Donald Trump went head to head with the Fox News Iowa Republican debate Thursday, staging his own event that viewers can now watch in a full replay video, after the event was carried live online via several internet portals.
After Fox News refused to remove popular 45-year-old news anchor Megyn Kelly from her assigned role as one of the Thursday debate moderators, Trump announced that he would pull out of the debate.
UPDATE January 29: Watch a full replay of the Donald Trump Iowa event online right here, in the below video provided by Right Side Broadcasting.
Political observers were shocked by the Trump strategy.
“It’s incredibly risky,” Iowa conservative activist Craig Robinson told CNN. “Does it create doubts about him? Or does it cement the fact that he is someone who beats to his own drum and just kind of dictates the terms of this nomination process?”
But the real estate magnate and World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame inductee confidently declared that Fox news had more to lose than he did. In his estimation, it is Trump who brings high television ratings and, with them, inflated advertising rates to the networks that have aired the six Republican debates so far.
The initial Republican debate was aired by Fox News on August 6 of last year and drew a reported 24 million viewers, an all-time record for any program on a basic cable outlet other than a live sports event.
It was during that August 6 debate that Kelly confronted Trump, 69, over what she said was his record of disparaging and sexist remarks made about various women, referring to certain women as “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs,” and other derogatory terminology.
Watch that controversial exchange from the August Fox News Republican debate in the video below.
Trump’s animosity toward Kelly led to the Republican frontrunner declaring that he would boycott the January 28 Iowa Fox News debate. Not only that, he would stage his own event as counter-programming to the debate.
As of Thursday morning, though no broadcast outlets had yet committed to offering coverage of the Trump event via the airwaves or cable and satellite television, Trump supporters and other political junkies will be able to watch the anti-Fox News Iowa event streaming live online.
See the information at the bottom of this article for streaming links to watch Donald Trump hold his event live online. The event begins at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Pacific, with pre-event programming streaming one hour earlier.
Trump has been short on specifics regarding the nature of the event.
“What am I gonna do there?” Trump asked at a rally Wednesday. “You know what we’re going to do? We’re gonna raise a lot of money for the vets. That’s what we’re gonna do.”
However, multiple veterans advocacy organizations have said that they will not accept money from the Trump event, saying that Trump has not put forth any specific policies to help veterans and is instead using their plight for his own political gain.
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Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has committed to attending the Trump event, but he has also said he will be present at the Republican debate.
After the #GOPDebate I’ll join @realDonaldTrump in Des Moines to support our vets who’ve been abandoned by @BarackObama . Hope you join us!
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) January 28, 2016
The first online outlet to commit to streaming the Donald Trump event was the online Cowger Network.
“Fox News has transitioned from being a reliable news organization, to being a hatchet group for the Republican establishment,” wrote the internet outlet’s founder, conservative entrepreneur Caiden Cowger. “Their latest unprofessional statement issued to Republican front runner Donald J. Trump was the icing on the cake.”
Cowger will offer live streaming of the Donald Trump event via its Roku Channel, which can be added to the set-top box channel lineup by following simple instructions at this link . For viewers who do not own a Roku device, the Trump event will also stream via CowgerNation.com, accessible at this link .
The online streaming service of CBS News has also announced that it will make the Donald Trump anti-Fox News event available to watch live online at this link . The online version of CBS News is also available on set-top streaming devices such as Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire, as well as on mobile devices by downloading the CBS News app.
[Photo By Mary Altaffer/AP]