MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was amused Tuesday by GOP front-runner Donald Trump’s announcement that he’d boycott a primary debate hosted this week by Fox News, and laughed at the notion that people would tune in to watch a faceoff between “two Cubans.”
“Who is going to watch a debate between the two Cuban guys?” the longtime cable news host asked.
His question was in reference to Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., both of whom are Cuban-Americans.
“Who is going to watch a debate between Rubio, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Who cares?” Matthews continued. “You know they’ve been fighting in this interleague fight over who is the hawkish guy, or whatever. Who is going to watch that Thursday night?”
Trump’s campaign confirmed in a statement to CNN Tuesday afternoon that he would definitely boycott Thursday’s Fox debate.
The billionaire businessman has grumbled for days about the inclusion of Megyn Kelly as a debate moderator, complaining in several interviews and on the campaign trail that she is biased an unfair towards him.
“I don’t like her,” he told CNN Monday. “She doesn’t treat me fairly. I’m not a big fan of hers … I thought she was very unfair in the last debate. A lot of people said I won that debate. Everybody said I won the last debate.”
On Tuesday, Trump asked his supporters on social media whether he should sit out the debate if Fox didn’t remove Kelly as a moderator.
Fox pushed back on his complaints Tuesday with a sarcastic statement reportedly written by the network’s top executive, Roger Alies.
“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 statement said.
He later told the Washington Post that they had no plans to accommodate Trump’s request that Kelly be removed as a moderator.
“Megyn Kelly is an excellent journalist, and the entire network stands behind her,” Ailes said. “She will absolutely be on the debate stage on Thursday night.”
The mocking tone of the statement was what sealed it for Trump, and he hosted a presser not long after wherein he announced that he’d “probably” boycott the debate. His campaign confirmed later that he would defiantly sit this one out.
