Hours after Donald Trump said Tuesday he will “probably” skip the seventh Republican primary debate hosted by Fox News this week, fellow GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz invited the billionaire to join him in a debate of their own.
“I would like to invite him on your show to participate in a one-on-one debate, between me and Donald,” the Texas senator said Tuesday evening during an interview with conservative radio personality Mark Levin.
“We could do it a number of ways,” Cruz continued. “We could have you moderate it, Mark. We could have Sean Hannity moderate it [or] Rush Limbaugh moderate it.”
“But if [Trump] is afraid of Megyn Kelly, afraid of you, of Hannity, of Rush, we can do it with out any moderators whatsoever,” he said. “I’m happy to go an hour and a half, mano a mano.”
“That’s what a candidate who actually wants to work for people [and] wants to earn the support of the people will do — is stand up for their record,” Cruz said.
According to the conservative senator, who’s polling neck-and-neck against Trump in state-level surveys of Iowa’s Republican caucus-goers, every candidate “owes it to the voters, and particularly to the men and women of Iowa, to go and humble yourself and put yourself before them and answer their hard questions.”
“The fact that Donald is now afraid to appear on the debate stage, that he doesn’t want his record questioned, I think that reflects a lack of respect for the men and women of Iowa,” Cruz told Levin.
“By the way,” Cruz added, “[Trump] has been saying this week that he thinks I’m stupid. Well, then he should do very well in a debate against someone stupid, away from moderator that he is afraid of.”
