Thursday at Fox News Channel’s Republican presidential “undercard” debate, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) said he is in the lesser debate because the media is only “talking about an entertainer.”
Santorum said, “You know, listening to what your network was talking about prior to this race, this debate, reminded me of the coverage that many on this floor are getting. This debate was called the under card debate. The under card debate. It wasn’t advertised significantly. In fact, the entire hour leadup to this there was no conversation about any of the four people on this debate stage. And that is the chronic situation. In fact, they put a poll up from Wall Street Journal-NBC News, they listed the candidates and they failed to mention — I wasn’t listed I got zero. Why? Because the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll never includes my name on the list. This is what the media has been doing over the past year in trying to segregate and take Iowans out of the process. What Iowans deserves is to hear from every candidate on an equal footing. Had they applied the same rules four years ago I would have been in the undercard debate. The guy who won the Iowa caucuses would have been in the undercard debate, not talked about. We have been talking about an entertainer that may have been trying to run. Ladies and gentlemen, you have a chance on Monday to put the record straight about who you want, not who will entertain you but who will fight for what you believe in. I hope you do it.”
Host Bill Hemmer said, “Senator, do you want a name — senator, do you want to name that entertainer you are referring to?”
Santorum said, “Well, look, the entire lead-up to this debate was talking about whether Donald Trump is going to show up for the next debate. The people of Iowa, who I know pretty darn well, care a lot about the issues. They care about who is going to be the leader of the free world. Who is going to be able to take on ISIS and take on and make sure that we’re safe. They’re concerned about whether agriculture programs. renewable fuel is going to be maintained. We are not hearing any of those things. We are hearing about whether someone is going to show up for the next debate or not.”
Hemmer said, “Quickly then, after this debate you mentioned Donald Trump’s name. Immediately going to event across town here in Des Moines as a guest of Donald Trump.”
Santorum said, “Yeah, I am… you know, this, again, more of the politics of trying to get people to throw stuff at each other. I’m not going to throw mud at anybody on this stage tonight. I’m not going to throw mud at anybody on the stage later. I’m not going to attack Donald Trump. what I’m — what Mike Huckabee and I were asked to come to an event where money was going to be raise to do help our veterans. You know, I thought about it. I said well, wait a minute, now, if there were no political considerations and I had some time because I’m not doing anything at nine o’clock tonight.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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