Donald Trump is pulling another, very Trump-ish move. He declared that he is skipping the last Republican debate before the primaries begin, which airs on Fox News Thursday night.
This comes as a reaction to a showdown with Fox News over the moderator of the debate, Megyn Kelly. On Tuesday, Trump demanded that Fox News remove Kelly from moderating the event, referring to Kelly as biased in an Instagram video. Fox News didnât listen, so Trump walked out of the debate lineup.
âLetâs see how much money Fox is going to make on the debate without me,â said Trump at a news conference in Iowa, according to the New York Times. His campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, claimed that Foxâs ratings for Thursdayâs debate could drop from 20-25 million views to as little as 1 million or 2 million viewers.
Fox News issued a statement in response to Trumpâs announcement, writing âCapitulating to politiciansâ ultimatums about a debate moderator violates all journalistic standards, as do threats, including the one leveled by Trumpâs campaign manager…Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a ârough couple of days after that last debateâ and he âwould hate to have her go through that again.ââ Fox News promised not to give into any âterrorizationsâ toward their employees.
The previous debate Lewandowski referred to took place in August, when Kelly asked Donald Trump if some of his remarks were a âpart of the war on women.â Since then, Trump has often attacked Kelly, calling her a âthird-rateâ reporter and saying flat-out that he didnât like her. Fox News accused Trump of being afraid of Kellyâs questioning again.
.@brithume: âWhat [Trumpâs] not free to do & what no news organization would allow, would be for him to… dictate the terms of the debate.â
â Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) January 27, 2016
Fellow GOP candidate Ted Cruz agreed, saying, âIf Donald is afraid to defend his record, that speaks volumesâŠI promise you, [Vladimir] Putin is a lot scarier than Megyn Kelly.â
Trump went on to say, âItâs time somebody plays grown up.â However, politicians donât get to pick and choose the journalists who cover them. Boycotting the debate over disliking a moderator doesnât sound very âgrown-upâ to me, Mr. Trump.