Donald Trump to Hold Veterans Event During GOP Thursday Debate

Kevork Djansezian/AP

by MICHELLE FIELDS27 Jan 20163370

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has released the first details about the veterans-benefit event he’s producing instead of attending the presidential debate arranged by Fox News and Google.

The 8.00 p.m. Thursday event will take place at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The event will raise funds for veterans’ organizations.

Trump announced Tuesday evening that he would not participate in Thursday’s Fox News debate.

According to Washington Post reporter Robert Costa, Trump’s campaign says they have reached out to “all major networks” to carry the event live.

UPDATE: In a CNN interview with Erin Burnett, Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski gave out more details on the forthcoming event at Drake University.

“As you know we just put out a statement that says Mr. Trump is going to be at Drake University tomorrow night at 9 p.m. eastern and we’re going to raise money for the veterans of our great country who are treated like third-rate citizens,” Lewandowski told Burnett. “We’ve got a full program. We’ve got hundreds of media credentialed people who are going to be there to hopefully cover Mr. Trump’s event. We’ll take care of our veterans because our country isn’t doing that. The VA is a disaster and it’s time to put those people first so that is what we’ll be doing tomorrow night at 9 p.m. eastern as opposed to participating in the Fox News debate.”

Lewandowski added that he hopes most media outlets carry Trump’s veterans event live.

“It’s open the media and obviously as all of Mr. Trump’s speeches are if the networks choose to come and cover that we obviously would welcome that opportunity,” Lewandowski said. “It’s open. If they want to live feed or live stream that, they’re welcome to do that as they do many of his speeches. And I hope they will do that because I think the American people are going to look at that Fox News debate with that series of career politicians on that stage and say ‘you know what? This is not what we want. We want a leader. We want someone who is going to fix this.’ So why bother watching a debate which is all politicians who are all talk no action. ‘We’d rather watch a real leader in Donald Trump and what he’s going to talk about.”

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Ted Cruz Super PACs Offer $1.5 Million for Veterans if Donald Trump Will Debate Him One-on-One In Iowa

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

by MATTHEW BOYLE27 Jan 2016DES MOINES, Iowa11,444

DES MOINES, Iowa — A pair of pro-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Super PACs just offered $1.5 million for veterans if Donald Trump will debate Cruz one-on-one in Iowa before Sunday evening.

Keep The Promise I and Keep The Promise II offered up the sizable donation for America’s veterans on Wednesday evening.

The principal donors of Keep the Promise I, the Mercer family, and Keep the Promise II, the Neugebauer family, in a joint statement released Wednesday evening said:

Senator Cruz and Mr. Trump both respect the veterans and hold them in the highest regard but Senator Cruz respects the process and we are calling on Mr. Trump to do the same and debates are the purest form of democracy. Iowans – and Americans – deserve to hear from the frontrunners in this ‘two-man race’ one last time.  Not only would this be a heck of a debate, but it would also be a terrific opportunity to generate millions of dollars for the veterans.

The press release made clear the parameters of the pro-Cruz Super PACs’ offer: The debate must be between just Trump and Cruz, must take place on or before Sunday Jan. 31 in Iowa, must be one-hour long, and the candidates can pick a jointly-agreed-to moderator themselves.

The two organizations said in a press release:

In response to Senator Ted Cruz’s challenge of a one-on-one debate, the principal donors of the Keep the Promise I and II super PACs are offering presidential candidate Donald Trump a truly fantastic deal, pledging to donate $1.5 million to charities committed to helping veterans if Mr. Trump agrees to debate Senator Cruz in Iowa. This money is in addition to the millions of proceeds available to the veterans as a share of the revenues that this debate could secure from a host network.

It’s unclear at this time whether Trump would move forward with this offer. But at a rally in Des Moines here on Wednesday evening, Cruz announced he has a venue and time and place already set for it.

“We have a venue, we have a time — all we’re missing is a candidate,” Cruz said.

According to the Texas Tribune, the date and time Cruz has reserved is 8 p.m. on Saturday at Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City, Iowa.

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CNN’s Ryan Lizza: Trump ‘At War’ With Fox News, ‘Conservative Intelligentsia from National Review’ and ‘He Is Winning’

Donald Trump speaks before a crowd of supporters.(AP Photo / Ross D. Franklin

by BREITBART TV26 Jan 20161812

CNN political commentator and Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza said, “Trump has been at war with” Fox News “all season and he is winning. He is at war with the conservative intelligentsia from National Review, to every conservative columnist in the opinion pages, and he’s winning” on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” on Tuesday.

Lizza said, “On the one hand, we’re going to be talking about Donald Trump from now until the debate. We’ll probably be watching Donald Trump not on Fox, on other networks that don’t obviously take the debates live when it’s on another network. He obviously has some counter-programming plans. So, he will dominate the news cycle on the eve of the caucuses, and he won’t be at the debate, so he won’t be under fire from the other candidates. On the other hand, there’s no doubt that the Fox debate is still going to get big ratings, right? It’s the number one news source for Republican voters, and he’s going to give a platform to a Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) andSen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ted Cruz is his primary rival there in Iowa, who are going to be allowed to say what they want about Donald Trump without Trump responding. I would imagine that the Fox moderators will feel under no obligation to defend Donald Trump in any way, or inject his opinions. So, it’s obviously a risk. I will also say, just to step back a second, this guy is basically at war with every power center in the Republican Party. There was a rule in politics that you don’t go to war with Fox News and Roger Ailes, because that network is too powerful and too influential in Republican politics, and Trump has been at war with them all season and he is winning. He is at war with the conservative intelligentsia from National Review, to every conservative columnist in the opinion pages, and he’s winning. This is a essentially a hostile takeover by Trump and his fans of the Republican Party that we’re watching in real time.”

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