Trump might cancel GOP debate after Bachmann snub

By David Edwards/Raw Story

A pouting Donald Trump said Friday that he may cancel his Republican presidential debate altogether after all but two candidates refused to participate.

“You know who I’m very disappointed [in]?” Trump asked Fox Business News’s Don Imus. “Michele Bachmann. She came up to see me four times. Four times! She’d call me, she’d ask me for advice. She said I should be her vice presidential — you know, if she wins [the nomination], she’d like to think about me for the vice president.”

“And most importantly, I did like a two-hour phone call for her — with her people, and it caused me certain problems. People said, ‘Are you endorsing her?’ The answer was no. And then after all of that, she just announced she’s not going to do the debate. It’s unbelievable! It’s called loyalty. It’s actually called loyalty. How do you do that?”

“I’m surprised you like [Newt] Gingrich,” Imus noted. “He’s really creepy.”

“He’s got courage,” Trump replied.

“So, are you still going to do the debate with just Gingrich and Rick Santorum?” Imus wondered.

“I don’t know,” Trump admitted. “I have to look into it. I have to see. They really want me to drop my status as a potential person to run as an independent and, honestly, I don’t think I’m going to do that.”

Appearing on Fox News Thursday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said it was “a problem” that Trump wouldn’t rule out an independent run, while at the same time moderating a GOP debate.

“[The] issue here is whether the moderator should still be a person who’s still batting around the idea of running as an independent,” the RNC chairman explained. “I think that should give some of these candidates some concern.”

Watch this video from Fox Business News’sImus in the Morning, broadcast Dec. 9, 2011.

GOP debate audience boos gay soldier

By David Edwards/Raw Story

A question from a gay soldier was met with boos during Thursday night’s Fox News Republican presidential debate.

“In 2010 when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was because I’m a gay soldier and I didn’t want to lose my job,” Stephen Hill, a U.S. soldier serving Iraq, told the candidates. “Under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that have been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?”

The question was met by loud boos from the audience of Republican voters.

But those boos quickly turned to enthusiastic cheers as Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum explained that gays shouldn’t have the “special privilege” of being able to serve openly.

“Going forward, we would reinstitute [the gay ban] if Rick Santorum was president. That policy would be reinstituted. But as far as the people that are in, I would not throw them out be unfair to them because they policy of this administration, but we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past, which was sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone, keep it to yourself, heterosexual or homosexual.”

The conservative gay rights group GOProud immediately called for an apology from Santorum.

“That brave gay soldier is doing something Rick Santorum has never done — put his life on the line to defend our freedoms and our way of life,” the group wrote in a media advisory. “It is telling that Rick Santorum is so blinded by his anti-gay bigotry that he couldn’t even bring himself to thank that gay soldier for his service.”

Watch this video from Fox News, broadcast Sept. 22, 2011.

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