The 2016 race heats up ahead of the Iowa caucuses

Trump did note that there was a risk in his boycott of the debate. And he managed to upstage the debate to a certain extent, dominating Twitter mentions and Google searches during the event. The first question was asked about him when Kelly, who picked up a fight with him last summer after she subjected him to tough questioning, described it as “the elephant not in the room”.

Trump chose not to attend the debate because he said he was unfairly singled out in a previous debate by Kelly. “And Ben, you’re a bad surgeon”, Cruz said, looking mischievously at retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. A recent CNN/ORC poll of Republican voters has Trump at 41 percent to 19 percent for Cruz, with more than two-thirds of Republicans saying they believe the billionaire developer will be the party’s presidential candidate.

Trump then turned his crosshairs to Cruz. So his fellow presidential candidates lost no time in taking advantage of the chance to step out of the front-runner’s shadow.

Fox’s statement said Mr Ailes had three brief conversations with Mr Trump on Thursday about possibly appearing at the debate, but “there were not multiple calls placed by Ailes to Trump”.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump poses with a ring given to him by a group of veterans during a campaign event on the campus of Drake University Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa.

“Look at all the cameras”. Rick Santorum, businesswoman Carly Fiorina and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore listen as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee answers a question during a Republic…

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who has been a frequent target of Trump’s attacks, said he “kind of missed Donald Trump”, adding: “He was such a teddy bear to me”. “But he’s an anchor baby – No, Ted Cruz is an anchor baby in Canada. The other candidates did sort of gang of up on Cruz, not to the level Trump had hoped but he took some hits”.

“You don’t get 30 seconds to respond”. Trump said Fox was “really unable psychologically to do that and I said that’s ok we went out and raised $6 million dollars which is fantastic so it worked out”.

Further, if Fox was selling ads with a promise of anything bigger than 12 million, which I imagine it was, it will probably have to provide advertising time free of charge to make up the difference.

Carly Fiorina, also in the undercard debate, said what surprised her the most about running for president was “the chasm, the yawning chasm, between what the national media talks about and what the people of Iowa and the people of this great nation talk about”.