Fox News Channel accused Donald Trump of asking the network for a $5 million donation as a “quid pro quo” in return for Trump’s promise to appear in Thursday night’s Republican debate, as an extraordinary feud between the right’s best-known media platform and the Republican party’s presidential front-runner overshadowed the last debate before the Iowa caucuses.
“Roger Ailes had three brief conversations with Donald Trump today about possibly appearing at the debate – there were not multiple calls placed by Ailes to Trump.
In the course of those conversations, we acknowledged his concerns about a satirical observation we made in order to quell the attacks on Megyn Kelly, and prevent her from being smeared any further.
Furthermore, Trump offered to appear at the debate upon the condition that Fox News contribute $5 million to his charities. We explained that was not possible and we could not engage in a quid pro quo, nor could any money change hands for any reason.
We have accomplished those two goals and we are pleased with the outcome. We’re very proud to have her on stage as a debate moderator alongside Bret Baier & Chris Wallace.”
Shortly after Republican front-runner Donald Trump began speaking at his veterans’ fundraising event in Iowa on Thursday night, a move in protest of Fox News’s GOP debate happening simultaneously nearby, three protesters began shouting at the billionaire from the audience.
“We love our vets, Trump loves war!” two women and a man said as security personnel escorted them out of the gathering at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Media
Three protestors shouting "We love our vets, Trump loves war" pop up, get thrown out pic.twitter.com/UeLRXoMstx
Trump told CNN that an unnamed Fox executive “apologized” to him for a mocking statement the network issued two days before the debate. Speaking to a small group of reporters aboard his private plane Thursday evening before his counter-debate event to raise money for wounded veterans he said:
“I got an apology, it was very nice, and I appreciated it. And that’s why I was so open to doing something, but by that time it was just too late.”
Trump said Fox “could not have been nicer” as it tried to woo him back into attending the debate. But he stuck to his plan of holding a competing event aimed at raising funds for veterans’ organizations.
Later Trump told CNN’s Brianna Keilar in an interview aboard Trump’s private plane:
“I was treated very unfairly by Fox. Since then they’ve been excellent, they’ve been very nice, but it’s too late.”
Reality
Fox heard Trump’s remarks and fired back in a statement. The network suggested that it didn’t apologize outright — instead it, “acknowledged his concerns about a satirical observation we made in order to quell the attacks on Megyn Kelly, and prevent her from being smeared any further.”
Trump would not say who from Fox News called to apologize for the network’s behavior.
If you read the news, Donald Trump’s boycott of the Fox News/Google debate is the result of his ongoing war with anchor Megyn Kelly.
Trump, however, says that’s not true. He says a biting Fox News release is why he pulled the plug.
“Well, I’m not a person that respects Megyn Kelly very much. I think she’s highly overrated. Other than that, I don’t care,” he told CNN an hour before the debate. “I never once asked that she be removed. I don’t care about her being removed. What I didn’t like was that public relations statement where they were sort of taunting. I didn’t think it was appropriate. I didn’t think it was nice.”
No one ever really doubted that Donald Trump could pull off a major counter-programing feat — even when competing with a GOP debate that was expected to draw millions of viewers.
He did it Thursday night, dazzling a crowd of hundreds of enthusiastic supporters by announcing that he had raised more than $6 million for veterans in one day — $1 million of it from his own checkbook. “We love our vets,” he said.
“You know, my whole theme is make America great again and that’s what we’re going to do — and we wouldn’t have even been here if it weren’t for our vets,” Trump said.
Even Trump seemed a bit surprised that he had pulled off his stunt: “Look at all the cameras. This is like the Academy Awards,” the real estate magnate said as he took the stage in an auditorium at Drake University about 20 minutes after the debate began a few miles away. “We’re actually told that we have more cameras than they do by quite a bit, and you know what that’s really in honor of our vets.”
The rally was a restrained performance by Trump standards. He dispensed with his usual riff about his poll numbers and mostly avoided jabs at his fellow candidates (with the exception of a “low-energy” shot at Jeb Bush).
Instead he delivered a speech mostly focused on the problems veterans have faced when returning from Iraq and Afghanistan — inadequate healthcare and housing, drug abuse, mental health issues and homelessness.
“Our vets are being mistreated. Illegal immigrants are treated better in many cases than our vets and it’s not going to happen any more. It’s not going to happen any more.”
Clearly enjoying his evening away from the debate, Trump also told the audience what could be another media sensation for his campaign: the fact that his daughter Ivanka is pregnant. “Ivanka, I said, it would be so great if you had your baby in Iowa. It would be so great — I’d definitely win!”
Trump lost Iowa. He acknowledged that this event may have backfired. Voters in the Hawkeye State take their responsibly of being first seriously, and the debate that Trump skipped was the final, and critically important, debate ahead of the caucuses. “I think some people were disappointed that I didn’t go into the debate,” Trump said while in New Hampshire.
The fact is Trump did not attend the seventh Republican debate and instead hosted a rival event due to his intense fear of Megyn Kelly and the hilarious response by Fox News that mocked his inability to handle simple questions from reporters.
Trump was also criticized by also overselling the event and not managing it well. According to a statement by Drake University, the location for Trump’s Thursday night event, the auditorium is limited to a 700-person capacity, but the event had been “significantly over-ticketed by the Trump campaign.”
It is important to note that in 2012 when Michelle Bachmann skipped a debate hosted by Newsmax, someone had some choice critical words for her:
Michele Bachmann just dropped out of prez race— when she didn't do the Newsmax debate it showed great disloyalty and people rejected her.
Real-estate mogul Donald Trump promoted a fake photo and a conspiracy theory in the middle of his Thursday-morning tweetstorm blasting Fox News and one of the network’s anchors, Megyn Kelly.
Trump tweeted someone’s photo that supposedly shows Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Alwaleed’s sister, and Kelly.
The text on the image stated:
“Most people don’t know that the co-owner of Fox News is Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi Arabia here with his sister and with host Mygan [sic] Kelly. In case you only watch Fox News and you missed it everywhere else. GOOGLE IT!”
We Googled the claim… which yielded multiple fact-checking websites declaring that it was mostly false. Snopes.com reported that the photo was a fabrication and found the original photo of Kelly.
Both Snopes.com and PolitiFact reported that the ownership claim wasn’t true, but the billionaire Saudi prince’s investment company owns a smaller amount of 21st Century Fox.
A single day after he had said he wouldn’t refer to Kelly as a “bimbo,” a term used to insult women, because doing so would “not be politically correct” Donald Trump tweeted the following:
Usually politicians have some time between they flip-flop to afford them a bit of a buffer. Apparently Trump couldn’t go 24 hours without reverting to his sexist ways.
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly told Donald Trump that he’s making a “big mistake” by skipping Thursday’s GOP debate. But Trump is not budging.
O’Reilly pleaded with Trump to reconsider, even invoking Trump’s Christian faith and the tenet of forgiveness to say that Trump should forgive Megyn Kelly for tough questioning.
Trump responded by bringing up the “eye for an eye” principle.
The GOP frontrunner is planning to hold a “special event” to raise money for veterans at the same time Fox hosts the final primary debate before Monday’s Iowa caucuses.
“We’re going to have a tremendous event,” Trump said, adding that “a lot of money is going to be raised.”
O’Reilly seemed to be lobbying Trump on behalf of the network, even going so far as to say that “I don’t think not showing up for debate tomorrow is good for America.”
At the end of the conversation, he asked Trump to reconsider the 24-hour-old boycott.
“Consider it,” the host said.
Trump shot back that “you and I had an agreement that you wouldn’t ask me that.”
And he declined to reconsider. Then he plugged his 9 p.m. fund-raising event at Drake University.
He criticized Kelly on Fox just an hour before Kelly’s own show. “I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she is very good at what she does. I think she is highly overrated.”
He emphasized to Fox’s Bill O’Reilly that it was ultimately the network’s disrespectful statements that led to his decision:
“I was not treated well by Fox. They came out with this ridiculous P.R. statement, it was like drawn up by a child. And there was a taunt. And I said, you know, “How much of this do you take?” I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly. I don’t think she’s very good at what she does. I think she’s highly overrated. And, frankly, she’s the moderator, I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”
The evidence has mounted and it is clear that Trump is avoiding Megyn Kelly. If it is out of fear or spite, doesn’t matter they are both unpresidential.
Fox News has issued a statement responding to Donald Trump‘s conduct on social media, calling The Donald out for his timidity with what can only be described as trolling of the highest order.
Fox News responded in a statement given to Mediaite, saying:
We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.
In a similar statement released Monday, a Fox News spokesperson said the network was “surprised he’s willing to show that much fear about being questioned by Megyn Kelly,” and suggesting that one day, the presidential candidate would have to learn that he doesn’t get to pick which journalists cover him.
Donald Trump tweeted his response later that afternoon, calling Fox News’s statement a “pathetic attempt” to build ratings:
Trump has had an issue with Kelly since she moderated a Republican presidential debate in August. He accused her of being unfairly harsh on him by asking him valid questions about past sexist and misogynist comments. Fox News is standing by its anchor, calling the attacks on her “sexist verbal assaults.”
Donald Trump on Tuesday bowed out of the final Republican presidential debate before the leadoff Iowa caucuses, saying Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly is “a lightweight.”
It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly.
With 48 hours to go before the faceoff, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski confirmed Trump’s decision Tuesday evening after a press conference in which Trump lashed out at Kelly and said she’d been “toying” with him.
“He will not be participating in the Fox News debate Thursday,” Lewandowski said immediately after the press conference.
Trump, who called his decision “pretty close to irrevocable” in the press conference, said he’d hold an Iowa event at the same time as the debate to raise money for wounded veterans. Iowa hosts the nation’s opening presidential primary contest on Monday.
“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,” he said. “Let them have their debate and let’s see how they do with the ratings.”
He added, “Why do I have to make Fox rich?”
Trump denied that he was afraid to debate, pointing out his participation and past performance, and reiterated his distaste for Kelly.
“This to me isn’t a reporter. This to me is just a lightweight. Megyn Kelly shouldn’t be in the debate. I don’t care about Megyn — when Megyn Kelly didn’t ask me a question, she made a statement last time, I thought it was inappropriate.”
On Tuesday night’s airing of her Fox News show, “The Kelly File,” Kelly said she’ll be at the debate, which will “go on with or without Mr. Trump.”
The Republican National Committee said the decision was up to Trump.
“Obviously we would love all of the candidates to participate, but each campaign ultimately makes their own decision what’s in their best interest,” said RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer.
Trump had suggested he might skip the Fox debate earlier in the day, drawing a sarcastic statement from the television network that “the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president.”
“A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings,” the Fox statement said.
A Fox spokesman did not immediately respond to Trump’s decision.
The New York real estate mogul’s presence has helped produce massive ratings in the previous six Republican presidential debates. His decision leaves seven candidates to share the primetime stage Thursday: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
“Let them have their debate. I’m going to raise money during that period of time for the wounded warriors and for the vets. Let Fox play its games,” Trump said.
He added, “I don’t think Iowa’s gonna care.”
At the very least, the high-profile debate feud serves as a major distraction in the Republican contest just six days before Iowa voters cast the first votes in the 2016 primary contest.
Trump, now locked in a tight race with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has proven to be a master of commanding media attention at key moments. Among other things, he has called for a temporary ban on all Muslim immigrants and later questioned Cruz’s presidential eligibility given that he was born in Canada.
The provocative declarations have often left little oxygen in the race for his opponents.
By skipping the debate Trump lost Iowa to Ted Cruz.
Trump has had an issue with Kelly since she moderated a Republican presidential debate in August. He accused her of being unfairly harsh on him by asking him valid questions about past sexist and misogynist comments. Fox News is standing by its anchor, with a statement calling the attacks on her “sexist verbal assaults.”
Fox, responded with another statement emphasizing Trump’s agenda against Kelly and alleging that Lewandowski had personally threatened the anchor:
“We’re not sure how Iowans are going to feel about him walking away from them at the last minute, but it should be clear to the American public by now that this is rooted in one thing – Megyn Kelly, whom he has viciously attacked since August and has now spent four days demanding be removed from the debate stage.”
It is important to note that in 2012 when Michelle Bachmann skipped a debate hosted by Newsmax, someone had some choice critical words for her:
Michele Bachmann just dropped out of prez race— when she didn't do the Newsmax debate it showed great disloyalty and people rejected her.
