Donald Trump refuses to debate; calls Fox’s Kelly ‘a lightweight’

The network, in a sarcastically worded statement, said it had learned from a “secret back channel” that the leaders of Iran and Russian Federation planned to treat Trump unfairly if elected.

With Donald Trump’s pledge to skip Thursday night’s GOP debate, Ted Cruz has invited his adversary to participate in a 90-minute one-on-one debate. (Hey, the man loves polls.) Trump has floated the idea of a debate boycott at least three times before but never followed through, making his latest threat dubious at best/Washington Post.

Trump’s blunt-spoken candidacy has boosted ratings for the Republican presidential debates.

In recent weeks Trump and Cruz have clashed on the campaign trail.

“Most likely, I’m not going to be doing the debate”, Trump told reporters before a rally in Marshalltown, Iowa.

Trump’s decision to drop out only heightens his feud with Fox News, the host of Thursday’s debate in Iowa and whose moderator Megyn Kelly has been accused by Trump of bias against him. “I’ll take Sarah Palin every single day”, he added, reminding the crowd of his endorsement by the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate. She knows that, I know that, everybody knows that. Trump said in the video.

Cruz’s campaign coming out with a new TV ad on Tuesday, trying to label Trump as a phony conservative.

Businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to defend himself after his controversial comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.

Trump has been objecting to the involvement of Kelly, who challenged Trump during Fox’s first debate back in August and will be back in one of the moderator chairs on Thursday.

Cruz and Trump are running a tight race heading into Monday’s Iowa’s caucuses. If she’d contributed thousands and thousands of dollars to the Chris Christie campaign, then she’d have a conflict of interest.

One thing is for sure: Kelly will be there. For her part, Kelly has been scrupulously professional and has refused to enter into any kind of public skirmish. But the Democratic National Committee chairwoman said the party had “no plans” to sanction more debates, and Clinton’s campaign said she’d only participate if the other candidates agree. “He doesn’t get to control the media”.

Dylan Byers, MJ Lee and Maeve Reston contributed reporting from Iowa.