Donald Trump’s team failed to tell campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson about the billionaire businessman’s decision to boycott a GOP primary debate hosted this week by Fox News, and she had to find out about it during a live interview on CNN.
The moment occurred after CNN’s Erin Burnett learned during a panel discussion that Trump’s campaign had confirmed that he “definitely” would not participate in a debate on Jan. 28.
“[T]his is now confirmed,” the cable host said. “Campaign manager, you’re the spokesperson for the campaign, did you just learn about it here?”
Pierson smiled and avoided saying outright that she had just learned about Trump’s final decision, and instead evaded the question by criticizing Fox News for being biased against the current GOP front-runner.
“Well, it is a last-second decision. He was talking about it during the press conference, and he just made it final,” she responded, referring to a brief remarks Trump made to a group of reporters prior to her appearance on CNN.
Trump has threatened for days to sit out the upcoming debate, saying repeatedly in interviews and on social media that he is not happy Fox’s Megyn Kelly is returning as a moderator.
Monday morning, Trump asked his supporters on social media whether he should participate in the Thursday Fox debate. Fox responded with a sarcastic reply, reportedly written by the network’s top executive, Roger Ailes, mocking Trump for being thin-skinned.
“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 said in a statement.
Ailes said later in a statement to the Washington Post that they weren’t going to bow to Trump’s demands.
Annoyed by the tone of Fox’s response, Trump punched back Tuesday afternoon and told reporters he’d “probably” skip the debate altogether. His campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, confirmed later to CNN that the casino tycoon was definitely boycotting the Fox-moderated event.
However, they neglected to tell Pierson of the decision before she went on the air.
“I will say,” the campaign spokeswoman said after being asked about the sudden decision, “it’s not just Donald Trump that was insulted. It was 41 percent of the people that support him across the country … this is a lot of people that have been insulted by the media, by Fox News specifically because there has been a lot of bias against Donald Trump.”
