Gretchen Ertl/Reuters
Immediately after Fox News announced its lineup of candidates for Thursday evening’s Republican debate, frontrunner Donald Trump told the media he “most likely” will not participate. “I’m going to have something else in Iowa, we’ll do something where we raise money for the veterans and the Wounded Warriors,” he said during a press conference. Trump added that he doesn’t like that Fox released a statement mocking his threats to boycott the event over his nemesis Megyn Kelly’s role as moderator. “I came here to do the debate, but when they sent out the wise-guy press releases a little while ago done by some PR person along with Roger Ales, I said bye-bye.”
Several minutes later, Trump spokesman Corey Lewandowski confirmed to The Washington Post that Trump is “definitely not” going to show up to the debate. “His word is his bond.”
Trump’s campaign later sent out a statement confirming the decision and calling the debate a bad deal: “As someone who wrote one of the best-selling business books of all time, The Art of the Deal, who has built an incredible company, including some of the most valuable and iconic assets in the world, and as someone who has a personal net worth of many billions of dollars, Mr. Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one,” the statement read. The press release claims he will instead host an event in Iowa to raise money for Veterans and Wounded Warriors.
“Like running for office as an extremely successful person, this takes guts and it is the kind mentality our country needs in order to Make America Great Again,” it concluded.