This story has been updated.
It looks like it’s really happening: Republican frontrunner Donald Trump announced a Thursday night event at Drake University as counter-programming for the Fox News presidential debate, which he has said he would not attend.
The event was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. local time, the same time Fox’s primetime debate is slated to start, but the start time was moved back to 7 p.m. on Thursday morning.
Because both events are in Des Moines, the move sparked speculation that Trump could still feasibly attend both his own event and the GOP debate.
Source familiar w set up says they’d need 20 minutes to reset for podium and lighting if Trump shows up.
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) January 28, 2016
After the event was announced, Trump took to Twitter to blame his boycott on the “taunting” statement released by the network on Tuesday, which ribbed the billionaire about his threat to skip the debate if he was treated “unfairly.”
It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016
Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, told the Washington Post the campaign has invited “all major networks” to carry the event live.
Trump had earlier said he would host an event in Iowa to raise money for veterans in lieu of attending the debate.
Confusion in Baggerstan. The bigot they love in a fight with the network that tells them what to think.
It’s the Bong show.
Most kids would just take their toys and go home. Li’l Donnie built himself a new sandbox!
Jesus wept communion wafers! Did someone declare today National Lack of Self-Awareness Day and not tell me?
Fox proved Trump’s point when they failed to act professionally. Fox should have remained impartial. Sending out such a childish tweet only gave Trump every reason to skip out, and he’s coming off the better for having done so.
Megyn had her chance and got called out for her lack of professionalism, so I understand why she’s interested in a second chance, but really, these debates are not supposed to be about the media, but about the candidates.
Basically, the media should not be the story, and Fox failed this very basic lesson of Journalism 101.