The real estate mogul refuses to budge on his debate boycott while his campaign accuses Megyn Kelly of being ‘totally obsessed’ with Trump.
By NICK GASS
01/27/16 06:37 AM EST
After Donald Trump declared Tuesday night that he would boycott Fox News’ Thursday primetime debate, the Republican poll leader is publicly refusing to blink, with his campaign manager accusing moderator Megyn Kelly of being out to get Trump.
“You know, what we know is Megyn Kelly is totally obsessed with Mr. Trump,” Corey Lewandowski told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “She’s on show after show about why the media shouldn’t be having him on television.”
And Trump himself took to Twitter to — indirectly — call Kelly a nasty name that he’s broken out before.
“I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!” the real estate mogul tweeted early Wednesday.
Trump’s decision to once again wage war on Fox and Kelly so close to the Iowa caucuses is either a shrewd one or a boneheaded one, depending on who you ask. While some are contending that Trump risks coming off as a coward walking away from a fight, it’s undeniable that he’s robbing the media oxygen from his rivals as they try to make their closing arguments to caucus-goers.
The tiff apparently started after Trump tried to pressure Fox News to boot Kelly as one of the moderators. Kelly gained heightened notoriety after pointedly asking Trump at the first debate about his supposed “war on women.” But Fox refused to give in, issuing a biting press statement on Tuesday saying, “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.”
Fox doubled down after Trump’s declaration of a boycott, issuing a statement Tuesday night that accused Lewandowski of threatening the network with “terrorizations” of Kelly.
“In a call on Saturday with a Fox News executive, Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a ‘rough couple of days after that last debate’ and he ‘would hate to have her go through that again,’” the network alleged.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/megyn-kelly-trump-obsessed-218273#ixzz3ySpU4Gun
They all shot themselves in the foot and its all over.
Megan Kelly has gotten a bit smarmy in her rise to the rank of Queen of the Fox Babes. Her questions to Trump belonged more in a tabloid than a debate from supposedly intelligent, neutral moderators. Watched many of her shows & was shocked &. very disappointed how low she would stoop to play inquiring prosecutor. Trump is taking the burn me twice shame on me approach.
There’s a lot more to this that Trump being miffed at Kelly. I believe team Trump is playing a very clever “anti-Fox” move with this, which will resonate with swing voters who don’t like Fox but at the same time can be persuaded to vote Republican under the Trump brand. He won’t lose the loyal Fox watchers who will vote Republican no matter who the party’s nominee is. Trump is a lot smarter than many are giving him credit for.
Megan Kelly asked a great question about his attitude toward women. She used his own words in forming her question. Was it unfair to bring up his past?
None of the other candidates have so much bad behavior on the record.
The three time married man, who had a tabloid affair on the side during marriage #1, and bragged in his book about sleeping with other men’s wives will have a difficult time with the chrisitan vote. He already lost the women.
not quite Bill Clinton , but I will give you the point
Nothing like having a self righteous inquisitor who had done her warm up session in 2010 on the Howard Stern show discussing lots of the sexual things that Stern so gets a kick out of. Just another way to get to the top.