U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday escalated a fight with Fox News,
using the word "bimbo" in a derogatory tweet about anchorwoman Megyn
Kelly after pulling out of a debate only days before the first
nominating contest of the 2016 campaign.
Trump on
Tuesday withdrew from the televised encounter, scheduled for Thursday
night in Des Moines, Iowa,
in irritation at host Fox News for allowing
Kelly to moderate after her questioning angered him in a debate last
year.
The real estate magnate, who is the
Republican front-runner to win the nomination for the Nov. 8
presidential election, followed up with another round of insults on
Wednesday.
"I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a
bimbo, because that would not be politically correct," he wrote on
Twitter. "Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!"
In a later interview on Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor," he told host Bill O'Reilly that she was "highly overrated."
"I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly. I don't think she's very good at what she does," Trump said.
Trump's
Republican presidential rivals were quick to criticize the former
reality TV star, with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas blistering him in a
series of tweets and accusing him of "trembling at being questioned by
Kelly."
At an event in West Des Moines, Iowa, Cruz
openly mocked Trump, calling him a "fragile soul" and "gentle," and
renewed his offer to debate Trump one-on-one Saturday evening.
"It's
not that he's afraid of me," Cruz said to the crowd. "He's afraid of
you. He doesn't want to answer questions from the men and women of Iowa
about how his record doesn't match what he's selling."
Another
Republican hopeful, U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, told Fox News
that he welcomed Trump's absence from the debate stage because it means
"we don't have to put up with a lot of empty blather and boastfulness
and calling people names."
Trump's decision
means the last televised debate before Monday's Iowa caucuses - which
kick off the state-by-state nominating race to choose candidates for the
presidential election - will not feature the man who has dominated the
Republican race for months and leads many opinion polls.
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