Apparently, Donald Trump came close to making it into the Fox News debate last night. One reason he didn't was his demand for $5 million to go to charity if he appeared.
From Deadline Hollywood:
Roger Ailes had three brief conversations with Donald Trump today about possibly appearing at the debate – there were not multiple calls placed by Ailes to Trump,” a FNC spokesperson told Deadline tonight. “In the course of those conversations, we acknowledged his concerns about a satirical observation we made in order to quell the attacks on Megyn Kelly, and prevent her from being smeared any further. Furthermore, Trump offered to appear at the debate upon the condition that Fox News contribute $5 million to his charities. We explained that was not possible and we could not engage in a quid pro quo, nor could any money change hands for any reason. In the last 48 hours, we’ve kept two issues at the forefront — we would never compromise our journalistic standards and we would always stand by our journalist, Megyn Kelly.
And then there's Trump's side of the story, also via Deadline:
“When Fox called me, because they very much want me there, they called me just now,” Trump told CNN earlier Thursday as he prepared to head to his own fundraising event for veterans in Iowa tonight. “They called me, and in all fairness, very nicely but they want me there very badly.” Noting his war of words with FNC and claims that co-moderator Megyn Kelly is biased against him, Trump said, “I never once asked that she be removed what I didn’t like is their public relations statement where they were sort of taunting and I didn’t think was appropriate and I didn’t think was nice.”
Trump caricature by DonkeyHotey.