Donald Trump Drops Out of Fox News Debate on Thursday

UPDATED: After a day of threatening to abstain from Fox News’ Thursday night GOP debate, Donald Trump has officially dropped out of the event, his campaign manager told the Associated Press.

The debate will be hosted by the network’s Megyn Kelly, who Trump slammed as “biased against” him.

“Megyn Kelly’s really biased against me,” Trump said in an Instagram video on Tuesday. “She knows that. I know that. Everybody knows that. Do you really think she can be fair at a debate?”

He also posted a poll on Twitter, asking his followers if he should participate in the debate. Fox News shot back on Tuesday with a tongue-in-cheek statement.

“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,” the network said.

Trump called the response a “pathetic attempt by Fox News to try and build up ratings for the GOP Debate.”

“Without me they’d have no ratings!,” he wrote.

Trump has threatened to pull out of previous debates, though if he does not participate in Thursday’s event, it will mark the first time he’s followed through on one of those threats.

Bret Baier and Chris Wallace will be joining Kelly as moderators for the Thursday debate.

Fox News issued a statement on Tuesday night, accusing Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, of making threats against Kelly.

“Capitulating to politicians’ ultimatums about a debate moderator violates all journalistic standards, as do threats, including the one leveled by Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski toward Megan Kelly. In a call on Monday 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.’ Lewandowski was warned not to level any more threats, but he continued to do so. We can’t give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees. Trump is still welcome at Thursday night’s debate and will be treated fairly, just as he has been during his 132 appearances on Fox News & Fox Business, but he can’t dictate the moderators or the questions.”

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