Trump absent as Republican candidates face off in Iowa

Fox News has accused USA presidential contender Donald Trump of demanding $5 million for his appearance at the network’s Thursday night GOP debate in Des Moines, Iowa.

“Your question was, you have disagreed with me”, Cruz said. 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 has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings”, Fox said in a statement Tuesday, making this already surreal saga even more odd.

Fox News Channel said that Mr Trump had demanded a $5million contribution to his charities in order to appear in the debate, which the network rejected. 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.

The fact is, and I said it, you know I have a very good relationship with Fox, but when somebody doesn’t treat you properly, you got to be tough, you got to be strong, you got to be, you can’t let them push you around.

Trump kicked off a row with Ms Kelly after she skewered him on his tendency to insult women in the first Republican debate previous year.

Colbert’s all-Trump debate took place on the same night that Trump boycotted Fox News’ GOP debate over issues with moderator Kelly and Fox News chairman Roger Ailes.

Trump pulled out earlier this week, accusing Fox News, and particularly debate moderator Megyn Kelly, of treating him unfairly.

“By missing the debate, he doesn’t have an “oops” moment”, Smith said.

On the other hand, Republican candidate Jeb Bush admitted that he had not a popular position in the primary, and he encouraged the audience from Iowa to read his book Immigration Wars, adding that it was not a best seller that people could get at $2.99 on Amazon.

“We’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way”, he quipped. Ted Cruz again for being born in Canada. Instead of attending a seventh debate, the former reality TV star held a competing event across town that he said raised $6m (£4m) for U.S. military veterans.