Donald Trump said his competing debate event honoring veterans Thursday night brought in more than $5 million, and that the businessman himself donated the first $1 million.
While reading off a list of donors, Trump announced, “Donald Trump, another great builder in New York, now a politician — I can’t stand this, I don’t want to be called a politician … Donald Trump gave $1 million.”
Trump also announced that investor and friend Carl Icahn, who Trump has posited he would name treasury secretary, gave $500,000.
Trump mused that he would have liked to do the Fox News debate, in light of a late Fox apology, but that the veterans’ event was already planned and that he refused to abandon it.
“We had about 24 hours to put this together. It was very quick,” he said. “We have some special people and we will hear from some of them. This is an honor, this is a real honor. I do not want to be here, I have to be honest, I wanted to be five minutes away,” he said, referring to the Fox News GOP primary debate.
“Fox has been extremely nice, the last couple of hours, actually,” Trump said to crowd laughter. Trump has said Fox apologized for the feud, but that it was too late to cancel his own event. “Once this started, there was nothing I could do, it’s for our vets.”
Trump seemed to not know whether or not attending the debate would hurt his political chances.
“I do not know. Is it for me personally a good thing? A bad thing? Will I get more votes? Will I get less? Nobody knows,” he said. “Who the hell knows?”
