Channel.
DES MOINES — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump just reaffirmed his decision to withdraw from Thursday night’s seventh GOP debate during an abruptly organized news conference aboard his private jet, ending speculation that he would ultimately participate in the event. “No, I’m not doing it,” Trump said, after calling reporters to his private plane for a special media availability – in which Trump essentially said that nothing had changed.
**** He appeared eager to needle Fox News, saying the network’s top executives had been calling him every 15 minutes, and that he had spoken to Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox’s parent company, News Corp., just minutes before.
The “undercard” Republican debate began Thursday night with a candidate complaining that he’d been ignored by the media, and overshadowed by front-runner Donald J. Trump and Trump’s threat to boycott the main event later on. “The time to change my mind would have been two days ago,” Trump said. He said it was too late now.
“This debate was called the undercard debate. The undercard debate. It wasn’t advertised significantly,” said former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.), in his first chance to speak in the debate. He lamented that Fox News had spent the previous hour talking about whether Trump would follow up on a threat to stay away. “An entertainer” had captured everyone’s attention, Santorum said. “The entire lead-up to this debate was about whether Donald Trump was going to show up for the next debate.”
[Live reports from the debate and the Trump event][Live reports from the debate and the Trump event]
The undercard candidates are all polling below 5 percent and have little chance to win the Iowa caucuses, just days away. The one candidate who came out and admitted that was former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, who had been kept out of the past five undercards because his poll numbers were so low. Instead, Trump will appear at his own rally in another part of Des Moines, which he said would honor veterans – but would also give Trump a platform to counterprogram the very debate he is skipping. Trump said he had already donated $1 million of his own money to veterans causes and raised a total of $5 million for them.
Moderator Bill Hemmer pointed out that Gilmore had not even appeared in Iowa to campaign until a week ago. At the center of the dispute was Trump’s long-standing disdain for Fox anchor Megyn Kelly, who Trump has frequently accused of being biased against him after a tough line of questioning during the first GOP debate in August. Those tensions escalated Saturday amid a push by the campaign to have Kelly removed from the debate during a telephone call Saturday between Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and a Fox network executive.
“This is not the place where I choose to begin my campaign. I am beginning my campaign in New Hampshire,” Gilmore said. But he sought to differentiate himself from Santorum and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who were both headed to a Trump rally later in the evening. “I’m not going to any Donald Trump [event] across town, on any sort of faux veteran sort of issue.” Trump first indicated that he might skip the debate Monday during several television interviews, stirring questions about whether the front-runner would seriously skip a nationally televised debate so close to Monday’s caucuses, the first nominating contests in the country. Trump repeatedly accused the network of treating him unfairly in the days before the debate, adding that the network has used him to boost their ratings and advertising revenue.
The undercard began at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Fox News Channel. Also onstage was former tech executive Carly Fiorina. Fox News responded with a series of press releases that angered the billionaire: “We’re very surprised he’s willing to show that much fear about being questioned by Megyn Kelly,” the statement from Fox said.
All of the low-polling candidate have been overshadowed by Trump, the bombastic billionaire who rose to the top of the GOP field with promises to erect a giant wall on the border with Mexico and to bar Muslim foreigners from entering the country. Elsewhere in Des Moines, the night’s first “undercard” debate began at 7 p.m. as planned, and its early minutes focused on Trump. The low-polling candidates onstage lamented that Trump had taken so much of the media’s attention away from them.
But they may never have been as overshadowed as they were tonight. That’s because, just as their early-evening debate begins, Trump will be holding a press availability elsewhere in Iowa, stirring speculation that he might change his mind and attend the main debate, which is set to begin at 9 p.m. “This debate was called the undercard debate. The undercard debate. It wasn’t advertised significantly,” said former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.), in his first chance to speak in the debate. He lamented that Fox News had spent the previous hour talking about whether Trump would follow up on a threat to stay away. “An entertainer” had captured everyone’s attention, Santorum said. “The entire lead-up to this debate was about whether Donald Trump was going to show up for the next debate.”
Trump had said he would not attend the event, because of a feud with Fox moderator Megyn Kelly, who Trump says mistreated him with unfair questions in a past debate. Santorum, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2012, expressed frustration that he had not had the same success this time around. He blamed the media, who he said had marginalized him by refusing to ask voters about him in opinion polls, and by relegating him to undercard debates like this one. “Trying to segregate and take Iowans out of the process,” Santorum said, meaning that the media had not allowed Iowans a fair chance to evaluate him this time around.
Trump has scheduled his own, separate event in Des Moines on Thursday, a rally for veterans (Huckabee and Santorum have also said they will attend the Trump event, after the undercard is over). But the timing of Trump’s event could still leave him time to make an appearance, and still be able to make the debate – or make a spectacle that would overshadow it. Later, Santorum said he had made 700 political appearances in Iowa over the last five years.
*** Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, the lowest-polling candidate in the undercard, complained of a conspiracy to sideline him, to benefit other candidates on the undercard stage.
The top Republican candidates — minus one, perhaps — will face off Thursday night in Des Moines for the final time before the Iowa caucuses, in a crucial presidential debate that front-runner Donald Trump has promised to boycott. “There are powerful forces that are really controlling our lives,” Gilmore said. “The biggest one is the organized establishment media. And I just noticed, just now, you gave Carly Fiorina two one-minute answers in a row.”
The main debate will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Fox News Channel. But Trump, who seems to be leading in Iowa and everywhere else, said he won’t be there. The candidate demanded that Fox replace moderator Megyn Kelly, because he thinks she asked unfair questions in a past debate and because she has angered him with commentary since then. Gilmore had been kept out of the past five undercards because his poll numbers were so low. But moderator Bill Hemmer pointed out that Gilmore had not even appeared in Iowa to campaign until a week ago.
So far, Fox hasn’t blinked. Trump hasn’t either. “This is not the place where I choose to begin my campaign. I am beginning my campaign in New Hampshire,” Gilmore said.
As of Thursday morning, Kelly was still set to moderate the debate. And Trump had scheduled his own “special event for veterans” rally, to be held elsewhere in Des Moines on the same evening. Trump will be joined by a pair of long-shot candidates, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, after they participate in the 7 p.m. “undercard” GOP debate. He also took a shot at Santorum and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who were both scheduled to appear at the Trump rally later in the evening. Gilmore said that he came from a humble background: his father was a meat-cutter at Safeway, his mother a secretary. “I’m not about to go across and carry the coat for some billionaire,” Gilmore said.
“Fox is playing games,” Trump said in a news conference Wednesday. “They can’t toy with me like they toy with everybody else. Let them have the debate. Let’s see how they do with the ratings.” Rather than addressing Trump’s absence, Fiorina, the former tech executive, attacked Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, calling her dishonest and saying that Clinton deserved to be “in the Big House” for her use of a personal e-mail server to handle government data. The Big House is a euphemism for prison.
[Trump says he’ll refuse to show up for the Fox debate] Fiorina, Gilmore, Huckabee and Santorum are all polling below 5 percent and have little chance to win the Iowa caucuses. Each has been overshadowed by Trump, the bombastic billionaire who rose to the top of the GOP field with promises to erect a giant wall on the border with Mexico and to bar Muslim foreigners from entering the country. But they, and possibly the main debate participants, have never been as upstaged as they will be tonight.
If Trump doesn’t show up, that could provide an opening for the other candidates who have struggled to get a word in edgewise, in a race dominated by the reality-TV-trained showman. But without Trump at the main debate, an opening could develop for the other candidates who have struggled to get a word in edgewise, in a race dominated by the reality-TV-trained showman.
In particular, it could allow Trump’s top rival in Iowa, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, to repeat his argument that Trump is not a committed conservative.In particular, it could allow Trump’s top rival in Iowa, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, to repeat his argument that Trump is not a committed conservative.
[Cruz super PAC donors try to pressure Trump into one-on-one debate]
Or it could allow Trump to dominate the debate without even having to show up. If networks show his rally before, or even during, the formal debate, Trump could steal the moment again.Or it could allow Trump to dominate the debate without even having to show up. If networks show his rally before, or even during, the formal debate, Trump could steal the moment again.
The other candidates in the main-event debate will be retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who had once challenged Trump for the lead in Iowa but then faded; Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; former Florida governor Jeb Bush; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; Ohio Gov. John Kasich; and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.The other candidates in the main-event debate will be retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who had once challenged Trump for the lead in Iowa but then faded; Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; former Florida governor Jeb Bush; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; Ohio Gov. John Kasich; and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Many of them, having little chance in Iowa, may be aiming already at the (theoretically) more-moderate, establishment-friendly voters in New Hampshire, although Trump is way ahead of them there, too. The New Hampshire primary is Feb. 9.Many of them, having little chance in Iowa, may be aiming already at the (theoretically) more-moderate, establishment-friendly voters in New Hampshire, although Trump is way ahead of them there, too. The New Hampshire primary is Feb. 9.
[Cruz super PAC donors try to pressure Trump into one-on-one debate]
There will also be another “undercard” debate, beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Fox News Channel.
Its four participants will include three who have tasted success in a GOP primary but lost it. They are former tech executive Carly Fiorina, who was briefly a star in this race, and two former winners of the Iowa caucuses: Huckabee, who won in 2008, and Santorum, who won in 2012.
And there will be one candidate who is just thrilled to be back onstage: former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore. He appeared in the first undercard debate, but then fell so low in the polls that he didn’t qualify for the next five.
But he still kept at it. A few days ago on Twitter, Gilmore compared himself to, yes, a toe.
“#America is looking for that “big toe” to lead us right now. Time for a common guy to lead,” he wrote.
Now, Gilmore is back on the stage. Gilmore scored 1 percent in a recent Fox News poll of Republicans nationally, which qualified him for the undercard debate.
The news seems to have surprised even Gilmore: He told MSNBC this week that he had to book a last-minute flight to make it to Des Moines in time.