Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has backed off his threat not to participate in the next GOP debate, which will be hosted by CNN on Dec. 15.
“When you’re leading in the polls, I think it’s too big of a risk to not do the debate,” Trump said in an interview Thursday with the Washington Post.
Trump, who is leading most national and early primary state-level polls for the GOP nomination, previously suggested he would not participate in the debate unless CNN agreed to give him $5 million to donate to charity.
It’s the second time Trump has threatened and then submitted to appearing in a debate, which have received a major boost in ratings largely due to his showmanship and his unpredictable candidacy.
“I don’t think I have the kind of leverage I’d like to have in a deal [with CNN] and I don’t want to take the chance of hurting my campaign,” Trump told the Post. “So I’ll do the debate.”
On Tuesday, Trump lashed on Twitter over a Post blogger who suggested that he might be “too chicken” to do the debate.
The insult apparently struck a chord.
“Every single person doing the debate would knock the hell out of me and say I’m afraid to be there,” Trump said in his interview Thursday. “The one thing I’m not in life is a chicken.”
