GOP debate: Megyn Kelly confronts candidates in absence of Donald Trump

“It’s not about Donald Trump, he’s an entertaining guy, he’s the greatest show on Earth”, said Sen.

Trump’s Fox feud dates back to the first Republican primary debate, when moderator Megyn Kelly took the billionaire business mogul to task over derogatory statements he’d made in the past toward women.

In an interview with Press TV on Friday, political commentator Daniel Patrick Welch described the debate as a political circus. That’s when Iowa residents will choose among the Republican and Democratic candidates in the first of a series of state-by-state contests to choose delegates to each party’s convention.

Trump’s use of the term – which describes children born on US soil to parents who are in the country illegally and is widely considered to be derogatory – marks the latest escalation of his attacks against Cruz in which he highlights the Texas senator’s Canadian birthplace.

When asked about his opinion on Iowa, 2016 Donald said, “I love Iowa, we’ve done really well here”, whereas 2015’s Trump asks, “How stupid are the people of Iowa?”

Audiences for all Republican debates in the current presidential election campaign have been much higher than in previous years.

And Ted Cruz began targeting Marco Rubio in an ad Thursday, a sign the Texan sees his fellow senator as a strong competitor in Iowa.

“I took a chance and I don’t even know the end result”, Trump told a crowd of more than 1,000. “Since then, they have been excellent”, Trump said.

At the debate, Cruz came out swinging against Trump in his initial comments, mocking the tycoon’s penchant for brash criticism.

Trump noted that skipping the debate was a “risk” given that other candidates could have shifted the dynamic of the race in Trump’s absence.

On stage he gloated at the turnout for his duelling charity fund-raiser for veterans – pulled together just a few kilometres from the Fox News event in 24 hours, he claimed.

Republican presidential candidate Sen.

The debate topped all television shows – including broadcast programs – on Thursday night in total viewers. He was also leading Cruz, 34 to 23 percent in Iowa, according to a separate survey.

There’s been a half dozen of them in the run up to next week’s caucuses in Iowa.