Trump campaign announces rival event to debate
Donald Trump and his rivals spent Wednesday debating his decision to skip a debate.
Trump and aides defended his boycott, while other Republicans mocked the GOP front-runner for looking weak. Late Wednesday, the Trump campaign announced a "Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations" to be held at Drake University in Des Moines — at the same time as Thursday's Des Moines debate.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, locked in a tight battle with Trump ahead of Monday's caucuses in Iowa, responded to the boycott by challenging the businessman to a one-on-one debate, creating a website called "Ducking Donald," and selling hats saying "Make Trump Debate Again."
"Show up for the job interview if you'd actually like the job," Cruz told supporters.
Trump, who has questioned the Canadian-born Cruz's eligibility for the presidency, responded with a Twitter taunt: "Even though I beat him in the first six debates, especially the last one, Ted Cruz wants to debate me again. Can we do it in Canada?"
Trump "understands when a bad deal is in front of him and is ready to walk away from a bad deal," said campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
Trump team says he'll ditch Thursday's GOP debate
The boycott decision stems from Trump's long-running feud with Fox and Kelly following the first Republican debate in August, when Kelly questioned Trump about his past statements regarding women.
There is a precedent for Trump's boycott. Ronald Reagan skipped an Iowa debate during the 1980 campaign; many analysts believe that cost him that year's caucuses to George H.W. Bush.
As Trump called for Kelly's removal as a moderator and threatened to walk away from Thursday's debate, Fox responded with a series of critical statements defending Kelly and saying the businessman could not dictate the terms of the debate.
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On Tuesday, the network said: “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.”
Citing that statement, Trump said: "They can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else."
Trump continued his attacks on Kelly after his debate announcement, tweeting early Wednesday morning: "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!"
Kelly said in an interview withExtra that "it would probably be a bad decision" for Trump to skip the debate, and disputed his claim that she is biased against him. “I neither like nor dislike him," she said.
Trump's opponents predicted his debate absence would hurt his status as a front-runner.
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Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is third in many polls, hit both Trump and Cruz for their "theatrics," saying they detract from the Republicans' goal of defeating Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. "We don’t have time for these kinds of distractions," Rubio said.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Fox News, the network with which Trump is feuding, that "America wants a fighter who shows up,"
On Twitter, Jeb Bush told Trump earlier Tuesday: "Do you know who else is scared of tough qs from Fox & @megynkelly? Barack Obama. Enough whining."
In criticizing Trump during an appearance Wednesday in Des Moines, Bush warned that "an ugly campaign" would "lead to electoral disaster" for the Republicans in the fall.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson told reporters that all candidates need to debate and "talk about what their vision is for America," and he suggested that Fox and Trump may resolve their differences in the next two days.
"I wouldn't be surprised if he did show up," Carson said.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told Fox News that Trump's absence means "the IQ of the debate went up a couple dozen points."
Opponents and political analysts also began assessing the impact of the latest unconventional move from this most unconventional of candidates.
David Redlawsk, a political science professor at Rutgers University who once taught at the University of Iowa, called it a "bad move" that makes Trump look like a "whiny baby, not a leader."
Of course, Trump's supporters won't care, Redlawsk added, though "it may make it more difficult for him to expand his base."
Aaron Kall, the director of debate at the University of Michigan, called the boycott the first big mistake of the Trump campaign and said it "seems like a dangerous and unnecessary unforced error by a front-runner candidate that's been nearly perfect to date."
Trump and aides said people watch debates to see him, and they predicted low viewership for this week's session.
"Maybe Fox was going to have a 20 or 25-million person debate," Lewandowski told MSNBC. "But without Mr. Trump’s participation, I think they may have a 1- or 2-million person debate."
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Contributing: Susan Page