After asking his millions of social media followers whether he should take part in Thursday’s Megan Kelly-moderated Republican debate on Thursday, Donald Trump has decided not to participate.
The business mogul hinted repeatedly Wednesday that he might not take part because he doesn’t think Kelly is fair. Soon Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski confirmed to The Washington Post that Trump would “definitely not” be in Thursday’s Fox News debate, adding that Trump’s word “is his bond.”
Lewandowski said Trump would be in Iowa hosting an event to raise money for veterans. He said the decision only applies to the Fox News debate and that Trump would be “open” to participating in other debates.
On Wednesday Trump posted a poll on his social media accounts asking his millions of followers, “Should I do the #GOPdebate?”
Trump’s fight with Fox News boiled over after Fox News released a statement making clear that Kelly would not step down as moderator:
“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.”
Trump responded that the statement was “written by a child.”
Trump apparently didn’t listen to the Twitter voters: as of 5:15 PT Tuesday, three-fourths of the nearly 90,000 people who participated said he should take part in the debate.
Trump’s campaign and Fox News did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
BREAKING: Donald Trump's campaign manager says Trump "will not be participating" in GOP debate Thursday.
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 27, 2016