Trump pulls out of Fox News debate over Kelly flap

NEW YORK – The seventh Republican primary debate airs Thursday on the Fox News Channel – but for many viewers it was expected to be Round 2 of Donald Trump vs. Megyn Kelly. Now all bets are off.

Late Tuesday, Trump’s campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks said the candidate will not be there and could stage a competing event on another network following a statement from Fox News Channel that tweaked the candidate for complaining about what he believed was Kelly’s bias against him.

Kelly riled the Republican front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination at the first GOP candidates’ debate Aug. 6 when she questioned him about his past derogatory comments about women and whether he had the “temperament of a man we should elect as president.”

Trump attempted to roll with it, but he angrily complained about Kelly as soon as he left the stage. In a CNN interview the next day, he described Kelly as “having blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” On Twitter, he questioned her journalistic skills and retweeted a tweet calling her a bimbo.

Nearly six months later, Trump is still leading in the polls – and still stewing about Kelly. In a video posted Tuesday on Instagram, Trump asked his Twitter followers if he should participate in the debate. “Megyn Kelly is really biased against me,” he said. “She knows that. I know that. Everybody knows that. Do you really think she can be fair at a debate?” In recent interviews, Trump suggested he would sit it out if she was not removed.

Trump has made such threats before. He formally requested a $5 million charitable contribution to veterans’ groups in return for his appearance on CNN’s Republican primary debate. The network never considered it, and Trump still showed up.

Fox News Channel has no intention of altering its lineup of moderators – Kelly will once again be joined by “Special Report” anchor Bret Baier and “Fox News Sunday” moderator Chris Wallace, who already has a post-debate interview scheduled with Trump.

“Megyn Kelly is an excellent journalist and the entire network stands behind her – she will absolutely be on the debate stage on Thursday night,” Fox News Chairman and Chief Executive Roger Ailes said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.

As for Trump’s comments on Kelly’s “bias,” the network issued a tongue-in-cheek response: “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 was angered by the statement and within hours went from saying he “most likely” will not participate in the debate to an announcement by his campaign manager that he was definitely pulling out.

Trump believes the debates have no audience appeal without him.

Fox News Channel averaged 24 million viewers that night, a cable-ratings record outside of sports programming, and drew strong reviews for its performance, setting a high standard for the candidate events that followed. The audiences for the other debates ranged between 23 million viewers for CNN and 11 million for Fox Business Network – all higher than any of the Republican primary debates in the 2012 campaign.

Kelly, one of the biggest stars on Fox News, has remained above the fray and not responded to any of Trump’s comments. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times before the events of the past two days, she said she did not think of the upcoming debate as a rematch with Trump and maintained that viewers won’t see any change in her approach.

“My only goal is to be professional and to be tough but fair, and if I do that for two hours I’ll be just fine,” she said. “I try not to let my own personal feelings or emotions enter into it – in any of these interviews that I do and certainly not at a presidential debate. That’s not what the viewers want to see. I, of all people, realize this is not an event about me. There was a time after the last debate that Trump made it about me. That was never my goal and it’s not my goal now. It’s the last thing I want. He’s going to get tough questions just like the others.”

Without going into detail, Kelly called the period that followed the first debate “a difficult time.” The language Trump used about her on Twitter especially bothered her husband, she said.

Yet she appears to have come out of the controversy stronger. The ratings of her nightly prime-time program have gone up. She did a magazine cover shoot with Vanity Fair and signed with talent agency CAA.

“Every crisis is an opportunity,” she said. “I do think I’ve grown as a professional as a result of it. And that’s valuable.”

Kelly also said there is no truth to reports that Fox News executives have been worried more about mollifying Trump than defending her against his barbs and threats.