Tuesday at press conference before a campaign event in Marshalltown, IA, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump indicated he “most likely” won’t be a participant in Thursday’s Republican presidential debate to be host by the Fox News Channel.
“I told Fox you should give money to the Wounded Warriors,” Trump said. “I’m not a fan of Megyn Kelly. I think she’s a third-rate reporter. I think she is frankly, not good at what she does. I think they could do a lot better than Megyn Kelly. I’m going to make a decision with Fox but I probably won’t bother doing the debate. They picked me as number one. Not only number one, number one by far. But probably I won’t be doing the debate. I’m going to have something else in Iowa, do something where we raise money for the veterans and the Wounded Warriors. We’re going to do something simultaneously with the debate. But, most likely I’m not going to do the debate. I didn’t like the fact they sent out press releases toying, talking about Putin and playing games. I don’t know what games Roger Ailes is playing, but what’s wrong over there, something’s wrong. But when they sent out that press release talking about, I said why are these people playing games? Most likely I won’t be doing the debate.”
Trump explained one of the causes for his decision was a press release from Fox News and that proclaimed he won’t be toyed with like “everybody else.”
See, the point is with me they’re dealing with somebody that’s a little bit different. They can’t toy with me like they toy with everybody else. Let them have their debate and let’s see how they do with the ratings. And I told them, give money to the Wounded Warriors, and give money to the veterans. They’re going to make a fortune with the debate. Let’s see how many people watch. We’ll have our own event, we’ll raise some money for the Wounded Warriors. We’ll raise money for the vets. When they sent out the wise-guy press releases a little while ago. I was set to do the debate. I came here to do the debate. When they sent out the wise-guy press releases a little while ago done by some PR person along with Roger Ailes, I said bye-bye, OK?”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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